Strange Sky Rep

Blikes

Just had a visit from a Sky Rep, didn't ask for a badge but had a sky jacket so took him at his word at first, then it got weird.

- First of all he said he was being sent to make sure everything is ok with the signal and packages, They never do that as far as i know. Told him we don't have sky.

- He offered us multi room HD and Sky+HD free for one year as well as a new Dish for a €79 euro payment, €20 deposit now and €59 to engineer next week when he came to install it.

- I just told him i was interested and would ask the house mate and get back to him so he would give me his name and number.

- Name and number are on official looking Sky Cards with penguins on the front. He left the Sky ID Number space vacant and had trouble remembering his phone number, apparently meteor screwed him and had to change networks. Name is John O'Mahony.

Obviously alarm bells were ringing as soon as he said he came to check the sky signal.

Anyone have any thoughts on this or similiar experience or am i over reacting about the bad vibe off this guy?

St Senan

Sounds like a Chancer TBH. He don't work for Sky. And Sky dont send anyone out to your house to sell you a package.
The usual Speil from a Door to Door Sky contract sales rep.
He didn't Try and sell you Saorview, Broadband or a Free To Air Combo system.

Gerry Wicklow

Blikes wrote: »

....
Anyone have any thoughts on this or similiar experience or am i over reacting about the bad vibe off this guy?

You did the right thing IMO. Never trust cold callers of any sort. If you want any service contact them so you know who is calling and when. Sadly i've heard too many horror stories of people taking deposits and disappearing. Another ploy is two callers one of whom needs to use your toilet while the other keeps you distracted. Sadly there are also a lot of chancers supplying dodgy equipment with dodgy workmanship.
Any genuine caller will be happy to provide verifiable contact details.

Cantona's Collars

Blikes wrote: »

Just had a visit from a Sky Rep, didn't ask for a badge but had a sky jacket so took him at his word at first, then it got weird.

- First of all he said he was being sent to make sure everything is ok with the signal and packages, They never do that as far as i know. Told him we don't have sky.

- He offered us multi room HD and Sky+HD free for one year as well as a new Dish for a €79 euro payment, €20 deposit now and €59 to engineer next week when he came to install it.



Obviously alarm bells were ringing as soon as he said he came to check the sky signal.

Anyone have any thoughts on this or similiar experience or am i over reacting about the bad vibe off this guy?

Straight away alarm bells,the packages he was offering don't exist plus the prices don't add up.Even though Sky resellers are free to set their own prices they generally don't add on anything to the price advertised-the price he quoted you was way over the odds of the €30 that it should be.

Any decent Sky rep would know their stuff,have proper id and be prepared to give you contact numbers at ease.
Chancers and spoofers can be easily sussed with a few well aimed questions.
I heard of one guy who went around pretending to be a Sky rep in a sleeveless t-shirt and A4 pad trying to get peoples details.

Sky themselves now mention in some of their ads that reps will call around,but as I said they should have proper id etc.
Rule of thumb is if you are in doubt politely decline or check their id cards,there's records kept of all id cards so dodgy reps can be traced.

watty

I think ALL Sky reps are actually local retailers or resellers. I think Sky themselves only do leaflets in mail and Media adverts.

byte

Are you in Donegal, OP?

I had a guy around the other night, wearing a blue jacket with Sky logo. There was another guy with him at another neighbour's house. TBH, I didn't check if he had a name badge or anything.

I told him I already had Sky, then he asked if everything OK, which I answered in the affirmative and he was on his way.

Blikes

byte wrote: »

Are you in Donegal, OP?

I had a guy around the other night, wearing a blue jacket with Sky logo. There was another guy with him at another neighbour's house. TBH, I didn't check if he had a name badge or anything.

I told him I already had Sky, then he asked if everything OK, which I answered in the affirmative and he was on his way.

No man, in North tipp.

He was just very very weird! been locking the doors more frequently and checking everything at night since. just to be on the safe side.
about 15 burglaries in nenagh in the last 2 months!

