I've received this same message twice in the last 2 days and I called up Sky on 150 and got a VERY different message as to this being genuine.
I spoke to 2 call handlers in 2 different teams, one of which was their Sales team. And both came to the same advice:
1. Niether could verify whether this was Sky or not. They had not received any notification/company e-mail that such offers were being made, and having checked with their colleagues at the call centre, there had been a number of other people who had called in asking if this was Legit. They were scaling this up to their management to see if this message could be verified as being from Sky.
2. Both call handlers stated that, Sky use WhatsApp for communications when the CUSTOMER has contacted them, either concerning an order or a problem - they do not use it to message people out of the blue as is happened with me and seemingly reading these forum pages with others to.
3. They both went on to say that they could not find any evidence or any means on their system to give me the same offer as trailed in the WhatsApp message, which in the case of the Sales adviser got his suspecions aroused further.
4. The Final formal advise from both call handlers was "IGNORE the message". They're going to take it up with their management and see if its definitely Sky, and if it is genuinely Sky, Sky will contact you by other, more traditional means, such as letter, E-mail or via your online account"
Long story short - Sky themselves can't verify if this is them or not. If it is genuinely Sky, they haven't bothered to let even their sales staff know - which is just poor, and, if it isn't Sky, this is potentially one of the biggest data breaches you will ever see.
Personally, I have a sneaking suspecion this is Sky and they simply haven't got their ducks in a row and haven't thought through the undue concern they are causing people by using, frankly, a less than professional medium of communication to offer customers an upgrade. But, if it isn't Sky - watch this space, I suspect the media will be crawling all over it before long.
For now, I'm following the formal advice from the call handlers - and ignoring this. Given how many scams are out there with new ones popping up virtually every day...I'd suggest others do the same.
