-------- Original Message --------
Subject:      Deliberate Lieing, Deceipt & Procrastination by Sky To Prevent Customers Cancelling
Date:      Sun, 20 Jul 2008 22:07:01 +0100
To:      jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com
CC:      AllCustomerCareEscalation@BSkyB.com, andrew.griffith@bskyb.com, robert.fraser@bskyb.com, CRsupport@bskyb.com, claudio.pollack@ofcom.org.uk, jonathan.may@oft.gov.uk, sean.williams@oft.gov.uk, christine.wade@oft.gov.uk, emma.scott@freesat.co.uk, mark.anderson@bskyb.com, stuart.mcintosh@ofcom.org.uk, matthew.conway@ofcom.org.uk, peter.bury@ofcom.org.uk, philip.rutnam@ofcom.org.uk, ed.richards@ofcom.org.uk, david.currie@ofcom.org.uk, anna.bradley@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk, bob.twitchin@ofcomconsumerpanel.org.uk, william.cunningham@bskyb.com

Dear Mr Darroch,

Sky Month By Month - A/C No - 40xxxxxx - Smart Card Number xxx xxx xxx - Deliberate, Lieing, Deceipt & Disconnection of Phone Calls After Long Periods on Hold When A Customer Tries to Cancel Their Sky Subscription

Tonight I tried to carry out a simple task.  Namely cancelling my Sky Month By Month subscription when I am not in a long term contractual relationship with Sky and not under any obligation to continue subscribing and also not subject to any penalty clawback clauses for cancelling.  However 50 minutes on from first trying to contact Sky and after a 30 minute hold in a queue for the cancellations/turnaround department listening to patronising messages (misleadingly telling me that putting my Sky box in standby saves 50% of its energy consumption when it actually saves less than 10% of its normal energy use) after which I was then summarily disconnected with the unobtainable tone (having not got through to anyone in accounts/cancellation) I am no nearer to cancelling and another man hour of the UK economy's time has been wasted by Sky's utterly desperate and despicable tactics to prevent customers terminating (or at least temporarily suspending) their subscription.  Of course had I wished to order a pay per view movie or upgrade to Sky HD my request would no doubt have been actioned immediately.

The following points are totally unacceptable:-

(a) that those who have online account management like myself and are out of any 12 month or other initial contractual obligation to Sky cannot cancel online and resubscribe online without wasting their time and your staff's time making long and protracted phone calls to ripoff covert premium rate 0844 phone numbers.

(b) that for those customers who do not have online account management an easy and timely method of cancelling by phone is not provided.  Also that when the Sky cancellation line is overwhelmed with calls that no callback facility is offered to customers to call them back when the cancellation line is less busy.

(c) that customers are placed in a queue of over 20 minutes to turnaround/cancellations after which their call is then terminated with the unobtainable tone at buys periods.  The customer has then paid over £2 in phone call cost for no service.  In normal parlance this amounts to theft from customers by Sky.

(d) that on asking to speak to a supervisor to complain about this contemptuous treatment of its customers by Sky that I am told no supervisor is available and that they are all too busy to speak to me at the moment at 9.07pm on a Sunday evening (July 20th).  I am asked to believe that all the supervisors are holding a team meeting late on a Sunday evening - I think not.  This is what I was told by Catherine  on extension 74315 after I made it clear I would email yourself as CEO and the other senior directors of Sky if I did not get through to a supervisor straight away.