Phone Spam from Satellite Direct UK
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.
Update 2009/04/27 Many people are commenting that Satellite Direct have charged them 10x their agreed direct debit amount. It has been suggested that HMCS MoneyClaim Website is a good place to get your money back if you can’t contact Satellite Direct.
Update 2010/02/24The former director of Satellite Direct UK, Dave Reynolds, has been found guilty of £600,000 tax fraud.
820 Comments
Dave Reynolds is back up in Chichester Crown Court Tuesday 27th August for several counts of Fraud & money Laundering: can only say hope he gets all he deserves, unfortunately it will not be enough for all he hurt he has caused.
Well new measures , I recived a letter stating my sky satellite
system needs urgent attention and to take out a warranty , now they
phoning me
Their address is Unit5 capitol trading park kirkby bank road kirkby,merseyside L33 7sy 01515486588 , company registration
No 05986843 vat no 899951238
No joy getting my money back from Satellite Direct so I will leave it to my credit card company to try and get my money back. To add insult to injury we got another call today from Sat Link Services offering us warranty on our Sky Box!! These people never give up do they? Any news on Dave Reynolds?
a few days ago i was the victim of the sky warrenty scam & was fleeced for £250.00. as soon as i saw the money was gone from my bank account i phoned the bank, cancled my card, they put me through to the fraud dept of the bank who said i will get the money back in about 2 weeks as it was a scam. it has made me feel stupid to say the least. but a big lesson has been learnt NEVER give out my details over the phone. we are all told this but we never think we would fall for it. i did but im lucky enough to get my money back. the company name was sky-pro-plan-plus. BE WARNED
I too am a victim of this con noticed on my bank statement £50 pounds taken from my account by these people this week for a policy I know I cancelled over a year ago, also they managed to get my money on a card that had expired. I called the bank and have had to cancel both that card and my current one as a result of this. I e-mailed sattelite direct only for them to say they cannot find my details, although they have enough details to get money from me! They also state that to find my details they req my card details again! Does anyone have any advice for me as getting my money back seems very unlikely.
Digital Satelite Warranty Cover Ltd conned me into thinking they were calling from sky tv now giving me the runaround trying to get my money back
Got a call about my contract to maintain my satelite system from satelite assured.
The guy didn’t know I didn’t have one which made me suspiscious. then told me when pressed that they worked on behalf of sky which I knew wasn’t true.
called the number and spoke to a nice boy named stuart who when asked about a SAR said I was wasting my time as both sides need to agree to release the tape. Talking b***ocks but obviously part of his script. I told him what had transpired and he told me that it was impossible and that his operators would be sacked if they said they were linked to sky. Anyway he gave me the SAR details but ended the conversation by telling me he was going to listen to the call and ram it up my rear end if it didn’t support what I claimed. needless to say, no return call. he was sooo masterful, I’m almost disappointed
Hi I am still having problems with Sat Direct. They are based in Arundel West Sussex and the telephone number on a very recent letter is08702 245777 Fax 01243 556304 and email info@satellitedirectuk.com. I had no idea that this was a scam and when they rang earlier this year to renew the policy I gave them my partners account number as I had just been made redundant. They have since been taking from both accounts. I have cancelled the direct debits after talking to Sky and being told I don’t need another cover policy. I wrote and have had no reply. After talking to Trading Standards I am writing again tonight and giving them time to put back the money. The message to Maria in Bogner is that they are very close to you and still trading! I will post it on this site if I get my money back.
Just had this posted on our forums
i am an employee of digital satalight warrenty cover ltd and have seen some real bad things posted on hear about us. We are not part of sat cover or any other company that has changed its name in the past! We are DSWC Ltd and are the biggest warrenty provider in the u.k for sky digital equipment. We do not rip you off, we provide a service. most of are customers are happy with what we provide and you are not forced to take cover out. Are call center is based in kirkby in liverpool and yes we do cold call. I understand that people do get annoyed by letters and also phone call’s but at the end of the day if you say to the agent that is calling you that you want the details removed from the system, Please just ask nicely….
