Sky TV - Foolish Earthlings!

backatthepostbox

Morning,

Just wanting to have a little rant, hope you don't mind!

Phoned up Sky to get FreeSat installed a few weeks ago, cost of this is £150. Was offered a special offer of Sky install for £120 and a channel package, okay I thought I'll take that, cheaper and more channels and no obligation to subscribe again after 12 months and get to keep the kit and move onto FreeSat.

Confirmed will bloke on phone that I would not be available until after 3:30pm, (as no weekend install date free until end of the year) was assured this would be no problem and the engineer would call me between 8-9am to arrange a time.

Day came, got a call on my mobile at work about 2pm.

Engineer: "Can you tell me where XXXX Street is please sir","
Me: "Yes sure, it's here, but I'm not going to be in until half 3"
Engineer: "Bleedin heck, I'm not hanging around until then"
Me: "I was assured you would phone to arrange a time between 8-9am and that after half 3 would not be a problem"
Engineer: "We tried to call you on you house phone but there was no answer and we do not have a mobile number for you"
Me: "So how have you called me on my mobile just now then?"
Engineer: "Eh Oh, sorry, right, I'll just transfer you to our call centre to arrange a new install date"
Me: Thanks so much(!)

Transferred to Call Centre

Centre: "You would like to re-book your installation?"
Me: "Not really but I'm not being given much choice"
Centre: "We can fit you in tomorrow" (A Saturday)
Me: "That's sounds fine, but I was told there were no weekend slots free until the end of the year"
Centre: "Oh, well, we'll book you in for tomorrow, engineer will call between 8-9am"
Me: "I'm sure he will, thanks, good bye"

Later the next day..........

I went out to the shops about 9am, coming home I saw a sky van so I went over to talk to the engineer. He said there was no way they could have booked an engineer for today yesterday afternoon so didn't think it likely anyone would be coming. So off I went home and called Sky again.

Me: "Hello, can you confirm my installation date please?"
Centre: "Yes, it's booked for today"
Me: "Okay, I have just spoken to an engineer I found in the street and he said not likely"
Centre: "I see, let me just check, ah yes there has been a computer error, the slot had been booked but an engineer has not actually been allocated. Can we arrange a new time for installation?"
Me: "This is getting beyond a joke, can I speak to a manager or supervisor please"
Centre: "Sure I'll just put you through" 16 minutes of being on hold later...

Me: "Hello, I am not happy" tell story of the above etc
Manager: "I'm sorry to hear that, it was a computer error, can we re-arrange a installation time?"
Me: "I suppose so, it will need to be after 3:30pm though"
Manager: Not a problem, the engineer will call you in the morning to arrange a time"
Me: "Sure, what are you prepared to offer me as compensation for all this trouble, extra channels, discount on installation?"
Manager: "Sorry we can't do that"
Me: "I see, can I have your name and an address where I can sent a written complaint.
Manager: "Sure its blah blah blah"

So it's today and call centre finally manages to call me on my mobile between 8-9am......

Centre: "Hello Mr Gxxxx, we have an engineer outside your house, are you in?":mad:
Me: "No, I’m not, as I have explained to you twice before I will not be there until after 3:30pm"
Centre: "Ah, well it's an all day slot, would you like to re-arrange a day"
Me: "No, I want to cancel my order and want you to refund my card"
Centre: "Not a problem"
Me: "Can you confirm that in writing please?"
Centre: " No sorry I cant"
Me: "Not good enough, I want that confirmed in writing"
Centre: "An automated later will be sent to you"
Me: "But you just said..... ah forget it, never mind. Bye"

GRRRRRRR - What a sham, they just tell you anything.
What also annoys me is they charged my card right at the beginning.

Still, I feel better now, and hopefully a warning to others.
(Sorry about the long post)

Regards
BATPB
:mad:

JohalaReewi

If you are in freeview area, why not get a freeview STB from Asda or Argos or such like for under £30 and use that instead of freesat? OK you don't get so many channels but, most of the "quality" ones are on freeview and some of these are not even on freesat (eg. E4, E4+1, More4, UKhistory, UKBrightIdeas, TheHits, TMF).

KittyKate

Sky are totally rubbish. We have been trying to get it installed for about 3 months now but as we live in an apartment which has a communal sattelite we were passed to a 'local' sky installer. We were promised phonecalls which we never got then told as they were a local installer they could not offer us the promotional prices on the sky website. So we gave up and bought a TV with integrated freeview.

Sky are a great way to save £15 a month...because they are so reluctant to install it!

backatthepostbox

JohalaReewi wrote:

If you are in freeview area, why not get a freeview STB from Asda or Argos or such like for under £30 and use that instead of freesat? OK you don't get so many channels but, most of the "quality" ones are on freeview and some of these are not even on freesat (eg. E4, E4+1, More4, UKhistory, UKBrightIdeas, TheHits, TMF).

Hiya,

I like the way you think, unfortunately I live in an area which his a poor signal (North Scotland) so Freeview doesn't work very well for me.

Am going to see if I can get a dish, box and freesat card off ebay or somesuce and install it myself, I've got the direction/angle the dish has to point.

How hard could it be?:rolleyes:

My next post maybe from hospital :rotfl:

Thanks
Regards
BATPB

nenya

ooo they sound just like the monkey's they employ at NTL - where do they find them??

RightRevBod

When we moved into our house 5 years ago, we had sky booked to install the day after moving in. They managed to miss that slot - found a card in the letterbox when we returned home at mid-day for an afternoon install. They managed to miss the next 2 appointments as well.

At this point I cancelled the install and phoned NTL. They installed the next day!

tr3mor

It's no harder than fitting an aerial, there's plenty of info on the net about it. If you're in the far north make sure you get one of the bigger sky dishes, the normal ones don't work too well up there.

lots of advice on https://www.digitalspy.co.uk

wrexhamandy

nenya wrote:

ooo they sound just like the monkey's they employ at NTL - where do they find them??

Think it must be the same monkeys as from Talk Talk: "Can you call after five please as I'm working until then, and make sure you do as there's been this problem for two weeks now and it's rubbish". 3:40pm next day, answering machine message from some snotty-sounding guy: "We've called at the time you said you were available but to no answer, you''ll now have to call custome services (which takes 2 hours to get through to and costs two quid each time) to re-arrange".

Useless ffffffff..............

RightRevBod

tr3mor wrote:

It's no harder than fitting an aerial, there's plenty of info on the net about it. If you're in the far north make sure you get one of the bigger sky dishes, the normal ones don't work too well up there.

lots of advice on https://www.digitalspy.co.uk

Yes, fitting a dish is quite easy, providing you do not have a problem with hights! You just have to point it in the right direction and at the correct angle to the vertical. For Sky to need to point id 28.2 degrees east of south. Getting the right inclination is a bit trickier.

You can buy/hire/borrow special equipment to help you line the dish up correctly, but I just paced around the garden aproximating the angle. You just need to get the TV where you can see it, put the sat box onto signal meter and wiggle the dish to get the best sigbal quality on the meter.

It helps that I have mounted the dish low enough to reach up and wiggle it from the ground (I do not like heights).

Of course the main issue is that you need the engineer to deliver the equipment, so this is accademic unless you source your equipment elsewhere. Mine is from ebay.