SKY - existing customer offers

Mancunian

http://www.sky.com/shop/bundles-offers/customer-offers/

As far as I know you can take these offers then call the next day to give the (now required) 31 days notice - giving you a cheap month!

:beer:
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Leopard

Be very careful about such offers if you've signed up for one of Sky's cheap HD deals in the last couple of months.

Buried deep in the small print of many (most?) of those is Sky's lethal elephant trap for the unwary. The deal to which you contracted, to get the discount, is set in stone; if you then change any aspect of it, the discount on everything ends immediately and you have to pay Sky the full price, for all of it, for the rest of the year.

So, sign up for a year of Sky subscriptions at half price, for example, and then decide to add a channel to your package, a couple of months later, and they've got you by the nuts. You could cancel the extra channel(s) after a month but you've lost your discount for the year on everything else.

Very Sky. That little carelessness could cost you hundreds of pounds and you've no way out of it; you contracted to it voluntarily and it's legally binding. :eek:

GemJar_2

Leopard wrote: »

Be very careful about such offers if you've signed up for one of Sky's cheap HD deals in the last couple of months.

Buried deep in the small print of many (most?) of those is Sky's lethal elephant trap for the unwary. The deal to which you contracted, to get the discount, is set in stone; if you then change any aspect of it, the discount on everything ends immediately and you have to pay Sky the full price, for all of it, for the rest of the year.

So, sign up for a year of Sky subscriptions at half price, for example, and then decide to add a channel to your package, a couple of months later, and they've got you by the nuts. You could cancel the extra channel(s) after a month but you've lost your discount for the year on everything else.

Very Sky. That little carelessness could cost you hundreds of pounds and you've no way out of it; you contracted to it voluntarily and it's legally binding. :eek:

Thanks, won't be taking this offer up now!

Mancunian

you lucky sods, scamming a deal!

Leopard

The other thing that many people don't realise is that Sky just loves it when people try to scam Sky by making false statements to obtain a special offer to which they aren't entitled.

(For example, those who don't really buy the TV that a Sky offer states is what they have to buy to get the deal. Or cancel their existing contract and get their companion to apply for a special offer as a "new subscriber", claiming that they, themselves, no longer live there.)

Because then Sky again has them by the nuts. They can't enforce their contract against Sky if ever they need to, because they've obtained it by deception. But Sky, on the other hand, can enforce the contract against them, because Sky acted in good faith and they didn't.

The world is full of people who thought they were smarter than Rupert and could take him for a ride – only to discover, to their considerable cost, that they had made a very big mistake.

Like him you may not (although, personally, I always have) but underestimate him and you'll pay a very high price indeed.

If you think that Sky, or any Murdoch enterprise, would ever give away money or revenue for nothing, you don't understand Murdoch. You'd better be very sure that you've worked out correctly the way that he's actually going to benefit from what appears to be benevolence or you'll come expensively unstuck.

Mancunian

thanks leopard, but can we keep on track regarding the offers - don't be so serious.

As a layman have always done well with Sky, over the years I have always got discounts and free stuff - they make there money anyway and us minions are happy with a bit of discount or free stuff.

Leopard

You're missing the point, Mancunian,

This is a Money Saving site and not falling into an expensive trap from which they can't afford to extricate themselves is a very serious matter for those who are on limited incomes.

I don't know where your word "layman" comes into any of this but over the decades that we subscribed to Sky, I had to be constantly on my own guard against the pranks to which it resorts to make money.

You speak of "discounts and free stuff". One little scam I remember was when Sky wrote to us saying that they'd noticed we weren't using Sky Box Office. So "as loyal customers" they offered us three free films– one a month, for three months. Very kind and magnanimous.

The first month, we watched one. The second month, we were abroad, so we passed it up. The third month we watched one. Then we got billed for two movies. I was moved to ring up and ask them why. "Ah well," they said, gleefully, "The offer said you could have one film a month, for three months. But you didn't watch one the second month. You had to watch three; but you didn't, so we're billing you for the two that you did watch."

