The Sequel...

Sent: 12th March 2009

F.A.O. June Anderson and/or Donald Chalmers, Customer Relations Department/ Service Excellence Departments respectively.
(Or, again, whoever drew the short straw when an email comes to your electronic door featuring my name, email, or account number).

Topic: Further comment and complaint - re. additional charges

Well, well, it only seems like last week I was on to complain about a particular issue with SKY as well as point out I still await a reply or satisfactory answer to... ah, hold on, it was last week. Sorry
 
And in that regard I thank you for your prompt response... that I have yet to receive.
 
The joke is actually on me this time I readily admit, as my previous complaint should have included the issue I now raise, but got so caught up in the inadequacies and unfairness of SKY's communication and service options that I actually forgot to even mention it.
 
You will note a c.c. to The Halifax (HBOS) Customer Care Department, as they too have a connection as regards this particular complaint, and are not exactly innocent when it comes to 'Customer Care' in the recent past...
 
A few weeks ago I received a letter from SKY reminding me I paid with a credit card and with this in mind SKY would now be charging me (from February 2009 from memory) an additional 50 pence per month as part of a "service charge" based on the fact I paid by aforementioned credit card.

This was based, according to your letter, on "fairness" to your other paying customers who use the "direct debit system", a system which is obviously so far ahead of any other clumsy payment method, it is clearly seen as the pinnacle of payment procedures and free from any service charge.

The fact I could care less, don't particularly trust it (having had issues in the past relating to actually paying someone else's Council Tax via direct debit), nor bothered if the rest of your Silent Majority customers pay by cheque, postal order, carrier pigeon or armed courier, was handily ignored. 

I have a few questions, but one I demand an answer to immediately is:

At what point did you decide to charge only certain customers an additional fee, and why now exactly?
I have used a form of card (and always from HBOS, previously The Halifax) since originally signing up to SKY and that is now over a decade ago, and never has any sort of "service charge" been levied, considered, proposed or implemented.
Perhaps this charge comes direct from the Banks?
Could be, as they try to get their grubby little paws on any monies they can to start pulling back the millions lost due to their own stupidity, greed, and competitive nature's as they competed with each other to provide as many punters as possible with loans, agreements and financial services that never had a chance in Hell* of being anything other than money down the old Swanny.
(*also known as SKY's automated telecommunications system).

Or am I being a tad cynical?

So, in the first instance, I expect The Halifax to reply to me immediately with confirmation that they have or have not added this charge to SKY, and subsequently SKY to confirm if they are being charged by my card company or have just decided off their own backs to hack more of their customers off.
 
Secondly, I expect this charge to be dropped, not just because I find it unjustified, unethical, a nonsense and quite insulting to a SKY customer of a fair old number of years, but because of one particular little point regarding my 'credit' card...
The card in question is a VISA card so yes, it's going to be seen as a credit card, one could surmise.
Except this card is an extension of my Current Account I have with HBOS (a Halifax account of some years standing) and is actually a VISA DEBIT card.
Anyone with a modicum of intelligence would have thought to ask, check, or establish before throwing a charge at it just when every Uncle and his Service Provider is trying to claw back the pennies.
 
In other words it works as a direct debit - you may have a sequence of sixteen card numbers and card expiry information on file, but it also carries my account number and sort code and no I'm not printing them here, nor ever will pass them to you.
The SKY payment therefore comes off an account which is always solvent and includes all my deposits such as cheques and wage slips.
The Halifax can confirm this by checking my records and it is in fact the only account I hold with Halifax/ HBOS, so easy to confirm.
 
Why not just give you my account details, or go to your Website and change to a direct debit system?
Because quite frankly, other than the fact I genuinely do not like direct debit as described earlier, SKY can get stuffed, as over the last few months I have had nothing but hassle or nonsense from SKY every time I dare comment things are not all rosy in the land of the satellite service providers.
Nor will I be bullied into changing a payment system just because it's suits an agenda of others.

Between yourselves and the Halifax you should be able to remove this charge with one click of a button or an email - you're all big boys and girls - sort it out.

The SKY is truly the limit these days.
 
Your now over-paying customer,

Ross Muir