Tags: Scams
Junk Mail from Satellite Direct UK
November 29th, 2006, by Rich.
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It’s been a long time since I’ve seen complete mindless determination in the face of utterly overwhelming odds, but Satellite Direct have shown a lack of comprehension that is quite staggering in their recent marketing campaign. Today, they have raised the bar of ineptitude.
The Odds against Satellite Direct
The odds stacked up against Satellite Direct are not just high, they’re positively gargantuanly mind-bogglingly insurmountable; but this plucky little company won’t give up.
Satellite Direct want to sell us a warranty for our Sky satellite television receiver and they don’t give a stuff that we don’t own one.
It matters not a jot to them that we’ve never had one - why let a trifling little detail like that get in the way of a good marketing opportunity?
Disregarding Things
If you’re disregarding important things like checking that your victims potential customers have a need for your warranty then a few other forgetful moments won’t go amiss either, like forgetting to check if your victims potential customers are registered with the TPS.
We for example are registered with the TPS, so it’s unlawful, for Satellite Direct to call us and even try to sell us anything, but that’s not stopped them calling us twice (1,2) already, and comments are starting to arrive from others who have also been tele-spammed.
Satellite Direct Junk Mail
So if your tele-marking operations were facing repeated TPS complaints, what do you do?
Well I was most impressed today to hear from John Campbell whose 96 year old mum-in-law received a letter from Satellite Direct informing her that she too had an expired warranty on a Sky satellite receiver which has (like ours) never, ever, existed.
So that’s what Satellite Direct do, they switch to junk mail. We’re also registered with the Mailing Preference Service, so it’s also unlawful for Satellite Direct to directly send us junk mail.
It will therefore come as no surprise that we too have received a letter from Satellite Direct UK which opens:
The initial manufacturer’s warranty on your digital satellite (Sky TV) system has now expired and this leaves you open to expensive call out charges and repair costs should anything go wrong!
Profiting from Dishonesty?
If Satellite Direct can repeatedly badger us with this specious nonsense about the expiry of a warranty on a device which has never existed, then we must question how many real Sky customers are buying unnecessary warranties on machines that are still covered perfectly well by the original warranty?
Add todays letter to the call I received earlier this year telling me I’d won a flight to Turkey thanks to Data Partnership Solutions and One4Travel - which work in partnership with Satellite Direct UK and that makes four occasions when they’ve ignored the TPS and MPS and contacted us, then attempted to mislead us.
Countrywide that could scale up to a lot of unsolicited and unlawful telephone calls and junk mails, and a lot of unhappy customers.
Update: Satellite Direct UK’s business practices have subsequently been successfully challenged in the High Court by BSkyB.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:06 am
I wish I had seen all of this info on Sat Support Ltd, and Satellite Direct. I received a call from ANDY phone 08702402473 saying my manufacturers warranty on my Sky Equipment had or was about to expire.He offered extended warranty and quoted £120 for year, with cover for all eventualities. I was interested -but stupidly gave him my debit card number to set up D/Debits. I had not fully appreciated that direct debit agreements shoud be written and signed and sent back for them to be set up. I now find by looking at bank account (Internet ) to see that Satellite Direct have taken £10 from my account. I have contacted my bank and had the card blocked so they cannot take any mre money. This was totally my stupid fault, but a hard lesson learned. Hope others see this message and don’t fall into the same trap. Sky only recommend DOMESTIC & GENERAL and on contacting Sky Repair Team Plan on 08702 40 43 00 they have set up a plan for me underwritten by DomGen at £99 for year (£8.25 per month)
SKY REPAIR plan is for SKY+ box but they confirm that SKY HDBox is covered under the same plan.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:14 pm
It seem that we are all at the mercy of these companies even sky . we have the sky plan with general & domestic. and we have had awful trouble tying to get a repair. we have had two visits and on the second one the engineer took away our perfectly good sky box and fitted another refurbished one I asked him nor to do this as i would not sigh for it. he laughed and said no problem and sighned for me he said they would never even notic. the box he fitted will not work at all we have been without for 6 days now . sky keep saying they will be fixing it . this man was really scarry as we are pensioners and also quite disabled so could not stop him phsically.so what can we do it appears nothing as sky tell us thay answer to no one.