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-sky-tv/10396-beware-bogus-sky-tv-warranty-letters-telephone-calls-4.html#post169847
if its such a scam why are people getting there service RICH your an idiot don’t you have a job if it was such a fraud company wouldn’t it of been shut down now? as for other people this number is not withheld it is always on show if your registered with the tps take it out with them its them that’s let your number slip through and if you all wernt so stupid and ticked the box where it says I DO NOT WANT TO BE CONTACTED on most forms you wouldn’t be receiving these calls i think its sad how none of you take anything into account dave reynolds doesn’t own these companys its a person called Tristian Glaves and the head office is not durban road its in ford so sit outside there and protest and while your all at it get TWAT removed from your heads
to The Anonymous Coward,the tps do not give out peoples numbers,its the data bought by satellite direct that is all in numerical order with numbers missing from those that are in tps you are just encouraged to fill in the blanks!
Welcome back Anon.
Maybe you missed this comment where Tristan Glaves was mentioned. He may be the same person as the Tristian you mention – perhaps I spelled his name incorrectly.
As you’ll note from my original article, I don’t have Sky – so the longevity of this thread is baffling to me. Apparently Sky’s successful court case against Satellite Direct, the continued misrepresentation in telephone calls shown on the BBC’s Watchdog, and the recent fraud court case are keeping the issues fresh in people’s minds, so the comments keep coming in.
…but don’t feel you need to be angry at these people (apparently they’re your customers). You’re welcome to treat it as a marketing & support opportunity. If you can turn it around and placate these people who believe they have been misled, and explain to them why they have not, then that would be absolutely terrific.
If people are getting facts wrong, correct them with what you know, or what you think is correct! Giving information can foster discussion and understanding rather than the current situation where a lot of people are unhappy because they have been interrupted at home, misled, and sometimes sold an unnecessary warranty.
You’re very welcome to put your point across, but do please try and be a bit more civil. Feel free to leave your name too – it’ll help people learn who you are and maybe, hopefully, trust you.
Can someone shed some light on the firm Satellite Support Centre for
me?
My father has recently been contacted by them regarding a warranty for
3 years £120 (amount taken in full)!! The paperwork is … well lets
say I could produce more convincing letterhead. He is a pensioner who
without his Sky TV would go crazy. I always look after things for him
but seems this firm have convinced him its a great deal… Would be
grateful for some honest advice…
I was called by a company who I thought was Sky (the saleswoman even gave me advice on how to up-grade to a Sky+ box which was thoughtful bearing in mind she doesn’t work for them!)
They took £60 from my account and I only realised they weren’t Sky when the paperwork came through from Sat Link Services, on behalf of Satellite Direct. The paperwork from Sat Link services was undated and there was no telephone number to call. All the boxes for Date of First Payment, etc were left blank and the expiry date was ‘N/A!’
I called Satellite Direct and asked for my money back and complained about what they’d done. I’m registered with the TPS so they shouldn’t have been cold-calling me at all.
Every time I rang I was told something different but when I said I intended to report them to the TPS, the Office of Fair Trading, the ICO and anyone else I could think of, they took me a bit more seriously and I have got my money back. Though they say they are looking into my complaint, I doubt if I will ever hear from them again.
I have cancelled the Debit card I used to pay the £60, just to be on the safe side which, though inconvenient, will make sure they can’t take any more money from my account.
Can someone throw some light of fully covered…is it part of same group as it has the same modus….contacted me, opened an account for £65 and they took two payments. They are not answering phones and as I have needed an engineer I have tried in vain to contact them. They just took another £65 freom my account and I have had to cancel my debit card. Have now got police involved….What I want o know is if this is part of bigger scam.
They’ve just called my mobile, so they’re clearly still going strong regardless all the investigations etc.
