The new season has just about landed and tomorrow we, the Arsenal, play Steve McClaren’s FC Twente in the Champions League qualifier... ok – well, so I was wrong about the draw... but Barcelona and Liverpool did alright out of it with Wisla Krakow and Standard Liege respectively – mind you, we can’t grumble with FC Twente away in the first leg either. This match is on Setanta... Setanta and I have a disagreement, not only because their commentators and pundits are fluent in the seven shades of shite but also because they, like most media disseminators these days, seem intent on screwing their core clientele for as much as they can get – although I won’t go into it much... well, ok – I’ll bitch on about it for 3 pages:
My Setanta Sports ‘subscription’ was purchased by phone (I think... like most people who sign up, I suspect, I was 'back from the pub' and witless so can't rightly remember) ‘just like that’ at £9.99 a month... I do not recall being informed of any issues regarding cancellation or surprise and un-agreed/unfair/unwarranted price rises being imposed on me without my consent. I originally got it as I assumed that I would get Arsenal TV – alas (see small print) not on freeview - and also for the boxing. The boxing coverage was nonsense – at the last minute before the Joe Calzaghe fight the stream was flipped to different, and ultra low bitrate, PPV channel that produced a very poor quality image. I imagine that this was some kind of paranoid media protectionist measure which had little or nothing to do with providing a service to their customers. I can imagine that a lot of people who tuned in late had the nasty experience of not being able to watch it having not listened to the mumbled instructions from the commentators beforehand.
I have also had major problems with my freeview setup – I have called the support line numerous times (I wonder how much they charged me for that?) as when I switched to Setanta Sports I got the message:
“The Channel is Scrambled or Unavailable”
This would then result in me calling the help line and switching my box to channel 5 for an hour before I could finally watch the last 15-20 minutes of whatever sporting event that I had paid good money for. Eventually – I worked out that I could get it working through a complicated series of channel hopping before switching the box off and on again. This worked on my box as long as you switched to Setanta on a regular basis. If you didn’t then the whole thing went wrong and locked me out again.
Recently this has even stopped working and I am getting the message:
“You are not entitled to watch this channel”
I have not been able to watch Setanta sports for the last 2 months (not that there was anything on there that I wanted to watch anyway).
Setanta then decided to charge me in Euros, then refunded me and charged me again – the upshot was that I got screwed by the exchange rate on the first erroneous transaction... the next month they whacked up the subscription fee to £10.99 and the cancellation period on my ‘no contract’ agreement to 2 months... and I still have no service.
I called up Setanta sports on their non-free line to discuss my cancellation – alas I was informed that I could not cancel my subscription at the weekend and I would have to wait until Monday (they didn’t mention this on the phone when I subscribed). I waited until Monday and called them again on their non-free line. I was talked to by a very nice chap who went through all my reasons for cancellation before he informed me that I had to speak to someone else.
I was then transferred to the Orwellian named ‘Customer Loyalty Department’.
I spoke to a very nice lady who listened to all my reasons for cancellation and sympathised with my position and engaged me in some platitudes about football and the team I supported before offering my a reduced rate of £5 a month for 3 months. I politely declined and insisted on cancelling my subscription on the basis that I do not wish to pay £5 a month to receive no service whatsoever. I was then informed that it was no fault of Setanta that their ‘overly paranoid media protection technology’ didn’t work with my freeview box... I mentioned that this was a common problem across a number of freeview boxes – hence the FAQ on rebooting your freeview box with the card out and in again on their website (now removed). Legally, I informed them, they had broken the ‘contract’ (on my ‘no contract’ subscription) by not supplying me with my media i.e. the fact that Setanta Sports should supply me with the media that I have paid for was very much in the ‘large print’ on the ‘contract’ (no contract) that I subscribed too by giving some bloke my credit card number over the phone one evening.
I was then informed that I had to cancel in writing and give 60 days notice as there was no facility to cancel over the phone?
Hang on – I called at the weekend to cancel and was told that I had to call on Monday to cancel – then I’m told that I can’t cancel by phone?
I was then informed that I had to write a letter to the following address... and they will take 10 days to process the letter from when they get round to opening it.
This was beginning to sound slightly dodgy... I asked if the cancellation date would be backdated – she said that she didn’t think so. Hmmm... None of this was mentioned when I signed up on the phone via their 24/7 easy sign up call-for-free line?!
The cancellation address I was given was:
Setanta Sports
Dept 8544
Sunderland
SR9 9SZ
Interestingly, this address is not on any of their bumf or webshite... anywhere.
I had a quick look on Google and I found stacks of ‘customers’ (see mugs) who have been through the same experience as me – sometimes they have been told that they have cancelled on the phone, sometimes they are told to write in and sometimes they take the £5 a month special offer... all of them, it seems, continued to pay the full subscription charge with no sign of change. It’s possible that these people are the exceptions – but there seems rather too many of them out there for my liking...
