Trying to cancel Sky .....

[Dom]

On Monday I rang them numerous times to try and cancel my Sky subscription - each time I had the response "Sorry the computers are down, can you call back later please"

On Tuesday I rang them in the afternoon to be told "Sorry computers went down at lunchtime can you call back another time ?"

After having a bit of a moan at them I was told to use the online customer services form. I filled this in and had this response at 16:47:

Hi



We've got your message and we aim to get back to you within the next 24 hours.



Your email has been sent to our Customer Relations department, who will be able to answer your enquiry.



Please do not reply to this email as replies are not monitored. If you need to contact us again you can use our feedback form by clicking the link below:

Still no reply 24 hours later - not even a human acknowledgement. Now considering I've spent the past year and a half trying to get them to put my correct address on my account so I get the Sky magazines and tried twice (without any success) to get my direct debit moved to our joint account (the Indian call center told me they couldn't set up DDs on joint accounts) what do you think the chances of Sky actually doing something about this cancellation ....... ?

[dwarf]

I know someone who works at sky (in IT sort of) and they did a major upgrade to the server which the main customer service application runs on and it ****ed up. So i think there working quickly to resolve it so I doubt they're trying to avoid your cancelation.

I think your email will get dealt with but i'm guessing there will be a huge backlog of emails to work through as i'm betting customer service told 1000's of people to email in!

I used to work there when I was a student and there really is **** all you can do when the computer go down.

As 1. it would be against data protection to write down customer details and queries.

and 2. you wouldn't get the time off the phone to work through the backlog.

Not sticking up for sky just trying to guess at what might be happening

[RobJenko]

cancel the dd and write them a letter saying they can stick it. they will soon ring you/write/get the message.

[MikeWarner]

I've not had much joy with Sky either. I would cancel if I was so adicted to Sky+

[Dom]

I've not had much joy with Sky either. I would cancel if I was so adicted to Sky+

Thats been the only reason I've stayed so long with them.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a Thomson DVB twin tuner Digital Freeview recorder - you can watch one channel and record another, record two channels and watch a prerecorded program etc etc. Only cost £80 which is 2 months Sky subscription.

I've got the bug now - I've ordered a 750gb HDD and a twin tuner DVB receiver for the new server so as well as serving my web pages and email it will act as a MythTv backend (with a lot of luck lmao). I've got a couple of Hauppauge MVPs to hook up to it and also all our Xboxes (6) are running XBMC which should talk to MythTv .........

[j17sparky]

Im just getting into MythTV atm, specificallly MythBuntu which iirc has all the plugins already built in so theres no messing around.

Next job is to look at a DVB-S card for sky

[angryman]

Tell em you want to change your package and when they've gone through it with you etc and get to the billing update, tell em you've changed your mind and wish to cancel

[Dom]

Im just getting into MythTV atm, specificallly MythBuntu which iirc has all the plugins already built in so theres no messing around.

Next job is to look at a DVB-S card for sky

DVB-S will only get you the free to air satellite (i.e. Freeview).

The only other reasonable option is to use your old Sky dish and receiver for Freesat but Sky want to charge you £20 for a 5 year card for that.

[j17sparky]

DVB-S will only get you the free to air satellite (i.e. Freeview).

You sure

[Dom]

Nope - feel free to PM me with any interesting "goodies" lmao

[blueman]

me to if you don't mind

[KillBill]

I find with idiots like this, when your message just isn't getting through, the quickest way of getting their attention is to just stop paying them for a month. Funny they seem quite quick at getting in touch with you whenever that happens.....

[kNeo_gHau]

I find with idiots like this, when your message just isn't getting through, the quickest way of getting their attention is to just stop paying them for a month. Funny they seem quite quick at getting in touch with you whenever that happens.....

Did you even read the replies?

The systems were down, so if he was calling in saying "i want to order a HD box and your most expensive TV package" they would have still said "sorry, you're gonna have to call back later" cause the system was down

There haven't been any outages yet today so if you call in you should be able to cancel

[KillBill]

Did you even read the replies?

I did yeah thanks, I usually do that before replying to a thread.

Irrespective of any systems being down or whatever, I was simply making the point that when dealing with unresponsive companies, of which I've had to do plenty, if they're not co-operating, then stopping payments usually makes them respond pretty quickly. Obviously in this case there was a legitimate reason for it, but in a lot of instances its usually because they're just a shower of incompetent ****wits.
I'm not specifically targetting Sky here, I've had this experience with plenty of places.

[RedDevil]

LOVING the sponsored link for this thread...

'Get SKY installed free!!'

lmao lmao

[Dom]

Well had an update from Sky today. Someone called earlier and offered me a brand new Sky+ box reinstalled free of charge, an apology for all the crap I got from them and they have assured me that they have got my address down properly on their system (at last).

Will have to weigh up the options and get back to them next week. If I can get Sky+ for the base package price it might just be worth staying for another year ......

[Dom]

[Dom]

[Dom]

[Byron]

Quality workmanship. class.

[Dom]

[Dom]

[Dom]

And the email I've just fired off to Sky ........

Hi Tricia

I've still got a couple of issues

Firstly the engineer who came out wasn't aware that he would need to rerun the cabling and was downright stroppy about the whole thing. I was unable to get the cables through the loft space so requested he fixed them to the facia board which he refused to do. I then as a last ditch resort (to try and get the cabling out of the gutter which is how he was going to rerun the cable) requested that he ran it down the wall and along the bottom of the brickwork which he did begrudgingly. Apparently his cable clips were not good enough to go into the mortar which resulted in most of the nails in the cable clips being bent and unsightly. I have pictures of this which I can send on request. I was told to go out and buy better clips and tidy it up myself.

The cabling was so poor that I ended up ripping it all out and spent the day rerouting it through the loft space in the end anyway.

There was no remote control with the Sky+ box I received. The engineer has apparently arranged a replacement which should be with me "in 3 days" which it now is with no sign of a replacement remote.

The card wasn't properly paired to the box. I did see him do a dial out which went ok but whenever I tried to record or rewind a program, it would come up "recording interrupted" which was resolved after a call to your technical department by myself.

I have just checked my bank statement and found a direct debit taken out for the sum of £38. When I checked my subscription status online I have not been changed to the package requested at the time I agreed to the new Sky+ box.

03/06/2008 - 02/07/2008 Sky Movie World with Family Pack £38.00
03/06/2008 - 02/07/2008 Sky+ Subscription £0.00


I have just called the billing line and got through to what appears to be an Indian Call Center who informed me that as I am now into this months viewing, any change in the package would not take place until next month. He was unable to help me any further on this matter.

I still need to change the Direct Debit to our joint account - I don't want to deal with a foreign call center for this so if its possible to do it by email or for you to call me to arrange this then it would be appreciated.

All in all not a brilliant "restart" to my continuing custom with Sky.

I trust that you will look into these matters and look forward to your reply for the resolutions of the above.

Regards

[Byron]

Disgarded rubber glove is a nice touch. Seeing those pictures really does show how the quality differs from man to man.
I couldnt be happier with my dish and cable install. Neat, tidy and professional.

[Dom]

Quality workmanship. class.

It was so bad I spent the rest of the day taking it all back out and putting the run up through the loft space.

Looks a lot better now but the only clips I had to redo it was what I managed to salvage when I took the old cabling out lmao

Hey ho - lets see what Sky come back with.