Sky = Money Grabbers, crap customer care

[ikonia]

Last night, my Sky HD box stopped recording. On investigation it looks like the second LMB is broke. Signal 1 = fine, signal 2 = not locked no signal.

No problem, Phone sky - get an engineer out. Dead simple. I've had sky HD less than a month now so appriciate that failures can happen. (new kit/loose wire/etc).

After being put through a set of tedious tests (can you power of you box for 60 seconds etc) The support chap agreed it was time for an engineer.

I'm not at home 9/5 at the moment due to work commitments so could only make a weekend appointment, I wsa told no weekend appointments until 19th october, ok - then please don't bill me £10 for this months HD service as I can't record anything due to a fault with your kit/installation. I was told no can do. Ok then please fix my Sky service in under a month please - I was told can do if its during the week, which I explained I couldn't do, yet I was willing to do (take a day off work) if I had some form of compensation (not a full days pay - but a gesture, a month for free etc) no can do, its "you're choice when you book the engineer for". Rather than argue this at this moment in time I agreed to take an installation for this tuesday (I'll kick up a stink in a letter later). While the poor scottish chap that I ranted at was setting up the appointment, I went through the procedure online of booking a "new HD upgrade" and shock horror, installation engineers where free online for next weekend, and the weekend after than.

So to summerise.

Pay your £50 + £10 for the "preimuim service" get a problem
Take a day of work at your own expense to fix
Get no compensation
Wait a month while still paying for th £50 + £10 to get it fixed

While

Want to pay £50 + £10 + installation fee - we'll have an engineer round in under a week.

This has been the nail in the coffin for me, once this is fixed I'm going to look into dropping HD, and I'm seriously considering dropping sky at the moment, as they bend over backwards to get you in and spending money, but offer you a good solid middle finger if you want help / value, or even just the product you paid for in a timley fashion.

[RedPutty]

They also subcontract to cowboys who arrive in white vans and make a mess of your existing aerials, walls and anything else they touch.

I am very seriously considering cancelling sky.

[Skillian]

I cancelled Sky a year ago, and the only thing I remotely miss is the football, but even live games be replaced if you know the internet well.

The trouble is, Sky is really the only place you can get HD content at the moment - hopefully that will change sooner or later...

[ikonia]

sky came and went and now I'm fixed

The problem was, the engineer had drilled a small hole and tried to thread both cables through the small hole. This was done by using one cable to pull the other cable through. Thus ripping off all the shielding and breaking the cable. The engineer MUST have known he had done this as to rip the cabling off he must have had it really stuck and had to pull really hard. Plus the size of the hole is nowhere near big enough. So to summerise, because sky subcontracted to a cowboy who is paid by the job, he knowingly rushed and botched my house and did a runner, I then had to lose a days earnings, or wait a month for sky to be able to fix my paid for installation and paid for service.


When the sky engineer turned up to fix it, he was disgusted with the job, and fixed it professionally and with a smile on his face.


I've wrote a snotty letter to sky, but I don't expect a response.

[j.o.s.h.1408]

The trouble is, Sky is really the only place you can get HD content at the moment - hopefully that will change sooner or later...

is this possible on the net? pm me

[D'Ohnut]

I'm holding off getting HD until such times are there is stuff on there I want to watch, but when I got my sky+ installed it was a sky fitter that turned up and did a very neat and tidy job and was done very quickly. I got to choose which box I got, went for pace v2. He didnt have a good word to say about subbies, and says he spends a lot of time revisiting botched jobs they carry out. Can't be worth it for sky to have to go back 2 or 3 times, but then that is probably why they dont want to give credits for loss of service, as they have extra costs to recover for this very reason. Catch 22 I guess

D

[GeorgeTuk]

Yeah sub-contacting can be hard to get out of especially when it accounts for a large proportion of meeting demand for new installs.

Hopefully in about 6 months when demand dies down they will be able to look at their systems and trim off the contractors.

When my parents had it installed the Sky man came from South Wales as they had stopped a contractors contract! So they must do reviews sometimes!

[Durzel]

Just to dig this up again.

The frustrating thing about Sky I find as well is that I've heard if you ring up and threaten to cancel they'll dangle all kinds of promotions in front of you. Why can't they just make it cheaper for regular subscribers anyway?

I'm paying £52.50/month at the moment for all the channels, Sky+ and Multiroom and pretty soon I'm gonna be cancelling the lot when I move house. I'm going to take great delight in doing so...

[dangel]

I've had enough of Sky (have Sky+, paying 40quid a month) now - i've been with them for something like 8 years (I added up how much i've parted with and had a cry) but it's just too expensive for what you get. I had a go with a friends modified Topfield Freeview PVR (you can add loads of 'TAPS' - small utilities that extend the functionality of the box - www.toppy.co.uk) and was so impressed i'm going that route. This week the freeview aerial goes up and the Sky+ box goes in the bin, as does my direct debit. I'm really looking forward to cancelling it

Freeview offers me enough choice - and a cheap unlimited DVD rental package makes it just as good in my eyes at a fraction of the cost.

[tickedon]

For me, I've got the bog standard Sky Digital (with the full package, don't know what it is now as they seem to like raising the prices!), but, had a chappy come out to wire it through the rooms in the house (cost about £50 for a mornings work) - it's still the same channel, but, with the sky 'magic eyes' I can watch and control it from pretty much any room in the house.

If you phone up and say you're thinking of cancelling, wait for them to start falling over backwards offering you some better deals (and some don't even require a 12 month contract extension!).

If I could get NTL/Telewest I might simply for the cheaper and better cable broadband, but, Sky + ADSL does the job fine atm

[pollaxe]

Where I live we had some Sky fellas come and fit a multi-room. After they left the picture on both was not great and whenever there was wind or rain (both very light) the picture would disappear altogether. Another engineer was called and had to fix what the original installers had cocked-up (some type of stronger pole and a fiddle with the dish of some sort).

The threat of cancelling may well be worth remembering, thanks tickedon.. I'd sign-up for Sky if it wasn't so horribly overpriced. A subscription service with oodles of advertising is taking the *@#$ IMHO.

[Durzel]

Not to mention that every conceivable add-on is chargeable. Want HD? That'll be a HD box and seperate HD subscription please. Why? I can sortof understand the need for an HD box (but really its just a regular Sky+ box with better outputs). Sky intentionally cripple the hardware they sell so as to sell better versions later on for more money, not to mention the fact you pay through the nose for what is ostensibly a bigger hard drive in the same box (i.e. Sky+ vs Sky+ 160).

Sony used to sell a regular Digibox which had Dolby Surround 5.1, but Sky got pissy with them and pulled their licence - simply because DD5.1 was something they wanted to offer on their Sky+ box.

[ikonia]

funny, thats one of the reasons I had my origional Sony Sky box (apart from the fact that the 3 sky supplied me with failed) and Sky wouldn't transmit the signal with Dolby so the 5.1 port was usless.