Cantona's Collars

Read through your op again and the bit about him checking your Sky signal is an old trick to get them in the door.The most important thing reps are told to do is get in the door-it makes getting the sale easier.
There's a lot of resellers who hire reps and give them the bare minimum of training and info then send them on their way to get sales no matter what.
I reckon the guy was one of these and nothing more sinister than a poorly trained guy trying to get a sale (with the prices he quoted,good luck to him:eek:)

There's a few threads on this topic already,the good guys are the ones we never hear about on forums etc.But as I said there's a lot of poorly trained people out there knocking doors-be it selling Sky,Airtricity whatever.They're the ones we hear about.

Mc-BigE

i had a Sky Rep last night (north cork suburbs), he had I.D. around his neck but it looked old and a bit worn, it was him in the photo I.D., but shorter hair. Im an existing Sky customer without a HD box, he was offering 2 sky HD boxes for multi-room (one Sky+) and a new dish for 50 install + 86 euro per month for the full package, he said i could ring a dublin sky number to get rid of the sky world package the same date as its installed and its back to 43 euro the second month (without movies/sport)

i asked him about the new F1 channel, he knew very little about it.

asked to see his ID , which looked old as i said and i memorised his full name, then later when i said he had an unusual surname jokingly, he said defensively "how did i know his surname?" i found this very suspicious, so i asked him for contact details , which he gave to me and i said i will contact him as i dont like giving bank account details to any person calling to my door.


its possible this guy is perfectly legit, but he came across as suspicious, but he was willing for me to come to his sky rep shop

Cantona's Collars

Mc-BigE wrote: »

i had a Sky Rep last night (north cork suburbs), he had I.D. around his neck but it looked old and a bit worn, it was him in the photo I.D., but shorter hair. Im an existing Sky customer without a HD box, he was offering 2 sky HD boxes for multi-room (one Sky+) and a new dish for 50 install + 86 euro per month for the full package, he said i could ring a dublin sky number to get rid of the sky world package the same date as its installed and its back to 43 euro the second month (without movies/sport)

i asked him about the new F1 channel, he knew very little about it.

asked to see his ID , which looked old as i said and i memorised his full name, then later when i said he had an unusual surname jokingly, he said defensively "how did i know his surname?" i found this very suspicious, so i asked him for contact details , which he gave to me and i said i will contact him as i dont like giving bank account details to any person calling to my door.


its possible this guy is perfectly legit, but he came across as suspicious, but he was willing for me to come to his sky rep shop

He was probably working for Delta,they are the main players in Cork for door to door reps.
The rep was trying to sign you up again as a new customer under a different name,Sky don't like it but everybody is at it.I've even seen people try to do it at the Sky kiosks in supermarkets to be told it isn't allowed then 2 minutes later the person's other half walks in and signs up.
BTW,the install cost is €30,not the €50 as he quoted you.Resellers are free to set their own prices so I wouldn't be worried about the €50 install fee being a scam or anything untoward.

With regard to the F1 channel: If you have the HD pack you get it free.You don't need to be a sports subscriber to have it.

Many of these reps are poorly trained and I'm not surprised he knew feck all about it.Sky do training courses nationwide and send staff over here to run them,however not all the crowds that sell Sky send reps to them or the turnover of reps means that they may not be doing the job long enough to go to one-usually it's just a case of them tagging along with an experienced rep for a couple of days and then they're left to their own devices.

watty

Never buy or agree with ANY Door to Door sales for ANYTHING. Some start by claiming it's a survey.

Door to Door selling should be illegal.

Cantona's Collars

watty wrote: »

Never buy or agree with ANY Door to Door sales for ANYTHING. Some start by claiming it's a survey.

Door to Door selling should be illegal.

Howya boss,would ya be interested in a bit o' carpet or a new suite?

watty

I have a wee bit of left over Tarmac, would you like it cheap?

I see you have a loose tile ...

We can clean your gutters ...