I just signed up on 23/10 with SKY-Pro Plan Ltd thinking it was affiliated to Sky. They seemed to have my membership number and knew the system was exactly a year old so I did not doubt them. My system has gone down inh the last few days so after spending ages on the phone to Sky trying to put it right I read the agreement again finding that I have to pay £45 for a call out as the policy is not a month old. Then the fun began.have wrung them repeatedly for 3 days as they said there would usually be a help line, No answers, just left messages, well it WAS the week end but today, Monday have phoned them and left messages tried every department they list and each one says the same, nobody there. What a pest as I now have to cancel the card number I gave them and kicking myself for not being more careful
Things are looking up so hopefully not a scam at all. Eventually I got through on the phone and a chap said the phones had been going wrong all week end and a little later an engineer phoned to say he would be here tomorrow morning[ tuesday] So I am keeping my fingers crossed . I had to get onto the bank, a lengthy process with a young lady in Scotland who was able to tell me that there had been no huge unaccounted for amounts going out of the account and a promise that they would keep an eye on it but have learnt one lesson. NO MORE agreements like this over the phone, send me the paperwork and I will check it out first before I part with money details. More than the loss of the money I feared the annoyance of the children [ all grown up]who constantly tell me to be careful. I will let you all know when the work is completed
I too have just had a call from Satellite Direct telling me that because I hadn’t called them out during the past year,they were going to reduce my premium from £6-50 to £5. Luckily, I was suspicious straight away. I have just retired from work to care for my husband who has Terminal Cancer and we have been trying to ‘put our house in order’ as far as paperwork etc goes. This company was not a name I recognised therefore I started to question the caller.I asked how we were paying the Insurance and he replied that I must be paying by Direct Debit.After the questioning continued for a while I told him that if they were going to reduce my payments ,then to go ahead but I wanted to check my Policy first.He then said he would call back another day. I am waiting for his call !!!!
So glad I found your website. I am not as daft as my children think after all !!!!!!
I recently received a call from satassured who wanted me to renew my cover and pay by credit/debit card over the phone. I am not covered by them and refused to give personal data to a cold caller. Suggested they contacted me by post which they did.Their brochure and website seem very convincing. Are they as good as they say?
Hi everyone right i know were very disliked as a company i don’t own it and i am not high up i am a sales agent (cold caller) im not anonymous but i don’t want to put my name in case i get in trouble for talking on here im happy to answer any questions i will start off with what i know the company is not called satellite direct anymore its called satlink service ltd i can promise you everything we do is 100% genuine we offer same day service which not many company’s can do we cover all acts of god and every eventuality apart from deliberate damage. Sky don’t do their own warranties domestic and general do so its a win win situation so nobody is misleading because sky don’t do it. To People that think we are misleading all of our calls our recorded in all of our call centers and at the beginning of the call we do say who we are or we get in trouble and possibly lose our job i understand that feeling mislead is horrible but please always think were only being told what to do by higher up and if we don’t listen we get a verbal warning or a disciplinary or worse sacked. Think of it in this term a warranty is worth what you make of it it can be pointless but when its covering your entire system it is definitely worth it for having just the dish L.N.B remote etc covered so if you think you are being miss-lead please always ask who the company is on the phone and they will tell you and if you don’t like to be cold called just ask the agent that’s on the other end of the phone nicely that you don’t wish to be contacted anymore i know cold callers are annoying but its somebody that has feelings on the other end of that phone (hard to believe) i know loll but with this credit crunch us beggars cannot be choosers i know this is an essay but i just want everyone to know i will come on here once a week to or twice to answer any questions you wish to ask me thank you to everyone that reads this
Dear John Smith
You are talking a load of rubbish – satellite direct is still misleading people into thinking they are from Sky, I have recently had two more phone calls from them and they did not say who was calling on either of the occasions. I have also asked them to stop calling and reported them to TPS and they are still calling. I will be taking satellite direct to court as I was misled by that company, the agent I spoke to clearly knew that I thought I was speaking to someone from Sky. I have asked them twice for a transcript of the telephone conversation which they have failed to provide. Perhaps you could answer this question – how do you get the name and personal details of sky subscribers?