June 28th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
We’ve been receiving letters from Satellite Direct since October. All addressed to my husband and he always rips them up and throws them away. This week we received a photocopy of a Direct Debit mandate, addressed to me, with a comment stating that we had incorrectly filled in our bank details and would I please amend the mandate and return in the S.A.E provided. The bank details on the mandate are completely fictional. I have since returned the incomplete mandate and a note saying that it’s a scam and we’ve sent copies to the TV show Watchdog. I cannot and will not condone a company that deliberately misleads people into parting with their money.
June 29th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Although my problem with this scum bag company was sorted out a few weeks ago, I keep an eye on this site to see if others still suffer their fraudulent activities.
The latest scam described by ej proves that the general public in the democracy we call Great Britain is not defended against all forms of criminallity.
What I fail to understand after the number of complaints that must have been sent to Consumer Direct is, that the people behind Satellite Direct have not been removed from commercial life.
One would have thought that much of what they do is contrary to English Law.
July 2nd, 2007 at 12:11 pm
After reading the letter from the Foul mouthed animal “Anon” (JAN 22nd 2007) who purports to be an employee of Satellite UK. All I can say, from my own experience, is Rubbish. It is pointless in telling these “people” that you you are with TPS or MPS. I have done this repeatedly and have even gone to the lengths of threatening them with the DATA PROTECTION Act for using my personal details against my express wishes to the contrary, which is a criminal offence. It makes no difference. to these shysters. a few weeks later we will get another call or a letter.
One thing is certain. If and when our Sky box does eventually fail, we will probably go on to Freeview, so Sky will lose a customer altogether. It obviously won’t bother them but, this “Company” should be dealt with by Sky and preferably closed down.
July 6th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I work for a very well known bank and deal with
people being scammed by this company on a daily
basis. It’s totally ridiculous as they refuse to
refund the money they have taken under false
pretenses as their smallprint covers them for
all eventualities.
I can’t wait for someone to sue the scumbags.
July 7th, 2007 at 3:30 pm
These Satalite Direct Are crooks and lousy ones at that. They haven’t even taken the time to check if I have or ever had Sky, I haven’t!
Don’t give these thieves a penny anyone!
Soon they will go bankcrupt and start again under a new name or with a new scam!
Throw their spam mail into the bin and hang up if they phone!
July 9th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
My son, who lives with me, today received a letter Satellite Direct inviting him to take extended cover for Sky. Remarkable, my son does not have Sky, does not have a listed phone number, and yet they still manage to write to him (I believe twice now). We are just fed up with being bombarded with this unsolited mail and telephone calls. Won’t they take notice that we are not interested.
July 16th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
I received my first letter from Satellite Direct a few months ago when my Sky+ warranty still had months to run, so I just ignored it. Then about a month ago I got a second letter which I kept because the warranty was nearing the end (July 18th). About 10 days ago I got my third letter & thought I might take out the warranty but noticed on the bottom of the letter it states (in small print) that “Satellite Direct UK Ltd and Satcover Ltd are independent companies from Sky and are not authorised, associated or approved by Sky to sell extended service agreements” This made me think twice so I decided to check them on the internet & came across this site. Needless to say that after reading all the comments I will not be taking out a new warranty with them. Incidently, Anon stated on 30th April that “as a result of the injunction being slapped on Sat D the company will no longer be ringing anyone or sending anyone letters”. If that is so, how have I received two letters in the last month? Also I am registered with TPS & MPS but still get phone calls & junk mail from different companies, do any of these companies care?
July 16th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Received a call from them again today, even though I have now been registered with TPS for a couple of years now.
they were though this time calling themselves Satellite Support and gave the usual rubbish of our warrenty running out.
Duncan on 08702 402 473 called me. Based in Brighton.
Of course, I have also passed these details onto the TPS.