sky refusing to cancel my account within cooling off period

[Lauz1]

Hi, I'm hoping for advice on where to go from here as I'm at my wit's end.

Long story short: switched from Virgin Media to Sky, broadband up and running since 8/11/24 but landline still not transferred over so Virgin cannot disconnect my service under the One Touch Switch system.

Back and forth with customer services and tech team to no avail.

In fact it was one of the tech team members who suggested cancelling my service and put in a new order to have a new phone line.

Back and forth with cancellations/retentions who cannot help.

Absolutely fed up now so have decided to cancel altogether while still within the cooling off period.

I officially requested to cancel yesterday - via online chat, email and letter (for good measure).

Received an email this morning asking to contact the Customer Priority team which I did. Told cannot cancel on their end and asked to ring Provisioning team which I did - who then passed me on to cancellations (again) and then preactivation team (again) and tech team...! No one can help as apparently my account has not "switched over" and it's showing that it's still "preactive".

I am honestly getting nowhere with this. I've lodged 2 complaints now and each time I get a generic email back asking to contact the customer priority team who make me ring cancellations again!!!

Who can I escalate this to further? I can't get any sensible response via the complaints form, webchat or anyone I've spoken to on the phone.

They are making it impossible for me to cancel and I honestly should not be spending so much time being pushed around. They should cancel one way or another, I don't care who does it or how.

Please advise. Thank you.

[caesarome]

From what you have said I don't think it is a case of they will not let you cancel but rather a case of they can't cancel your account due to these issues.

This link explains how to make a complaint:

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/how-to-make-a-complaint

[Lauz1]

I've used that link to raise a complaint twice, both times resulted in a generic message asking to contact their Customer Priority team who have not been able to help, and asked me to contact other teams on the phone (so far I've spoken to Cancellations, Preactivation, Tech Support and Provisioning). None have been able to help, none have been able to offer any solutions.

I want to know how else I can raise this further , as filling out the complaints form have gotten me nowhere.

Thanks 

[Mark39]

@Lauz1 do you have a white Max broadband Hub, by any chance?

[Lauz1]

@Mark39 yes it is a white WiFi broadband max hub  

[Mark39]

@Lauz1 there's a problem affecting some customers with the Max Hub which.results in delayed activation of the landline service, while broadband is fine. I don't know the precise cause, but reportedly it's something to do with Openreach difficulties. I suspect your landline is 'in limbo' and may be what is preventing Sky from cancelling (much as @caesarome posted).

It may not be much comfort but from posts I've seen on this subject  in the Talk (landline) forum, it's usually sorted out in 2-3 weeks.

[Lauz1]

@Mark39 Thank you for taking the time to explain. Really appreciated.

My issue with the whole debacle is that no one at Sky whom I've spoken to so far has been transparent. I was promised updates that never happened.

Surely there's a way to cancel the switch despite my landline being in "limbo"? 

It was in fact one of the tech support team members whom I spoke to who suggested cancelling my service and putting a new order in to NOT transfer my landline from VM. But even with this, no one could help sort.

It's all been very stressful as I am paying for my Virgin Media service concurrently (as they have not disconnected my service with them due to the whole OTS system) which is costing me a LOT of money, through no fault of my own!

So is it a matter of waiting it out for the landline to finally activate, and then liaise with Sky again re: cancellation (should I still decide to go ahead with it - as I put in my cancellation request yesterday)? 

[Mark39]

@Lauz1 I can't advise on it, I'm afraid. All the examples I've seen up to now were concluded when the phone service was activated. I think you'd have to be guided by Sky.