I hate Sky!

ME14addick

I've been trying to contact Sky since about 4.30 - three times I've managed to get through after about 15 minutes and each time they have lost me when trying to connect me to a manager. I've now had enough and think I'll cancel the Sky contract as they obviously don't value my custom.

Macronate

ME14addick

A chimp could do better than Sky's call handlers I'm sure!

JT

Good luck with cancelling

Danny Addick

JT said:

Good luck with cancelling

Indeed

Cafc7

Ask them to show more than one Charlton game a season while you're at it.

Chris_from_Sidcup

Cafc7 said:

Ask them to show more than one Charlton game a season while you're at it.

With the football we usually serve up on live tv i'm glad it's only one.

Norfolk_Addick

What are you calling them about in the first place?

ME14addick

Norfolk_Addick said:

What are you calling them about in the first place?

For some time we've had problems with the picture locking up, particularly on the Sky Sports channels. A few weeks ago I went through the Sky Plus box planner rebuild with Sky and it improved slightly. Just lately though it has been getting much worse and is sometimes impossible to watch as it locks up so much. My husband thinks it is the satellite dish which is on the side of the bungalow as the middle bit seems loose.

Tonight when I eventually got through to the first customer service rep he decided that we need a new Sky Plus box. I said that I wouldn't pay for a new box as we couldn't get Sky TV without it, so they should foot the bill. I consider I pay enough already so the box should be free. The man said he'd put me through to his line manger. I waited ages and eventually decided that I wasn't going to be put through. I phoned on two further occasions this evening and both times I was left holding whilst they tried to connect me to a manager and was then cut off. I said to the last man I spoke to 'please don't cut me off' and he did just that.

I've sent an email but that takes 72 hours to get a response and also tried the useless Sky Chat with someone who said they couldn't get anyone to phone me as they didn't have a phone line.

I don't see why I should have to pay for a new box and satellite dish when I can't get Sky TV without them.

nth_london_addick

you wont they will do it for free and give you a half price bill for 6 months if you kick off enough

last week I phoned them to say I was having difficulties with on demand

the stupid idiot said it was because there was a fault on my phone line as he was getting the engaged tone, I said that's because I am talking to you on it, the line went very quiet and then went dead

MrOneLung

With sky I think the box is yours so any problems you have to pay for it. With Virgin the box is theirs and they fix and replace it.

JT

Ive found making social media complaints and putting it out there in the open get dealt with a whole lot quicker than calls and emails to these companies. Virgin in particular.

Nicholas

Speak to the cancellation line they will soon fix it for free. Like nla said they may offer you money off for a while too as well as asking if you want any add ons to try and bump up your bill in the future.

T_C_E

Working sky hd box, free to good home although a donation to the Upbeats would be appreciated.

MuttleyCAFC

It is a bit of a sky scam, you owning your sky box. I mean, what use is a sky box if you are not watching sky on it? The virgin box rental is much fairer!

T_C_E

Sky boxes still pick up Freesat without the sky connection

MuttleyCAFC

Yes, so do free sat boxes.

Cardinal Sin

MrOneLung said:

With sky I think the box is yours so any problems you have to pay for it. With Virgin the box is theirs and they fix and replace it.

Never fall that one. Yes it's your box and they want you to pay for repairs or replacements but all you had to do is say that you would rather stop your subscription. They then say "oh, I can see from our records that you are a loyal Customer…." and you get sent the latest box free of charge. These boxes cost them about £40, so they recover the cost very quickly.

Blinkant

Just go through to cancellations, tell em your reasons for cancelli g. They will prob offer a new box on the spot. If not, with in the month they will ring back with some kind off offer to keep your custom

Here is a local number which also gets through to their call centre 020 7126 7020

MuttleyCAFC

Both Virgin and Sky have loyal customer rates they can offer to - er - disloyal customers who they believe will leave otherwise. I am a 'loyal' Virgin customer on a good deal paying a lot less for more than I used to get.

To get it, I threatened to go to Sky. In the end the sales person said he would have to talk to his superviser. I said fine, but that he should tell his superviser that if I didn't get the deal I wanted- the thing I would do as soon as I put the phone down would be to ring sky. I had previously got a quote from sky which I quoted to them. Whether you are with Sky or Virgin, get a quote for the same or more from the rival company - the way they work - they are going to offer you a great deal and you can use that! The sky/virgin salesman will insist on coming round - let him do that - but don't sign up to anything -say you need to think about it/discuss with your partner etc... The sky chap told me some things I knew were lies too, but that didn't bother me, just made me less willing to go to them. If Virgin had called my bluff, I would have simply rung them again and siad I had decided to take the best deal we had agreed on - this is why you can push for better! bank what they offer and then try to get more!

They agreed but it does anger me this goes on. In moral terms it makes them no better than crooks, squeezing as much out of customers as they can. And you have to be a right difficult sod to get a fair price! Everybody should be paying the same fair price and there shouldn't be 'loyal' customers like me paying less than ....... - what is the name for the customers who do not threaten to leave if I can't use loyal?

ME14addick

Thanks for your suggestions everyone!

cafcfan

MuttleyCAFC said:

Yes, so do free sat boxes.

And you can record on them without paying Sky money (£10 per month, I think).
My signal quality has gone with lots of blocking/pixelating. I guess the high winds have knocked the dish or LNB out of sync.

