Sky TV call out charge £65 ?

EllasPa

Shortly after a phone call saying my Sky + box was out of warranty and I needed to pay a monthly fee of £8.95 to keep it covered (which I refused), hey presto the Sky + record/pause/planner options have now failed. I called Sky who quoted £65 for a call out, even though I told them I knew of other people in our area with the same problem. I threatened to cancel my £65 a month subscription, but they called my bluff. Anyone else had similar experiences? I'm moving house soon, so I may use that as an opportunity to haggle or switch to Virgin Media.

davetrousers

EllasPa wrote: »

I threatened to cancel my £65 a month subscription, but they called my bluff.

Now you'll have £780 a year to spend on something worthwhile.

spike7451

EllasPa wrote: »

Shortly after a phone call saying my Sky + box was out of warranty and I needed to pay a monthly fee of £8.95 to keep it covered (which I refused), hey presto the Sky + record/pause/planner options have now failed. I called Sky who quoted £65 for a call out, even though I told them I knew of other people in our area with the same problem. I threatened to cancel my £65 a month subscription, but they called my bluff. Anyone else had similar experiences? I'm moving house soon, so I may use that as an opportunity to haggle or switch to Virgin Media.

Your PSU is on the way out,you can get it replaced for around £30 (see the list of repairers in the sticky)
The £65 charge is the standard charge for an out of warranty call out.TBH,I cannot see what people are moaning about...If your washing machine breaks,you call out a repair bloke who will charge you a set fee...Yes,haggle it down & see if you can get it reduced or for free,but you wouldn't do that with the washing machine repair bloke...
The £9 a month 'repair plan' is a big con imho & totally unneeded.
Anyway,with VM the is no call out fee as,unlike Sky,you don't own the equipment,unless you are the one who caused the fault.(like the woman who's VM box blew up because she had lit candles sitting on the top of it,that cost her £50)

macman

Or just get yourself a cheap Sky+ box on eBay (or free on freegle), swap it over, job done.

newbie1001

Just call their bluff and cancel, retentions are much different to customer services and you will probably get a lot more out of them than just a box fix.

miss_trust_2

depends on what offers are on your account in cancellations, you may have an offer for a new box with a discount on HD pack/new box whatever - there is highly likely to be the free service call!

EllasPa

Thanks everyone for your advice. A quick update - all channels disappeared yesterday saying there was a problem with the viewing card and to call Sky. I put it on standby, turned it off and turned it back on again. Now everything is back working, even the Sky + functions. Does this make me an IT expert ? Even better news is that I have saved £65. Fingers crossed it stays that way!

spike7451

EllasPa wrote: »

Thanks everyone for your advice. A quick update - all channels disappeared yesterday saying there was a problem with the viewing card and to call Sky. I put it on standby, turned it off and turned it back on again. Now everything is back working, even the Sky + functions. Does this make me an IT expert ? Even better news is that I have saved £65. Fingers crossed it stays that way!

It wont.The symptoms will return & the PSU will fail eventually & the box wont work full stop.Seen this many times working for Sky as an Engineer.

EllasPa

oh dear, thought it was too good to be true. Let's see if it can hold out until I move house, then I can start negotiating. They are obviously not fit for the purpose if they fail so frequently (and so soon). Thanks for the tip.

EllasPa

I eventually moved house last week. Sky came out to install and as they couldn't repair my box, I got a new (updated model) box free. Cool.

[Deleted User]

macman wrote: »

Or just get yourself a cheap Sky+ box on eBay (or free on freegle), swap it over, job done.

+1 for this.