So what do we need to do to officially break away from Sky....we are out of our initial years contract and now paying monthly DD, can I just tell them in writing that we are leaving and cancel the DD?

I think your advice is a little OTT.

Actually the addition of "costs" by debt collectors is unlawful unless the debt is one prescribed by statutory regulation which would allow a table of charges to be applied. A private debt to SKY does not and any letters would just be mentioning "costs may be incurred of.." which will be the costs for a judgement application they may or may not make.

For 195 my money is on a series of 3 letters and then it will be written off.

Whilst a judgement may be obtained without your knowledge the applicant is still required to serve a summons which will the last address in the UK. However, if you have genuinely had no notice (such as mail not reaching you in Australia) then you can have the judgement removed in the even it would get to that stage.

Personally I wouldnt even bother to reply to them. NTL did the same thing to be and I certainly didnt pay them and wasnt going to spend my money phoning call centre monkeys who cant understand a simple concept.

I worked in Debt recovery for many years, but if your happy to advise people to ignore debt, then OK...

I'll keep my advise to myself.. and I'm bowing out of this topic..

Good luck and best wishes

BB - unfortunately, I also work in Debt Recovery in the UK at an international level though and I agree with centurion on this one, it was a little over the top your advice. As its a 'care of' address, the dca cant touch the family member. Working in the field you would have already known this though. Other regulatory factors would also lead this to harrassment if the family member was to be persued (OFT guidelines).

There is a recipricol agreement in place between the UK and Australia, but as previously stated, wouldnt be enforced due to the added costs of collection and also now it has been updated to reflect the fact that the payment was cashed as already stated.

wannabeaussienurse, we have had it in writing back from sky that our sky subs will be cancelled 2 weeks after we fly out and cant claim the extra back, therefore we should have cancelled our direct debit and made a final billl payment to them.

Correct info again. It is illegal not to give notice and they cant give notice to a UK care of address whereby they know the customer isnt resident.

A similar thing happened to me, but with Orange mobile phones. Told them we were leaving for OZ so cancelled our contract once it was up. Moved to OZ and got 20 or more letters asking for 250 pounds for new contract. We told them acc was cancelled but they still wanted the money. Obviously we didn't pay it.
Next thing we were getting debt collectors letters (we had re-directed mail from UK to OZ) saying that we now had a CCJ against my name. Then the mail just stopped.
So if i ever do go back to UK, i am not sure where that leaves me. But i know one thing for sure, i will never use Orange again:curse:

If you dont pay the debt for 6yrs it will become 'statute barred' and will be written off if its at that stage already. Plus after 6yrs it will have dropped off your credit file anyway.

I tell you what, its making it a lot clearer for us to get our 0bal bills in place quite quickly. We have been wrapping our accounts up this last week and didnt realise that there were sooo many outstanding problems.Learnt a bit off this thread for sure.

I never renewed the contract, so thats why i didn't pay it. I also thought it was around the 6 or 7 year period when debts get dropped. Still damages your ability to get credit though inbetween those years.

Bless you Cath'n'Paul, help these people start again, without this unfortunate error of Sky.....

and someone please get the 'mother' a calming massage..

love BonnyBute

p.s. didn't mean to terrify anyone xxxxx

Good Point BB - will do that now

They would need to write to experian/equifax to make sure that their credit file is corrected once its proven that it wasnt their fault. The OP needs to go from two angles, they need to put their complaint in writing to sky for their credit file to be corrected to show no late payments, but also to write to the credit reference agencies (experian/equifax) to have a notice of correction added to their file and also asking them to investigate the inaccuracy for them.

It is possible a default may have already been issued if the account is with a DCA, but then again it may be an internal solicitors/dca trying their luck pre-notice of default.

It is 6 years when it drops off the credit file, but also the statute barred means they cant re-chase you for the debt after that time either, therefore written off. x

Dad just phoned them and said he was going to cancel it because we are leaving the country (and he was sick of paying £30 a month for constant repeats!). Sky phoned back a week later trying to get the business back and tehy were told again 'We.Are.Leaving.The.Country'. Apparently Sky didn't understand it the first time. DD was cancelled.

Right then,

To everybody that needs to cancel Sky before you go......

Make sure you give them a specific date to cancel 'in writing' and send by registered mail so it has to be signed for.

The latest scenerio is that Sky have claimed they didn't receive the last closing balance letter. It was a cheque sent with a letter with all the details on. We had agreed to pay them until April 6th (although we left the property on 22nd February) because of all the confusion, as we had given the correct notice but we cancelled by phone and it wasn't registered by the call centre staff. They have claimed that they didn't receive the letter although the cheque has been cashed and was in the same envelope. Our bank in the Uk (Barclays) have now taken it up on our behalf (we know the cashiers, but only through having business there) and have agreed to pay them another £34 to close this whole matter. This has been faxed through to the bank who are keeping copies. We have been informed that the debt collection agency have been informed but advised to keep copies. All in all we have paid them nearly £100 which we don't owe because we accepted the word of the kind call people staff we have spoken too when in reality they just put the phone down at the end of the conversation and do nothing. They are complete bullies and we have only paid this because it was really upsetting my Mum and I didn't want to cause her more worry, just as a precaution I have removed her as a point of contact so any more mail should come to us.

So the moral is do not pay the last DD, stop the payment and inform Sky in writing, and ask for aclosing balance to be sent to you in writing and pay that by cheque, and send again in writing that the account in now closed, remembering to send everything by recorded delivery.

Sky are robbing bas*~^ds.

S xx

p.s I would to thank everybody on here for sharing this with me and offering advice and support

Will do just what you have said streaks and will get a letter sent recorded delivery today. Cheers for sharing your experience, knowing our sort of luck it would be a similar scenario.

get a grip of yourself ! your as bad as her mother. she needs advice not the s**ts put up her!

There is a recipricol agreement in place between the UK and Australia, but as previously stated, wouldnt be enforced due to the added costs of collection

Can you explain please what this reciprocal agreement is?

Also, do you happen to know if there is a legal limit on the age of a debt which someone is chasing you for? I have recently had a to do with the DWP as they are claiming I owe them money which was overpaid to me in 1998. I have said, when they can prove it on paper then I'll discuss it but nothing so far!! Just wondering if this is something that would follow me to Oz as I don't want to leave the country owing anyone anything!

Thanks for the professional brain picking