Every now and then, our Sky service will mysteriously "not work".

The usual calls to customer service.

The usual "switch that off" "switch that on" "Check this" "Check that" ad nauseum.

Then, when no explanation is found (bizarrely enough), the advisor will say (in a robotic tone of voice) - "Youll need an engineer to come out to you and that will be £65"....

How convenient.  And Ill bet the scumbags do this to thousands of households weekely... just "switch-off" their reception and just wait for the money to roll-in.  

The service will be back on in a couple days time, Im confident of that.  And a saving of £65 to boot.

Conspiracy theorist in your spare time ?

I would check the connections on the main cable.
Make sure the FF Connector has a rubber cover between the cable & LNB as water can easily get into the cable & cause havoc.

sky are the biggest money grabbing scumbags in history.

Quote from: EggtasticoI would check the connections on the main cable.
Make sure the FF Connector has a rubber cover between the cable & LNB as water can easily get into the cable & cause havoc.

Think this is what was wrong with ours for awhile, water was getting into the cable and traveling down into the house and soaking the sky box

We had a dodgy sky box last year and they replaced it 4 times before they gave us a working one. We never paid them a penny because I outright argued like hell with them on the phone and each time asked to be put through to their cancellations department, who all of a sudden seemed to have a very different approach (you could easily tell which dept was targeted on cash and which was targeted on low cancellation numbers!) -  they sent us engineers out straight away each time. Turned out the contracters they were using were putting in old sky boxes claiming they were new and then charging sky for a new one. Finally we had an actual sky engineer who said the boxes the contractors were putting in hadnt been used for about 2 years. c*nts!

Ive had nothing but good experience so far since getting Sky installed in October. Whenever Ive phoned up theyve been helpful and addressed any issues quickly over the phone, Ive been offered discount rates on extra packages (Im getting all the movie channels half price at the moment) and the one time the line went down once (chavs hit the dish with a football I think) the engineer was out that Sunday to fix it, no charge as its still under warranty.

Quote from: Clockd 0NeIve had nothing but good experience so far since getting Sky installed in October. Whenever Ive phoned up theyve been helpful and addressed any issues quickly over the phone, Ive been offered discount rates on extra packages (Im getting all the movie channels half price at the moment) and the one time the line went down once (chavs hit the dish with a football I think) the engineer was out that Sunday to fix it, no charge as its still under warranty.

To be fair ours was about 8 years old so no warrenty. However my policy was were buying a monthly service off you its your job to provide me with the necessary kit to use the service. Hell I get a new mobile each year - they can give me a new sky box after 8!! They saw it my way eventually.

Quote from: Rivkid

Quote from: Clockd 0NeIve had nothing but good experience so far since getting Sky installed in October. Whenever Ive phoned up theyve been helpful and addressed any issues quickly over the phone, Ive been offered discount rates on extra packages (Im getting all the movie channels half price at the moment) and the one time the line went down once (chavs hit the dish with a football I think) the engineer was out that Sunday to fix it, no charge as its still under warranty.

To be fair ours was about 8 years old so no warrenty. However my policy was were buying a monthly service off you its your job to provide me with the necessary kit to use the service. Hell I get a new mobile each year - they can give me a new sky box after 8!! They saw it my way eventually.

Very good of them, but do you expect your ISP to replace your computer ?

Quote from: Sam

Quote from: Rivkid

Quote from: Clockd 0NeIve had nothing but good experience so far since getting Sky installed in October. Whenever Ive phoned up theyve been helpful and addressed any issues quickly over the phone, Ive been offered discount rates on extra packages (Im getting all the movie channels half price at the moment) and the one time the line went down once (chavs hit the dish with a football I think) the engineer was out that Sunday to fix it, no charge as its still under warranty.

To be fair ours was about 8 years old so no warrenty. However my policy was were buying a monthly service off you its your job to provide me with the necessary kit to use the service. Hell I get a new mobile each year - they can give me a new sky box after 8!! They saw it my way eventually.

Very good of them, but do you expect your ISP to replace your computer ?

Sam thats an awful argument and you know it is. I dont own a computer purely to recieve the services of my ISP. I owned one long before I ever knew what an ISP was. Would I own a sky box if I didnt have a sky subscription? No.

my experiences of sky havnt been really bad but they dont seem to have any customer loyalty.

I nearly always cancel my subs in the summer as we dont spend much time at home, and when I rang up last year to do it they turned off all the sky channels (fair enough) but also most of the decent freeview channels ( e4, skysportsnews, more4 etc etc) and wouldnt allow me to keep using the sky+ features either, even if I paid the £10pm they usually charge and Id paid £100 for the box, then eventually after a couple of weeks ALL the channels went off

They wherent interested in sorting it out, all they said was I would need to subs again, even though i told them I was only cancelling for 3months or so and I had paid £100 for the sky+ box. Since then I never bothered re-subs and just got a freeview PVR.

Quote from: RivkidWe had a dodgy sky box last year and they replaced it 4 times before they gave us a working one. We never paid them a penny because I outright argued like hell with them on the phone and each time asked to be put through to their cancellations department, who all of a sudden seemed to have a very different approach (you could easily tell which dept was targeted on cash and which was targeted on low cancellation numbers!) -  they sent us engineers out straight away each time. Turned out the contracters they were using were putting in old sky boxes claiming they were new and then charging sky for a new one. Finally we had an actual sky engineer who said the boxes the contractors were putting in hadnt been used for about 2 years. c*nts!

we distribute the sky engineers parts, and today Sky have an audit on, where they check stock nationaly, there are 5 types of parts they check

Sky+/HD, A grade, new STB Coax, and telephone cable, for the entire NE on england, we had no New STBs

almost all STBs shipped to their engineers are refurbished.

Quote from: Alien8

Quote from: RivkidWe had a dodgy sky box last year and they replaced it 4 times before they gave us a working one. We never paid them a penny because I outright argued like hell with them on the phone and each time asked to be put through to their cancellations department, who all of a sudden seemed to have a very different approach (you could easily tell which dept was targeted on cash and which was targeted on low cancellation numbers!) -  they sent us engineers out straight away each time. Turned out the contracters they were using were putting in old sky boxes claiming they were new and then charging sky for a new one. Finally we had an actual sky engineer who said the boxes the contractors were putting in hadnt been used for about 2 years. c*nts!

we distribute the sky engineers parts, and today Sky have an audit on, where they check stock nationaly, there are 5 types of parts they check

Sky+/HD, A grade, new STB Coax, and telephone cable, for the entire NE on england, we had no New STBs

almost all STBs shipped to their engineers are refurbished.

Ok cant argue with that - but when I said old sky boxes Im talking about old models that sky dont put in anymore. The engineer gave us a new model one and that worked straight away.

Ive had Sky since 2001 and Sky+ since last September. This January, I got a letter through the door inviting me to take all the channels for one month free (I only had the two Sky Mix packages at £17 a month). So I took them as me and the missus wanted to catch the SuperBowl (which BBC2 ended up airing anyway).

I check my statement this month, and what do I find? Instead of £17 for this months mixes plus the free movies and sports, I get a bill for £69.39! How they came to that Ive no idea, I dont use box office and the maximum for my current Sky World package is £45.

Trying to get it sorted on the phone is a bitch.

Youve got to be careful with some of these promotions as they expire and if you forget youre back on the premium rate. My movie deal ends on the 21st March, Ive got it penned on my whiteboard so I remember to cancel before then.