Two weeks until Sky can fix my system

wee_den

I've had no sky TV since Sunday as not getting a satellite signal to any of my boxes, the earliest sky can send an engineer is 15/2/16.

I think this is totally unacceptable, who in this day and age can wait over two weeks to watch tv? We have Netflix and my son can watch skygo on his Xbox but I'm not going to sit and watch tv on an iPad for two weeks.

Surely I can get them for breach of contract as they are not providing a service?

Any advice would be grateful received as I am planning to phone the cancellation department tomorrow

D

pathtofreedom

What does it say in their contract? I'm not sure where mine is else I'd check for you but I've had mine for years so I might have a different one. If I remember right when I had a box fail I had to buy a new one as the box and the dish are counted as owned by me, and I don't have the extra insurance you can get to cover fixes. Do you have the extra cover? If so what does the contract for that say about fixes?

PasturesNew

I haven't even heard of some of the stuff in your post. I've heard of Sky, but never had it....

Outside there's a whole world going on .... if you can't get a proper telly, then 2 weeks of knitting and Ludo won't hurt you.

pathtofreedom

Ah this is the insurance http://www.skyprotect.com/what-we-cover do you have this? If not it might be cheaper to see if a local tv Ariel company can come have a look rather than paying for the sky engineer call out.

wee_den

I've been in contract for 9.5 years so I don't know what my contract says either but I do not have the private insurance ��

pathtofreedom

I think you're better off calling some local ariel people then really. Could it just have been due to the bad weather and it has been blown off course a bit? As if your dish /boxes are that old sky won't fix them for free. You could be looking at £65 call out fee plus fixes to whatever is wrong as you own all the equipment not sky. You're just paying for the subscription for the channels, when you first joined you might have had a deal for free installation/ boxes but if they break it is on you to replace unfortunately. I don't bother with that insurance, as if mine break I know the risks and think a new box or getting a local guy in would be cheaper than paying the insurance each year.

Do you have hd boxes as well if it is that old? Maybe it is worth doing the cancel call and seeing if you can haggle some new boxes out of them, which would probably mean a dish upgrade too if I remember right, which might still work out cheaper than just fixing what you have then another box failing later and having to do this again. That or get the ariel fixed by a local company, and look at some freesat boxes instead, you can still record with some of these.

mije1983

Sky will credit you for any downtime, even if it is 1 or 2 days. This is usually applied to your account when the engineer visit is book in my experience.

Due to the weather, I don't think it's outside the realms of possibility that they have had a lot of home visits scheduled recently which will have made the lead time longer than usual (I waited 2 days at the end of November). Not much that can be done about Mother Nature unfortunately when it's a piece of equipment open to the elements.

When you call them remain calm and polite, and they may be able to find you an earlier slot, or a cancellation. If you go in there ranting and raving about not being able to cope without TV for 2 weeks, you will just get their backs up and they will be less likely to want to help.

[Deleted User]

wee_den wrote: »

Surely I can get them for breach of contract as they are not providing a service?

Good luck with that!

Kurtis_Blue

They are providing a service. Your equipment isnt receiving it.

As has been said just get a local aerial/sat installer to fix.

Should be same or next day.
But first have a quick visual check:
Next door doing any building work?
Any branches etc.. in the way?
If you can reach the dish have a look at the small nuts at the rear they will mark the brackets when installed. Have they moved?
Has the plastic "LNB" holder snapped?

POPPYOSCAR

pathtofreedom wrote: »

What does it say in their contract? I'm not sure where mine is else I'd check for you but I've had mine for years so I might have a different one. If I remember right when I had a box fail I had to buy a new one as the box and the dish are counted as owned by me, and I don't have the extra insurance you can get to cover fixes. Do you have the extra cover? If so what does the contract for that say about fixes?

We have had sky for years and never had insurance.


We also have never had to pay for any visits or new boxes.


The mention of cancelling the contract has seemed to ensure this.

macman

wee_den wrote: »

I've been in contract for 9.5 years so I don't know what my contract says either but I do not have the private insurance ��

Major misunderstanding here. If you are out of minimum term, then the box, cabling, dish and LNB are not warrantied. You do not lease the equipment with Sky, it's yours from day one and once out of warranty, any call outs are chargeable at about £65. Normally you can simply blag a free call out by asking to leave. If nothing available, use a private contractor.
In the meantime, if you still have an aerial, plug in to that and use Freeview.
Your contract does not include maintenance of the equipment, so no breach.