My First Experience With Sky
Posted on 22nd Sep 2009 at 15:00 by Mark Mackay with 39 comments
Having recently moved into a shiny new flat I decided that it was time to get Sky TV. After learning that my flatmate and I could get Sky+ HD, a 16MB broadband connection with no download limit and a phone line with free line rental for a entire year, for just under £20 a month, each, we made the leap of faith and signed up.
It wasn’t long before the nightmare began. I'm cataloging the series of events I had with one of the UK's only premium (HD)TV providers.
Below is the first letter of complaint that I sent Sky. Helpfully, you’re only allowed to use 1000 characters, hence the shorthand.
"Hello I ordered Sky in June to have TV installed on July 6. Sky got my address wrong when sending out the activation card [it was originally given in correctly] so I had to wait 1 extra week. They came round, told me that to sort it properly they'd need the 'special heights' team. This costs £120. 1 more week. Special heights said the dish was fine. 1 week later the signal failed. Someone came round again to say special heights were needed AGAIN. 3 weeks. They fixed the dish and replaced the box which was broken. I was downgraded to the old Sky software. The new box loses audio completely until I flick through the inputs until i get back to HDMI. It's also broken. Amongst these shambles I learned that my phone line installation was cancelled. After phoning up I was told I would have to wait a further 2-3 weeks for the phone line. So far, your service has been appalling, and has cost me a lot of time and money not to mention frustration."
After a little to-ing and fro-ing, Sky eventually reimbursed me £56 for my troubles. This seems like a lot, but after deducting over a month of services that I never received, it’s not much considering the problems that were caused.
However Sky never got back to me about the broken box and didn’t send out new firmware after ours was downgraded. They also denied further compensation despite the fact I had to take four days off work to get Sky TV organised.
After we eventually got our line ‘activated’ (inverted commas are used here as it didn’t actually work), I spoke to Sky and learned that I was no longer getting a year’s free line rental as the sales person promised when I coughed up £75 for my initial payment. I then had to email them with the details so they could trawl through the telephone conversations to confirm that they did actually offer me this. Thankfully this problem was sorted out with relative ease, but what if I hadn’t checked my bills or spoken to Sky? I would have been almost £100 out of pocket through no fault of my own by the end of the year.
Unfortunately, things didn’t get any better. After doing basic trouble shooting on my telephone line it became apparent that there was a bigger problem at hand. After several hours of my free time (and money, as I had to use my mobile due to my phoneline still not working) on the phone to Sky, re-explaining things to staff that didn’t have any previous record of the shenanigans so far, and waiting another two weeks or so without an internet connection, I sent a third complaint to Sky. Sky replied to say it had already given me compensation for my problems, but I'd made it clear this further complaint for was an entirely separate batch of continuing issues. I’ve emailed Sky again to explaining this, and am still awaiting a reply.
This whole ordeal started on the 6th July and it’s now late September. I’m still messing around with this company instead of enjoying my service. Our Sky box doesn’t work 100% though we’ve finally had working broadband for a few days now. (semi-)Hurrah!
I can't understand how Sky can absolutely falter at every-possible-stage of the installation and trouble shooting, in what can only be described as the most epic failure in customer service I have ever received. As you can imagine, the amount of time and stress the whole ordeal has cost me and my housemate is considerable to say the least because the last thing you want to do when getting home is to chase up an ongoing problem for months on end. It’s something I’d thought I’d share with you guys in the hope that it may save you going through the same nightmare.
/endrant
Am I alone in this? Have others had the same issues or has your service from Sky been better? Let me know!
It wasn’t long before the nightmare began. I'm cataloging the series of events I had with one of the UK's only premium (HD)TV providers.
Below is the first letter of complaint that I sent Sky. Helpfully, you’re only allowed to use 1000 characters, hence the shorthand.
"Hello I ordered Sky in June to have TV installed on July 6. Sky got my address wrong when sending out the activation card [it was originally given in correctly] so I had to wait 1 extra week. They came round, told me that to sort it properly they'd need the 'special heights' team. This costs £120. 1 more week. Special heights said the dish was fine. 1 week later the signal failed. Someone came round again to say special heights were needed AGAIN. 3 weeks. They fixed the dish and replaced the box which was broken. I was downgraded to the old Sky software. The new box loses audio completely until I flick through the inputs until i get back to HDMI. It's also broken. Amongst these shambles I learned that my phone line installation was cancelled. After phoning up I was told I would have to wait a further 2-3 weeks for the phone line. So far, your service has been appalling, and has cost me a lot of time and money not to mention frustration."
After a little to-ing and fro-ing, Sky eventually reimbursed me £56 for my troubles. This seems like a lot, but after deducting over a month of services that I never received, it’s not much considering the problems that were caused.
However Sky never got back to me about the broken box and didn’t send out new firmware after ours was downgraded. They also denied further compensation despite the fact I had to take four days off work to get Sky TV organised.
After we eventually got our line ‘activated’ (inverted commas are used here as it didn’t actually work), I spoke to Sky and learned that I was no longer getting a year’s free line rental as the sales person promised when I coughed up £75 for my initial payment. I then had to email them with the details so they could trawl through the telephone conversations to confirm that they did actually offer me this. Thankfully this problem was sorted out with relative ease, but what if I hadn’t checked my bills or spoken to Sky? I would have been almost £100 out of pocket through no fault of my own by the end of the year.
Unfortunately, things didn’t get any better. After doing basic trouble shooting on my telephone line it became apparent that there was a bigger problem at hand. After several hours of my free time (and money, as I had to use my mobile due to my phoneline still not working) on the phone to Sky, re-explaining things to staff that didn’t have any previous record of the shenanigans so far, and waiting another two weeks or so without an internet connection, I sent a third complaint to Sky. Sky replied to say it had already given me compensation for my problems, but I'd made it clear this further complaint for was an entirely separate batch of continuing issues. I’ve emailed Sky again to explaining this, and am still awaiting a reply.
This whole ordeal started on the 6th July and it’s now late September. I’m still messing around with this company instead of enjoying my service. Our Sky box doesn’t work 100% though we’ve finally had working broadband for a few days now. (semi-)Hurrah!
I can't understand how Sky can absolutely falter at every-possible-stage of the installation and trouble shooting, in what can only be described as the most epic failure in customer service I have ever received. As you can imagine, the amount of time and stress the whole ordeal has cost me and my housemate is considerable to say the least because the last thing you want to do when getting home is to chase up an ongoing problem for months on end. It’s something I’d thought I’d share with you guys in the hope that it may save you going through the same nightmare.
/endrant
Am I alone in this? Have others had the same issues or has your service from Sky been better? Let me know!
39 Comments
Discuss in the forums ReplyI think this kind of thing is inherent in all the big companies really - customer service is the first thing to go down the toilet as a company grows, I'm sure there's a list as long as my arm of companies that do this kind of crap.
The idea of TV, telephone and broadband all on the one bill and cheaper was appealing.
Gonna have to think about this now :(
I cannot describe in detail (because there was so many issues over a period of months) all the problems I had with them. However it started when I gave them my MAC code from my previous ISP. They agreed on a day for it to be transferred, letters were received confirming the day. The day came, and my internet was switched off. However as they insist on you using their own router, it had not arrived. I was told it was only ordered that day, instead of beforehand, so that was 3 days without internet waiting for it to arrive, instead of about 2 hours loss of internet as told by sales. Reason? They don't bother to send out your router until the day you switch to them. Idiots. That was just the start of a few months of many and varied troubles. it culminated in an email to rupert murdoch, and his people not only arranged for decent compensation, but also my MAC code and release from the 12 month contract.
Fast forward to today. My exchange is now LLU ready, and I have ordered the Sky broadband again at £20 a month for unlimited up to 20mb download speed. I am expecting about 14mb. So far, so good. The router arrived several days ago, with letter and information. Activation is for today, so should be ready when I get home from work. We shall see. Setting aside the 10 day "line training" period, I will let you know how it goes for me, and if it goes badly Mr Murdoch will be getting another email from me.
