Da Booga

My parents received their phone bill a couple of weeks ago, on it were over a thousand calls to 123 at 8p per call totalling in excess of £100!

These calls were at random times of the day/night and all only lasted a couple of seconds. They contacted BT customer services who said that they'd had a lot of these recently and asked if they had a Sky digibox that was connected to the phone line, they had.

It turns out the digibox can malfunction and dial this number again and again if connected to the phone line. BT said they would look into it and get back to them.
They received a letter from BT yesterday stating that the bill was payable and due immediately. Obviously they are fuming, my dad is going to ring Sky up tomorrow to request that they pay for the calls made.

Has anyone had a similair problem before and did you have any luck with Sky?
Where do they stand legally?
My dad has said that if they refuse to refund the money he's gonna cancel the Sky subscription but obviously would prefer not to do this if he can.

This is also a heads up to those of you who have your sky digibox constantly connected to the phone socket as this malfunction could happen in various stages so if you don't get an itemised bill you may not notice an extra £20-£30 on your bill. My parents only noticed it because of the large increase in their bill, they don't normally get an itemised bill!

Cheers,

Gareth

Kevin Groat

Gareth,

There was an article about this in the What Sattelite magazine recently. Twas a chap called Barry Fox who wrote the article. Suggest you do a Google search on his name - he's well know in the Sattelite and IT world. Alternatively email the magazine - it's site is www.wotsat.com I think.

Kevin.

-=Buzz=-

I disconected mine as soon as the "minimum contract period" was up. I dont have it connected to the phone at all, and it still works for me sufficient to watch telly. I have never, and never will, want to use the "interactive" bits.

BuRR

I never connected mine from day one. Had it at least 2 years now.

Da Booga

Just managed to have a quick search on the web and found this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog/report...=speakingclock

Looks like they'll have to foot the bill but it seems they got off lightly! Imagine receiving a £900 bill and Sky only paying 1/3 as a goodwill gesture [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

Cheers for the replys guys, I just hope that this thread will save even one person some money I unplugged my digi box as soon as the engineer had left and have never connected it in the year and a bit since

Gareth

[Edited by Da Booga - 5/11/2003 11:37:48 PM]