SKY charging for a Freebie - Is this fight worth the broken nails?

Sleenbeen

A little bit of background:
I've always been a believer in the addage that -'there is always a way to sort things out', however, in our house, where both husband and I are each responsible for picking up certain household bills; I will always query and fight to make sure the bill is correct,(I'm not after ripping people off, I just want to 'have it right') whereas husband will just pay it and grumble afterwards.

Over the years he has started to see that he can have influence over these things and that commerce in general is purely designed to tip us all upside down and empty our pockets to keep us all hungry enough to keep trotting back to press the metaphorical buttons in the factory. This is no surprise,(It's taken me long enough to shine the spotlight in the right direction) Long story short: he pays for sky, I generally hate TV but do gobble through broadband usage!

A while back, we had some quite hefty issues with signal quality which left large chunks of time with an unwatchable picture. Husband then made various phonecalls to SKY and had lots of chats with all manner of people to firstly; find out what's causing it, to ask for it to stop so that we can enjoy the thing we are paying for, and for it to not happen again; also, due to the down time we've had - it would seem right and proper for them to offer some kind of recompense. 'No problem Mr Customer, I shall gladly give you 2 months of free SKY Go.'
That's lovely, says husband, not having a clue what SKY Go is, and just hearing the word 'free' (I wasn't in the room at this time, but to be frank I didn't know what it was either, {I'm nearly 50 for gods sake, I just want to check my emails...}

Needless to say, SKY Go was never used either (we didn't know what it was, never mind how to use it!)

SO....several months down the line, and sky bill has helped itself to a pay rise. Back on the phone to find out why.
'Well, Mr Customer, the extra is down to your SKY Go addition to your package'
'But I didn't ask for SKY Go, you gave us 2 months free as a good will gesture due to a previous !!!!-up'
'But you didn't cancel it Mr Customer'

Obviously, Sky Go is now cancelled!
..............................................

Personally, I'd bin Sky off in a heartbeat. The films,(which I do like to watch now and again) are generally not much good, (there are exceptions sometimes) With the correct research and advice, I'm confident that I can track down alternative phone and broadband provision elsewhere, We already have the Amazon Firestick so there is plenty to watch on there. Literally the only thing Husband insists on is Discovery channels.
SO....
My questions are:
1.Do you think it's possible to get back the money Sky charged for the SKY Go? I don't mind Direct debit clawbacks etc. or indeed the fight in general, if it's that I'm in the legally right position.
2. How might it be possible to get Discovery channels by any other means other than Sky,or Virgin as we live in an area where Virgin cannot access, so that's not an option.

JJ_Egan

Afraid i got lost in the maze of your posts .


Discovery channels by any other means

BT TV .

Marcio45

Personally i would say it is a war not worth fighting for. It is standard in the industry to offer you a free or reduced subscription of something to then convert for full price after a certain period. On a legal point of view, you might not go far. And it is easy for them to ruin your credit score if and when they wish.

The amount of hours and effort to achieve your goal is simply not worth it. Although there is no harm in making a formal complaint to Sky and see where it takes you. Also have in mind that it is your husband's account so he is the one that has to act on it.

Considering alternatives, if you have a fire tv stick you can get the app TV Player and subscribe to a few channels, including discovery, for £4.99 a month.

Good luck on your endeavours.

Sleenbeen

Ooopsie, apologies for the rambles...

Marcio45

Dont take me wrong... i know where you are coming from. These companies treat costumers with so much disrespect and see us only as a cash cow. It is normal to want to fight back when you feel you are being wronged.

I guess the system nowadays it is always on their side. The costumer is not always right anymore. They have your bank account to ramson and can ruin your credit life with just a press of a button. And then you have to go through a loop, wasting days of your life, getting angry, crying, felling desperate and helpless, and sometimes at a severe financial loss (eg not being able to get a mortgage). You just need to read the forums here.

That is why i am saying it is not worth fighting some wars, because it can be so much hassle, although it goes against the principle of justice.

I am guessing you didnt lose much money on this venture with Sky. Take it as a lesson learned and be always carefull when dealing with these faceless companies. They are not there to make the costumer happy but only to extract every single penny they can from you.

Sorry for my rambling too.

teddysmum

I'm very unclear on this , as Sky Go is a free inclusive to Sky tv subscriptions.


Why would someone offer something you get anyway or do you mean Sky Go Extra, which is chargeable ? (Sky Go Extra is £5/month, unless you have a multiscreen subscription).

Sleenbeen

Hi Teddysmum,

Yes, it must have been Sky Go Extra, as it was £5 a month.

:mad:

I know it's not a lot of money, and sure, husband should have kept half an eye on it, and he's not the one making a fuss, but I just find it infuriating, much like so many other people. Thank you for your input folks, much appreciated.

Bigphil1474

Personally, I'd let it go with Sky - I use their Now TV, and I've always had to be careful to avoid paying when I didn't want to. I'm sure they'll point to their T&C's where it clearly stated that you had to cancel after the free 2 months (not). To be fair Sky Go extra is pretty good if you need/want it.
Re Discovery - I have access to it through PlusNet TV - they supply my BB & phone, and the tv content is £5 a month extra, although if you became a new customer I'm sure there'd be some freebies on offer. They supplied me with a Youview+ box which also works as a recorder. You can pay extra for other stuff like BT sport if you want. All in, I pay about £38 a month for BB fibre, line rental, tv, and any time calls.

duchy

Not much compensation as everyone without it can get a free two month trial just by asking.

That said it's quite a handy thing to have if you are travelling for Christmas as it allows access to all your Sky channels via wifi on up to four devices (Sky go is only two) and unlike sky go you can download content to watch without wifi so great for long car or train journeys to keep the "are we there yet" down. Important thing to remember it's a 2 month trial with a 31 day notice period so you give notice at the end of the first month and it goes off a month later.

brewerdave

One important point to note about Sky Go/Sky Go Extra is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to get it to work on PCs.
Several browsers no longer support Silverlight, which is needed for Sky Go (eg Chrome & Edge) and Firefox is stopping support very soon.
Furthermore it has proved impossible to get Sky Go to work on a fully up to date Windows 10 PC with any browser,the Anniversary update to the operating system seems to have broken Sky Go. I've had no success despite following innumerable suggestions and deleting/reloading software:(
So unless you have a need for Sky Go on more than 2 tablets/phones don't "upgrade" to Extra!!