Sky call centre worker Lorraine Hunter sacked after repeatedly hanging up on customers

A senior sales representative at Sky has been sacked after telling customers to wait “just a second” before hanging up.

Lorraine Hunter, who had a 30-year career in customer service, rudely and repeatedly ended calls when she got frustrated with callers.

Ms. Hunter, an experienced call center agent, attempted to attribute the disconnections to technical issues.

He later claimed unfair dismissal, but an employment tribunal ultimately ruled against him, saying “hanging up on a customer” was clearly listed in the company’s rulebook as potential gross misconduct.

Ms Hunter had worked as a customer triage specialist at Sky Subscriber Services Limited since 1995. Their responsibilities included assisting high-profile or high-value clients, resolving their problems and managing contractual arrangements.

An investigation was launched in November 2024 following an incident that led administrators to believe Ms Hunter may have been intercepting calls from customers. Agents’ phone calls were recorded and stored so they could be fully listened to during the investigation.

The records identified seven phone calls that appeared to have been prematurely disconnected by Ms. Hunter.

Interrupting a call requires a “two-step physical action” and is unlikely to be done by accident, the court said.

The first of these calls occurred on July 25, 2024, and lasted just 13 seconds before Ms. Hunter hung up, and although she could not be heard in the recording, background noise from the office could be heard.

He claimed that the reason he didn’t call back immediately was because he had dialed the wrong number, but he was able to successfully call back two hours later.

The second call was internal: Another agent transferred a high-priority customer to Ms. Hunter.

When the other agent told Ms. Hunter to “wait a bit,” she said “okay, thank you” before hanging up.

The third call was from a customer who explained that the signal from Sky was intermittent.

Ms Hunter claimed she couldn’t hear the customer but hung up just two seconds after saying “hello”.

On the fourth call, Ms Hunter noted technical issues before hanging up but did not call the customer back as required once these were resolved.

The fifth call was from an “angry” customer trying to cancel his contract with Sky.

Ms. Hunter asked him to “just bear with me for a second,” before muting him for a minute and then disconnecting the call altogether.

He claimed he didn’t and that the only reason he didn’t call back was because he didn’t have her number.

The customer called again to report that his phone had been turned off.

The sixth call identified was from September 2024, when Ms. Hunter called a customer to place her order.

He told them this was “new” to him and asked them to “give me a second.” He later called this customer back, but hung up only six minutes into the call.

He ended the seventh call three minutes before the end of his shift and sent a WhatsApp to colleagues, saying: “The call has been disconnected if he calls back, please apologize.”

Ms Hunter was subsequently invited to a management meeting on 28 May 2025 where these calls were forwarded to her.

He was fired on June 2, saying, “You violated our policies by disconnecting customers and not calling customers back, which represents a significant risk going forward.”

He objected, claiming that he did not hang up the phone and that there were technical problems, but he was reminded that the information about technical problems was stored in the call records and the decision was approved.

Ms Hunter then took her unfair dismissal claim to an employment tribunal in Edinburgh but Employment Judge Michelle Sutherland said it was entirely reasonable to dismiss her.

The judge concluded: “[Sky] he had a reasonable belief [Mr Hunter] deliberately and prematurely interrupted customer calls (i.e. hung up on customers).

“[Sky] has conducted a reasonable investigation and based this belief on reasonable grounds.

“[Sky] It is a very large employer with significant administrative resources and a dedicated HR function.

“Taking into account size and administrative resources [Sky] and in terms of the disciplinary process as a whole, there has been no unreasonable failure to comply with its disciplinary procedures or the ACAS Code of Practice.

“[Sky] You acted reasonably in all the circumstances in accepting this as sufficient reason for dismissal [Mr Hunter] although he served for a long time without notice.

“[Mr Hunter’s] “The dismissal was fair and the unfair dismissal complaint is accordingly dismissed.”