Sky’s VIP concert prize failed wheelchair user

I am a Sky customer who won two tickets to attend a Guns N’ Roses concert at Wembley after entering a Sky VIP competition. I have multiple sclerosis and limited mobility, so immediately contacted Sky to let it know that I would need to swap the standard seats for accessible ones for myself and my partner.

The concert was the following week. I was told by Sky to book the tickets on Ticketmaster using the code it had emailed me, then send Sky the booking reference and it would deal with the accessible seating. It didn’t.

Having chased Sky constantly, at 4.26pm the day before the concert it emailed to tell me that it had received confirmation from the event organiser that it had moved our seats to the wheelchair platform. Sky said: “They’re currently in the process of sending out your new e-tickets to your email address, and you should have these by the end of today.”

The end of the day arrived but the tickets didn’t.

Late the next morning – the day of the concert – I heard from Wembley by email. It told me I needed to call the stadium’s customer engagement manager to arrange to swap the tickets. I finally got hold of him at 1.30pm. He told me to arrive at the venue then call him so that he could find us a wheelchair platform.

I live in Watford and was not prepared to risk getting to the venue by train and underground, using my mobility scooter, then not being able to contact the manager and ending up stuck outside.

The fact that Sky was unprepared for a winner of one of its competitions to be disabled is extraordinary. I am disgusted and hurt by how Sky has dealt with me.

You wanted Sky to change its processes, so if another disabled person won tickets they would not be treated in the same way.

I asked Sky what changes it was planning to ensure that future winners who happen to be disabled were not left in the lurch. It told me that Sky VIP ran the promotion with event organiser Live Nation, which managed all tickets, including allocations and fulfilment. Accessible seating was not included in the initial allocation to Sky and had to be requested once winners were confirmed, “as outlined in our competition T&Cs”. Fair enough, but you and I both feel Sky should have taken responsibility for organising the accessible seats once it knew you needed them. Sky says it is reviewing its processes to ensure this situation doesn’t happen again and has flagged the problems you faced to Live Nation, who are working with Wembley to investigate further.

Sky has apologised to you and given you a £200 Amazon voucher to acknowledge the inconvenience caused.

I bought a blouse for £35 from what I believed to be a Dutch-based website, Hannah Martin.

When the blouse arrived it didn’t fit and had a strange collar, so I contacted the company about returning it for a refund. I then discovered the business – or its warehouse – is based in China.

The company tried to persuade me to keep the blouse in return for a discount off my next purchase. I emailed back to refuse this offer and have heard nothing since.

You have learned the hard way to check out websites before you buy. Hannah Martin has a score of 1.3 out of 5 on Trustpilot. Many sites with western-sounding names and addresses are based in China, and trying to persuade you to keep substandard goods in return for a future discount is typical, usually followed by a very small,partial refund offer.

I contacted your bank, Barclays, to ask it to carry out a chargeback on your purchase. Your bank contacts the retailer’s bank to claim your money back, and your bank refunds the money to your account. The process doesn’t always work – if the retailer challenges your claim within a certain time, your bank takes the money out of your account again and the chargeback fails.

It is useful for consumers who have used their debit rather than credit card, or where the purchase costs less than £100, meaning they do not qualify for protection under section 75 of the Consumer Credit Act. You were lucky: Hannah Martin didn’t challenge your chargeback claim and you kept your £35.

Email your problems to Jill Insley at your.problems@observer.co.uk