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I have been a customer of Sky for four years now and despite the fact that our bill mysteriously crept up 6 months ago, or the time they decided I had joined Sky talk plan (even though at the time I was serving in Afghanistan), everything had gone smoothly so far. Anyway, I decided I wanted Sky broadband and as the offer was so good with Sky, I decided I would stay with them.
Unfortunately at the time Sky didn't provide broadband in our town so we had to use an alternative provider. This will obviously be switched to Sky's cheaper service once it is available. Sky couldn't tell me when that will be or contact me when it happens. I just had to keep calling at regular intervals and checking my bill.
It's finally available, so I ordered broadband and received my welcome and line activation letters, but unfortunately no hardware. So I called Sky and they calmly say "oh, we haven't sent it yet." So I'm basically paying for broadband that I cannot use! Eventually though, the new hardware turned up and the installation went smoothly except for the anti-virus, which will not install, or the wireless which didn't work either.
So once again, I had to endure the torture that is Sky Customer Support. After speaking to numerous different people all clueless, I finally spoke to a lady who informed me that the "free anti-virus software" offered as part of the deal, is not compatible with windows Vista. No compensation offered. Can they help me with the wireless situation? No, because the staff are not Windows Vista trained and she then decided to read out the Windows XP help disk which I have right in front of me and have already read a thousand times anyway!
Obviously after having this much fun thus far, I thought I may as well spend more time and money and purchase Sky+ for my bedroom. So I ordered it, spoke to a very helpful man who insisted that as I was such a valued customer, a one off payment would suffice and the box would be mine. I was also to be spared the 10 a month multiroom as we had subscribed to the full package deal.
The engineer came round on time, fitted the box and asked for my card to test the system. I told him I hadn't received a new card, so he called in and was advised they thought it was an upgrade to Sky+, so they hadn't sent a card. Okay, so they apologised and a new card was on its way apparently.
I went to my bedroom after the engineer had fitted sky and I realised he had drilled through my windowsill to install the new cables - splendid I thought! Just a little disgruntled at that, I decided to watch Sky and discovered that the box no longer worked.
Back on the phone to Sky now and I found out that they had cancelled my original card and sent two new ones, not just the one for my Sky+ box. "Can they un-cancel that please?" Well of course they couldn't, so for the whole weekend, and most of the next week, I only had four channels to choose from! But that's OK, at least the refunded me 3 for the inconvenience - humph!
Finally, the system started functioning OK and all was good for a while. We had a new lodger move in and he decided he wanted a Sky+ box in his room. After a call to sky we were told he would have to pay a setup fee plus 10 a month for multi-room. I thought this was strange (after the previous installation), so I called back and explained to the customer services rep about the situation and this time they realised their "mistake" and finally offered the same deal.
The engineer comes round again and installs the box. He's a little "shocked" to hear that my windowsill was drilled through last time, the last guy was just "lazy" apparently. Unfortunately, he doesn't have a card to test the newly fitted Sky+ box and so called Sky. Yes, they thought it was an upgrade and the 165 has already come out of the customer account, but the Sky+ box is unusable. Fortunately this time they didn't feel the need to cancel all our other cards.
I went on holiday before this card arrived, the stress of dealing with Sky every day for the past month was too much for me! When I returned the card had already been activated by my lodger. This, somehow, had caused my Sky+ box to stop recording so I got on the phone again and was told that mysteriously, the viewing cards for the Sky+ box and the digibox we've had for 5 years had been swapped on their system, so my Sky+ box thinks its a digibox and vice-versa. No problem, just switch the cards over and everything will be fine.
So that brings us up to date. My digibox will now not play Sky Movies or Sky Sports. My Sky+ box, does not play anything I've recorded, including all the previously viewed programs saved onto the hard-drive. Sky tried to reset the channels and asked me to call back in a few hours. I left it 24 hours, but still no Sky Sports, Sky Movies and my Sky+ box still doesn't work. I called back again and was told his time they are aware of the problem, please call back in 24 hours. I'm grateful that they are aware, I'm 100% confident they will sort it out in no time at all. Really...?
By: Steve
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SKY are lying twats who have no care and have idiots who work in the business that don't care about the customer themselves.
If i was running this business, i would seriously kick half the twats out and look at more training and making sure that the individual who takes the call, deals from end to end.
RANT over
You have got to be mad to pay for Sky, you pay to watch loads of dross and then have to put up with endless adverts, only for the football fanatics, at least freeview is free.
Sky continued taking direct debits from her account which they were not entitled to. Sky insisted her account had not been cancelled. They said unless the outstanding account was settled they would take court action. My daughter unfortunately sent a cheque to Sky in order to avoid the unpleasant situation escalating further. We presumed that would be an end to the the matter.
Sky recently called to ask why my daughter had left Sky. My daughter was not home so I told them why in great detail. I pointed out that Sky owed my daughter money which they had taken from her account without authorisation. Sky agent said she could understand how I felt but could not do anything about it as she was unable to access details. I made it clear to her in no uncertain terms what I thought of Sky and that I intended to cancel my own Sky account when the contract expired.
Ironically, when I told her my daughter had cancelled Sky when she joined Virgin she wouldn't have both, she replied, sometimes people have both Sky and Virgin together.
I think I will reconsider and stay well away.
Cheers for the posts.
No mention of this was made when I rang up to say I didn't need the Sky TV part. I've just been on the phone to them and they said they would need to 'listen to my phone calls to check I hadn't agreed to it, I'm not calling you a liar but my manager will need to listen to the calls'. The cheek! Anyhow, I will fight them tooth and nail on it, going via both Offcom & BBc Watchdog, which is what I had to do aboutn3 years ago on behalf of my parents, who Sky decided it was Ok to charge £20 a month for a service they never ordered. If we all complain then it will hopefully make a difference. I will also be cancelling everything with them as I am thankfully still within the 14 day cooling off period. I would even rather pay more for a company I trust (are there any? BT once charged me the bill for a house I'd never lived in!). This isn't the first time I've had this kind of problem with Sky taking money which I have not authorise them to take, so I know it's not just a 'mistake'. Grrrrrrrrrr.
Samson (Delilah's too busy to post)
Can it be just a coincidence that this is always the case or are sky 'sending' minor problems to the box to encourage us to buy the insurance? I cannot believe that they would do that but I have to confess it does seem a bit strange.