smart telecom digital tv, free trial?

petek

hi, i did a search on this but couldn't find any other threads.
i got this flier through the door the other day announcing that Smart are now doing digital tv, and as an existing customer i can get a 3 month trial
i had a look at the site and rang up trying to find out the catch, but i always find it difficult to get enough information from the smart website. the guy on the phone ended up convincing me and signing us up. he said there was no catch, u can cancel after 3 months if u don't want it and it doesn't cost anything..
i was wondering if anyones had any experience with this so far? (i'm guessing its a brand new thing?) they said the box and so on will be delivered in 5 working days. the only catch i could find was that to cancel it u have to send them back the digi box or whatever it is, which i guess might cost a bit. we're moving out within 3 months though, so we'll be canceling everything anyway..

el Bastardo

Also ordered it. It's kinda expensive though (€31, and that's on top of the €40 for BB/Phone). I'm wondering how it's connected though. I'm all wireless at present and the last thing I want to do is trail phone wire or CAT5 across the floor to my TV.

bk

This is the catch:

http://support.smarttelecom.ie/forums/showthread.php?t=2695

So after my 3 month trial i get billed for it! Ha! So much for if your not happy we'll take it back and you dont worry about it!!! So unimpressed i can't even come to words! I rang up for it to be cancelled to be told pay up and we'll take it back next month. Not a chance i'll pay that. The iptv is fine if your really stuck and need the slowest tv service in the world! It is shockingly poor, and to the point unusable. Save your money and time, dont bother with Smartvision. The box can be collected anytime Smart like.

The question I'd ask is, why would you want to sign up to a service which is more expensive then Sky and UPC, while offering less channels, inferior EPG, no DVR and inferior picture quality?

rubadub

bk wrote: »

The question I'd ask is, why would you want to sign up to a service which is more expensive then Sky and UPC, while offering less channels, inferior EPG, no DVR and inferior picture quality?

Dunno. If that question was directed at the OP he had no intention of signing up and paying, just get the free TV for 3 months and cancel.

bk

rubadub wrote: »

Dunno. If that question was directed at the OP he had no intention of signing up and paying, just get the free TV for 3 months and cancel.

I see, fair enough, the effort doesn't seem worth it, in my experience with these types of free deals from TV, phone and BB companies, they make it very hard to cancel the service after the free trial period, often you end up finding yourself locked in a 12 month contract.

Solair

Well, if you think about it they're sending TV down a DSL line. It's got very limited bandwidth for that kind of thing, maximum of about 16mbit/s on most lines. In theory you can push it to 24mbit/s, if you actually live in a telephone exchange.

Think of it this way:

100,000 people driving to Croke Park representing Digital TV programming.

Team A drive along a series of country in the west of Ireland in a modern high speed car, it will take a while despite their cool car.(a DSL line)
Team B take the M8 from Cork-Dublin, get there at reasonable speed with no congestion (cable)
Team C fly over head and are dropped in by parachute (satellite) (they get there very fast but have to go home by push bike)

petek

i get what you're saying about it being hard to cancel, but the thing is i'm definitely canceling everything within 3 months anyway because i'll be leaving the house..
paying anything for this would really be a deal breaker for me, since i really barely watch tv at all myself, but my housemate does and i just thought it would be a nice treat for the house to cheer us up before we have to move out. i guess i'll just be very careful when they come to deliver it about what is actually entailed and if i have to sign something to check what it says?
i dont really get what the situation was with the guy quoted from the smart forum, how could they charge u for canceling it when it was free? i asked the guy on the phone before i signed up for it (over the phone i "signed up" is that even legal? they never even asked my name, i'm not the person the bills come to but the dd comes from my account, but if they don't ask i could be anyone right? a minor could ring up and sign up his house and that wouldn't be legal would it?).. anyway, the guy on the phone said, no no, its completely free, u can cancel it after 3 months. so i'm trying to trust that?
maybe the guy actually means they were trying to charge him a collection fee for the guys coming out to collect the box or something?

though i dont have much faith in them since they sent out that thing about signing up a friend and getting a 60 or 70 euro back for it, and signed up my neighbors, had them go through the rigmarole of giving our account details and all but never received anything, then the other day along with our bill comes a flier telling us how we can sign up a bunch of friends and get free line rental! FREE LINE RENTAL??! what? when i signed up to smart i'm pretty sure one of their selling points was that u'd have "free line rental for life" only now they've renamed the broadband charge to be a line rental charge it seems like..
anyway, rant over, i'll be canceling in a few months anyway, god willing..

bk

petek wrote: »

i dont really get what the situation was with the guy quoted from the smart forum, how could they charge u for canceling it when it was free?

It wasn't a cancellation fee, ss the 3 month "free" period came up, instead of asking him did he want to continue with the service or cancel, they just started to charge him the monthly free for the service.

No surprise there, this is how most "free" services work.

petek wrote: »

FREE LINE RENTAL??! what? when i signed up to smart i'm pretty sure one of their selling points was that u'd have "free line rental for life" only now they've renamed the broadband charge to be a line rental charge it seems like...

They don't do that anymore, they nearly went bust from doing it. You do know that while the TV service will be "free" for 3 months, you need to pay for the BB and line rental?

rubadub

bk wrote: »

I see, fair enough, the effort doesn't seem worth it, in my experience with these types of free deals from TV, phone and BB companies, they make it very hard to cancel the service after the free trial period, often you end up finding yourself locked in a 12 month contract.

I agree. Loads of people get stung with those "free" phone subscription services in a similar way.

petek- If you do it I would make sure you cancel it in writing the moment the thing arrives in your house! You often find that you must give lots of notice in the small print. You may well end up getting it "free" if you read the small print, but I bet they sting a lot of people.

petek

rubadub wrote: »

I agree. Loads of people get stung with those "free" phone subscription services in a similar way.

petek- If you do it I would make sure you cancel it in writing the moment the thing arrives in your house! You often find that you must give lots of notice in the small print. You may well end up getting it "free" if you read the small print, but I bet they sting a lot of people.

well the dude on the phone said they'd need 30 days notice to cancel the BB, and so i will be sending cancellation notice for everything well before the 3 month trial is up.

and for the other guy, yeah of course i know i'll still have to pay the BB/line rental and phone charges during the tv trial. i did actually read everything i could find about this before posting here. just wanted to get some more advice/peoples experience.
thanks everyone!