Formal Complaint – Excessive Broadband Charges and Poor Customer Service

[SA7676]

Formal Complaint – Excessive Broadband Charges and Poor Customer Service

Dear Sky Complaints Team,

I wish to raise a formal complaint regarding my broadband charges and the frustrating experience of dealing with Sky customer services.

My contract has expired, and I am now paying £49 per month for broadband averaging approximately 70 Mbps. Following a lengthy and extremely frustrating phone call, I was offered a new two-year contract at £44 per month. Quite frankly, this is ridiculous when comparable broadband packages are available elsewhere for around £25 per month.

Your offer would save me just £5 monthly while locking me into another 24-month contract. Switching providers could save me approximately £456 per year, so I fail to understand how Sky considers this a competitive retention offer.

I am also extremely dissatisfied with the difficulty of communicating with customer services. Language barriers when dealing with overseas call centres can make simple conversations unnecessarily difficult and frustrating. This is not a criticism of individual employees, but of Sky's customer service arrangements and the lack of an effective, straightforward way to resolve issues online without the need to speak to anyone (it's 2026, not the 1990's.... NO phone calls are needed or required, I don't have the will, want or need to speak to anyone, let along the time!!!!).

I would like Sky to reconsider its renewal offer and provide a genuinely competitive deal of around £25 per month. I would prefer to remain with Sky, but I am not prepared to pay significantly more than competing providers for a comparable service.

Please treat this as a formal complaint and respond in writing with your proposed resolution. Otherwise, I will take my business elsewhere.

Yours faithfully,

[GD1]

@SA7676  You can't raise a complaint on a public community, no one from Sky will pick up your complaint, nor will they respond to your post.  No one from SKy will know who you are from your community login.

You need to use the correct steps detailed here https://www.sky.com/help/articles/how-to-make-a-complaint  to raise a complaint.

You should be aware Sky are not obliged to offer a deal at the price you think they should, you already had a discounted deal and it is becoming harder to get renewal deals for the same price as your previous discounts.  If your not happy with the discount Sky have offered then you're only option is to go elsewhere for new customer deals.

[TimmyBGood]

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@SA7676 wrote:

Please treat this as a formal complaint and respond in writing with your proposed resolution. 

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Complaints cannot be lodged through this forum, and Sky will not respond to such a post.

Perhaps note that ISP pricing is essentially unregulated and there's absolutely no obligation for current subscribers to be offered the same rates as new customers: the only business sector where that happens is home and vehicle insurance.

[Me134]

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@SA7676 wrote:

Formal Complaint – Excessive Broadband Charges and Poor Customer Service

Dear Sky Complaints Team,

I wish to raise a formal complaint regarding my broadband charges and the frustrating experience of dealing with Sky customer services.

My contract has expired, and I am now paying £49 per month for broadband averaging approximately 70 Mbps. Following a lengthy and extremely frustrating phone call, I was offered a new two-year contract at £44 per month. Quite frankly, this is ridiculous when comparable broadband packages are available elsewhere for around £25 per month.

Your offer would save me just £5 monthly while locking me into another 24-month contract. Switching providers could save me approximately £456 per year, so I fail to understand how Sky considers this a competitive retention offer.

I am also extremely dissatisfied with the difficulty of communicating with customer services. Language barriers when dealing with overseas call centres can make simple conversations unnecessarily difficult and frustrating. This is not a criticism of individual employees, but of Sky's customer service arrangements and the lack of an effective, straightforward way to resolve issues online without the need to speak to anyone (it's 2026, not the 1990's.... NO phone calls are needed or required, I don't have the will, want or need to speak to anyone, let along the time!!!!).

I would like Sky to reconsider its renewal offer and provide a genuinely competitive deal of around £25 per month. I would prefer to remain with Sky, but I am not prepared to pay significantly more than competing providers for a comparable service.

Please treat this as a formal complaint and respond in writing with your proposed resolution. Otherwise, I will take my business elsewhere.

Yours faithfully,

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"without the need to speak to anyone (it's 2026, not the 1990's.... NO phone calls are needed or required, I don't have the will, want or need to speak to anyone, let along the time!!!!)"

You don't have to, just use the OTS system to swap providers.

[Chrisee]

@SA7676 why haven't you simply switched to another isp? The process is incredibly simple just shop around or even easier use a price comparison site like USwitch.  Find an offer you like and then switch. Usually there is no need to speak to anyone, the new iSP haandles the whole thing including cancelling with Sky. Most ISPs are reseelingvthe same Openreach connection.

Sky and other ISPs rely on customer inertia.

[PandJ2020]

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@SA7676 wrote:

I am not prepared to pay significantly more than competing providers for a comparable service.

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I think you've answered your own question ('complaint').

You'll likely find those £25 new customer offers with other providers will also disappear at renewal...

[SA7676]

I wish to provide an update to my previous complaint.

After checking my account and receiving an uncompetitive renewal offer of £44 per month for a new two-year contract, I decided to switch providers. I have now arranged a deal with BT for £24 per month, including free setup and a cashback offer.

Only after Sky confirmed the end of my contract did I receive a further offer of £27 per month.
Quite frankly, this demonstrates exactly what is wrong with Sky's approach to customer retention. I would have seriously considered accepting a competitive offer in the first instance, but instead I was put through the frustration of contacting customer services, receiving an unreasonable renewal offer and having to arrange a switch elsewhere before Sky made a more realistic offer.

