AIBU to be shocked by Sky's cancellation fee when moving abroad?

[ChefsKisser]

I’ve tried to cancel my sky contract today we pay £117 a month for sky tv and broadband. I have been told we have to pay half the amount of the contract (we have 17 months left). We are moving abroad and paying an £800 cancellation fee is sickening. This is just a rant as it’s in the small print that was sent to us but I didn’t realise it would be so so much.

I was stating a fact in a public forum. The Courts have tested the standard Sky contract numerous times. Google it
Happy now.

Im more shocked you where paying that amount for sky. I have sky internet, sky stream, Disney plus, netflix included and am paying £39 a month

They're all con artists, the lot of them, gas, electric, water, phone, broadband, tv, you name it. Charges for this that and the rest for things that cost them nothing.

Except we have had countless times when providers have 'entered into a contract' at a set price for 24 months or so and then had the nerve to put the price up. Con artists the lot of them.

I know it’s a contract and we signed it but I thought it’s worth asking. Circumstances change and being forced into a massive payment is really stressful. I’ve looked at the fine print on the policy and certainly for broadband it states as @FernandoSor says that no penalty is paid if the service can’t be offered where you are moving to so at least on this I feel like it’s could have some wiggle room. I expect they will say no but I can only ask.

This is the truth of it. I despair at people who defend them with a spiteful "serves you right for signing" mindset.

Im often amazed at how willing people are to tie themselves into long expensive contracts, that can absolutely ruin you if your circumstances change. Eg:

• car leases
• gym memberships
• expensive phone contracts
• tv subscriptions

My friend lost her job recently and realised she was tied into the best part of £1,000 a month on essentially non essential subscriptions and contracts. It created a massive amount of stress in her life at a time when she did NOT need it.

They shouldn’t have a reason to say no.

As it sounds like you’ve already been given wrong info by their staff, i would raise this as a formal complaint and state these terms.

@ToffeeCrabApple do you negotiate your broadband/energy etc contracts individually then? How does that work? Your solicitor sits at a parlay with Branson/O'Shea/Strong and you draw up t+cs, break clauses etc? Can you see how that might be quite difficult for most non millionaires?

If I was moving abroad I wouldn’t bother paying tbh.

@Backedoffhackedoff tempting but we will be back at some point and don’t want the poor people renting our place to be hounded by bailiffs!

Fuck it. After a while it'll just get sold on. They'll not be sending bailiffs round for that amount.

The price increases have almost always been written into the T&Cs that we all accept and none of us read.

It’s not ‘wiggle room’. It’s literally in the contract. You just call, tell them you are cancelling under the provisions of section 10(c) or whatever it was (can’t be bothered to look at my original post) and cancel your direct debit. Job done.

You are moving to a location where they cannot provide service therefore you can cancel immediately with no penalty - it’s right there in their T&Cs.

We had a similar situation, not with sky, but long contract and moving countries. The engineer who installed for us actually told us: don't call and say you want to cancel; call and say you are notifying them of a change of address and want them to continue to provide the contracted services at your new address. Let them be the ones to tell you they are not able to provide the service you are paying for at your new address, that way they are the ones breaking the contract and hence no fee.

success will obviously depend on many factors, especially on the exact terms of the contract you signed, but it worked for us.

Just as an update after a lot of back and forth they’ve agreed to waive some of the charges and now the settling fee is £296. I think I’ve pushed as much as I can and reduced by >£500 so we will suck it up but actually a more positive outcome than I had hoped!

Just cancel your direct debit and move 🤷‍♀️ they can’t find you and send you bills if you’ve moved abroad can they?!!

What part of contract law don’t you understand. You would have got a beneficial rate for a contract of that duration - if a service provider decided to increase your charges by 20% mid contract would you complain?

Why do you think she doesn’t understand it? It’s a contact, breaking it on either side isn’t exactly a big deal. Do you just blindly follow contracts you no longer want to be in without stoping to weigh up the risk v reward of breaking it?

I thought they made you pay out the full remaining contract so half would seem pretty fair to me

You’ll probably find that it does actually cost them which is why they need to charge you

Would also give you bad credit

So what you expect to get things for nothing?

If youre living abroad why does that matter?

And when you pointed out the clause in the T+Cs about no-fee cancellation if they were not able to provide service at the new address what did they say?