Sky+ box conveniently failing

zicowoods

Hi all,

Been with Sky coming up to a year now, and last few weeks been receiving calls trying to sell me insurance for my equipment. I always think this type of insurance is extortionate and unnecessary, however...

My box has really started playing up, mostly not switching on. After phoning Sky yesterday the guy there gave me instructions to reboot the box, and this has worked. However, on the call I asked him would I lose my recordings, and he said "No, you will not lose your recordings". Well, guess what? I lost my recordings. These phonecalls are all recorded so I would def have a case against them for losing these.

Anyways, my 2 points here.

• What do you guys recommend I try to do about the box, my 12 month warranty runs out on 20th June. Do I try and get a replacement box before then?
• These recordings (included entire Season 8 of 24 gutted) and the phonecall, which is recorded I'm guessing, is there anything I can do, or any of you have any success stories of compensation?

Many thanks in advance,

spike7451

Highly unlikely you'll get any compensation,especially for lost recordings!Chances of compo are slim to nil. All you'll get as you're still in the 12 months,is a free service call & a replacement reconditioned STB.

zicowoods

Because the fault on the box is intermittment though, the engineer could call out and it be working fine. I've had this problem a few times since Christmas, mostly sorted itself with plug out and plug in after a few mins. This last time, I called Sky and followed instructions and is working fine again now.

This is obviously a repeat fault, but if it's working how can I get a new box?

Also, I know a long shot with the recordings, but I made a point of asking would I lose any recordings, and he guaranteed me I would not. Surely I have some sort of comeback. We are told they record conversations to improve their service, is it Data Protection Offices or something they are called?

Pokerlad

Are you really asking for compensation for lost recordings? Perhaps they should have just left you with a broken box! Seriously this world is going mad.

spike7451

Having been an Engineer both for NTL/VM & Sky, I have been to faults where the fault has'nt been present when I've called out many a time.It's an intermittent fault which is caused by a failing Power Supply Unit (PSU) & it'll eventually fail completely.(Is the box a Thompson?These are notorious for it)
You wont get a new box on a service call,you'll get a reconditioned second hand box.
And no,you wont get compensation for lost recordings.Yes calls are recorded but do you seriously think someone is going to sit thru hours of recordings just to find your's? They are recorded onto a seperate database for quality monitoring & not linked to your account in any way,they do not give an customers information until they are played back on WMV player.
To ask for compensation for lost recording's is being greedy & petty.If everbody asked for compensation for something not told them by a second or third party the world would be in a sorrier state than it is now!Chav culture gone mad.

zicowoods

Not asking for compensation as in money or vouchers or whatever, maybe just a bit of sway with this box problem.

Not sure what make the box is, can check and post back, but that's good that even if problem is intermittment I should still get a replacement, even if it's a recon.

It's not so much about the recordings, it's the principle of the thing. I made a point of asking the operator would I lose them, and he guaranteed I wouldn't, in fact I asked him twice!

MrsMalthouse

Exact same thing happened to me last week. No problems with box until ONE week after warranty ran out! All of a sudden it just switched itself off, made a strange noise and wouldn't come back on again. Phoned Sky and had to reboot box, therefore losing all my recordings. I know it sounds really petty to most to get upset over losing a few recorded shows, but I had stuff I had recorded on there that will NEVER come on TV again-live news reports. (The news was about something really important to me.) The recordings were of historical significance to me and I was really miffed that I had to lose them. Nobody told me that this was a risk when recording stuff or else I would have found a way to get it put on DVD or something. I thought they were safe once they'd been recorded.
I rang up Sky again and tried to cancel over this and the fact that I'm not watching Sky as much now the nice weather's here but they offered me half price sky for 6 months so I feel at least partially compensated and will stay.

EDIT: My box IS a Thompson btw!

zicowoods

It's also a hassle and means you don't trust the system. What's the point me filling my planner with recordings if this box keeps playing up and I lose them all the time. Renders the record function useless unless I figure a way of backing them up.

Pokerlad

It strikes me that people are using there Sky+ as a means of permenantly keeping shows they want. It was never designed for this, its purpose was to 'time shift' your tv for you to view it when convienient. Its is a complex piece of electrical/computer equipment that can go wrong at anytime i.e power serge, hard drive failure etc and if the box needs swapped you will lose everything anyway. If you have stuff you want to keep you really need to archive it to vhs or ideally dvd.

zicowoods

I suppose it is basically just a hard drive, and as you'd back up your PC hard drive periodically, same should be said for Sky if you want the recordings permanently. Just not sure it's that easy done. I'm not like Malthouse, just had stuff from ages ago I never had time to watch.

preable

Hi if you do a system reboot you will lose your recordings the guy on the phone should have known this but i doubt you will get compo for lost recordings.