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

jonesy1981_2

just cancelled sky, got 30 days to change my mind! does anyone know if sky will phone to offer me a better deal to stay with sky?

Buttkicker

Add my 2p to this thread
I was a Sky customer since day 1 (years ago) and have always seen and got plenty of offers in the past like the Half price for 6 months etc
I got Sky HD at the launch date - and paid top price for the box and installation and must say I really enjoyed seeing the HD channels
however around July of this year I saw the offer for new customers to get the HD box installed for £105 and 50% off the whole package for 6 months
well as I was already paying £57 a month for broadband and all channels except the movie channels

plus I was out of contract - my thinking was sell my exisiting SKY HD box (which works perfect) maybe get £100 on an auction site
pay £105 for a new box that would obviously come with a 12 month warranty
plus the subscription would save me a good few quid over the 12 months with the added bonus of the movie channels

well things did not turn out how I wanted
first off they said as I am an exisiting customer the offer was not valid

pointing out that I was out of contract and could soon become a ex customer to be eligable for the new offer
well after nearly 2 hours of calls to Indian and scottish operators they would not budge
so I said cancel the whole deal (the lot)
they then gave me the line about I would have to drop and cancel the sky broadband as well

Which to be honest that after 2 hours on the phone getting nowhere fast - they finally got me through to cancellations dept
and after yet another bout of you are an exsisting customer - they gave me 30 days to the end of the contract and that was that!!

I must confess that was expecting them to ring me up with an offer of some kind after the 30 day period (they have not)

so on a point of principle that new customers could get the deal, and they would not allow me to cancel and get the very same deal
I now watch the free to air channels and watch hi def movies via the PC hooked upto my wall mounted flatscreen TV
and I wont be phoning them in a hurry to get a new contract

Yes I do miss the sports but I can live with out it, and now get broadband through O2 my phone provider which is a very fast indeed
so it seems that Sky is much more interested in new customers than exsisting ones

iliketosave_2

The way Sky work is a mystery to everybody. They certainly do not reward customer loyalty.
I know of someone who signed up then after a few months stopped paying. They built up a few months arrears being under contract but rather than chase payment, what do they do?
Sky offer them to clear the debt for £5 and then to re-commence as normal.
Not only did they stop paying again, but Sky, again gave them the same option.
Are we mugs to keep lining their pockets? It seems you get a lot less by doing so.

FannyHill

Once they have you as a customer they don't really feel they have to give anything.
And their offers usually say new customers only.

I only have the free channels and FTV (free to view) channels.

As just said if you've been with them for years and pay every month without fail then you are forgotten about. If you phone and tell them you're leaving then sometimes they will tempt you to stay with a special offer.

On a slightly different note I joined RAC a year ago and the offer was I believe £35 for basic cover. Got my renewal offer today and it says £60. So I will look around for someone else and get an introductory offer at mabye £30-35.

Companies count on you being lazy and just paying whatever they ask and Sky are no different.

jackieb

I've just phoned today to cancel Sports, Movies and HD, as I thought £57 was a bit much. I'm happy that it's gone down to £22 now. I've been with them without a break since 1992 - you'd think you'd get something for being loyal.

I phoned a few weeks ago to enquire about getting multiroom for my son (he'd be paying for it), and we would be £77 a month as they were going to charge £10 a month for the multiroom and £10 a month for HD again. Why on earth do you need to pay £20 for HD? We got a coaxil cable and now my son gets Sky in his room via the normal aerial socket. He doesn't get HD and he has to watch what's on the other box, but at least it's saving him £20 a month, plus the cost of a new box and installation.

james10999

GREAT RESULT!

I phoned sky and got put through the cancelations department to say that my partner is just about to be made redundant so we need to cut back on bills (a white lie!!).

Nice chappy then did a few things to help us reduce our bill from £70 a month to £50 by offering us free line rental for 12 months and our multiroom and HD packages for only £5 a month instead of £10.

I then said we were really aiming to get our bill below £40. He then did some tweaking to our broadband to get our bill down to £39.99 a month. NO fix 12 month contract and said if we were still struggling we could cancel.

Happy days!! :T

camembert_2

I've found recently that even if you get put through to cancellations, they'll not budge much. I'm not sure if they link it to your address and having done this before, or whether they're onto our game. What I've found worked is to cancel the whole deal and then get my other half to subscribe as a fresh subscriber, using your address as 21b Acacia Avenue, instead of 21 Acacia Avenue. It's worked twice for me, with the advantage of getting new kit and taking advantage of new subscriber offers.

Hope that helps.

jh12345

Hi All,

I currently have x3 entertainment mixes,sky movies and sports mix currently totalling £45 a month and I have been pretty happy with it.

For a while now my mrs has been begging me to get sky+. I'm also going to try and haggle down the monthly payment where possible.

I have been looking into this for a couple of weeks now and have read that Sky aren't as easy to budge anymore.

Any tips on how I should angle it? I was thinking of going down the "cutting costs and getting freeview recorder", has anybody negotiated on a similar package recently? (I only have sky television so I dont have room to bargin with the phone or broadband)....Or should I quit and re-join? anyone?


Edited: I also have been a sky customer for about 6 years - not that it makes any difference

Cheers

J

serendipity2706

jh12345 wrote: »

Hi All,

I currently have x3 entertainment mixes,sky movies and sports mix currently totalling £45 a month and I have been pretty happy with it.

For a while now my mrs has been begging me to get sky+. I'm also going to try and haggle down the monthly payment where possible.

I have been looking into this for a couple of weeks now and have read that Sky aren't as easy to budge anymore.

Any tips on how I should angle it? I was thinking of going down the "cutting costs and getting freeview recorder", has anybody negotiated on a similar package recently? (I only have sky television so I dont have room to bargin with the phone or broadband)....Or should I quit and re-join? anyone?


Edited: I also have been a sky customer for about 6 years - not that it makes any difference

Cheers

J

see my message of 20th. I said it was cheaper getting freeview as there was only a one off cost and i got sky plus for £49 installation plus broadband and the phone and phone rental free for a year too!

chipbeck

FREESAT


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