I have ZERO confidence in their broadband customer service, which going on past experience was worse than useless, sent me on a global tour of Asia each time, sometimes ending up back in Scotland, and it was a case of broken callback promise, one after another and (literally) weeks of no internet access randomly, with an "urgent" callback to me sometimes happening 3 days later.
I just hope it all works this time around, and I don't end up having to phone their technical "support".
Will update soon!
;)
That is freaking harsh - especially as Sky have been nothing but fantastic! Not to rub it in. Whenever a problem has arisen with the package I bought my parents, Sky have been prompt and professional - repairing the issue immediately. Obviously I can't blame Sky for BT being retarded and crippling my connection speed & I don't mean to rub it in your face that I've received fantastic quality of service.
Still, you've done what most people don't and shout the hell up when such awful issues arise.
I can still relate to receiving such a pathetic service - T-Mobile. I've never felt so much pent up aggression against a company, but they take the biscuit.
Ranting aside - let's look at the positive - you've got an net connection, that means you should check out my community, and finally play some games.
\m/
My experiences of T-Mobile have been less than stellar in the last year, too. :(
My parents switched from Virgin Media to Sky as they could get Sky+HD, phone and internet for less than the cost of the Virgin TV (without phone or internet...) with the package deal Sky was running. So far the only complaint has been that despite BT installing a brand new phone line (that they tested out and "assure" us should be able to work at at least 8Mbps) for the internet, the Sky broadband is barely hitting 2.5Mbps.
Oh, and the Sky+HD box has a tendency to crash every few days, although it's not yet got so bad as Virgin, which we usually had to reboot at least twice a day.
You should report these glorified robbers and teach them a lesson!
I would email the main man murdoch. I know he doesn't read them, but someone with clout does, because as described above my issues were sorted out with compensation, (credited to my TV bill) a MAC code and dismissal of the contract within 48 hours of sending it.
Luckily there is a website that explains how to extract your adsl user/pass so you can use your own router. I really didnt like the idea of sky being able to manage my router!
and draiguk is quite right, itd be drawn out to go through an ombudsman, but its an option if all else did fail, but its definately worth aiming higher in the organisation with a well worded email first, sound advice.
I personally was having a nightmare of a time with BT broadband, and was using sky tv in conjunction ( which i had relatively no issues with), but after all the hassle i switched service providers to virgin , for the whole deal, and its been perfect since installation 4 months ago.
it seems to me that sometimes its a roll of the dice with service providers
(considering other stories here describe sky as brilliant and virgin as naff =P)
Actually, sod the subtlety. Let's you and me just go down and egg their HQ, yeah?
Also, this is why I don't use Sky and why my family and friends cancelled their subscriptions.
I can't recommend "Be There" enough on the other hand.
people tend to hear nightmare stories because how many people are going to sit on the net and right a blog/report about how wonderful an experience they've had with a big corporation. this only happens when the company has such a bad reputation that anything good comes as a surprise.
we've had the HD service for a few years now, and have only had to make one phone call to sky about a problem... the box/signal or something was freezing up. whilst we were on the phone with them, they rebooted our system and it works fine.
heck we don't even have the thing off at night like you're theoretically supposed to.
It can hardly get much worse can it?
At least looking on the bright side you should be able to get a decent net connection eventually :)
Nah... My experience of O2/ Be has been very positive. Luvin my 15/1 Mbit connection!! Compared to my previous experience of ISPs (Nildram, Plusnet, Bulldog/ C&W) O2 have been very efficient and actually have English speaking telephone support!!
As for Sky it sounds to me like the blog author would be wanting to take a Small Claims action against them... I certainly would!!
Bob
I also download quite a lot and I have never had an issue with traffic management as the service is supposed to be unlimited.
Just moved into a new house and they previously had Virgin so I thought what the hell and have just gone with them. So far my experience has been positive. They are not cheap but I am on the 50Mb connection which is about £35 just by itself. One concern is that they will implement traffic management sooner or later (on the 50MB lines) but I think I can work around it by keeping any large downloads for night-time.
This month it has decided that it no longer likes our viewing card so we're stuck with freeview, since this is the second time this has happened Sky are saying it's the boxes fault, which apparently isn't their problem (despite the box being ~6months old), but we should go direct to the installers (FutureTV in Bristol), guess who they say is responsible?
