14
Jan
2016
By Calvin at 14:39 GMT, 10 years ago
I really didn’t know how to correctly entitle this article, but thought I must let all my readers know about a current con operating on the internet if you’re trying to contact SKY – the TV Broadband, Phone people.
On 7th January our Sky box was playing up so my wife said she would give SKY a call to sort out the problem. We were insured through Sky Protect Plus. Unfortunately, rather than look up the telephone number in the Sky Protect brochure Julia did what many thousands of people do these days and did a quick search using her smartphone.
She searched ‘Contact Sky’ and the following website appeared at the top of the list.
Unfortunately she didn’t notice that the top three sites found for this search were Adverts (a little ‘Ad’ logo is shown in the box)
She looked at the numbers given to call - 07098785011 and 07098780448 and recognised them as mobile numbers. She didn’t give much thought about it and after some delay listening to the crappy music she spoke to bloke who (after some more delay and crappy music) forwarded her onto Sky Protect. She then let the Sky people know about our problem and Sky agreed to send us a new Sky Box – sorted.....or so we thought.
Little did she know that the number she had rung was a premium rate number and NOT a mobile phone at all and nor was it the freephone number she should have called, which would have been found in the Sky Protect Plus brochure. It turns out that this www.contact-us-today.com website was being operated by a third party purporting to be SKY and an authorised Sky Service and that since her call to Sky Protect had been forwarded through this third party she was being charged at a premium rate all the time she was on the phone. We only discovered the problem a few days later when we examined our bank statement and found that Julia had been charged a lot more for her mobile phone useage that month. A little more research and we identified the call in question, which had cost her £13.13!!.
We then searched http://www.whosenumberisthis.co.uk/07098780448 for the number she called and found a myriad of other people who had been duped in the same way; some a lot more!
During a later phone conversation we brought the matter to the attention of Sky Protect Plus (operated by Domestic and General). After speaking with his supervisor the operator took down the details of the website and told us that they were aware of these third party forwarding services and would investigate. He could not commit as to whether they were legal or not and also suggested that they could be located anywhere in the world.
Incidentally there was nothing on this single page website that said that the phone call would be charged at a premium rate.
Whether the website is legal or not it is quite clearly one (of many) that must be avoided at all costs, so please let everyone know about it. I suspect this website (and similar ones doing the same thing) has been brought to our attention before. Unfortunately we didn’t hear the news and so got caught!
I might take the matter further by contacting Ofcom and Action Fraud, but that will have to wait a few days. In the meantime please follow this simple advice if you need to contact any service provider:
- In the first instance find the number to call on the paperwork you have for the service
- If you need to use the internet to find the number remember that the first few search results will be adverts and may not be the company you are trying to reach. Compare the website’s URL with the one shown on their paperwork
For those of you who also have Sky Protect Plus (a ‘service’ we’re going to cancel since we’re still waiting for the new Sky box some 7 days later) the number to call shown in their brochure is: 0800 561 4449
Also, if you want to contact Sky the correct website is: https://contactus.sky.com/uk A little searching and you’ll find their free phone number....... it says:
Call a Sky expert on:
03442 411 653
Calls to Sky contact centres are free for Sky Talk customers
If you’re not with Sky Talk, calls to 03 numbers cost the same as calls to 01 or 02 numbers and are included in your calls package. If you don’t have a calls package, charges may apply, check your provider’s tariff guide.
Please share this article with your friends and family
Much annoyed Calvin from www.thecrimepreventionwebsite.com
Footnote:
If you click on other results of the same search I mentioned at the beginning of this article you'll find lots more telephone numbers to contact Sky with most not being 'official' numbers. Watch out!!
