Lightening damaged sky equipment

rceebear

Hi,

I wonder if any one can offer some advice please? I'm going slightly crazy trying to get a replacement sky box and get our dish looked at after the lightening storms last week. The sky box has been confirmed dead by their trouble shooting tests. My partner had a long chat with them and got cut off before anything could be arranged. Just as well as he isn't as money savvy so would have probably ended up paying them for the box and a new contract knowing him!

They have offered me a "free" new box for £15 delivery plus an extra £5 per month by subscribing for a year to the family (HD, 3D & box sets) bundle. We don't need this. We could cancel movies and get family instead which would bring our monthly bill down by £3.50 but we lose movies and get family instead. I'm loathed to pay them for something we don't want and pay for postage of the new box. Especially when the new box may arrive to find that the dish was also damaged by the lightening. Then we have to pay £65 to get an engineer out. Or so I was told by Sky yesterday. Today they said that would be free as there would be a 90 day warranty with the new "free" box. Wish they could get their stories straight! Doesn't help when you are as indecisive as me!

The other option I was offered was to pay £30 for an engineer to come out and check everything. I am concerned they will then come and charge us for a new box and dish once here. Again I don't feel we should have to pay for the call out.

Also, why is the engineer call out £65 according to one advisor, £30 with another but free if we get the new "free" (£5 extra a month) box?!

Should I just try to cancel and see if they offer me a free engineer visit? From what I've read I may even get a better deal on our current package as well.

terryya

Yeah, I'd definitely call them to cancel due to it not working. The very least you'd want would be a free engineer, and like you said, you should also be able to negociate a better deal on your package as well.

flashg67

Can you borrow a box to check the signal? plenty of used boxes on ebay amd local Facebook selling pages plus independent installers if it is the dish

rceebear

Thank you both for your replies. I cancelled, despite them offering me a free engineer call out, free box and 20% off for 8 months. I must be mad but hoping for a call with a further reduction in the next month while the cancellation goes through. We have to wait a month for the cancellation to take effect but only have £2 to pay for that, even though we don't have a service. I begrudge paying them any more after the problems I've had getting through to them and going through the same rubbish with several different operators.

Really hoping they will call back with a better offer as my partner will kill me if he misses much more of the footie!

talktalktobt

If I were you I would have accepted the free engineer visit and the 20% - as you would not be put under a set contract for that. You could then call and put your 30 days notice in after the equipment was fixed to see if you would get a better deal.

rceebear

Very true but a bit late now. However, we've made an embarrassing discovery. When my partner was trying to set up playing a film on the TV from the laptop we discovered that the HDMI connection (the ones we plug the sky and the xbox one [also killed by the lightening] in to) weren't working. So we tried a port that was previously unused and guess what, the sky box isn't dead. So much for the sky diagnostics! A bit cheesed off but very glad we didn't pay for an engineer to come out or sign up to a new contract to get a new box we didn't need.

However, now our sky contract will be canceled in a month but I guess the upshot is that we are now in the situation that talktalktobt recommended. And we have TV again, well for a month atleast.

[Deleted User]

rceebear wrote: »

So much for the sky diagnostics!

The diagnostics would not have tested your HDMI lead and Sky advisors can only respond to what you say shows on screen when you try re-booting the box etc. Do remember that the box has definitely sustained damage even though you currently have it working. If I were you, I'd buy another one from E-Bay or Cash Converters etc -far cheaper than a Sky call out.

If you want your Sky subscription to continue then it's a simple matter to cancel the cancellation. If you look on "MySky", you may already have offers to "return"

[Deleted User]

If you've cancelled your Sky subscription why not just buy a new Freesat box instead - they're available quite cheaply in Argos and similar stores and will work well with your present dish (assuming it's not damaged), and as long as you don't need any of the paid for channels offered by Sky.

Moneymaker

1. The word is "lightning" (no "e").
2. There's no need to test for a "dead" Digibox. If it's dead it doesn't light up or make a sound.
3. Sky don't send an "engineer"; they send an installer. On a call-out he will replace *everything* necessary to get the system to work, including the dish. (An installer will not repair anything. Replacement is all he does.)
4. As stated above, you can cancel your cancellation (at any time up to the end of your contract).

Swipe

Sounds like you got a good opportunity to get rid of Sky.