• Aucklander Michael Cheetham was billed an extra $476.98 by Sky TV due to a processing error.
• Sky TV said up to 400 customers were affected, but transactions were cancelled and no funds taken.
• Cheetham expressed concern for families unable to afford such overcharges, despite being refunded by Monday.

A Sky TV customer says he was billed hundreds of dollars more than he was supposed to be, and told up to 400 other account holders were in the same boat.

Aucklander Michael Cheetham knew his automatic debit was due to be taken out of his account on Thursday. He was expecting $240.99 to go as this covers his Sky and broadband.

But when he checked it on Thursday, Sky had debited the $240.99 plus another $240.99 and $235.99 – an extra $476.98 from his bank account.

SKY TV overcharged Michael Cheetham by $476.98. Image supplied.

“I called Sky to query the $476 overpayment and the person I spoke to said it hadn’t shown up on their end at that stage,” Cheetham said.

“I called back on Friday and was told by a call taker they [were] trying to fix the overpayment and I might be repaid by Monday and about 400 accounts had been affected.”

The father-of-two who lives on Auckland’s North Shore said fortunately, he had no other debits due and could wait until Monday for the account to be rectified.

“In this economy, who has an extra $480 sitting around? We have bills to pay but fortunately we are okay, especially if the money is returned by Monday,” Cheetham said.

“But there are plenty of families who can’t afford for their debit accounts to go into overdraft.

“Work out 400 people with an average of $100 taken from their accounts – that’s a lot of money Sky has in their accounts over a weekend.”

Sky TV said the issue was picked up late Friday.

“Due to a processing error, on Friday a batch of customer credit card payments were implemented in error.

“The team realised the error quickly [within a couple of hours on Friday] and the transactions were cancelled, so we haven’t taken any funds.

“For bank processing reasons they will still appear as ‘pending’ on the credit card statement but all have been cancelled (and no funds taken) and will be cleared when the customer looks at their statement tomorrow.”

Cheetham said though he is generally happy with Sky’s service and the costs, he admits he has had run-ins with Sky TV.

“When we moved to the North Shore, we were supposed to have our Sky and Broadband ready on the Thursday and when I contacted them, they had forgot to book it in – so we got it on the Monday,” he said.

“This also happened the second time we moved but I’ve learned to suck it up.”

Sky TV broadcasting headquarters.