Sky service Knocked off by Chorus

Blackdragon

Ok so heres my problem.

I live in an apartment block with 18 other apartments.
As all the apartments decided to go with Sky a master dish was installed on the apartment blocks roof.

Now just over 4 weeks ago one of the other apartments here decided for some strange reason they no longer wanted Sky and switched to Chorus.

Chorus came out and did there thing and connected that apartment up to there service.

The same day i come home from work to find my Satellite box displaying a message saying that "no satellite signal is being recieved".

I called over to a few of the apartments to see was this affecting only me or the block and it turned out the whole block had been affected(No surprise there as we all running off of the one master dish).

So we all called our landlord to let him know - he looked into it and foud out that chorus had been on the roof the same day we lost signal.

It took him a week before Chorus admitted that it was there fault and they said they would send someone out within the next 7 days to get the problem corrected. Great news!

So off on my holiday to Cairo i went for 2 weeks.
After arriving back home i turn on my Tv and still no channells just that same signal message.

I asked the other apartments again and theres is working just fine. They said there were a lot of problems trying to fix it as some apartments would have it and some would not untill finally a few days later all was well - for them at least but mine was still not working.

I got the phone number for the chorus guy who had been round to fix all of this. I called him and told him that my Sky is still not working - He said that is just tough luck (his exact words) and that its no longer his problem. He was very very rude.

I have been trying to contact Chorus Via Phone and Email with no sucess.
Never seems to be anyone on the phone and i have been sending an email everyday for the last nine days with no reply.

I am really starting to get annoyed with this whole situtation due to the fact that sky wont come fix it unless i pay them and on any other day i would have no problem paying them but i dont want Chorus to simply get away with this.

Any advice at this point is more than welcome as i feel im walking into walls.

Thanks in advance

John mac

HAve a look around on the roof but be carefull you might accidently trip over the chrous install;)
wont help your situation but you might feel better.

Saruman

Tell sky you are being forced to cancel becuase of this. They tend to like to keep customers so if you are lucky they will send someone out.

Mossy Monk

small claims court due to lack of service

Ulsterman 1690

Sue the b@$t@rd$ !:mad:

Or (if youre the type thats given to taking the law into your own hands) find out where their signal headend is located and reciprocate their gesture*

* May lead to the local jailhouse having to realase a peadophile or axe murderer to make space for you

I have been trying to contact Chorus Via Phone and Email with no sucess.

Deaththreats (* see disclaimer above) giving 14 days to respond by recorded delivery to:

Chorus
Limerick Enterprise Development Park
Roxboro Road
Limerick.

Or just show up in person

keanebg1

Keep calling Chorus, persistence usually wins out. If you still have the engineer's number I'd keep asking to have it escalated and keep blaming him. Threaten legal action etc...

They have to fix it in the end...

BrianD

Mossy Monk wrote:

small claims court due to lack of service

But he doesn't have a contract with Chorus.

If I were to guess it sounds like that the Chorus guy hijacked the internal cabling of the block by swopping the sky master dish for his aerial. This is something that should not be done without the Management Company agreeing it - so you might want to contact them.

Here's a cheeky suggestion - Go up on the roof and find installation for both suppliers check the cabling and if it is a case of the above, unplug it! Chorus will have to come out to fix it.

vsat

I agree,
They will be out very quickly.

byte

I don't think telling the OP to sabotage any of the installations is good advice, and encouraging sabotage of equipment is generally frowned upon here.

You've been warned.

Sponge Bob

suing Chorus for sabotage is a good idea though !

Mossy Monk

BrianD wrote:

But he doesn't have a contract with Chorus

but Chorus knocked out the service he pays another provider for

byte

Sponge Bob wrote:

suing Chorus for sabotage is a good idea though !

Might be worth looking into if Chorus fail to fix what they seem to have broke.

Ulsterman 1690

I don't think telling the OP to sabotage any of the installations is good advice, and encouraging sabotage of equipment is generally frowned upon here.

Ummm

If I were to guess it sounds like that the Chorus guy hijacked the internal cabling of the block by swopping the sky master dish for his aerial.

Surely if is the case (hard to know without physically being there and examining the installation) he is simply recovering what is effectively a stolen downlead

What really sucks about this whole case though is
When THEY do it to YOU Its (apparently) just a civil matter
but
When YOU do it to THEM its a criminal matter

If you ever need a good example of where the law is primarly concerned with protecting the interests of big business rather than the welfare of us ordinary suckers this is it !

Blackdragon

Thanks for all the replys so far

Since posting on the 9th i have sent an email a day and been hung up on twice while calling.

