Sky problems driving me mad

I signed up to sky broadband last year on the understanding that it was £5 a month for up to 8mb. However since Sept 2007 I have been charged £17! per month for sky broadband.

I have phoned the sky broadband customer services for the past six months trying to sort out this problem, and every time I speak to one of the "customer service team" they say "oh I see that there's a systems error and that's why your been over charged, I'll send out an email and it should be resolved in 72 hours.

That's what I have been told since last year Sept! they refuse to refund the money to me until they have sorted out the problem, so I'm going to write to the BBC programme Watchdog to see if they can help.

Update:
My Sky box is working much better now with only the occaisional meltdown. What I've noticed is that Sky have "done something to it" via the telephone cable which now makes my box turn itself onto standby every night. Since this has been happening I have had a lot less issues with the box which is pleasing to say the least.

My rage with sky has now been downgraded to DEFCON 1 (just about still staying as a customer!!). However I have been contacted by Virgin offering me all kinds of incentives to link up with them.....I shall have a good look and see what's behind the marketing!

Just been reading the gripe about the customer who's sky box went wrong 2 weeks after their warranty ran out. The same thing happened to me. I was called 2 weeks after the warranty expired and low and behold my sky plus box failed to record. When I contacted customer services they talked me through different processes to try to solve the problem but with no luck. The adviser then said they could send an engineer round at a cost of £65. Do they have a magic button they can press to frazzle your box or is it just sheer bad luck?

we look up to the sky and pray.no need any more phone then up.you will have loads of time to pray when you are on hold or stuck in the press 999 for someone that cares.im not mad just had poor signal for 6 months now got no signal at all for christmas thanks sky. after over 15 years .cable are on there way too bad that sky just do not care

Oh, and I almost forgot. My Sky + box does not let you record or watch another channel while recording one channel. Which I thought was the basic premise of having Sky +. No, I can only record something if I keep the same channel. The engineer who installed the box said this was due to a fault in the input/output in our wall, but neglected to explain how we could remedy this. Does anyone know how I could fix this or is he talking a load of rubbish? If so I am well used to it.

But wait, there's more..
On checking my bank statements I discovered that I had been charged £45 a month by Sky when in fact I had ordered the £36 a month package. It was in black and white on my confirmation of instalment. This was really a joke. Again, back and forward I was passed from local firm to Sky, both denying responsibility and even inferring that I had made a mistake. It took me another three days of being on hold, cut off, passed to other departments, to get this sorted out. Eventually an adviser told me (when he finally somehow believed I was on the wrong package) he could do nothing about a refund but I would have to write a letter to Sky. I don't think so, I said. Next, after consulting with his manager who I had requested to speak to at the start of the call, but would not come to the phone, I was told that I would be refunded for one month's extra charge ( I had already had my package downgraded the day before). Hold on, I said, I have had Sky for three months so have made more than one payment. Oh, yes, says he eventually, so you have. I will refund the full amound for the extra charges. Great. But worse is to come, the refund will take two weeks and will only be refunded as a credit on my account, not to my banck account. I say this is not good enough as they took money I should not have been paying, so I wanted it immediately in my bank account. Off he goes to speak to his manager again. Finally I lose my patience and enquire as to why, after I have asked three times, he has not put his manager on the phone. After some more incompetence his manager comes to the phone and magically he is able to fully refund my bank account and it will be through within 48 hours. So why make up all those obvious lies to begin with?
Now, only two weeks later my Sky+ box is stuck on standby again.