I was stupid and I would advise anybody to stay clear of Satellite Direct or whatever company name they are now trading under.
Sylvia,
Did it turn out to be a scam or did the engineer show up?
I signed up with the same company about a year ago. Haven’t had to call them but just wondered if i had been conned.
Cheers
Bob
I have had £65 taken from my account by this company this month! I vaguely remember speaking with a rep from SatCov 18 months ago and stated that I was not interested. They set up a DD for £6.00, which then changed to £6.50 and this month £65.00. I have only just noticed that this has been going on since Sept 07. i contacted my bank who have been very helpful. Tried to call SatCov(Dave Reynolds) on 08716641400 or 08702240442 – no reply, what a surprise.
Hi I have had £65 00 taken out instead of 6 50 i got through on 08716641400 and was told i would get my refund in 7 days they said a few customers had this mistake made thats why i had to wait some time to get someone. i will let you know if i get my refund.
Once again last month,satellite assured have taken £65 out of my bank,same for 3 years running without my authority. Last year they told me on the phone, I have to give them a year to cancell by letter. Guess what once again they taken £65 out. Sky have phone me up last month & say I have not got any assured on my sky + & I should have one. So I’m thinking I know, I’m a big boy now, so I’m going to their office this weekend & really looking forward meeting the person who nicking my money that I work hard for. AND GIVE HIM MY FIST !!
I have just discovered that i have also been scammed by Sky-Pro-Plan and have no
details to contact them with. Any info would be greatfully recieved.
Hi, I work at Satellite Direct head office. As you have read in earlier threads, a mistake occured when taking this month’s payments from a small number of customers. We took £65 instead of £6.50. We promise to refund the overpayment (£58.50) within seven working days. Alternatively, you could use the money taken to cover you for one year, meaning no other payment will be taken until the same time next year. Please accept our apologies – especially as it is so near to Christmas. Please call us on 0871 664 1400 if you require any assistance. Phone lines are open Mon-Fri 8am-7pm and Saturday 9am-1pm. With particular reference to Claire, please call us between these times and we will sort the problem out for you. Many thanks.
Also, just to clear one thing up. Satellite Assured is nothing to do with Satellite Direct. They are totally different companies. There are are quite a few companies who offer service agreements, Satellite Direct is one of the biggest. As I said before, any problems please phone on the number I gave, we will help you.
Has anyone out there been in receipt of legal proceedings from Satassured (Satellite Assured Ltd) to recover monies the company claimed they owed them, either for overdue Warranty cover premiums or cancelled direct debit mandates? I have cancelled my cover but have since been advised I haven’t let the company know within 30 days of renewal and am therefore liable for overdue payment from the policy anniversary. My own understanding is that a ‘contract’ has to be an agreement between two parties, and I am certainly no longer in a position to feel affiliation or wish for any association towards a company that appears to harrass customers into making payments they may not wish to for cover they no longer want.
There seems to be a great deal of negative reporting towards this company and its main representative, Stuart King. There also seem to have been a number of addresses the company has occupied in a short space of time for some reason. Can anyone elaborate and confirm?
I’m absolutely livid. Just checked my bank statement and this month they have taken £65 instead of £6.50. I suppose I should be lucky it wasnt £650. Are they about to go bust I wonder? As soon as the refund arrives I’ll be cancelling the direct debit asap.
Got through to their indian call centre after 10 minutes and they said it will take 7 days to refund. How convenient in the week before Christmas.
I’ve now been reading through this thread and feel sick I’ve been paying these people for around 2 years. I knew they were nothing to do with Sky but I’ve realised I’ve actualy heard nothing from them since the agreement was set up. They just take the money each month. I’ve never had any reason to call them out so I cant really comment on their service, but
it seems that Sky will provide cover themselves and its cheaper.
http://www.skyprotect.com
I have had £65 taken by direct debit. I deal by on-line banking and noticed the same day. A quick telephone call to my bank and they were able to refund the overpayment to my account. Try it out if you pay by direct debit.
just payedout £65.00 to SATCOV, shuld have bean£6.50 on d/debit
HI I promised to get back to you all when i received my refund from Sky Direct tel 08716641400 Well i received my refund this morning in my bank a/cc.Thank you Sky Direct. I must also say the gentleman who spoke to me at the time was very polite and explained what had happened,I will not be cancelling as yet. Should I need this company at a later date and they keep the promises they say in the paperwork that I have then I will write again here.Joan
Still no refund. Spoke to my bank today and they are now trying to recover the money, but this could take a further 28 days. Direct debit cancelled.
can eny body help can you give me the adress of sky proplan ltd the have just cond me out 250 poundes no and i just can not get eny body to pick up the phon at there end they have but me in det now can eny body help me please
Hi malcolm / Rich
Do you have the telephone number for SKY Proplan as i have been trying ways contact them too. thanks
same story. Satellite Assured and also Satellite Support.
Satellite support called to sy my warranty was running out and would i like e
like to renew, having been done by Satellite Assured i told them i
i would like to see the paperwork first and they assured me that they
they would send this out. didn’t receive this and called them
they said they had sent it but would send again still waiting an
and now cant get an answer from them but they have taken £10 from
my account!!!
satelite direct are still phoning punters to offer them insurance for their sky equipment i have their tle number here it is if u need to conact them 08712650965.they sound kosher on the phone when u first call in with their answerphone but dont be fooled , they have phoned twice the thing that made me suspicious was that we dont have insurance with sky for our equipment so i thought i would google it and guess what as expected it is a scam. we are going to see a lot more scams this year because of the recession so watch out everybody if in doubt just google it.
hi
i’ve been conned out of £250 by sky proplan ltd i phoned the helpline no they gave me but all i get is a anwerphone the girl gave me a ref name but as you can guess no one has returned my call i’ve tried to cancel the card t transaction but have to wait after it gone through the bank have been really helpful but i can’t afford to lose it
Thanks for your site these people are scum.
They phoned my 85 year old mother conned her she needed to take out a warrenty on a 2 mth old sky receiver. As a holder of lasting power of attoney It should have been stright forward to cancel this. They have attempted to refuse to deal with me and their attitude is as you would expect disgusting. My mother like many in these pages has her phonned register not to receive sales calls. I was intrested to read the entry about where they get the telehone details of sky subscribers. They must have a new souce as mum ony signed up late 2008.
I took out an insurance with Satellite Assured last year, and i have to admit i thought they were sky when they called and thought the insurance was a neccessity . I tried to cancel when i got back off my holiday when i looked at the paperwork and realised they weren’t sky, and was told i was out of my cancellation period. I did take down the number when the policy was sold to me, and on my note i did write satellite assure, but thought it was sky assuring my satellite. so prob my fault for not asking the right questions and just assuming.
But anyway got a problem with my system, and as i had this insurance in place, thought i’d make the most of it and called their engineers helpline, was suprised i got throught straight away. I am promised an engineer in 2 days, so lets see if this happens!! I though i’d google their name and this came up. Will keep you posted, but all seems a little too good to be true at the moment! Has anyone else used their engineering service?
i have been with this sky cover ltd company for about 2 years which i thought was organised by sky for my satallite cover. i was phoned just before xmas by his company asking if i wanted to renew my sat cover which i declined. Now i have check my bank account and this company debited £49.99 out of my account as well as the £6.50. After ringing my bank and asking them, they gave me a phone number to ring which i did and they said no one from their company had rung and it was their fault they had took too much(admin error) and they will refund in 7-10 days. I phoned my bank and sky back and was told that im not the only one. This company is a RIP OFF FIRM STAY CLEAR of them at all cost.apparently they phone you and if you decline to renew they take money out of your account. their direct debit in now cancelled and i will be contacting someone who will shut this rip off merchants down once and for all!