Earlier today i sent an email explaining everything so far to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission. A shot in the dark i know but willing to try nearly anything at this stage (short of going up on the roof that is )

DMC

BCC is not the place for this complaint. They really only deal with complaints that a person might have about a particular programme broadcast on TV. And they could take an age to get back to you.

Small Claims Court, as Mossy said, is the ideal place for this, as they will look into "a claim in respect of minor damage to property", which is exactly what happened in this case. Can't go wrong for €15.

kbell

Chorus are bound to have a depot somewhere in or near your county, i'd call round there and ask to speak to someone in charge and tell them exactly what has being going on and about the mannor that you were spoken to by the installer.
Tell them in person that you want it resolved that day or you are taking matters further.

JHMEG

Phone Chorus and tell them you've split the cable from that one apt to everyone else in the block and now you're all getting it for free. And tell them you're very happy with it too.. much cheaper than Sky:D

On a more serious note, the only way you'll get it fixed (in a reasonable time) is to take it into your own hands.

If you can't fix it yourself, pay someone to do it (split between 17 apts it won't be too much). Email a copy of the bill to Chorus, and cc it to Comreg. State in the email exactly what has happened so far, and that you are informing Comreg too, just in case they don't notice.

I know they're (comreg) pretty toothless, but I have found the threat alone to be effective.

eigrod

Joe Duffy?

ElNino

JHMEG wrote:

If you can't fix it yourself, pay someone to do it (split between 17 apts it won't be too much).

Unfortunately if the other 16 apartments have their Sky working then I don't think they are going to be chipping in to help our friend out.

JHMEG

Ok, my bad, but the principle still applies... get Chorus to pay for it in the end.

dr.bollocko

How can the other 16 be working but yours not working? Could it be that someone elses wasnt working, and he just unplugged your down cable and plugged someone elses apt into that socket?
I can see some of them would be problematic, but in the end, he just took that down cable from the sky digibox and plugged it out, knocking off everyone. So it was split, obviously, after that. Simply replacing the lead should have brought back everyone's service. Keep ringing the installer's mobile phone, leaving messages and threatening him with legal action maybe? It was definitely something that he did.
This really is something for your apts management company to be sorting out.

Blackdragon

DMC wrote:

BCC is not the place for this complaint. They really only deal with complaints that a person might have about a particular programme broadcast on TV.

Spot on

Heres there reply.

Dear Blackdragon:) ,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately, you complaint does not come with the remit of the BCC. We deal with complaints about programmes, adverts etc. broadcast on Irish licensed tv and radio.



Having read you email, my personal opinion, is that your complaint should be taken up with SKY. You are paying them for a service that you are not getting and it is up to them to fix the problem.

If you pay anyone for a service it is up to them to provide that service. Your contract is with Sky not Chorus so I would think Sky are the people to speak with.



I regret we cannot be of more help in this matter.



Yours sincerely,

***********

Complaints Officer

BrianD

Problem is that Sky may claim is that the users equipment as been damaged and is no longer servicable and outside of their contract. Though, I would think that Sky might be more proactive about this.

I think you need to involvement of your management committee to get the two parties (Sky/Chorus) together. Alternatively, get a third party expert to evaluate what has happened, who is responsible and how to rectify it.

Since when was Joe Duffy a TV installer/servicer?

Blackdragon

Hey guys,

Thanks a million for all your help.

After all this time it has finally been solved.
I asked our landlord to get me the phone number of the Sky installer who set up all the apartments when the building first went up(less than a year ago).

Called him and asked him if he wouldnt mind to go up and take a look when he gets a chance as our sky has been down for a month.(didnt mention Chorus)
He went up and came down less than five minutes later and said all fixed. When i asked him how much i owe him he said he wont charge me, he will be contacting Chorus for his fee (remember i didnt say anything about Chorus).

I guess the Sky guys are used to this stuff.
What kills me though is when i rang sky themselfs they kept on saying i need to contact Chorus but if i had never said a word about chorus it prob would have been fixed on the same day i rang.

byte

Glad to hear you finally got it sorted.

I'll assume when the Sky guy was up at the headend, he noticed that Chorus had been there too and interfered with the cabling.

Mossy Monk

is the person who got Chorus now without a service

Blackdragon

Mossy Monk wrote:

is the person who got Chorus now without a service

I really hope so - serve em right for signing up in the first place

Foggy43

Hmmm....perhaps keep a look out for a thread in 'terrestrial' for 'Lost Chorus reception'.

I would try and find out! The last thing I would want is to see a Chorus van parked outside and dreading what will happen next :eek:

Blackdragon

Molly Dawson wrote:

Hmmm....perhaps keep a look out for a thread in 'terrestrial' for 'Lost Chorus reception'.

I would try and find out! The last thing I would want is to see a Chorus van parked outside and dreading what will happen next :eek: