another sky rant

Surfer · 25 Apr 2007 at 14:30

hate them i really do...

not only do they screw up their movies deals

but they charged me a month in advance for sky world. £80 ish quid

they also decided to charge me the full rate for the broadband connect again despite them assuring me i was on the new sky max package

looks like theyve been screwing me like this for a few months grrrrrr

so now i phone them to sort it

the usual waitining on phone for ages then speak to someone he explains they charge in advance and they credit your account if you cancel it. then he has to put me through to broadband accounts

so another long wait on the phone jesus........

and this is after them screwing me giving me a refurbished box promising to give me a credit for it then forgetting all about it and denying all knowledge when i check a few months later.

im getting sooo sick of hanging on the phone to speak to them to sort out THEIR MISTAKES.

ok after long wait guy said they will credit account..... thats if they dont ******** it up....jesus...

next time im not gonna bother with the muppets in the callcentre ill start legal proceedings.

1. 7 day letter of notice warning them to refund my account within 5 days or will take them to court

2. raise claim either with local court or through moneyclaim online.

3. add on damages for stress, time and hassle

why is it if a person robs you blind of all your money its called a crime but if a company does the same its legal and fine and dandy??????

i do my job why the **** cant they do theirs?

Absolute travesty how they treat customers.....

/end rant

platypus · 25 Apr 2007 at 14:34

I notice that their broadband advert has changed from "16MB broadband omgz0rs!!!!1one" to "Upto 8MB!".

Surfer · 25 Apr 2007 at 14:45

up to 8mb means youll be lucky if you hit 3mb

(never hit 4mb ever on this bb)

i need to watch my heart this stress isnt good for me... *deep breathes*

gjrc · 25 Apr 2007 at 14:55

Surfer said:
up to 8mb means youll be lucky if you hit 3mb (never hit 4mb ever on this bb)

i need to watch my heart this stress isnt good for me... *deep breathes*

and breath....!

i love sky TV, and i find their customer service to be fine, i guess you got unlucky. i am sure you will get your money back in the end

i dont have their broadband so cant comment on that.

Cuchulain · 25 Apr 2007 at 14:58

I've had Sky for 7+ years now including a mistaken break when I had NTL and I've never had a single problem, not with billing, hardwae or customer service and every few months they give me the movie channels half price. Compare that to NTL which was a nightmare from start to finish and I'm glad I went back to Sky.

iCraig · 25 Apr 2007 at 15:04

At least with Virgin Media I'm actually getting close to the quoted speeds.

I'm on 4mb and get between 3.8 and 4.1mb on various speed tests.

My friend's on Sky 16mb and the highest he's got so far is 1.5mb.

He downloads stuff from the same servers slower than me, and has far more downtime. He's desperate to get rid of Sky.

He says the TV service is fine, but the broadband is utter crap.

McMav · 25 Apr 2007 at 15:28

Cuchulain said:
I've had Sky for 7+ years now including a mistaken break when I had NTL and I've never had a single problem, not with billing, hardwae or customer service and every few months they give me the movie channels half price. Compare that to NTL which was a nightmare from start to finish and I'm glad I went back to Sky.

Could say the same but pro NTL had them since Cable Tel days so thats 8+ years. Never had a problemthat hasnt been sorted quickly. Having a bit of issue with my BB speed atm but there was work carried out in my area early today so I'll see how that is tonight.

Put that to the hassle my sister in law has had with sky and her wopping up to 1 Meg BB from them never seen it higher and doubt we ever will all I can say is its just aswell they dont charge for it as its slow and unreliable.

For every ntl knocker there will be someone who has had the same problem and or worse from sky. Both companies hace some shocking CS staff and some really good ones. Just your luk who you get.

Mr Nice · 25 Apr 2007 at 15:59

iCraig said:
At least with Virgin Media I'm actually getting close to the quoted speeds.

I'm on 4mb and get between 3.8 and 4.1mb on various speed tests.

My friend's on Sky 16mb and the highest he's got so far is 1.5mb.

