Playstation taken by Sky Installers

Sky do still use subcontracts. AVC are one of the national contractors for sky, along with CustomAV and Firstline digital, all of whom subcontract quite happily to those willing to jump the most hoops for the least fee.

Engineer issues - complain to the company that installed it on Sky's behalf, they're in your local area, not in some conglomerate headquarters planning an invasive attack !!

i work for sky as an engineer I have never heard of any one who as stole from peoples houses
if they did you should have rang the police. so you know this did not happend .you might have a bad time with sky with some sort so you thought you would lie and put this on ..sky does not use sub conntacters any more they use one company called avc sky does have there bad days but we are one of the biggest companys in the world we do am to pm slots we ring the night be for. befor to turning up so stop putting crap on here it. you have put so much stuff on here not just about some one nicking from you house but loads of crap so get a life .funny thing is I bet you have sky if hate us that much why have it

Being a Sky installer, (now independently), who had previously worked on subcontract, I can say that Sky are the biggest bunch of wa**ers I've ever had the misfortune of working with.

The 30mins to an hour they quoted you is for what we call a 'down and in', this mean the dish is affixed to a point on the wall, the cable comes straight down the wall in a line from the dish, and then goes through the wall. The amount of installs that are actually this easy is small.

The fee your subbies would have gotten would be around the £20 mark for a single box install, the fee I get as an independent is £100. Vast difference. This is why the people left in the subcontracty industry are thieves and chancers, and the few good installers that happen to wander in to this side of the industry quickly leave or go indepoendent.

The fault lies almost squarely with Sky who pay rates so dismally low that the only people available are the type of people that steal things from people houses to supplement sky's paltry subcontract fees.

Basically Sky are no better than the people who stole your playstation, but then you knew that already. Send this to one of the national (non-murdoch) papers, the more bad press they recive, the more likely they are to shake up the industry.

They will fit a cable as they are contracted to do for the telephone, but they charge for it even though it is supposed to be free. It took ages to sort out, but I have banned that set of contractors from fitting my HD upgrade.

Andy.

Thanks for your advice - I will discuss with the engineer when he visits.

Much obliged.

Hi Congo,
Unfortunately Multi-room customers need to have a line connected to every box. Only one master socket is needed but obviously is is easier if there are more than one. The engineer may be able to run telco cable externely rather than run through the inside of the house and use the same entry holes as the main cable. Hope this helps.

Andy

Do Sky engineers connect a box to the telephone line even if it is in another part of the house? I am thinking of having 'multiroom' - 3 boxes will have be connected to the telephone - will the engineer run telephone cables throughout the house or will he expect a telephone socket to be already available near each box?
Thanks

A message to the guy with the height issue below. 3 points...
Point 1. If an engineer feels that they are putting themselves at risk or they are not confident that they can carry out an installation safely, they are not obligated to do so. Special heights jobs are attended usually by 2 engineers - especially if roof ladders are used. Roof ladders can be very difficult to use on your own if you are carrying them up more than one section of a ladder and it can be very dangerous.
Point 2. It is not permitted for customers to hold or foot the ladder. If an engineer drops a hammer on the customer he personally can be sued and he will certainly loose his job.
Point 3. I can guarantee that the engineer did ‘not have the afternoon off’ as you presume. He probably had at least 4 or 5 more installs to do that afternoon.

RE: Playstation taken by Sky Installers...

I really sympathise with you Barney that an engineer has taken your property. Although not a consolation to you - this is rare. I am a Sky engineer and I, and all my colleagues would never do this. When we are in peoples homes customers should expect complete trust in us and that is what I provide.
To be honest, Sky controllers have no idea how long an installation can take. They say a basic, new customers installation will take an hour - this is nonsense. Yes, if it is a simple ‘dish/drop and in’ with a close telephone location it can be possible, but every job is different and some can be extremely time consuming. It just depends. You also mentioned that you were given an AM slot and the engineers turned-up at 3.00pm. Again Barney, this all depends on the previous jobs the engineers have undertaken and the distances between them. In my opinion, Sky should leave it to the engineer to discuss times with customers as engineers can work out realistic routes the night before that would be advantageous to both us and the customer. For controllers to give customers the choice of AM or PM slots before we get our routes only makes things difficult, sometimes impossible to meet time slots. I am sure that if the engineers in your case could have been there on time they would, however, this makes no excuse for the theft of your Playstation.
I hope things work out for you - keep pushing for a result.
Andy.

Excuse me for asking the obvious question, but why didn't you call the police, when you realised somebody had stolen your playstation and you knew exactly who it was that took it?

Did you call the police? After all it's theft and Sky contract out the installations so offer no liability