Digital TV Cost Cutting Article - Discuss What You've Been Offered

blondybutterkiss

I have seen websites offering thousands of satellite TV channels worldwide available on your pc via internet. They ask for a modest signup fee for this service.
Has anyone tried this. Is it as good as it sounds?

FannyHill

You can download TVU Player and watch foreign channels but it doesn't cost you anything.There are also some websites that let you view foreign channels again for free.

fellop

Greetings to all,
My first post. I have read all [yes all] the posts on this thread [well I am on a night shift]

I have been with Sky for about eight years or so. I have the full [original] package [with movies but not sports] I pay £37 per month.

I am going to phone and cancel [for all the reasons mentioned over 75 pages of messages] should I be offered 'some deal' then depending what it is I may accept but if I have to cancel I will, and I will just use the box and card just to watch [whatever] free channels it gives me. I will not buy a 'Freeview Box or Freesat'.

My question, please, I will have to give 30 days notice to cancel. I pay my monthly direct debit on the 8th of the month and I have no wish for Sky to take any more money than they may be owed. Do they take the 30 days notice from the day of the phone call or from the date of monthly payment?

If I cancel on the 7th and pay on the 8th will that be that and it ends on the 7th of the next month. Or should I pay on the 8th and cancel on the 8th then they have 30 days notice and 30 days payment.

Any advice please of when to cancel. I do not wish to cancel and sky then takes two further payments claiming that the 30 days notice overlaps the the two payments if you see what I mean.

Regards to all

hawkwind

I think i am right in saying, that if you cancel today, then in 30 days time your package will cease.

You will only be billed from the 8th, until the 21st as you have already paid in advance untill the 8th.

carrotchomper

Aargh! You lot have got me all twitchy now.

I moved into a new house in August, and had huge problems getting anything connected because the address was not on the RM database. I do not have a BT line, certainly do not want to pay £125 to have one installed and the Freeview reception is patchy.

I finally managed to connect to Telewest in November, and after some indecision have the following package-

Talk Weekends
Standard Broadband
Supreme TV (No extra Sky channels)

for £40 a month.

I initially asked to be connected to the 2 for 20 (Phone and BB) with free tv (Basically all the Freeview channels) but was sweet-talked into the 3 for 30 deal, because of free installation.

Having had that for 3 days, I realised that the TV service had very few channels, so upgraded to Supreme (Which also includes Teleport TV, which is great) for £40 a month as described.

Am I being fleeced? What other deals have people on Telewest been offered?

Fenboy_Steve

fellop wrote:

<snip> Any advice please of when to cancel. I do not wish to cancel and sky then takes two further payments claiming that the 30 days notice overlaps the the two payments if you see what I mean.

Regards to all

Firstly, well done on reading the whole thread!! You needn't worry about synchronising your payment and cancellation dates. Hawkwind is right, your next payment will just be up to the day you cancel; worked out to be just a couple of quid in my case when I did it.

TomBxx_2

Fenboy_Steve wrote:

I've been wondering myself what happens to the sky+ box. I don't have one myself, but as I understand it, (and I'm happy to be corrected at any point), to allow you to watch one channel and record another you have twin LNB's, and hence 2 inputs from your sat. dish (thats why it costs £10 extra if you don't have any premium channels). Theoretically, by going Freesat, one would assume it would retain its ability to record but simply revert to two free-to-air/free-to-view feeds. However, I've not seen anyone report that on here and suspect the reality is somewhat different. I'm sure someone will tell us

Regarding multiroom, I believe thats more straight forward. Both cards will become Freesat cards, and should allow you to view all FTA and FTV channels on each box.

I suspect your suspicions are correct. I obtained a friend's old Sky+ box. It would only show the 'free to air' channels and the hard disk functionality didn't work, I had to phone Sky and ask them to pair my viewing card with the Sky+ box. My guess is, if you cancel, you'll only be able to use the Sky+ box to view 'free to air' channels and not use the recording functionality.

Scrumshie

You can call sky and get them to pair your card to the sky+ box and ask for the recording facility only, which costs £10 a month.

Fenboy_Steve

Scrumshie wrote:

You can call sky and get them to pair your card to the sky+ box and ask for the recording facility only, which costs £10 a month.

As I see it, (and someone help me if I'm missing something here), the advantages of Sky+ seem to be that you have EPG info and that you are able to watch and record different channels simultaneously? If so, then personally, as someone who is still cognisant of setting channel no. and start & stop times on a VCR, £10 a month for just these features is a non-starter. Looking at some of the other threads, and with my metaphorical MSE hat on, it seems that a years (or less) sky+ subscription can buy a decent non-subscription PVR that would do just as well. OK you don't get EPG, but if it has a built in Freeview receiver, (and if you only get FTA/FTV channels), there's a good chance you should still be able to watch and record different channels at the same time.

fellop

Hello to all,
Just to pass on an update from my last posting about me going to cancel my Sky Package [basic package with movie channel at £37 per month]. I am happy to cancel, there are a lot of channels we do not watch there are some we have in 8 or 10 years never even selected to watch, this was not just a ploy to see what we could get but if we could get something so much the better but we are happy to cancel if it came to it.
Here is what happened and our future plan.

I phoned 08702 40 40 40 as shown in my ‘Customer Services’ hand book, after listening to a few options and pressing a couple of buttons on the phone I got through straight away to a call centre in Bali. I told the gentleman that I wished to cancel my Sky Package, he asked me why and I told him it is too expensive for what it is, we do not watch many of the channels, there are a lot of repeats shown and we are both approaching retirement and we need to start making some savings.

He immediately said he was unable to deal with my cancellation and he would have to transfer me to the correct department <I grinned to myself>. Within about 3 seconds I was speaking to John, who was a lot nearer to me in Livingston.

I told my tale of woe to John and I kept the conversation friendly and light hearted. I said I wished to cancel. I told him about the costs, the channels I did not watch, the repeats, the fact that despite having the movie channel I still pay extra per view for Box Office Movie, and of course the normal TV License goes up next month, all these costs to be managed in a years time on two pensions, no John something has to go and its Sky.

Without a moment hesitation or discussion John offered me to retain my full package as it is and reduce the cost by 50% to £15 per month for the next three months, and see if that might help a little. I played dumb and thought about it; well I am not sure, the wife did tell me to cancel I told John. John’s next offer was to retain my whole package as is and how about £10 per month for three months. Well I said that is very kind of you, we like to help loyal customers like yourself he replied, <I nearly spate out a mouthful of coffee at this point>.

Well okay I said that is very kind of you to help us like this <playing dumb again> but how does that effect my payments. Well said the good John I see here you have already paid the £37 for January so I will put this into effect from today and you now have a £20 credit. So what does that mean John I asked <playing dumb again> well said John as we are going to reduce your payment as this offer to £10 for the next 3 months your £20 will credit will pay for £10 February and £10 March so Sky will not take any money from my account now until the £10 April payment.

I thanked John for all his help, I told him how wonderful Sky was and wished how other companies could be so helpful in these present days, he seemed happy with that and I am glad John is happy.

So in summary I retain my full package as is, I do not pay anything for February and March and only £10 for April. What poor John perhaps did not realise [or maybe he did] was that of course in April I will phone up to cancel, and I will.

Seems a good deal to me