He downloads stuff from the same servers slower than me, and has far more downtime. He's desperate to get rid of Sky.

He says the TV service is fine, but the broadband is utter crap.

Which is why sit on the fence and had telewest/ntl/vm supplying broadband for the last few years and sky for the telly.

Loki · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:16

Had a great call with their customer service team on Monday.

Sky are taking me to court through none payment of my bill. I cancelled the service in February as I switched to Virgin. They claim to have had a call in Feb saying I wanted to go but would ring back to confirm I was going. I rung back but suprisingly they don't have a record of me ringing them a mere 48 hours later to confirm cancellation of service.

They ring me up at the start of April to confirm my service will be disconnected and would I pay the bill outstanding. I refused as I had already told them twice in Feb I was going to Virgin. "However please now take this call as notice to cancell my account". Sky refused and said I needed to contact customer services and they couldn't transfer the call :confused:

Long call on Monday night resulted in absolutley nothing. I asked if the account had been closed and it hadn't. So now after 3 attempts they refuse to close it and are still billing me month by month. I hope it goes to court I really do

platypus · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:18

Loki said:
.

Keep us posted.

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:21

Sky are poor at customer relations..It doesn't surpise me the problems you are having.. I had sky for 10 years and they took the biscuit..

I was glad when i finally ditched them for Virgin.. and they had the audicity to say "You'll be lossing Sky One"! .. My life will end then..

Loki · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:29

Indeed. My life is worthless now I don't have 24 and Lost. Oh hang on thats only 2 hours a week.

Loving HBO On demand. In your face Murdoch. IN YOUR FACE

iCraig · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:35

We received about 2 letters a week from Sky ranging from full written letters offering a cheaper service to mini-flyers about see, surf, speak and don't lose lost.

When they started calling too it ratted me off, enough for me to ask them to remove my details from their mailing list. I said, "We're with Virgin and they still don't send us half as much mail as you!

"

Al Vallario · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:38

Surfer said:
not only do they screw up their movies deals

I've been a Sky customer for upwards of ten years now and I think the Sky Movies shake-up is superb. Having a bunch of numbered channels with delayed showings on random channels and now HD channels barging in on the picture just isn't a reasonable solution anymore. Categorising the channels and making them easier to identify was a great move.

Surfer said:
the usual waitining on phone for ages then speak to someone he explains they charge in advance and they credit your account if you cancel it. then he has to put me through to broadband accounts

So your call is answered in a timely manner, the person on the other end of the phone provides you with a satisfactory explanation for your first grievance and even passes you over to get your second issue sorted out. Going great so far...

Surfer said:
and this is after them screwing me giving me a refurbished box promising to give me a credit for it then forgetting all about it and denying all knowledge when i check a few months later.

Blah, blah, blah. You appear to have made an elaborate deal with an installer, and as such the installer didn't have the means to notify the billing team about this. You describe that as them "screwing" you and then "denying all knowledge?" However you want to twist an honest mistake...

Surfer said:
im getting sooo sick of hanging on the phone to speak to them to sort out THEIR MISTAKES.

ok after long wait guy said they will credit account.....

You've had two easily-rectifiable, easily-understandable billing issues and a query. The billing issues have now been sorted (as far as I'm aware), and your query was answered. Where's the problem?

So you had to wait on the phone for a while? Er, hello... welcome to the real world? You probably wasted more time informing us of your inane issues.

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:38

Loki said:
Indeed. My life is worthless now I don't have 24 and Lost. Oh hang on thats only 2 hours a week.

Loving HBO On demand. In your face Murdoch. IN YOUR FACE

yep. I've just watched all of Father Ted.. Quality :cool:

gjrc · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:40

Loki said:
Indeed. My life is worthless now I don't have 24 and Lost. Oh hang on thats only 2 hours a week.

Loving HBO On demand. In your face Murdoch. IN YOUR FACE

how do you get HBO on demand?

4p · 25 Apr 2007 at 16:57

dno bout u guys but i get 10mb+

Admiral Huddy · 25 Apr 2007 at 17:02

Thorpy said:
dno bout u guys but i get 10mb+

Virgin Large will be 20Mbps as from begining of May

Surfer · 25 Apr 2007 at 17:02

Al Vallario said:
I've been a Sky customer for upwards of ten years now and I think the Sky Movies shake-up is superb. Having a bunch of numbered channels with delayed showings on random channels and now HD channels barging in on the picture just isn't a reasonable solution anymore. Categorising the channels and making them easier to identify was a great move.

yeah i think thats a good idea to categorise the channels but....
Sky premiere starts at 4pm (premiere + starts at 5pm) and shows the same films for a week

Sky cinema and cinema 2 are merged into one sky classics channel. Basically the number of movie channels is reduced and imo the quality is reduced as well (but obviously thats subjective)

So your call is answered in a timely manner, the person on the other hand of the phone provides you with a satisfactory explanation for your first grievance and even passes you over to get your second issue sorted out. Going great so far...

Not really.

1. im paying for a call to sort their mistake
2. im waiting about 10 mins to answer first call then when im transferred to second person im waiting another 10 - 15 minutes

Its not a satisfactory explanation if all they can say is "i dont know why you have been charged the higher price for the bb"
However they have said they will credit my account so we shall see if they are true to their word. Also they did keep calm so and didnt get snotty at me so fair enuff there.

Blah, blah, blah. You appear to have made an elaborate deal with an installer, and as such the installer didn't have the means to notify the billing team about this. You describe that as them "screwing" you and then "denying all knowledge?" However you want to twist an honest mistake...

Firstly i dont distinguish a difference between installers and sky. To all intents and purposes its the same company (contracters working on behalf of sky ergo skys responsibility if the contractor balls up)

At no point when i purchased sky was i told "ohh hey m8 we will send round an independent local installer who has bog all to do with us so if theres any problems we dont want to know alright guv?"

I was told it was fairly common by the installer/sky (to give refurbished boxes in exchange for credit)

Now naturally i assume that a professional company can do its job when it offers me a service for an agreed price (granted given hindsight i now know that this was a mistake by me to assume that everything would go fine)

You've had two easily-rectifiable, easily-understandable billing issues and a query. The billing issues have now been sorted (as far as I'm aware), and your query was answered. Where's the problem?

Not really i dont have the money back. its sitting in skys bank account. Sky have made a promise to give me my money back thats different from actually getting it back.

Also im pretty sure that had the shoe been on the other foot, if i had forgotten to pay sky for a couple of months they would be after me like a hawk sending threatening letters to me (and charging me for the privilege also)

So you had to wait on the phone for a while? Er, hello... welcome to the real world?

Do you know what a rant is?
Well unlike some i'm not willing to just bend over and take it.....if you dont kick up a fuss about stuff then people will just exploit you, thats life unfortunately. If your happy to be treated like that then thats up to you.

Should i just go "ohh sky have stolen money from me oh well never mind if i cant afford to eat for the next few weeks eh sky will pay me back in a few months thank you kind sir rupert for being so generous."

Al Vallario · 25 Apr 2007 at 17:15

Surfer said:
Well unlike some i'm not willing to just bend over and take it.....if you dont kick up a fuss about stuff then people will just exploit you, thats life unfortunately. If your happy to be treated like that then thats up to you.

At what point did I suggest anything of that nature? By all means chase them up on their mistakes. Provided you have everything in writing, records of the phone calls made and you are confident you are in the right, go for it. Go at them all guns blazing with nasty letters if you want, but what do you expect if you decide to take to an online message board instead and waste your time ranting about one or two understandable mistakes they have made?

Surfer said:
Should i just go "ohh sky have stolen money from me oh well never mind if i cant afford to eat for the next few weeks eh sky will pay me back in a few months thank you kind sir rupert for being so generous."

If being overcharged slightly or being billed in advance is going to mean you can't eat for the next few weeks, I think you need to sort your priorities out...