What a day!! Re: Sky install

Charlie

I waqs due to have sky+ installed in two rooms, but after all the horror stories have heard latley, i.e. delayed cards, no shows, noisy boxes, dodgy installs etc. I was begining to wonder what I'd let myself in for. Well I certainly found out today. I got the eta call and the installer arrived at approx. 12. As soon as he arrived he siad that he wouldnt go on the roof, not insured. Fine we said we'll put on the side of the house. He then said he would require €50 for running the phone line to the second box. This i knew was false form what I heard on boards and my dad grumbled when the €50 was mentioned. The installer sensed my dad wasn't happy and said "you're probably not going to get a signal anyway" and pointed to a tiny tree about 25 metres away saying it would "block" the signal. He then said shall I just book you in for another day:eek: . I knew that the signal stuff was bull**** nad that he just wanted to pull a legger. So we said we would pay the €50 for the phone cable and suddenly his outlooked changed. He then said actually you'll probably get a fairly decent signal in this area. This was only the tip of the ice berg, but to sum up, he left loose black cable dangling across (middle section:mad: ) the front of the house (to which my mother had a fit at when she got home), left drilled cement and loose cable everywhere. He refused to give us his phone number and after robbing us and doing a shabby job made some mart ass remark claiming that he had done us a favour. I had read all the horror stories about sky subbies on this site but naievely thought that it was just a minority of cases.If this type of install is common place what the hell are sky using sierra for, they are a shower of shisters. To anybody considering gettng sky,take the advice and use a LOCAL INSTALLER, I wish I had. Anyway rant over, I just thought I'd let people know who are thinking of getting sky. On a different note has talksport radio been taken off the epg, I can't find it anyway and i'm sure I heard somewhere that talksaport was on sky digital.

Sparky

ring sky up and give out, i would, but afaik they use 1 clip for every four bricks when running a co-ax, i assume he didnt either seal the drilled hole with silicone or a gromet.
At times i was glad i got electroplus, but then again the sierra lad knew i was a sparks, so probably knew not to pull a fast one.

Ring sky and complain, you may get some freebies.

kazzer

Hi charlie,

I know how it feels. I had a very similar thing happen to me during my installation. Some of the shoddy work the Sky contractors included.

- Lumps taken out of the side of the house and left on the ground.
- Cable in the guttering and afixed to the slates on the house
- Approx 10ft excess cabling behind one digibox.
- Cabling too short in one room so 6 inches extra 'added on' with am RJ11 adapter.

Absolute cowboys these guys. Dont let them away with it. I rang up sky and they gave me 6 months free viewing....'which was nice'. However, it took weeks and weeks of phone calls to get the installers to redo the job. It transpired that the cowboys were contracters of the contracters so to speak.

Charlie

Amen brother. My dad was onto sky today, they eventually buckled and are refunding the €50 and sending a "PROPER" installer on jan 7th to fix the job up. However they did have the cheek to make out as if they were doing us a big favour by cleaning up a job one of their contractors messed up. The sky guy did kind of hint at that lately they are having a lot of problems with their irish installations, so maybe they will start laying down the law with some of these jokers.

kazzer

Charlie,

You might find it takes phone call after phone call to get it sorted which is frustrating, but dont let them away with it. I had pictures taken of the damage to my house and was prepared to take them to court to claim damages. Sky were generous in the end, fair play. But I would never let those guys near my property again.

bigpaddy2004

charlie mchugh wrote:

Amen brother. My dad was onto sky today, they eventually buckled and are refunding the €50 and sending a "PROPER" installer on jan 7th to fix the job up. However they did have the cheek to make out as if they were doing us a big favour by cleaning up a job one of their contractors messed up. The sky guy did kind of hint at that lately they are having a lot of problems with their irish installations, so maybe they will start laying down the law with some of these jokers.

If you dont mind me asking.....what county are you in Charlie?

Charlie

Dublin, so it was a sierra install. It also said sierra on the docket. I have read about a lot of people having problems with sierra on this forum and it is mind boggling that sky are willing to damage their reputation on foot of Sierra's dodgy work. I know someone will say "what reputation", but imho sky and sky+ is a great product, superior to its competitors, but it is issues like installers and customer service reps which is damaging them.

bigpaddy2004

i dont doubt it wasnt sierra, just checking to see if it were one of my lads that done it!:mad:
At the moment Sky have everyone working 7 days a week with about 8-10 jobs per day, so no doubt quality is going to decrease also. €50 for a telco run was a rip off, should of run him from the door.

Charlie

bigpaddy2004 wrote:

€50 for a telco run was a rip off, should of run him from the door.

I wanted to, especially after reading posts from installers on this site who said such charges were bullsh*t. But what could I do, It was the 17th Dec. there was no way I would be able to rebook an installation with anybody to have sky installed time for christmas. That was critical part because the extra plus box is a christmas present so it was important to get it installed before crimbo. Something that concerns me is, that once you've booked sky, their is an air of feeling that you're at the mercy of the installer because they know you want sky and that you don't neccesarily want to have to wait for another month for a different installer. This means that they can shaft you. In an ideal world you'd tell where to shove off, but you've been looking forward for three weeks to getting sky, taken the time off work and the process of going through that all again is not desirable.

john_

Very same here, the guy said, sure you know how to use it anyway... i dont have time to show you, he also drilled a huge hole in the wall and filled it with some sort of flaky stuff...