They have taken £49.99 from my account too!!
After reading this thread I will be contacting them tomorrow, making sure I get a full refund and cancelling the DD!!
I have been conned too!!!! took £49,99 2 days ago.
Can anyone tell me if they ever had an engineer actually coming and doing the repairs?
I too noticed today that £49.99 has been taken out of my account and called them and they have said they will give me a refund. I cancelled my Sky last summer! I also noticed that I have been paying the £6.50 and cannot remember taking this out. Where do they get our details from????????????
Hi,
I have a question. Like a prize tit I took out a Warrenty with Sat Assured in Jun-2007 which was due for renewal in 2008. This initial payment was made by card (so lucky I didn’t opt for DD), for a 1 year contract. During the contract period the card expired, which meant at the time of renewal Sat Assured were unable to claim their money.
Anyway, today I recieved a phone call from SA telling me that I owed them arrears for my contract. I pointed out that I no longer had sky, and even if I did the contract ended in 2008 (as I did not authorise a renewal). The nice lady pointed out to me that in their warrenty term it states: ” The cover can be 1, 2, 3 or 5 years depending on the length of cover you have requested. All contracts will be for a minimum duration of 12 months unless otherwise stated on your documentation. If you wish to cancel after the initial contract period this should be done in writing, by post fax or email and giving 30 days notice”. She then went on to tell me that if I wanted to cancel that I had to pay £20 (similar to someone elses post) and that I can do that by card (not getting fooled again).
My questions are:
>> Does this clause in the warrenty certificate constitute an ongoing agreement between myself and SA?
>> Are cancellation charges enforcable?
>> Has anyone else had a similar issue as this? If so can you let me know how you dealt with them.
I took out insurance, but received no documents. have written to them twice, but no reply.
A lady rang me to tell me I was writing to her daughters house, and that this firm is a scam.
Have now complained to the office of fair trading.
Hi John, several companies have now been mentioned in this thread. Can you confirm the company name and address you’ve been writing to?
TO ALL TRYING TO CONTACT SATELLITE DIRECT UK LTD IN IMPERIUM HOUSE IN WEST SUSSEX IF THIS IS THE RIGHT ONE I JUST LOOKED AT THERE WEB SITE AND THEY HAVE A DIFFRENT NUMBER ON THERE TO THE ONE I BEEN USING TO GET IN CONTACT WITH THEM THEY ALSO TOOK TO MUCH MONEY OUT MY ACCOUNT BUT I GOT IT BACK THEY DID TELL ME IT TOOK 28 DAY TO DO THOUGH BUT AS THE DD HAD ONLY JUST GONE OUT I STOPED IT WITH THE BANK AND IT WAS PINGED BACK IN TO MY ACCOUNT THE NEXT DAY SO IF THIS IS THE COMPANY TRY THIS NUMBER 08702 245777 IT MIGHT TAKE A WHILE THE AVRAGE FOR ME TO GET THROUGH IS 30 MINS ON HOLD BUT I DID GET THROUGH TO THEM AFTER THE ALTO RECORDINGS BUT MOST OF THE STAFF IN THAT CALL CENTER ARE VERY NICE AND VERY APPOLEGTIC SO GIVE IT A GO YOU GOT NOTHING TO LOSE
Well it looks Like Satellite Direct are at it again, I have just received an automated call not stating who the company was but after checking their number on google and saynoto0870 it turns out to be them but they have changed their name to SAT-DIRECT. Please beware everybody, I have just lodged a complaint with Watchdog and hope that I get something back from them.