tags: Scams
Phone Spam from Satellite Direct UK
November 23rd, 2006, by Rich.
I just got another call from Satellite Direct UK telling me that my Sky warranty needs renewing. Oddly enough, nothing has changed since their last call. We are still registered with the TPS so it’s unlawful for them to phone us and we still don’t have a Sky box, so it’s definitely not out of it’s warranty period, which they again suggested. Satellite Direct UK you are not morons: stop ignoring the TPS.
Update: Looks like we’re not the only recipients of their unwanted sales calls: Longrider (also called twice) points out a host of others.
Update: Satellite Direct UK’s business practices have subsequently been successfully challenged in the High Court by BSkyB.
Update 2008/03/10: Satellite Direct UK are investigated by BBC Watchdog (it’s available on iPlayer for 1 week after broadcast).
Update 2008/07/05: The director of Satellite Direct UK appears to have been charged with fraud and money laundering.
June 24th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
As a current employee of Satellite Direct I can assure you all that the service we offer is genuine, however even I have to question some of the so called incentives regarding the relevence to the core business. Since Satellite Direct is part of the One Four Group, the travel business, radio station and others are all part of the same thing. My main job is answering phone calls to customers who have problems with their sky equipment, most of the time these problems are remedied within 24 hours and very succesfully. Since our well publicised court case all sales and call centre staff are under very strict instructions as to what we can and cannot say. Believe me when I say that myself and my colleagues take this matter very seriously. All our calls are monitored and any sign of passing off can and has led to that employees dismissal. Any queries re financial matters are also usually resolved within 28 days. We do have a few recently aquired subsidiary companies who’s methods may not fully meet our own standards just yet but again this matter, as I understand it, is being addressed. If this message sounds like a company statement I can assure you it isn’t, these are my own views. I am an employee of the company who, A, has a concience, and B, has a family to keep and bills to pay, I also happen to enjoy my job and get really hacked off when I hear misguided and ill informed individuals tarring us all with the same brush. Please don’t let a few rotten apples make you think we’re all bad. Thanks, Alan.
June 24th, 2007 at 1:48 pm
Satellite Assured are NOT and never have been part of Satellite Direct, they are a small company who keep pretending to be Sat Direct.As far as i know their office in Bognor is only as permanent as they are when they’re not hiding from someone!!
June 25th, 2007 at 4:31 pm
Last month Satellite Direct took £110 from my Visa account. I do not have a contract with Satelite Direct and had never heard of them. Reason given by Satellite Direct is that they have taken over Southcoast Satellite Services who I do have an agreement with, and valid for another 18 months. If I had not picked this up then there would have been no way of knowing that Southcoast Satellite Services were not trading.
Visa are recovering the £110, unless Satellite Direct decide to refund it. In addition they have been instructed to recover £60 from Satelite Direct.
Regards
Tony
June 26th, 2007 at 4:38 pm
please please has any one got the telephone number oftellit direct. thank you
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
I don’t care if their service is good or not. Satellite Services sold me a policy by ringing me up and telling me that they were going to renew my existing policy. Fair enough… I’m on the TPS so they shouldn’t be cold-calling, and they knew about my debit card (eek), and I do have a policy. So, away we go then. Well, the policy duly arrived but looked amateurish enough to ring an alarm bell, and lo and behold my existing D&G policy runs from January to January, not June to June. A quick call to Sky confirmed that Satellite Services are nothing to do with Sky and they do not endorse them.
In my opinion this is pretty sharp practice. I’m not happy and have written to cancel my policy immediately. (Well, even if I didn’t feel it had been misrepresented to me it would still be duplicate cover that I don’t need). Presumably they will do the decent thing and refund me as per the cooling off period I get under Distance Selling regulations, but I really could do without the hassle.
(Calling the number they provided - 0870 850 5628 - repeatedly gets me to an answering machine which does not really inspire confidence in their service either)
July 2nd, 2007 at 2:23 pm
… Oh, and 0870 numbers are 8p a minute as well? Oh good.
July 3rd, 2007 at 9:12 pm
I used to work for these guys, they told us the info comes from survey data. The info definitely doesn’t come from sky.
Sky themselves don’t offer warranties as they are not allowed to, the Sky Protection Plan Mentioned comes from Domestic & general NOT sky.
I used to read from a script, we didn’t actually know when your warranty expires, its just what it says on the script.
Its not a scam, its a service agreement which is what we HAD to say in the call, you pay £65 per year for standard box which includes all call out charges and parts costs
$90 PA for Sky+ and £110 PA for HD and multiroom.
July 11th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
I can back up everything that Alan has said in his statement above to be
completly true. Under no circumstances does any employer of Sat Direct EVER say
that they are calling from SKY or on behalf of SKY. If they EVER do they are
instantly dismissed. We take this matter very seriously. I know this to be
true because I am part of the monitor team who job is to make sure calls are
monitored so this does NEVER happen.
As regards to the letters they are just blank mailshots that are sent to
customers and we buy our data from surveys. So in the past someone would have
said they have Sky or considered buying Sky etc.
This company is completly above board and we have at least 500′000 happy customers
at the moment. I know you can not please everyone and sometimes bad things happen
but that happens in every company. Everything we do has been approved by the
courts.
I work for a good company and hearing people unhappy with what we do is upsetting
but we have done nothing wrong.
July 12th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
In reply to: I can back up everything that Alan has said in his statement above to be completly true. Under no circumstances does any employer of Sat Direct EVER say that they are calling from SKY or on behalf of SKY
Funny you should say that, because when they rang myself, they DID state that they were calling from Sky. On asking them to give me my account number, which they could not do so, the call was terminated. By them.
At the end of the day, it is wrong that you are cold calling people for this. As for those of you who don’t have a warranty, iirc its £65.00 for Sky to replace your box with a 3 month warranty (open to be corrected) This is refurbished and means that you could potentially save £65.00 per year and just pay the money when it actually does break down.
July 12th, 2007 at 9:15 pm
At the end of the day it is not wrong to ring someone to cover them with a service
agreement. If they don’t want it they don’t have it. If we weren’t aloud to ring
people the courts wouldn’t have allowed it. I’m sorry someone rang and pretended to to
be us. It would not have been us. ALL our calls are recorded and listened to
so If that was the case the person would have been fired. I don’t think they
would have wanted to lose there job.
You can’t make every single person happy it’s impossible.
We offer a very good same day service unlike any other Satelitte warranty company
that is in business at the moment.