I did a bit more digging on-line and further found that letters not sent by recorded delivery would tend to go missing in transit – the Royal Mail, is seems, loses a fair number of letters on the way and this is ‘no fault of Setanta’.
I then called my bank and spoke to a very nice lady who said that they (Setanta) do this all the time and they are overwhelmed with customers who call them wishing to block payments to Setanta Sports. I blocked them and I now await the hostile automatically-drafted-from-a-template and crafted-by-a-scumbag-lawyer, threatening letters and demands to land on my doormat. I suspect that they will move pretty fast once they start losing out on my cash.
If you have a subscription to Setanta sports I would recommend that you call up to cancel immediately (or try too) – for your own benefit, just to see what happens.
I sent them this letter, next day, recorded delivery/signed for, you may want to use it as a template (next day signed for costs £4.90 from the post office – although their computers will NOT recognise the address supplied by Setanta and you have to get them to set it up manually):
Dog Face,
00 Aroad,
Some Place,
Acounty
A1BLAH
Setanta Sports
Dept 8544
Sunderland
SR9 9SZ
RE: Cancellation of Service as of dd/mmm/yyyy
Ref: Account Number 000000
Dear Sirs,
I have not been able to receive the media that I have been paying for in good faith for over 2 months now. I have had problems with your service from day 1 but I was willing to persevere with your technical dept., at a cost to me, to resolve these issues.
Unfortunately matters have got worse and upon switching to Setanta Sports I am presented with the following message:
“You are not entitled to watch this channel”
Followed by the usual message:
“The Channel is Scrambled or Unavailable”
There is no way to resolve this issue other than calling your technical department and switching my set top box to Channel 5 for an hour. I consider this inability to provide the service I paid for a breech of our agreement and I regret to say that no longer have a tenable relationship. I have collected substantial video evidence and witness statements that this is the case. It may interest you to know that I am also in correspondence with the Trading Standards agency and BBC Watchdog with regards to your business practices pertaining to cancellation of services and changes of contract.
Please consider this correspondence a termination of our business relationship as of the date shown above. I have instructed my bank to return any payment requests forthwith.
If you do not agree or take issue with this correspondence then please consider this correspondence as a notice of termination of the subscription agreement and reply with confirmation and I will instruct my solicitors to act accordingly.
Dog Face
Anyhow – the upshot is that I’ll be without Setanta for the first leg away due to me being ‘not entitled to watch this channel’... bastards.
I propose that on the return leg we all sing the umbrella song as a salute to McClaren managerial prowess to make him feel at home while his team loses 7-0 on aggregate.
Now it's raining more than ever
Now you’re not England Manager
You can stand under your umbrella
You can stand under your umbrella
(Ella ella ella eh eh eh)
Narf narf!
I’m going to have to do a rewind now to a few posts I posted way back when... first of all – let’s talk about Adebayor. Did he go anywhere? No. Is his agent a scumbag? Yes. He got a pay rise – he deserved it and I guarantee that he’ll work his arse off for every penny... I may still sing:
Adebayor, Adebayor
Give him sixty grand a week more
And he’ll score one in four
Every now and then just to give him a verbal kick... but on the whole I do not agree with the consensus from the fans that they ‘wish he had gone’ – it’s stupid and self defeating... a bit like reading the Sun.
Second rewind: Man City!
And lo – it came to pass... as I said - they are getting fucked. All Gooners take note over this current season as to what this type of ‘investment’ can bring to a club. Let’s see... Thaksin Shinawatra swooped in as ‘Jesus’ to the Eastlands faithful – he then rapidly proceeded fuck them in a dvda-ass-slap styleé. Thaksin now has an arrest warrant out for him, he is on the run from the Thai authorities in England (last seen shoplifting in the Guildford branch of Aldi). Thailand and England have an extradition treaty, will they ask for him and what are the odds on him going back I wonder? All this bodes very badly for Man City as if he didn’t give a fuck about them before he certainly gives less than that now. Thaksin is also broke (well – he has more money down the back of his sofa that I will ever have in my life but as far as he’s concerned he’s potless) as the Thai authorities have frozen all his ‘legitimate’ cash pending investigation/trial/confiscation. You don’t have to do much in the way of mathematics to come to the conclusion that Man City will have no more money spent on them and Jo, I imagine, will be sold on in the January transfer window... 'Sleeping elephant' indeed - more like 'Judas cow'! Clattenburg getting suspended from the PGMO for 'financial irregularities' won't help matters either:Google it!
I'm very tempted to stick a tenner on the following:
a) Man City being relegated.
b) Mark Hughes bieng the first manager to go.
I imagine that the odds are tumbling as I type... lump on!
For all transfer activity - this is a good link: Transfer news (BBC)
