Sky - Pay Once Watch Forever - My Blog

The_One_2

• This blog will be all about my dealings with Sky as i have just ordered the Pay Once Watch Forever deal @ £73.40p giving me the installation (Dish, box, remote and viewing card) plus 4 packs for 4 months for free, which i have to cancel by the end of the 3rd month, if i no longer wish to receive them.....sounds reasonable?
• http://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/pay-once.aspx
• I want to see if Sky have actually changed their ways after a few YEARS as many people have had problems with this offer - see http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=711597
• Hopefully, this will help inform others about how ruthless Sky, may be ....so read on
  

Tips

• I keep every letter i receive in a folder
  
• I log down all calls i make to Sky, inc. tel number, time, date, dept and a summary of what was said
  

10/04/09
Took the offer up on 10/04/09 on behalf of my parents, for 2 main reasons:
1. A far cheaper alternative at £73.40 to Freesat (BBC/ITV), to get the box, dish, card, installation etc
2. After the 4 months, it will offer us most of the decent ethnic minority channels for free that Freeview cannot, Virgin Media will not (despite being with them for 10years) and Freesat is too expensive at the moment

I tried dialling the 01506 number on saynoto0870.com, but kept getting passed through to some bizarre depts so hung up and re-dialled the number given on freesatfromsky.co.uk

Got through after 5mins of music asked him that i dont want to set up DD and dont want it connected to a phoneline, he said no DD will be set-up and box has to be connected for 4months then i can disconnect as its mainly for interactive services.

He only took payment of £73.40 from debit card, gave me the job no, contract no and set up a password.

Told him that im aware of the problems with cancelling, so he said he would put a note on the account, so when i ring up to cancel in 3 months the CS rep will see it (fingers crossed) and will go smoothly

So far, installation is scheduled for Sunday 19th April (but an engineer will ring to confirm in the next few days)


15/04/09
I received my Sky Viewing Card today (a blue card with a yellow house on)

On the confirmation letter it said:
Digibox (subsidised) - Nil (price)
Installation - Nil (price)
Total cost - Nil

So that sounds good so far.

But...all the T&C's seem to be for normal customers

Still need to check what's been taken from my bank account

The_One_2

17/04/09

• Only £73.40p has been taken from my account
  
• Rang up Sky to get them to check what details they held about my deal - they confirmed it was a 4 month deal, but had to cancel by 3rd month, so i wouldnt be charged and that i wasnt bound by a 12 month contract
• Just received a letter, asking me to fill out direct debit details - which i wont be doing, due to the problems people have reported in chasing them up !!! :money:
  

The_One_2

19/04/09

• Engineer arrived a little late than expected
• Fitted the dish, phoneline under carpet as requested, a brand new standard Sky box and remote
• Put the card in and set it all up and showed us how to use it all.
• Was done in under 45mins
• Have got the 4 packages on, working fine

Overall, a happy customer :T

Lets see how it goes over the next 4 months !!

peter_the_piper

I'll be watching this space as we are thinking of this due to poor freeview reception. Thanks.

The_One_2

30/04/09

Over the last 2 weeks ive received 2 letters telling me to complete Direct Debit instructions.

I've just got off the phone to the Sky call centre, explained that im on the Pay Once, Watch Forever deal, and that ive already paid the one-off £73.40p charge and nothing more is required. To which she replied ...that i was right!!! and i only need to fill it in if i want to become a customer or have movies, to which i said no !!
Asked her to leave a note on my account, to say ..stop sending me DD instruction letters, which she did and confirmed my service should not be affected.

So far so good.

I only call from my mobile now, as i can record all calls to the phones memory and have that as evidence should Sky get up to anything.

I asked the private sub-contractor to fit me a quad-LNB for £10, so im all set for a HD PVR soon

AMO

The_One wrote: »

I asked the private sub-contractor to fit me a quad-LNB for £10, so im all set for a HD PVR soon

I take it that they have lots of spare Quad LNB's in their van?

I think I might do that.

The reason I think I'll take this offer up is that my original Sky box has stopped receiving some channels and both the dish and box are about 7 years old.

So rejoining with this offer and getting new gear under warranty sounds good.

AMO

The_One_2

If you happen to get one of sky's own installers (which you dont know until the day an installer arrives) then they probably wont.

BUT...if your lucky enough to get one of the sub-contractors, they usually do alot of their own private work aswell, so more than likely to have alsorts in their van.

I got a brand new box and everything, for £73.40p i think its a fab deal, but read the following thread about problems other people have had http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=711597

Despite that thread i have taken the advice and tips from there and taken the POWF offer up, so far so good, you just have to make sure you keep all the paperwork and log all calls you make to Sky should they mess you around

In the future, i'm planning on getting an 'official' Freesat HD PVR box (the BBC/ITV version), by which time they will have dropped a fair bit in price i hope, so it will just be a case of connecting another cable onto the LNB to the new box and i should be away !!! (fingers crossed)

Far cheaper than getting the Freesat box and installation, which for me in the current economic climate is way out of my budget

AMO

I agree entirely with what you say The One. The way I see it is that the unsubsidised FreeSat hardware has yet to come down in price. I mean, when FreeView boxes first hit the market they were expensive but now you can pick them up for less than £20.

Then there's the fact that with satellite dishes, they are exposed to rain etc so keeping it reasonably current especially if things go wrong.

Better to buy the Sky cheap deal now and then when its time to move onto the real FreeSat deal, things will have come down in price and bugs in software will have been fixed.

AMO

AMO

The_One wrote: »

If you happen to get one of sky's own installers (which you dont know until the day an installer arrives) then they probably wont.

BUT...if your lucky enough to get one of the sub-contractors, they usually do alot of their own private work aswell, so more than likely to have alsorts in their van.

If I get my own Quad LNB do you think that they'll install it if you're from Sky?

AMO

nomoneytoday

AMO wrote: »

I take it that they have lots of spare Quad LNB's in their van?

I think I might do that.

The reason I think I'll take this offer up is that my original Sky box has stopped receiving some channels and both the dish and box are about 7 years old.

So rejoining with this offer and getting new gear under warranty sounds good.

AMO

Sky do a fixed price fix for £65 - which is a tenner cheaper
Or a 2nd hand box on ebay is £10-50

Stubert

The_One wrote: »

I only call from my mobile now, as i can record all calls to the phones memory and have that as evidence should Sky get up to anything.

If you want to produce that as evidence in anything you will need to ask their (Sky and the customer service rep) permission. You can use it for your own personal use. But if you're trying to prove them wrong by saying you have recordings on something, you'd have to inform the person that you were recording them, I'm sure.