ME14 - if "the middle bit" - the LNB - which is the crucial bit that collects, focusses, and converts the microwave signal is indeed loose or out of alignment, it is very likely that you would get problems when the wind moves it about. Is it just the Sky Sports channels or is there a difference in quality between the horizontally and vertically polarised channels? (You should see a little "h" or "v" in the channels frequency details somewhere in the set up menu.)

eaststandmike

If you want to cancel just call them and tell them you are going to cancel the direct debit, I did this and it was sorted in 5 mins. They did not even bother to collect the HD box so I sold it on Ebay.

ME14addick

cafcfan said:

MuttleyCAFC said:

Yes, so do free sat boxes.

And you can record on them without paying Sky money (£10 per month, I think).
My signal quality has gone with lots of blocking/pixelating. I guess the high winds have knocked the dish or LNB out of sync.

ME14 - if "the middle bit" - the LNB - which is the crucial bit that collects, focusses, and converts the microwave signal is indeed loose or out of alignment, it is very likely that you would get problems when the wind moves it about. Is it just the Sky Sports channels or is there a difference in quality between the horizontally and vertically polarised channels? (You should see a little "h" or "v" in the channels frequency details somewhere in the set up menu.)

It seems mainly to be the Sky Sports channels though sometimes other channels are affected as well. Not sure about the 'h' and 'v' bit - will have a look when I get home from work.

EGAddick

cafcfan said:

MuttleyCAFC said:

Yes, so do free sat boxes.

And you can record on them without paying Sky money (£10 per month, I think).
My signal quality has gone with lots of blocking/pixelating. I guess the high winds have knocked the dish or LNB out of sync.

)

Yep this was always a particular favourite when I pointed this out to Sky. Apparently it's my box so if anything goes wrong with it it's down to me but if I want to record something onto my box I have to pay Sky. Confused? The final nail was that I would then have to pay an extra £20 per box as a one-off payment to watch freeview. Nothing free about Sky.

The threatening to quit and go to Virgin line doesn't always work, particularly if they know you can't get fibre optics in your area.

DickVanDykesDiscoDog

JT said:

Ive found making social media complaints and putting it out there in the open get dealt with a whole lot quicker than calls and emails to these companies. Virgin in particular.

nobody likes negative publicity

ME14addick

I did go on Sky's facebook page but it hasn't done any good yet!

Jayajosh

MuttleyCAFC said:

Both Virgin and Sky have loyal customer rates they can offer to - er - disloyal customers who they believe will leave otherwise. I am a 'loyal' Virgin customer on a good deal paying a lot less for more than I used to get.

To get it, I threatened to go to Sky. In the end the sales person said he would have to talk to his superviser. I said fine, but that he should tell his superviser that if I didn't get the deal I wanted- the thing I would do as soon as I put the phone down would be to ring sky. I had previously got a quote from sky which I quoted to them. Whether you are with Sky or Virgin, get a quote for the same or more from the rival company - the way they work - they are going to offer you a great deal and you can use that! The sky/virgin salesman will insist on coming round - let him do that - but don't sign up to anything -say you need to think about it/discuss with your partner etc... The sky chap told me some things I knew were lies too, but that didn't bother me, just made me less willing to go to them. If Virgin had called my bluff, I would have simply rung them again and siad I had decided to take the best deal we had agreed on - this is why you can push for better! bank what they offer and then try to get more!

They agreed but it does anger me this goes on. In moral terms it makes them no better than crooks, squeezing as much out of customers as they can. And you have to be a right difficult sod to get a fair price! Everybody should be paying the same fair price and there shouldn't be 'loyal' customers like me paying less than ....... - what is the name for the customers who do not threaten to leave if I can't use loyal?

I am paying over £80 per month to Virgin for XL everything. I get 60MB bb but don't want to take the risk of losing Virgin as the fibre optic bb appeals more than phone line bb. I am thinking that as the Virgin bills are in my name I might cancel on the basis that I am moving home. I might then get my wife to sign up on the exceptionally low cost but same deal for 'brand new customers only', my wife using her maiden name instead of married name. Anybody see a problem with this?

DickVanDykesDiscoDog

you could tweet, then keep retweeting your message I guess .. adding lots of highly libellous hashtags

ME14addick

All now sorted out!

I spoke to a 'manager' this morning who said he'd send an engineer but it would cost me £65. He offered a new Sky Plus box but wanted to sell me a warranty or insurance policy and I told him I was not going to pay anything. He told me that there was nothing else he could do, so I said that that I would cancel the package (we also have broadband and phone with Sky) and he put me through to the cancellations department.

I would have gone through with the cancellation if I hadn't got what I wanted, as money is tight and we could manage with Freeview and save some money.

Anyway the result is that an engineer is calling on Monday to fix the satellite dish free of charge and we're getting a brand new Sky Plus HD box and won't have to pay for that either. We haven't got an HD television but apparently will be able to get the 'on demand' service.

I got a reply to my original email today which is rather late and have also received comments from Sky after my Facebook rant on Monday evening. All a little too late!

MuttleyCAFC

Well done - the bottom line is that they get more money from you as a customer than as an ex customer and they know it. If they genuinely believe they will lose you - they can offer quite a lot. They publicise what they can do for new customers which can give you some idea! Everybody who has been paying their Sky or Virgin bills for a long time and have seen the price creep up should give it a go.

The thing that always gets me is - they would quite happily take £65 of you for something they are willing to do for nothing!