Then one week later I get a call from Satellite Direct. This time the call is from 0870 240 2473. Apparently, the warranty on my Sky has expired, and to avoid all kinds of awful callout charges, I should buy a new warranty from Satellite Direct. I know this not to be true.

As the story says here, Satellite Direct of Yapton,West Sussex, is the second largest warranty repair company of Sky Digital systems in the UK. A bit worrrying then, that they should be using such unethical techniques for selling unwanted warranty products.

I spoke to Data Partnership Solutions shortly after, and they admitted that DPS and Satellite Direct are sister companies, based in the same building in Yapton. The woman at DPS described her company as a "lifestyle survey company" and "working for some of the biggest companies in the UK". She was very keen to maintain the chinese wall between the two companies, but it's clear that in this case the DPS 'survey' is purely a tool for generating leads for Satellite Direct, upstairs.

They agreed to take my telephone number off their database, so I don't expect any more calls. This is a great example, I think, of how the new speech technologies make it much cheaper for companies to try the same old scams.

Satellite Direct a.k.a. Data Partnership
Unit 19
Orchard Business Park
North End Rd
Yapton
W. Sussex
BN18 OGA