:rotfl:

Nice one, Rupert; I had to congratulate you for the deviousness of that one! :T

It back-fired though, financially. Sky got my fiver, or whatever, but it cost them hundreds of pounds from losing my subscription. Pyrric victory, that one, Sport.

Golden rule: always beware a Murdoch bearing gifts. Had he been around at the time, he'd have come up with the Trojan Horse. You'll recall how that one worked.

As I wrote, earlier, above, though, I'm not advising people to avoid Sky's offers - I'm just warning fellow Money Savers to read every word of the small print at the bottom of them and work out the crafty little ambushes buried in them. Because they're always there, somewhere.

You may be a prosperous enough "minion" to be able to pay your way out of it if you fall into one, yourself, Mancunian, but there are many here who aren't. And, sadly but ironically, they're the ones who are most easily lured into the Digger's fleecing shed.

Mancunian

I think you have some demons about Murdoch - Leopard, get some therapy!

I like Sky and have always enjoyed the services (along with 8-9 million now?) and managed to play 'the game' and get savings and free stuff.

The current product is good, free Sky hd box- probably the lowest costs for the year would be £360. I also got £100 quidco back and a £50 tesco voucher. I also then got a Sky HD Party pack with a £20 M&S voucher.

On the 11th month of the contract I'll call and say I want to cancel and likely get another offer.


Freeview/ Freesat HD is £100 - 150 a box, no where near as many channels and no recording facility.

whamfanuk

i have taken up the sky self install offer, anyoen know how long it takes for the HD box to be delivered, they said 5 days, but I really dont wanna wait that long lol

macman

Mancunian wrote: »

I think you have some demons about Murdoch - Leopard, get some therapy!

I like Sky and have always enjoyed the services (along with 8-9 million now?) and managed to play 'the game' and get savings and free stuff.

The current product is good, free Sky hd box- probably the lowest costs for the year would be £360. I also got £100 quidco back and a £50 tesco voucher. I also then got a Sky HD Party pack with a £20 M&S voucher.

On the 11th month of the contract I'll call and say I want to cancel and likely get another offer.


Freeview/ Freesat HD is £100 - 150 a box, no where near as many channels and no recording facility.

Eh? Humax Freeview PVR is about £159. Humax Foxsat HDR is £235. Both will do what Sky+ does, and if you want HD on Freeview then the Humax PVR will be coming in about a month.
Since the average Sky sub is around £470 a year, most people who switched would get the cost of the box back within about 6 months. Then it's free forever and not a penny to Murdoch.
Sky may have more channels, but that does not equate to more channels that you'd want to watch.

Leopard

Mancunian wrote: »

I think you have some demons about Murdoch - Leopard, get some therapy!

I like Sky and have always enjoyed the services (along with 8-9 million now?) and managed to play 'the game' and get savings and free stuff.

The current product is good, free Sky hd box- probably the lowest costs for the year would be £360. I also got £100 quidco back and a £50 tesco voucher. I also then got a Sky HD Party pack with a £20 M&S voucher.

On the 11th month of the contract I'll call and say I want to cancel and likely get another offer.


Freeview/ Freesat HD is £100 - 150 a box, no where near as many channels and no recording facility.

Mancunian,

You couldn't be more wrong. :rotfl: (With or without emboldenment.)

I like (Rupert) Murdoch personally – and I've had direct dealings with him in the past. No demons for me. I have tremendous respect for him. He's probably the most astute businessman of the last half-century. In fifty years, I've never seen him put a foot wrong. You should read William Shawcross' book about him.

Bear in mind, also, that without Rupert, The Times and The Sunday Times in Britain would no longer exist. Only he could have saved them from extinction in 1979. And, at Wapping, with Wapping, he saved the whole of Fleet Street in 1986.

Sky, itself, is another matter. We had Sky for over twenty years, analogue and digital, but cancelled it in April last year after we upgraded (and I do mean upgraded) to a Humax FoxSat-HDR (FreeSat HD) box. Which, as the ever-wise, ever-informed and ever-cordial macman points out, has twin satellite tuners and a hard drive recorder.

And, as macman also points out, the cost of our Humax box was recouped in less than seven months by no longer paying Sky £37 a month for non-HD television on our Sky+ box. That was £444 a year. Every year. (And Sky's fee for what we were receiving has since gone up).