I have only had Sky installed for three months and even before it was set up it was a nightmare. More recently my problems have been that the Sky+ box was stuck on standby and despite going through all the processes the technical help staff talk you through, nothing was happening. Fine, so they organised for an engineer to come and take a look at it, all I had to do was wait for the call within three days. Great. Only four days passed and there was no call. On contacting Sky I was told eventually, after being kept on hold for a ridiculous amount of time, and cut off at least four times, that there was an appointment booked but that it had been cancelled. Now, eventally someone told me that as I had my box installed by a local company, as Sky did not deal with shared dishes in blocks of flats, then I would have to call that firm to deal with my technical fault. Now, I had been on the phone to Sky at least five time in the week that my box had been out and no one had bothered to tell me this. In fact, one rather condescending woman asked if I had bought my Sky from an ad spotted in a "wee supermarket or shop".
No, I had in fact contacted Sky to get Sky, as you would, and had been referred to this local company by Sky to have the box installed, but at no time had I been advised that I would be dealing with them for all problems.
Having contacted the local firm they could not send out an engineer for another week, and I had been out for a week already so this was rather frustrating.
I had previously asked Sky about a refund for the lost viewing time, which they assured me I would receive, but of course I would have to contact the company which installed my box.
I did this and was told they did not deal with refunds, I would have to call Sky.
Then ensued another week of being kept on hold, cut off, until eventually someone agreed to give me my money back.

Just on the phone to Sky about coming back to them, and was asking the woman questions about finding out about Sky+ and that, she sounded very bored, and when I was in the middle of asking about offering me discounts to come back the cheeky woman cut me off.
Am definitely NOT going back to Sky now, their customer service is a joke, she was more interested in something that was going on in their call centre, there was cheering and clapping, they must have signed up one extra customer to their terrible service!
Am going to contact my local satellite man, who can point the dish to a different satellite, and I would not have to pay any subscriptions. Sky- what a damn joke!!

Fair comment from Chris!

The thing is the problem is intermittent, not permenant so two years is not two years of permenant issue, just the period of time since the problem first appeared. I have resigned myself to completely re-booting my Sky+ box every couple of weeks now as this seems to work although loses whatever is recoreded at the time.

It's amazing how shewed the Sky marketing team are - just after my last periodical rant at them followed by thier inevitable refusal to sort the issue, I started recieving mailers offring me......yes you've guessed it.....an offer to upgrade to a lovely new Sky HD box! Not a flippin' chance chaps! Ok Chris thinks we are suckers and Sky clearly enjoy the sport of pi88ing off thier customers and then trying to resolve it by selling you more dodgy stuff - but hey I'm not that stupid boys!

Craig?! Hey a person from Sky who cares enough to respond on a web forum. Craig you are an admirable credit to yourself chap but let me make a few assumptions:
1) You are either very new to Sky or you have just been promoted?
2) You boss doesn't know you are writting responses on this forum?
3) You believe in dlivering good service to customers and still have a copy of the Sky service mission statement on your desk?

Sorry for my cynicism, and congratuations on making an effort, if there was a few more like you at Sky we would all be happier. I will ask for you in future.............ooops!

Sure you can make a complaint trouble is, whether it's Broadband or Sky HD it doesn't matter, it doesn't get put right. No disrespect Craig, it's not you that needs to sort it out, it's Murdoch! They just take your money and they expect to give something between rubbish and the bare minimum for it. If you don't like it tough!
Anyway Craig why are you responding for Sky in your spare time, are you one of their Stormtroopers sent out in the middle of the night to make sure the paying public "toe the line" according to Sky?

In regards to Chris, 24h july, as a sky manager, why you were told you cannot make complaints I don't know, this is not the case, and it may not be the fact that your phone line isn't connected it could be a dially prefix problem, either way this can be resoved, when you call back, if you get through to glasgow, ask to speak to Craig (manager) and we'll get this sorted out for you!

Excellent! They promise the earth or even just a "good deal. " They actually supply a load of cr@p and you lot moan about it for yonks, in one case below, for 2 years, TWO YEARS!!!!!!!!!
I mean are you stupid why are you still paying for this with your hard-earned money when it doesn't work, I mean how many more years do you need? The only thing that will make SKY go AWAY is.......STOP paying them, cancel your direct debit, Don't answer their letters. In life you often get what you deserve in Sky's case you certainly do. Their broadcasting is useless, their service is 10 times worse than your bank and yet you keep paying....mugs, born mugs!