SKY - help!

sarahgail

Hi,
I need some advice. My sky+ box, which is about 2 and a half years old, has totally died and we have no ariel, so no tv just now!!!! It's as if it is stuck on standby - I think the hard drive has given up. I phoned sky who are going to charge me £200 for a new one plus £30 installation - which is ridiculous!

I know they have the deal to upgrade to sky HD for £49 just now, but you then have to pay the extra £10 a month and as I am already a customer, I would also have to pay about £60 installation - again, ridiculous!

If I was to phone up and cancel my contract (and if they don't offer me anything worth staying for) - is there anything that anyone knows of, to stop me then taking out a new contract as a new customer to get a new box?? The current contract is in my maiden name, so a new contract would be in my married name.

Help!!!!
Thanks

simpywimpy

If all else fails I would stop the old account and re-open a new one in your married name personally as a new customer. Try going through one of the cashback sites too for a bit extra such as quidco.com

sarahgail

So it is ok to do that? they aren't going to refuse to open a new account for me or anything? I just don't want to be left with no sky - or having to pay an extortionate amount for it!

Thanks

Treadway1

I was in exactly the same position when my box blew up as I have no aerial either. However, theres a few options for you. I agree that you could start again in your married name as above, but you could also try buying a second hand Sky plus box of ebay, as I did a a while ago. It cost about £35, but having looked recently, they now seem to be going for about £45-50. However, Ive had the box six months and its just died on me. So....

I then phoned sky (and made sure to go through to the cancellations dept., as they are the ones who can offer you the most), and simply asked them how much notice I would have to give to cancel the account (Knowing full well they would tell me, but then want to know why). They told me 28 days, but obviously asked why I was thinking about this. I then told them that my sky box had blown up and I couldnt afford to buy a new, so would have to cancel. Hey presto, they then told me that they would get an engineer out to me to try and fix the old box, and if they couldnt, they would replace it, all free of charge. And they didnt even supply the sky plus box in the first place as I say....lol. They said that because I had been a customer for a few years, that they wanted to look after me, so I guess it might depend on how long youve been with them.

Importantly, if you are thinking of threatening to cancel to see what they offer, Id suggest testing the water first as I did, because Ive heard of people phoning and saying they want to cancel, expecting an offer, but then either having their account closed when they didnt really want to, or looking very silly by saying they dont really want to cancel after they havent offerred anything.

Best of luck though.

sarahgail

Ah ha! That's a good way to do it - tell them I can't afford a new box (£200 is a bit steep!)

Thank you!

sarahgail

An engineer is coming on monday to fix/replace it free of charge!

Thanks!

Treadway1

Thats fantastic, Im glad you managed to get it sorted. :T

Moneymaker

sarahgail wrote: »

I phoned sky who are going to charge me £200 for a new one plus £30 installation - which is ridiculous!

I think you must have misunderstood or asked the wrong question. If you are a subscriber, Sky will charge you £65 for an Installer visit. The installer will replace anything and everything required to fix your problem (including supplying a "refurbished" Digibox with a 90 day warranty) for that price.

As an alternative, you can send or take your Digibox to a repairer. Most of them are listed here:
http://sam-radford.me.uk/repairers.htm
The advantage is that, if the Hard Drive is OK, you won't lose any recordings and it will cost about the same as a Sky Installer call-out. And the warranty will be longer.

(Of course "free" is nice but you still get only a "refurbished" box with 3 month warranty.)