Multiply that by three years and you're paying Sky over £1,300 just to watch your own television. That could buy you the television itself, and a large one, at that.

Whereas, the Humax box costs a one-off £250 (or less, nowadays), installs in minutes (using the two satellite feeds from the dish that previously supplied the Sky+ box), can archive recorded programmes on to external hard drives by just plugging them into its USB ports, and provides HD television, completely free, forever.

People get so distracted by petty savings that they fail to see the big picture (no pun intended!). What's a £100 Quidco cashback, a £50 Tesco voucher and a £20 Marks & Spencer voucher, compared to paying £1,332 for the service over three years? Nice, agreed, but less than 13%. It doesn't even pay you back what the VAT costs you. There's no VAT at all on FreeSat's service. Because it's free. (And don't think that VAT isn't about to go up.)

As for the tricks that Sky tried on us, over two decades, that's a whole, and very tawdry, story in itself. But I won't recount it here.

For all of that, you probably think that because the business practices of Sky disgust me, I'd never deal with Sky again.

But there, again, you'd be wrong. I keep an open mind and look at deals as they're presented. (Minutely, when I'm dealing with Sky.)

As I say, we cancelled Sky in April of last year, after buying our Humax box.

We read, but ignored, the various offers with which Sky plied us to return. Always better ones, as the months passed.

Then, in March, with a month to go, we got the "Half Price on all Subscriptions" offer, made to lapsed customers still serving their year in the wilderness before being entitled to re-apply as "new subscribers" and take advantage of introductory offers.

Well, we were about to get (and duly did get, on 2 April) full-time ITV1-HD on FreeSat but there was (and remains) still no sign of the long-promised "Channel 4 -HD", which was already available on Sky HD.

Freeview HD was about to start (and we could get it, where we live). That broadcasts "Channel 4 - HD". But the technology is bound up with the Digital Switchover, which we don't get until next year. The kit, itself, is new and expensive at the moment. There's likely to be teething problems to start with and the kit will improve and get cheaper over the next year.

On the other hand, accepting the Sky half-price return offer would cost 12 x £9.50 (half £19) for two "Packs" for a year, which comes to £114. Add HD to that for 12 x £10 and it comes to £234. Pay Sky £60 for a new installation (second dish plus all cabling) and get a brand new HD box for free. Total cost, for the year, £294.

So, for £294 we would get (effectively) a second (if less-well featured) FreeSat HD recorder for a year, plus "Channel 4 - HD" free, immediately, plus a bunch of additional HD channels to watch for a year. Plus a second dish and free cabling and wall-drilling.

After eleven months, we could cancel the subscription and the Sky+HD box would then revert to being simply a FreeSat HD receiver but with "Channel 4 - HD".

My companion (I was abroad at the time) studied that carefully, checked the sums, discussed it with me by telephone, faxed me the small print Terms & Conditions to examine (very carefully) and signed us up for it. The HD box (a new Samsung) was installed five days later and the offer expired the week after that.

It's quite a nice piece of kit and Sky's engineering has improved; it's only frozen three times in the month we've had it. (Our Humax box never freezes.)

So, no: I may detest Sky as a company but I'm not daft enough nor prejudiced enough to let that blind me to a good deal.

Sometimes, you can beat Sky at its own game. (But you'll never beat Rupert at his.)

To do it, though, you have to go through the small print with a magnifying glass and a toothcomb, looking for the buried landmines.

One of which, with ours, is that Special Offer you posted at the head of this thread.

If we took that one, for free, and then cancelled it, we'd get what it offers. Free. Except that it wouldn't be free. It would rescind our half-price subscription deal for the rest of our package for the rest of the year – and that would cost us £104. Rather an expensive "free month".

Always remember the Golden Rule: beware of a Murdoch (in this case, Jamie) carrying gifts – it's how the Murdochs make their gold.

So, as I explained before, I'm not advising people not to go for the Special Deal that you kindly promulgated on here: I'm just telling them to make damned sure that going for it won't cost them a bomb by setting off the well-buried detonator in their fundamental contract. Because some of them can't afford to.

OK?