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

horizon

I had a couple of discount periods in the first few months of 2005. I tried to get another one last December, but nothing doing.
I asked to cancel, and was cut off in the 2nd week of January.
After reading this thread, I thought I might have received a phone call from them by now, but nothing.

Now nearly 3 months without it, and not missing anything except the sport, and i've saved £108.

The big bonus is not having to endure endless repeats, of all those soap operas, my missus loved to watch on ukgold.

Am I likely to receive an offer from them sometime soon ?

A half price for 12 months would be sufficient to get me back on board.

Duane_Dibley

Rang Telewest yesterday to enquire about the tvdrive box. As an existing customer they state that they will charge £50 for installation. When I objected they waived the charge without too much trouble. I should think so too as new customers get it free. There's obviously no such thing as customer loyalty here then.

I also have their broadband and paid £25 per month which had been upgraded over time to 4meg. I wanted to downgrade to 2meg to their advertised rate of £14.99 ( although new customers get first 3 months at £8.99 ) but all the services woman would come down to was £17.50.
I think I will get the tvdrive first and then have another go at them.

I also noticed that their phone charges for calls to mobiles have recently shot up in price. If you pay a monthly £1.50 extra they will very kindly reduce mobile charges by 25%.

Scrumshie

daveboy wrote:

I am about to see what I can get from them as my contract ends on 5th April.

One question I do have, relating to the TV guide Sky send out....is it stoppable and are we charged for it as an element of the package price?

There is an indication with the April issue that it costs £2 (is at the bottom of the bit of paper with your address on it).

I've always wondered whether this is a cost that can be cut out or not...I'm sure others have asked but I will never locate the post, so I help someone can answer it for me.

The sky guide is sent out free to all subscribing customers.
The £2 cover charge is only appilcable is form some weird reason you wanted another copy or wanted a copy whilst not paying for subsription. If you really dont want it you can inform cutomers services and they will remove it from your account.

cheepskate_2

we are with sky tv. we have had for the last 9 months 1/2 price sky, which ended 2 weeks ago. Due to a mix up they wanted to charge us an extra £19.00, after a debate i got this stopped, I explained i wanted to cancel totally cos im fed up with paying £4.odd to call tem each time there is a problem , So sky was cancelled AGAIN.

Now 2 weeks later they have called and if we go back we will get 3 months 1/2 price (no tie in period) and also £50.00 worth of ARGOS vouchers, :j :j How can we refuse,

So now got sky for 3 months at £10.00 total and will cancel once this offer finsihed and wait for the next one

Now to see about getting our broadband reduced
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Niksan

I just downgraded my package to exclude the premier sports and movies on Friday, killed me today having no footy to watch, they did say I could have all the stuff for 30quid, but was an offer only available there and then, I declined as it was still 10 quid above my budget, I did have to tell the guy to get a move on as well as they like to keep you on the phone.. (all with sky)

s3jdb

equitydealer wrote:

Remember this from Martin's earlier email circular

"I've heard numerous rumours from a number of sources that Sky wants to stop people benefiting from this site's insider info on haggling down the price. As such there is a possibility it will soon change the customer retention's department policy. All Sky users are thus urged to urgently get the available discounts while they can."

I've got a feeling that this is going to happen soon!

Sky might be tightening things up a bit, I've just called them to cancel, got through to their Indian Help Desk and got a very icy response from the Call Agent.

I've been on Sky+ with all the Channels and multiroom for the past year paying full whack. I've just tried to do 2 things:

First to downgrade my pack so I would lose Movies and Multiroom
Second to cancel completely

Both requests were treated the same (not exact words but something very similar): "Yes you can do it but we're not going to give you any incentives to keep you on your exisiting package or to keep you with Sky at all" :eek:

In fact, I was told that if I cancelled I would need 2 new Freesat cards for my each of my boxes (£20 each) and a one off payment of £10 to keep the Sky+ recording option with Freesat. He also asked me if I wanted him to set that up for me now.:doh:

I declined his offer and said I would think about my options. I will see if I get a call back and if not I will try calling them again in 3 days time to see what a different Call Agent advises. I will keep everyone here informed. :undecided

Has anyone else got incentives from Sky over the pase few days when you have tried to downgrade or cancel?

avondale

Go through to retentions, with the best will in the world talking to customer services overseas is like having a chat with your satellite dish, in fact you would probably get more sense from your dish.
Retention department should hopefully come up with the goods, you need to ask for them

claren

:j I rang overseas and after waiting for 5 minutes they told me to ring the Cancellations department on 0870 8502801. Got through to Livingston, where I explained I only had Sky because of the Sports package and couldn't afford to pay the £36 / month. Rather than lose my custom, they offered a further 3 months at half price - a nice saving of £54. So looks like the deals are still there to be haggled! :T

wdywuk

s3jdb wrote:

In fact, I was told that if I cancelled I would need 2 new Freesat cards for my each of my boxes (£20 each) and a one off payment of £10 to keep the Sky+ recording option with Freesat. He also asked me if I wanted him to set that up for me now.:doh:

You do not need 2 new Freesat Cards. The existing ones will transfer to "freesat" cards when your cancellation period is up.

If Sky however replace/upgrade cards, then yes you will need to buy some new ones at £20 each to receive "Free" channels that are encrypted over the Sky platform (eg Channel4, Channel5 - BBC and ITV are not encrypted).

Sky typically replace the cards every 3-4 years for security reasons.

Please note that although you get things like Sky3 you will not get E4/More4 on Freesat from $ky.

claireiom

claren wrote:

:j I rang overseas and after waiting for 5 minutes they told me to ring the Cancellations department on 0870 8502801. T

Just got of the phone from Sky using this number - got through in about 3 mins and have managed to get sky package half price for three months

Had sky multiroom too, got that taken off and the girl told me that my card will work for Freesat up until the time that they change the cards. She was extremly helpful.