Sky accused of blocking defections

Sky TV’s impressive churn rate – hailed as being at an 11-year low – would appear to be the result of aggressive resistance rather than happy customers after one man revealed the firm had made it virtually impossible for him to defect to Virgin Media.
Complaints from customers trying to leave have reached such high levels that Ofcom has said it is investigating Sky’s cancellation process “as a priority”.
Not that you would think anything was wrong in the firm’s latest trading update; in the UK it reported the highest customer growth and lowest level of customers leaving in 11 years, with 127,000 new users signed up to its satellite and online TV platform in the third quarter, up 41% on last year.
Whether they will ever be allowed to leave is another matter, however, if the experience of Gavin Hackwood from Newport is anything to go by.
Having decided to switch to Virgin, he logged onto the Sky online ‘chat’ service believing he would be able to easily cancel his subscription. But 96 minutes and a 4,000-word transcript later, Hackwood was told by the Sky agent that he could not cancel because he had a separate cancellation pending on his Sky Movies.
Speaking to MailOnline, Hackwood said: “It was just an absolute nightmare. Part of the reason that I used the chat service was because I had tried to cancel over the phone before and I thought this would be easier. But clearly I was wrong.
“I was just in disbelief really. I had made it quite clear that I wasn’t interested in her sales pitch: all I wanted to do was to cancel. But she kept going on. I found it quite rude and aggressive.”
He added: “I think they knew what they are doing: it’s a tactic. There are plenty of people who would just give up and stay. That’s clearly what they want.”
Hackwood said he later contacted Sky, and although the firm initially said the agent was right to refuse the cancellation, it later changed its mind and said she had been in the wrong and then sanctioned the move.
In a statement, Sky said: “We recognise it took us too long to cancel Mr Hackwood’s Sky account via Live Chat and would like to apologise to him again for the service he experienced. We’ve taken steps to simplify how customers can cancel their accounts with Sky and on this occasion the adviser got it wrong.”