Man who tried to cancel his SKY subscription needed counselling

The story of one northern man against the might of the Sky TV corporation all began one rainy Monday in April when Mr Andrew Jones of Carlisle tried to reduce his long standing Sky bill by threatening to quit the company's Pay TV services altogether over the phone to Sky's customer services.

He was initially offered a £5 reduction in his monthly Sky bill but it later emerged that the customer service operative he had spoken to had been instructed by junior and most importantly a corrupt level of management to apply A £5 surcharge. It was allegedly applied to make up for the loss to Sky's coffers with the subscription reduction by applying it to the customer's phone bill instead.

Outraged, Andrew Jones at first contacted BT, shouted a lot and then when he realised he was getting nowhere became suddenly aware that he had made his throat become hoarse. He then had to write a letter instead of making a phone call to OFCOM because he subsequently temporarily lost his voice due to the level of tirades he launched at BT.

Some days later he decided to phone Sky again to confront them and get an explanation for the stuation he found himself subject to a litany of offers not to cancel his subscription. He said "It left me feeling light headed."

Jones went on to describe how he had been affected by his experience with Sky customer services "last year I was a member of the Scientology cult but to be honest I found that easier to break away from than my Sky subscription due to my experience with their customer retention team when I tried to reduce my package."

Mr Andrew Jones was at one point offered access to solely the Sky 1 channel for £9 a month when he was asked what he would miss most from Sky TV's programming and said "Karl Pilkington".

"The customer retention team made me feel very very guilty for wanting to quit Sky at such short notice and after the 3 hour 31 minute long call I had to seek counselling afterwards."

Following the sessions of counselling Andrew Jones says he is recovering at home and getting by by watching his favourite his "Karl Pilkington" episodes on the TV series "An Idiot Abroad" which he is enjoying at almost the normal price he would have had to pay anyway. "I have gained virtually nothing from this, Sky1 at a slightly reduced cost, is that what my life amounts to?"

Jones says his remaining ambition in life is to succeed in downgrading to Freesat.

OFCOM has since fined Sky some £55000, which is at least 5000 times the amount that they had saved illegally from Jones' account.

Written by Asterick Jones