Wrongly charged money after cancellation and cannot get through to customer services

[Nick109]

I cancelled my Sky TV subscription on 16/02/24.

As advised, I waited for the next DD to come out of my bank account on 18/02/24.

I then cancelled the DD on 19/02/24.

In March, I received a letter through post indicating the subscription charges were going up. This showed me my account had not been cancelled. 

On 02/04/24 I called customer services again. The man I spoke to was very polite and professional. He confirmed the notes on my account showed I had called Sky on the 16th and stated my desire to cancel.  I was told that there nothing to pay on my account and that in May I would receive confirmation through the post that my account was cancelled and closed. I would also be receiving a full/partial refund for the DD from 18/02/24.

On 16/05/24 I received a letter though the post saying my account was restricted (not cancelled), that I owe £53.00 and threatening me with debt collectors and legal action.

This evening I have tried calling multiple customer service numbers and on all of them I cannot get through to speak with anyone. The recorded voice insists I enter payment details before I proceed to pay a debt that does not exist.

The online service won't let me chat with someone from customer service and it wont let me send an email either.

I just to speak to someone so this can be sorted out but Sky is blocking contact unless I pay this money that I do not owe.

Please can someone help me???

I'm having a really rough, stress filled time at work, my mental health is just going downhill and dragging my physical health with it. 

This whole mess with Sky is the last thing I need to deal with.

Thanks

[MarkGoldsmith]

---

@Nick109 wrote:

I cancelled my Sky TV subscription on 16/02/24.

As advised, I waited for the next DD to come out of my bank account on 18/02/24.

I then cancelled the DD on 19/02/24.

In March, I received a letter through post indicating the subscription charges were going up. This showed me my account had not been cancelled. 

On 02/04/24 I called customer services again. The man I spoke to was very polite and professional. He confirmed the notes on my account showed I had called Sky on the 16th and stated my desire to cancel.  I was told that there nothing to pay on my account and that in May I would receive confirmation through the post that my account was cancelled and closed. I would also be receiving a full/partial refund for the DD from 18/02/24.

On 16/05/24 I received a letter though the post saying my account was restricted (not cancelled), that I owe £53.00 and threatening me with debt collectors and legal action.

This evening I have tried calling multiple customer service numbers and on all of them I cannot get through to speak with anyone. The recorded voice insists I enter payment details before I proceed to pay a debt that does not exist.

The online service won't let me chat with someone from customer service and it wont let me send an email either.

I just to speak to someone so this can be sorted out but Sky is blocking contact unless I pay this money that I do not owe.

Please can someone help me???

I'm having a really rough, stress filled time at work, my mental health is just going downhill and dragging my physical health with it. 

This whole mess with Sky is the last thing I need to deal with.

Thanks

---

Unfortunately thats Sky's system, its not possible to talk to a customer services agent whilst an account is restricted. If you have access to a different phone (i.e a number that isn' linked with your Sky account) you can try calling Sky on that, which will get you through to an agent, however its possible the agent may not be of much help if the account is showing as restricted on their system.

When you cancelled, did you receive an email notification of the cancellation? This should get auto triggered when an agent actually cancels your account, so even though you spoke to a few different agents if you didn't email notification of cancellation it would unfortunately explain what has happened.

You mentioned you have cancelled your direct debit, as a side note cancelling the direct debit will actually prevent Sky from being able to refund any credit on your account automatically. Sky use the payment method setup on your account to provide the refund, so if that was a DD and its been cancelled, unless you reinstate a payment method Sky would have to issue a cheque to you for the credit refund and that will take a further couple of months for you to recieve it.

The other option you can try is raising an official complaint with Sky via the process detailed here: https://www.sky.com/help/articles/how-to-make-a-complaint

[PandJ2020]

---

@Nick109 wrote:

I cancelled my Sky TV subscription on 16/02/24.

As advised, I waited for the next DD to come out of my bank account on 18/02/24.

I then cancelled the DD on 19/02/24.

 As you have to give 31 days notice to cancel TV it seems you've been badly advised.

If you gave notice on 16/2 then a bill will have been generated on 4/3 as you were still in your notice period.  That bill (to be paid on 18/3) will have been for the usual amount (including the month in advance).  The following bill would have been past your cessation date and will have generated a credit back to the end of the notice period.

As noted above, whilst it's not what you want to hear there probably is an outstanding bill that needs to be paid.

Also, any loaned equipment needs to be returned too.