Why should customers have to go through all this unnecessary hassle to receive a fair price? The late offer does little to restore my confidence in Sky; instead, it reinforces my concerns about how existing customers are treated.

I appreciate that Sky has now made a more competitive offer, but it is too little, too late. My complaint is not simply about the monthly cost; it is about the unnecessary frustration, wasted time and poor customer experience that could easily have been avoided.

Please add this update to my existing complaint and provide a written response explaining why a competitive offer was not made when I initially contacted Sky to discuss renewal.

Kind regards,

[PandJ2020]

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@SA7676 wrote:

Please add this update to my existing complaint and provide a written response explaining why a competitive offer was not made when I initially contacted Sky to discuss renewal.

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You do realise you are only addressing other Sky customers?  A complaint won't be raised by posting here...  see post #2

I doubt Sky will explain their commercial decisions.  But it's well known that cancellations often extract better offers (this doesn't only apply to Sky)

[Daniel0210]

@SA7676 

You have received an offer for a new customer from BT, but like the renewal process you experienced with Sky, in 24 months time at the end of their minimum term you'll be in the same position with BT at which point you'll be able to return to Sky or move to another company and benefit from the new customer discounts available at that particular time.

[xenon81]

It's the same with all ISPs. I had to give notice to cancel my Virgin Media broadband earlier this year as they wouldn't budge on the excessive renewal price, until I cancelled then within days got a brilliant offer to stay which was better than the new customer price. You will only get the best offers when they know you're serious about leaving.

Unfortunately that's just the way the market works and AI generated complaints won't change a thing. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@SA7676 wrote:

Please add this update to my existing complaint and provide a written response explaining why a competitive offer was not made when I initially contacted Sky to discuss renewal.

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I'm not aware of any business sector which is required to engage in discussion or justification of commercial choices, pricing models and wider strategy with customers.

It's perhaps worth noting that an ISP can, if it wishes, choose to break-even or lose money on an initial minimum contract term in the knowledge that a percentage of subscribers won't then switch once the discounted period ends.

[SA7676]

Nobody is demanding access to Sky's confidential commercial strategy or insisting that it justify every decision it makes.

I'm asking a rather simpler question: why was a realistic offer apparently available only after I had gone through the inconvenience of arranging to leave?

If the answer is that the company relies on customers being sufficiently busy, complacent or unwilling to switch that they continue paying inflated prices, then that may explain the strategy rather well.

It doesn't make the customer experience any less frustrating, and it certainly doesn't make me any more inclined to stay.

A business can be entirely entitled to its pricing policy and still deserve criticism for the way it applies it.

[SA7676]

To @GD1, @TimmyBGood, @Me134, @Chrisee, @PandJ2020, @Daniel0210 and @xenon81

Thanks everyone for the unsolicited lessons in how broadband pricing, customer retention and switching providers work. Rest assured, I understand all of those things perfectly well.

My point was never that Sky is legally obliged to offer me a particular price, nor that I need help figuring out how to switch. I contacted Sky intending to consider renewing, was offered £44 a month, secured BT at £24 with free setup and cashback, and only then received a £27 offer from Sky.

That is the customer experience I was criticising. I would have considered a competitive offer in the first place, but Sky chose to make one only after I had gone through the hassle of arranging to leave.

Apparently, however, it's easier for some people to explain why this is perfectly normal than to acknowledge why customers find it frustrating. And the suggestion that using AI somehow invalidates an argument is particularly amusing; apparently the quality of an argument is now determined by the tool used to write it rather than the facts behind it.

I know how the market works. I simply don't believe that understanding a business practice means I must approve of it.

I've switched, I'm saving money, and I'm perfectly happy with my decision. This wasn't a request for a tutorial, a lecture on commercial strategy or permission to complain.

Sometimes a customer is simply expressing a legitimate criticism, not asking to be educated by a committee of broadband wana be experts.

Anyway, enjoy defending the status quo. I'll enjoy paying £24 a month instead.

[Me134]

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@SA7676 wrote:

Nobody is demanding access to Sky's confidential commercial strategy or insisting that it justify every decision it makes.

I'm asking a rather simpler question: why was a realistic offer apparently available only after I had gone through the inconvenience of arranging to leave?

If the answer is that the company relies on customers being sufficiently busy, complacent or unwilling to switch that they continue paying inflated prices, then that may explain the strategy rather well.

It doesn't make the customer experience any less frustrating, and it certainly doesn't make me any more inclined to stay.

A business can be entirely entitled to its pricing policy and still deserve criticism for the way it applies it.

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I don't believe anyone is disagreeing with your last line, just be aware that you'll struggle to find any ISP company (and the rest) that doesn't operate like that. The rare exceptions tend to be much dearer to start with so you'll be paying the same long term regardless unless you simply use the OTS system and switch.

[TimmyBGood]

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@SA7676 wrote:

If the answer is that the company relies on customers being sufficiently busy, complacent or unwilling to switch that they continue paying inflated prices, then that may explain the strategy rather well.

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I'd suggest that's widely acknowledged to be a successful strategy across numerous business sectors: it's just rather unlikely that any company is going to put it in writing as a response to a customer.