Sky won’t accept my payment

My Sky channels have become unavailable.

This started with Sky informing me that it had been unable to draw money from my account due to “lack of funds”. My credit card company strongly refutes this.

I consider myself to be the innocent victim of a technical glitch.

However, Sky consistently avoids accepting any responsibility for the error. RW, EAST SUSSEX

Your card company wrote to you that it had not had any request from Sky to claim the amount and there had been money in the account. This was stated in two letters that you sent to Sky.

However, when I looked into it and pressed Sky on this point it transpired that this was not the card it had tried to extract the money from.

It had been a different card, which it also has down as yours.

Be that as it may Sky also said it had tried to contact you by email when there were problems over the payment.

It heard nothing back, tried again and then cancelled your Sky subscription.

When it did hear from you it was by letter with a cheque for the outstanding sum.

It said it tried to call you but was unable to get in contact and so it emailed you advising it no longer accepts cheques. You could either pay online or via the phone.

You wrote again and Sky said it tried to call to discuss this with you on the phone but there was no answer.

In fact your job is such that you are out and about most of the time in a rural setting with very little mobile network coverage.

Sky then wrote that it had referred the matter to a debt collection agency.

It told me: “We have tried to make contact with Mr W on several occasions in the past eight months to discuss payment on the Sky account.

“Unfortunately, as we have not received payment for two months, we have cancelled his Sky services. We apologise for any inconvenience this may have caused Mr W.”

You have now cleared the balance with the collection agency, ironically using a cheque.

I remain uneasy that Sky did not address the issue about which of your cards it was referring to at the start of this saga and that, given the circumstances, your first cheque was refused. myself and my partner to TSB.

At the beginning of 2014 we moved to Spain to work in Gibraltar. This did not seem to affect my account.

My address was changed to a Spanish one without any problems and, for the next two and a half years, I continued to use my TSB account for business travel to Britain, online shopping and other activities.

Now though, just because I tried to pay some money into it, the account has been closed. I cannot even extricate my balance. DJ, SPAIN

In the middle of last year, while in Britain on business, you had tried to top up your TSB account with a £3,000 cheque payable in your own name from your own building society account in Gibraltar.

Without any notice your account was then blocked and you couldn’t access the money in it that you needed while in Britain.

You were asked for proof of identity, address, employment and evidence of where the money you were attempting to pay in had come from.

Not having all the original documentation with you, you provided photocopies, which were not acceptable. The bank said the documents would have to be certified by a solicitor.

When you found out the cost of doing this you rang the bank’s customer services number and

explained you would now deal with it when you returned to Britain later in the year.

By then though the account had been completely closed.

The bank could only give you an appointment on the day you were flying back to Gibraltar. Luckily the flight was delayed otherwise you say you would have missed it.

You gave all the documents required, which the bank photocopied.

Then TSB said the remaining balance could only be paid into another British bank account, which you don’t have.

Eventually it was agreed that it would be sent to a friend’s account within the next 48 hours. It wasn’t.