So we're stuck with a Sky+HD box that only does freeview, and sky still get paid.
Thank **** our internet is with Be* is all I can say.
that happened to me with my sky+, i had had it for 13 months. I found a letter you can write to mr Murdoch, within 3 days I had an engineer booked to come out and replace it. I have a copy of it i can send you if you pm me your email address.
(sky really does suck, ive used both and virgin>sky :D)
Got home from work Tuesday, unplugged my own router, plugged the Sky one in, connected first time no problems at all, and also got the laptop up and running wirelessly with no problems at all.
Still in the 10 day training period, and first time connected at 3.5mb download speed. No big deal, at least it worked, but it was about half of what I had on the old 8mb service from Newnet.
Today it was still at 3.5mb, so as I have today off from work I thought I would face the nightmare of calling Sky and see if they would do anything to help.
I called them, the phone was answered in 3 rings by a very pleasant lady named Lisa. Obviously UK based, and working from Scotland judging by her slight accent. Result!!!
I explained the situation to her, fully expecting her to fob me off with the "give it 10 days" routine.
Couldn't have been more wrong. Not only did she say she would try and help, but that she would make adjustments to the line so I would see the internet lose connection while she was doing this. It might take her some minutes, so she offered to call me back once she had finished.
"Oh god, here we go again, with the callbacks, I will never hear from her again" I thought to myself. Inwardly sighing I thanked her and hung up, after all she did sound nice and helpful.
Less than 10 minutes later, the phone is ringing and it is Lisa, informing me she has made some changes and the internet should be back on now and for me to try a speedtest and see what happens, bearing in mind it is still in the 10 day training period, and speeds can go up a bit more.
I nearly fell over.
Your current bandwidth reading is:9.50 Mbps
which means you can download at 1.19 MB/sec. from our servers.
So, despite every single grain in my body dreading this switch over, so far Sky have delivered everything they said they would, I have phoned the tech support line and actually spoken to someone who was willing to help, and they made and kept a promised callback to me, with a very postive result.
Well done Sky. ;) (and thankyou Lisa)
9.55 Mbps - which means you can download at 1.19 MB/sec. from our servers.
Good night all from a very (so far) happy Sky broadband customer!
(Never thought the day would come when I said those words)
Date 24/09/09 23:28:35
Speed Down 12384.76 Kbps ( 12.1 Mbps )
Speed Up 858.90 Kbps ( 0.8 Mbps )
Port 8095
Server speedtest1.thinkbroadband.com
Sky are responsible for the set top box - I know this as my HD box was recalled and replaced by Sky.
FutureTV are responsible for the internal wiring to dish, as they installed that and set that up.
This may not help you sort it out but equally it may.
Going back closer to the main topic, used to live with my parents and had Sky, and Sky+ later on, for about 4 years. Was quite happy with the service and reliability. Generally every set top box I've had needed a reboot once a month or so.
Since moving to Bristol, I had Virgin V+ with cable modem (2 for £20 with a TV package upgrade and the £10 charge for V+) when V+ pretty much came out. I liked the fact you could record 2 and watch a third live program; with Sky+ or HD you can only record 2 and watch a recording. The internet was OK, stable enough. But V+ was a disappointment, generally being unstable and requiring a hard reset several times a week. And it was tucked in the back of a display stand, annoyingly.
I eventually bought an off-net flat, so went with SkyHD on a half price for 12 months deal. Which they cocked up, and after chasing them, I got a credit for 6 months of free service. Not quite the same thing, as I gotta pay full price for the other 6 :(
To summarise: I've tried both and V+ is crap IMO. I'll stick with rebooting my SkyHD box once a month instead of several times a week for V+.
Haven't bothered with their TV package, as we don't watch much TV any more and we haven't bothered with a landline as we'd have no use for it.
I do have to power cycle the router every now and then, but that's because the supplied equipment is a pile of cack - I have plans to change that however, possibly using one of these little beauties: http://linitx.com/viewcategory.php?catid=180&pp=176,180