Why I wish I'd stuck with Sky

jacobsdaduk

I just wanted to post my experience of moving from Sky to Virgin Media in the hope that anyone else thinking of doing the same might like to consider my experience before they move.

I was a Sky customer for 5 years. In those 5 years I had very few issues. I was on a 10Mb broadband package that gave good results and, other than having to restart my Samsung Sky+ HD box a few times, I had a generally good experience with good customer service. Here are a list of problems I've had within my first months with Virgin Media.

1. It took them 3 weeks to find a date to come and install the service in my new house.
2. The engineer couldn't leave the house fast enough, leaving the wireless (50Mb) broadband faulty. I managed to fix it myself without useless help for Virgin Media technical support
3. Everytime I called they said I didn't have an account with them and they couldn't help me - eventually they set up my account correctly after a complaint to customer services and nowcan find me when I call
4. They didn't supply the promised Dlink 300mpbs wireless adapter. After 2 weeks of chasing they sent me an inferior Netgear 56mpbs adapter. Eventually, after I kicked off, they sent me the correct one - 4 weeks later!
5. They billed my first month incorrectly (£25 overcharge) and then denied they ever agreed to the discount when I signed up. I did, eventually, get the credit.
6. The gave us some elses phone number - within 24 hours of being connected we were bombared with sales calls. They did agree to change the phone number after we had already given friends and family the new number.
7. Finally, today, they disconnected all my services for "non-payment of account". The £25 credit mentioned previously hadn't been refunded to my account as promised to they had cut me off and charged me £10 late payment! :mad:

After a long and very angry conversation with them at 8am today, they seem to have finally put my account right (fingers crossed). However, this has been the results of hours chasing them by email and phone and a lot of stress. Their call centres of tech support appear to be based abroad (unlike Sky with whom I always got some in the UK to speak too). Their staff have been generally unsympathetic to my problems until today when I threatened them with Ofcom and they suddenly decided to listen.

When it all works, it's good. I love the added bonus of the built in BBC iPlayer/4oD/ITV Player and the 50Mb broadband really is great as I download a lot of applications and websites. But the poor service has been really shocking and to be honest, I'm not convinced faster broadband and a slightly better TV option is really worth it!

zooks

Out of interest did Sky make any effort or gesture to keep your custom or just let you cancel.

I have sky BB, tv & phone but my hD box also needs rebooting daily but I was going to try the 'replace or im leaving' approach.

vikramrkin

Surprised to hear that. I was with Virgin for a long time and had no problem at all. Infact I moved to sky recently and not happy with them. I will definately not continue afte ran year. I think you are just unlucky with virgin. On their website, they have a complaints section and they usually respond quickly. Do give it a try.

Livingthedream

zooks wrote: »

I have sky BB, tv & phone but my hD box also needs rebooting daily but I was going to try the 'replace or im leaving' approach.

I would be very surprised is Sky didn't replace your HD box free, if they did say 'You need to pay £50 to get it fixed' or something like that then just say that you can't afford that and wish to cancel your Sky subscriptions. Which then gets you passed to their cancellations dept who will try their best to keep you as a customer, even if this means replacing your old box for free.

Of course by doing this, you run the risk that they could cut you off as requested, but from the stories I've read on other forums, this only happens on rare occasion and normally with problem payer.

jacobsdaduk

zooks wrote: »

Out of interest did Sky make any effort or gesture to keep your custom or just let you cancel.

I have sky BB, tv & phone but my hD box also needs rebooting daily but I was going to try the 'replace or im leaving' approach.

No, they didn't offer me a new box. I has Sky HD+, Sky Talk and Broadband. I didn't have Sports of Movies. The just offered to reduce my viewing package to £10 for 6 months, but they didn't offer any other discounts or a new box, so I left.

I've moved house now, so in 10 months when my contract with Virigin expires I might look at Sky again. Failing that, I might just get a Humax and ditch Pay TV.

zooks

Ah sorry to hear that, hopefully virgin will be trouble free from now on.

For info for anyone in the same situation as myself Livingthedream is indeed correct and I managed to get a free engineer service callout (& hopefully a replacement box) from Sky.
I politely declined to pay a £65 engineers fee and asked them what they were prepared to do to reward my loyalty and keep my business. I never actually mentioned cancelling but I did point out new customers get a free box.
After a bit of an awkward silence they offered a free call out as a goodwill gesture