Sky TV Issue

[rich62_uk]

Have just had one of those phone calls from the very nice people at Sky Tv, to let me know that my service contract ( which I didn't know I had ) was about to come to an end.

They told me that for a mear £4.80 a month they would service and repair any Sky Tv equipment I have including the dish plus any wiring free of charge and also replace if needs be.

I explained that this seemed a little expensive as the most likely problem would be the Sky Box which I could replace second-hand for less than £40 (good old ebay), the guy on the phone gave a bit of a chuckle and explained that if I needed to change Sky Boxes it would involve a £90 call out charge as the new Sky Cards needed to be "MARRIED" to the box before they would work.

Just wondered if anyone else was aware or had any information on all of this.

[lynds67]

bought a new box at the end of last year from colin chessor. All i had to do was give sky a call to let them know and they checked i was getting the right channels. Took 10 seconds and cost nothing.

[onecalledk]

have had SKY for more years than i care to remember and have ALWAYS declined the offer of the service contract. The rate that SKY boxes change you will have a new one or upgrade on some offer well before any "contract" runs out.

The call out charges for an engineer as also extortionate, in the past have always moved the SKY dish myself if the signal was lost due to high winds etc .....

Remember the guy at the end of the phone is trained to play on your fears of what COULD happen. Take with a pinch of salt .....



K

[jimbews]

Have just had one of those phone calls from the very nice people at Sky Tv, to let me know that my service contract ( which I didn't know I had ) was about to come to an end.

...

the guy on the phone gave a bit of a chuckle and explained that if I needed to change Sky Boxes it would involve a £90 call out charge as the new Sky Cards needed to be "MARRIED" to the box before they would work.


Is there not a scam on the go about this?

There seems to be quite a variation alnong these lines.
Try googling "sky maintenance scam".

I refuse to have Sky (so don't know anything about it), but is not the "marrying" of a card a free phone call?

[The Angel Of Death]

When i had sky and it went wrong i always threatened them to cancel it and got put through to rententions everytime i has issues they were resolved free of charge with a new 12 month contract never payed for anything apart from the subs every month

[Kodiak]

There is a company cold calling from a 00800 number and they claim to be from SKY when in fact they are not. Yes that is correct 00800 as they are calling from outside UK.

If you get a new SKY Box or Change it then all you do is to phone SKY and they can change the details over in a few seconds. So when you was advised it would cost you £90 this was not true.

I have been with SKY since 1991 and I only had the insurance for the first 5 Years. It was worth it then as I had to buy everything, Dish, Box, Cables and the installation. My original Analogue System, which was a Nokia, cost me well over £500.00.

I have since found it far cheaper not to have any insurance and to pay for anything I need as I go along.

[Tom Cornwall]

I refuse to have Sky (so don't know anything about it), but is not the "marrying" of a card a free phone call?

when I got a new box, I just rang sky and told them and the number of the card...that was it...no problem

[Tom Cornwall]

but it is also true that you can't just use the card in another box....a message comes up on the screen and tells you that it is the "wrong card for this box"

[Cattach]

When you want new uquipmet just call sky to cancel your subscription, tell them you can no longer afford to pay for a 'duff' service from an aginging box/system. Does not take them long to offer new or upgrade at no or very little cost.

[LMS]

The people offering insurance have nothing to do with Sky although they claim to be part of Sky. I don't know what, if anything, they would do if you did have a problem and required to claim on the insurance policy. They aren't strictly a scam, but when they are telling pork-pies from the outset, they aren't strictly legitimate either.

My mother-in-law handed over her bank card details to them believing them to be part of Sky as they had told her that she MUST take out the insurance. I cancelled the card straightaway. She received a very rude phonecall from them the following week.

[joxville]

I hate Sky customer (non)service. They are quick enough at taking money, not so quick at getting an engineer to fix problems. I called them every couple of days for three weeks because they wouldn't accept the box was faulty, they kept telling me over the phone how to adjust settings, has the tree in my garden grown too high to block the signal...have you tried explaining to an idiot that trees don't suddenly grow 6 feet in three weeks??? The guy even said to me 'I'm sure your washing machine must go faulty occassionally', I said "yeah, but I don't pay 40 quid a month to use the bloody thing''. I done practically everything they suggested, short of dancing naked round a totem pole, before they finally gave me a new box. :roll:

[Bookworm]

I've recently had a problem with my Sky+HD but found that the technical service over the phone was very good. However, getting a date for an available engineer was a problem. Had to wait over a month for the next available date. Then I was given a discount for more than the month's rental in compensation. I thought this was pretty good as I like having satelite TV.

[overthewallandfaraway]

I haven't had a bad experience or issue with sky tv as yet and been a customer for a few years now so touch wood wont have one soon.

However I agreed to install sky broadband about 3 years ago and had a mare getting this set up, It took 2 weeks of calls to resolve, thankfully i did recieve some compo and have to say the broadband speed I got once it was fixed was terrific and never had to call them again until two years later when I moved to a better deal after they decided to double their monthly payment.