Cancelling Sky Contract Early

[platypus]

Just thought it worth a post in case anyone else has experience of it, and if any of the legal types could look over it..

According to the Sky contract,

11.(iv) you reasonably consider that you have been materially disadvantaged by any reduction in the number of Channels within, or the level of service of, your chosen Option.

The two months I've been with Sky for Broadband and Phone have been terrible. The phone is unusable, and the broadband speed is dire, and regularly cuts out.

I have spent hours on hold and on the phone to technical support, and had numerous engineer visits, and still the service is appalling. I take the emboldened wording of clause iv to mean that I can cancel my contract early without penalty. Is my reading of this correct?

 

[platypus]

From Sky's point of view - yes you're experiencing problems but they're trying to fix these problems as quickly as they can given that they've sent numerous "engineers" out to your property and they've provided you with "technical support" via the telephone!

I figured this would be at least part of their approach, but I've been complaining since week 1 of my Broadband service. I'm now into my third billing month.

 

[platypus]

We have sky TV and broadband, and our broadband was also awful for ages, getting 0.8 to 0.9 mbps at best

But we found that this was because the broadband was sharing the same cable as the phone line. I.e the phone line was coming into the house through the wall, then 10 metres or so later, a splitter for broadband and phone to go into their respective places.

So we bought a broadband extension cable and plugged it directly from the box that brings the phone line in from outside (don't know technical words ), and then straight into router, and its now a respectable 6mbps. Not lightning no, but certainly a massive improvement and now something that used to take 5 hours to d/l now takes 50 mins

So maybe check your situation in regards to phone line/broadband sharing the same cable or whatever.

This is similar to our setup, the line comes in to the top of the house, runs down the outside and goes in through the wall by the front door. The phone socket though is on the other side, and its the only phone socket we have. It was installed by BT 2 months ago.

I would happily settle for a steady 4 or 5 Mbps, and a working phone .

 

[platypus]

Nice phrase Atticus, this is what I have come up with:

address
Sky customer no:

29/10/2010
Customer Relations Dept.
Sky Subscriber Services Ltd.
PO Box 43
Livingston
West Lothian
EH54 7DD


Dear Sir/Madam,
Supply of Goods & Services Act 1982 (As amended)
Common Law Scotland
I joined Sky as a customer on the 9th of July of this year. The service has been fraught with problems from the outset, including two months delay in having the broadband installed, though I realise BT had problems at the time and so I was willing to give Sky the benefit of the doubt.

However, I remain far from satisfied with my service provision from Sky, and consider that some of my consumer rights have been breached, namely that of quality of service. I have spent hours on the phone to technical support, followed all manner of tests, and had engineers visit my home.
The problems are:
· Low broadband speeds (less than 0.2Mb/s on a service rated at 5.0Mb/s on your “upto” 20Mb/s service), and regular cut outs.
· Unusable phone service. The noise on the line makes phone calls virtually impossible.
According to the Sky contract, Section 11 article iv:
“..you reasonably consider that you have been materially disadvantaged by any reduction in the number of Channels within, or the level of service of, your chosen Option.”

I do not consider the level of service provided by Sky to be anywhere near acceptable. In addition to this, due to the progress of my situation, I do not feel confident that any matters undertaken by Sky will provide me with what I consider to be an adequate solution. As a result of this, I believe there to have been a fundamental breach of material terms of the contract on the part of Sky in its continued inability to provide a reasonable level of service across the services that I regularly rely on, and as such wish to cancel my subscription, without any penalty to myself.

Please respond to my complaint/complete the work in the next 7 days. If you fail to respond/remedy in this time, I will have no option but to consider taking the matter further.
Yours faithfully

Insert your name

 

[platypus]

The problem I have is I'm stuck between two bad providers. Virgins service to me was woeful, which is why we moved to Sky in the hope it would be better. Slow broadband, and the phone would stop working once or twice a month (though it at least worked for a few weeks after they sent an engineer out).