Kev

Sorry ... I know it aint scoob related but...

Has anyone had any grief with Sky Digital ?? I'm having loads of grief Been without for 4 weeks now and I've still another 18 days to wait . I'm at my whits end with them, they just don't seem to care at all, 1st 2 weeks was a wait for a bloke to test the dish (no sat signal) it was the box ... they are not allowed to carry spares !! I had to wait 2 weeks for the box to be replaced and that's now gone faulty after only 6 hours and I've got to wait another 18 days .. AAAAAAhhhhhhhhhh.

Have any of you guys had this much trouble and does anyone know how I stand ??

Thanks all
K

[This message has been edited by Kev (edited 14-05-2000).]

Tim Bomford

Had all sorts of trouble initially with the install. Came, put it up, was no good, went to the back of the queue. Came again, same again. No...they do not appear to care about this sort of thing. They have made a fortune now so one person doesn't matter. Trouble is loads of people have had trouble once switched over to Sky Digital. I sometimes wish I stayed with analogue. On Digital doesn't have enough to offer yet, so got to stick with SKY

Tim

boomer

Kev,

i hope that you are not still paying subscription charges at the moment!

My old Sky Analogue receiver blew a power supply a couple of years ago. Two months went by without me getting round to fixing it, then i called Sky to cancel my subscription. After a chat, they simply "paused" the subscription (and probably disabled the card over the air n'all, just in case!). A few weeks later, when i got around to it and fixed the box, the re-enabled my subscription - and as a bonus, gave me 30 days "trial" of the movies (i was previously on a basic package).

Call Sky and at the very least, get a credit for the last 2 months, and offer them the opportunity to give you further compensation if they feel that you were hard done by! In the past, i have always reached "amicable" solutions to the problems that i had with them.

mb (no longer a Sky subscriber!)

Jake

When it does work properly there is nothing worth watching apart from live coverage of Arsenal away games

chelsie

Hi
yes i'm another one haveing problems well did, first i was haveing pictour still, when the pictour froze, i complained and a guy came out tested it all and said it's all ok but your box wants changing but we are not aloud to carry them, another guy has to come out and see what i have just said is right then he will give you a new box. so that was all done in amonth from start to finish.
Now the new box still froze but no where near as often but sky says it will from time to times because they send signals to it....
anyway getting trough on the phone to them is real pain, they wont answer the phone in the end i emailed them, try that.....
chel

Kev

I can tell you I'm soooooo angry, I know what's gonna happen on 18 days time, he's gonna get here say it's the box and ..... oh look I don't carry any . Martin they told me yesterday they can't refund or suspend etc till it's been repaired !!!

mr angry from Atherstone

boomer

Kev,

thats ridiculous!

Cancel your standing order immediately, and write to them (by recorded delivery) explaining the whole situation and what you want doing about it (and informing them that you have suspended payments until they work things out.) If they give any crap about minimum connection periods or whatever, remind them that it is _they_ that have failed to honour Ts&Cs! Oh, and don't forget to unplug the box to phone connection as well, to stop them coming in the back door.

One of the "clever" features about Sky is that they can enable or disable any "box" individually, so they can't simply assume that you are lying - they have full control.

This stinks - i had problems with them in the past, but mainly due to incompetence - not an outright failure to put the customer first.

Sadly if JD Powers did a survey on digital satellite broadcasters in the UK, Sky would probably come first (but they would also be last!).

mb

adem

No problems with my sky dish only when it is stormy forget watching telly the whole system crashes, other wise it's as good as rain excuse the pun.

Good luck Skyscoobettes out there....


Adem

PaulL

Try this for size:

Got Sky Digital in Feb last year.
Had continual problems with sound/picture drop out, causing us to have an engineer out about once a month - and they could never do anything about it as it was always "a software problem... sky are currently upgrading so you'll have to put up with it for a few days".

Finally in August the picture went off altogether. Engineer gives us the same spiel. Not happy I get another engineer out who confirms the Amstrad box is dead. It'll take 2 weeks to get another one.

2 weeks later and another day off work, my Mr Engineer fails to show. A phone call to Sky indicates there are no boxes available and the engineer should have called to cancel - (ha ha)!

3 months later - Yes, Thats 3 months (after helping BBC Watchdog out with their article on the subject), suddenly Sky want to help us (Thanks BBC). We finally get a new Grundig box... and hey, still no picture!!!

Turns out it was the LNB all along and we could have had one of those ages ago!

