Sky Talk, but certainly don't listen! (Sky Talk)

Member Name: coflaherty

Product:	Sky Talk
Date:	08/03/09 (863 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great deal once you get connected

Disadvantages: Ill-informed staff, mis-selling,misleading customers. Can't speak to anyone with any authority!

We moved house last October and having looked around a little decided to go to Sky for their TV, phone (Sky Talk) and broadband package. Our experience with Sky in the past had been good and the package met all our needs at an excellent price.

The Sky Talk unlimited package offers free calls anytime to UK landlines and to 20 overseas countries incl. Australia, France, Canada, US etc. (even Canadian and US mobiles), for £5 pm. And you don't have to change your BT line or number...great.

Having already set up a BT account for the line rental (you used to have to do this), I called Sky to place my order. I explained our circumstances and what we wanted (having all the details to hand from their website). The man I spoke to offered me Sky line rental too, a new service since we had last been with them, and marginally cheaper than BT at £10 pm. Why not, I thought, a small saving and surely easier to have everything in one place! I did explain I already had set up an account with BT for this, but no problem the man said, they would sort out the switch and I didn't have to do anything...great!

Now anyone who has gone down the Sky route will know there is usually a bit of a wait to get connected, so I was prepared for that, however as the weeks dragged on I was wanting my free calls, I chased them and was told BT were being slow (funny how BT always seem to be the problem). A couple more weeks past and I received a letter from BT saying that they had received a request to transfer my line rental to another provider and as I had only recently set up the account, and so was still under contract, they may charge me a cancellation fee. No confirmation they would or what that would be, but still enough to cause concern.

On calling Sky Talk the man I spoke to was very friendly, if a bit patronising (he called me 'love') and reassured me that this was just BT 'trying it on' and that they also had things they could pull and not to worry about it, I would not be charged anything. Perhaps I should have been weary of this man's attitude, but he worked for Sky Talk and seemed to know what he was talking about. What else could I do? Now, I realise I should have have called again to get it confirmed by someone else, or perhaps spoken to BT, but I didn't want to be bullied into staying with them, when I still believed I'd be better off with Sky.

I was eventually connected and some time later received a final bill from BT including a whopping £152 cancellation charge! I was furious and got on to Sky at once. I was told, not only had the Sky customer service person given me the wrong information but also that the person who I had originally placed my order with shouldn't have even offered line rental to me in the first place, knowing I was still under contract with BT. This person said they personally would never have even suggested it to me, knowing that I would be charged by BT! I escalated the call, actually with the support of the person I was speaking to, to as far as I could by phone, but just had sections of the terms and conditions read to me about me being responsible for any contracts with third parties, blah, blah......very helpful!

I actually prepared an email of complaint but could not find an email address anywhere on the Sky website to send it to. Unbelievable, or perhaps not if they have a tendency to receive a lot of complaints! I could have posted a message, limited to x number of words, but as you know I have a lot to say on the matter and would not be so restricted!!

I decided the only thing to do was to go back to BT for my line rental (having agreed with them they would waive the cancellation fee if I did). Simple enough...but oh no! I was told, again by a well-informed Sky Talk employee, that I could not just transfer my line rental back, I would have to cancel my whole phone package and reorder it, waiting another 14days+ to have it connected. This I did, somewhat reluctantly and a month later was still calling customer service to find out why I hadn't received my connection date in the mail....they would look into it and call me back....still no word. " 2 weeks later (we are now in February, remember this all began in October!) I spoke rather crossly to another customer service representative only to be informed that I was already connected to SKY Talk for all my calls and had been since...November. They had cancelled my line rental in January but left the call package running...exactly what I had wanted but had been told repeatedly I couldn't do!

Infuriating!!!

I really do apologise for my ranting, but I feel the need to get this off my chest, and as Sky Talk seem intent on not listening, this will have to do.

Many thanks for reading!

Summary: Don't take anything at face value.