Cancelling Sky Problems...

lewdsnarler

Hi Everyone,

First of all I need to give you a background on my issue. We've been tied in to our Sky Contract which is up for renewal in October, we are wondering if there is a way we can cancel our contract beforehand. Im not good with legal talk, but we live in a small block of flats, all running off one dish which has a distribution box in the flats loft. All the time since we've had our contract every so often the words "No Satellite Signal" appeared on screen, and we'd be without the service for a while. I made phone calls back and forth to Sky, they wouldnt send out an engineer as the problem isnt with our box but the Amp in the Loft, which they said is nothing to do with them, and we should contact the landlords and the company who look after the flats as they own the box. We did this, and nothing ever happened, they just sent someone round to reset the box and the satellite is working again. This happened several times throughout the first year. We then discovered that the new neighbours were getting their Sky signal from the same amp in the roof and theirs kept going off when ours did. We got them to complain to both Sky and the management company and still nothing happened. None of the other flats in the block were affected. It was just us two. On another visit the local engineer said that the Distribution box wasnt powerful enough to cover the amount of flats in the block and should be replaced. This never happened. However, he did show us how to reset the Distribution Box when it happened to save call outs. We were happy just doing that every so often when we had to, but recently it looks like the distribution box will not reset like it used to... last time my neighbour did it, it worked again for an hour or so, then went off again. I have had Freeview in as a backup, which I've been using for the past month, but we're paying for Sky and not getting a single thing for it. Just a blue screen with "No Satellite Signal" its been off for the past month with not a single channel and we pay a premium for Sky TV. When we called them in the past, they say, The DIstribution box is nothing to do with them call your landlord, and this just doesnt get fixed just reset. They even had the cheek to say "Do you have a Playstation as you can watch your Sky with that??!" .. We're at the end of our tether now and want to cancel and just have Freeview. But we have a few months we're tied in for... can I get this done from a customer service point of view as I'm not getting the service we're paying for?

Olinda99

the landlord / mgmt company has the responsibility to fix the distribution box it is nothing to do with sky. Your fight is with your landlord.

Does your tenancy contract say Sky is provided as part of the rental deal?

I believe you can get Sky now without a satellite dish (via internet?) but ask them. That might be the way firward.

No.you can't cancel Sky until.the end of the contract. They are providing the service it's up.to.you to have working equipment.

400ixl

Does sound like the issue is with the landlord as they are distributing the Sky signal on their equipment, nothing Sky can do about that. As you are under contract until October, anything Sky do before that is goodwill.

You need to be insisting your landlord puts their equipment into a serviceable state.

Neil_Jones

lewdsnarler said:

Hi Everyone,

First of all I need to give you a background on my issue. We've been tied in to our Sky Contract which is up for renewal in October, we are wondering if there is a way we can cancel our contract beforehand. Im not good with legal talk, but we live in a small block of flats, all running off one dish which has a distribution box in the flats loft. All the time since we've had our contract every so often the words "No Satellite Signal" appeared on screen, and we'd be without the service for a while. I made phone calls back and forth to Sky, they wouldnt send out an engineer as the problem isnt with our box but the Amp in the Loft, which they said is nothing to do with them, and we should contact the landlords and the company who look after the flats as they own the box. We did this, and nothing ever happened, they just sent someone round to reset the box and the satellite is working again. This happened several times throughout the first year. We then discovered that the new neighbours were getting their Sky signal from the same amp in the roof and theirs kept going off when ours did. We got them to complain to both Sky and the management company and still nothing happened. None of the other flats in the block were affected. It was just us two. On another visit the local engineer said that the Distribution box wasnt powerful enough to cover the amount of flats in the block and should be replaced. This never happened. However, he did show us how to reset the Distribution Box when it happened to save call outs. We were happy just doing that every so often when we had to, but recently it looks like the distribution box will not reset like it used to... last time my neighbour did it, it worked again for an hour or so, then went off again. I have had Freeview in as a backup, which I've been using for the past month, but we're paying for Sky and not getting a single thing for it. Just a blue screen with "No Satellite Signal" its been off for the past month with not a single channel and we pay a premium for Sky TV. When we called them in the past, they say, The DIstribution box is nothing to do with them call your landlord, and this just doesnt get fixed just reset. They even had the cheek to say "Do you have a Playstation as you can watch your Sky with that??!" .. We're at the end of our tether now and want to cancel and just have Freeview. But we have a few months we're tied in for... can I get this done from a customer service point of view as I'm not getting the service we're paying for?

Unless Sky installed the satellite system/dish, its not their problem you can't get a signal on occasion.

You need to take this up with whoever is responsible for the equipment distributing the signal to the flats, so it'll be your landlord or or whoever owns those flats to get this sorted.

You can always make use of Sky Go which is part of your subscription.

iniltous

TBH , you can cancel , but probably not penalty free ( if you are in contract ) , if your broadband is good enough , Sky Glass works over your broadband and not from a satellite dish, but obviously even  if they upgrade you for ‘free’ , you pay for Sky TV and extra for the TV set that has the Sky streaming equipment built in, and you may not be that keen on a further minimum term , especially if Freeview is sufficient and feel Sky have treated you poorly.
As others have said , if there is a communal system that Sky are not responsible for , then presumably the building management should be doing something about it, personally I would be wary of something like this that gives a company you pay for a service the ability to say ‘not our issue ‘ but continue to charge for a service you can’t get.
As stated , if the basic Sky Go is included with your package , and your broadband is good enough , you should be able to at least watch via that, even if it isn’t ideal , then cancel in October