Anyway, new LNB and new Grundig box, and still getting glitches in sound and picture.

Suddenly, Sky phone up (thanks BBC again!) to check we're now happy - we aren't!

Hey presto, in December, another new box - a state-of-the-art 3rd generation Panasonic box, complete with another new dish and all the cabling replaced.

Anyway, we're now happy, we had a full refund for the time without the system, plus 3 months extra creditted to us. But that's beside the point, for the same cost I could have had no Sky Digital and hassle with incompetent engineers either!

Sky Digital Sucks - wish they'd stuck to their analogue service.

Paul L

BarryK

In their defence (sorry) ours works fine, although it does seem to go onto Cartoon Network of its own accord a lot.

Kev, if you want any Arsenal away games video taping, we could probably switch the TV off and go out while the VCR is running.

Kev

Thanks for all the sympathy....

I'm this close (______) and that's close !! to calling the Watchdog programme I'm that ......

Just can't understand why they won't let me speak to a supervisor or similar ( you would think they would love to put you through just to get rid ?)I will have to pin 'em down for compo ..... all I want is eurosport .... Thanks for the Chelsea thing, not too sure how that got in but not a footie lover ...... confused ? you should be !

K

[This message has been edited by Kev (edited 15-05-2000).]

Stuart Knight

iTrader: (2)

I know it doesn't help much but On-Digital have eurosport and it works fine......

The Zohan

For what it's worth i think you are right, they do not seem to care. Thety have a pretty captive audience. The istaleers are generallly self employed frelancers who get a sh*t time from sky themselves. I had the 'magic eye' relay to a set in the bedroom so's i could change channels from the comfort of my own bed - it still does not work - it was installed Dec '98 !!!.
The signal does drop out. Apparently they are trying to send too much onfo (channels) down a to narrow band this will get worse as they add channels. The will broarden the bandwidht at some stage i am relaibly informed.

PH

Ian Sutton

Whilst we are on the subject do we must know someone who knows a friend who can get one of those cards that sort of gets u all the channels even the rude ones at some silly price???

A nice try i know but these thing are around somewhere aren't they??

...Ian (probally about to arrested)

Paul Wilson

Kev why not use the "email this page to a friend" button at the top of the page , and send Sky a copy, to show that others are having similar problems and that they are being advertised to over 2000 subscribers

That should get something going.

Also if they won't put you through to a supervisor take down the persons name pointedly, and say something like

"so despite the fact that you have not been able to help me with my ongoing problem and refuse to suspend my subscription for a service I cannot recieve, you will not put me through to your supervisor?"

If they still don't put you through ask for the head office address.

unfortunately letters get a better response than emails, the key is to get their name as most operatives hate giving it out (hence the rushed hi I'm John at the beginning) get last name as well and where they work.

Used to work in customer service and hated people who did that. Complaints to head office naming you are bad news

Kev

Hi Paul

Cheers mate ... that worked, it seemed to spark a bit of life into the bloke on the other end and " can you hold the line ....." I knew at that point I might be getting somewhere .....

Supervisor has moved the appointment forward to the 23rd, still not ideal but a start, she has also started the ball rolling to get the engineer type person authersised to bring a box, movement at last

cheers mate
K

Paul Wilson

Glad to be of help mate, always worked on me
Pays to know your enemy

[This message has been edited by Paul Wilson (edited 15-05-2000).]

APJ

Reckon you should still write to the MD anyway, just to illustrate the companys incompetence and your frustration as a loyal customer. At worst, your letter will count towards the 'dissatisfied' statistics, at best they will give you some compensation. Do it - I used to answer MD complaints in a large company, and letters to the MD are taken very seriously, as the customer must have been pretty miffed to write.

Kev

APJ

Don't worry about the letter, they have had 2 from me in the last month !! They just aint replied .......... yet

K

BladeRnnr

Kev ,
For what its worth a friend of mine is an independant installer of Sky and has done a commercial system for a top three premiership club utilising no less than 5 sat systems linked together....

We (i helped him out as you do!) had a major problem in that one system kept blowing the cards (i kid you not!!) It turned out the box was faulty (grundig)so it was swaped for a Panasonic ,hey presto no more problems...

Read into this what you will (if you know what i mean )

Any one interested ,Sky Digital is more value for money than On digital IMHO (too many problems with the later)

m

[This message has been edited by BladeRnnr (edited 17-05-2000).]