We can give you 20Mbps broadband on your phone line ...

We can save you x% on your Electricity (a lie, they don't include the standing charge)

Harcrid

I was out at my parents house recently and my mother told me she just had Sky HD installed as she had been visited by a rep the week before. She said she didnt know what all the fuss was about as she didnt see much difference in the picture.

So I had a look and lo and behold there was the HDMI cable still sitting in its plastic wrapping in the cardboard box while the scart lead was used to connect to the tv. Changed it over so she could see what the real HD looked like.

This is twice now that I have come across Sky HD installers not even bothering to use the HDMI cable which is beyond incompetent and lazy.

Cantona's Collars

Direct sales are done by more and more companies these days,it's a case of having to.As I said before there's good guys and bad guys.The good ones never get a mention,who's gona post here or ring Joe Duffy about a rep doing a good job?

The rule is,if you don't like it just say no thanks.

NewHillel

watty wrote: »

I have a wee bit of left over Tarmac, would you like it cheap?

I see you have a loose tile ...

We can clean your gutters ...

We can give you 20Mbps broadband on your phone line ...

We can save you x% on your Electricity (a lie, they don't include the standing charge)

We can give you 500 Mbit/s down your Powerline.

watty

zerks wrote: »

Direct sales are done by more and more companies these days,it's a case of having to.As I said before there's good guys and bad guys.The good ones never get a mention,who's gona post here or ring Joe Duffy about a rep doing a good job?

The rule is,if you don't like it just say no thanks.

No company "has to".
The reps are exploited.
Distraction crime dropped 11% where it was banned

There is NOTHING good about Door to Door.

The rule is say no. period. If it sounded interesting look up Golden pages, Internet etc. Find out if it is what you want, what the fine print is.

Never ever buy or agree at the door. That's the rule.

Cantona's Collars

watty wrote: »

No company "has to".
The reps are exploited.
Distraction crime dropped 11% where it was banned

There is NOTHING good about Door to Door.

The rule is say no. period. If it sounded interesting look up Golden pages, Internet etc. Find out if it is what you want, what the fine print is.

Never ever buy or agree at the door. That's the rule.

Eircom.Bord Gais,Airtricity,AES,Greenstar.......the list goes on.

Even local businesses down my way have had to do it just to survive,it's the way the world has progressed.

Not everyone that calls to your door are snake oil salesmen.

They all see it as a major part of their sales.

People are getting lazier and it seems even using google is too much work for them,so sometimes a rep calling round is the handiest way for them.They don't have to make any effort.

Bad companies exploit employees across the board,not just sales reps suffer.Just look at the construction industry,I know lads who are owed fortunes while the guys who owe them the money drive brand new cars.

I agree about dodgy characters calling round but you can't be afraid of everyone that knocks your door.Anyone with half a brain would suss out who's decent or not.

If someone calls to my house and I'm not interested,I simply say no thanks-no need to be rude.I have a neighbour who has your mentality and won't answer the door to anyone,the people on the street have had to phone her at times to get her to answer the door.
Maybe your fear is spending money:rolleyes:


PS: The only ones I don't like are insurance sales reps,they are the most underhanded mob ever to call door to door.They make the worst of the rest look like saints.

watty

Eircom.Bord Gais,Airtricity
They have had some of the worst. No, it's evil. It only will blacken reputation of "proper Companies". It's "dodgy" no matter who does it.

There is too much incentive for the salesman to lie. ALL the companies exploit the public and the salesman.
It puts unfair pressure. Maybe 150years ago or more it was needed. With Golden pages, Billboards, Internet, Tv, Radio it is obsolete and exploitive of the public and the salesmen.

I answer the door and I am polite. I even showed the vodaphone guys my Broadbband link as they where curious and didn't believe. The Sky guys really enjoyed the tour of my Satellite distribution system.

The commonest complaint is from the sales people that they are not trained. The conscientious ones don't last as they want to know about the product and don't lie. The successful ones are liers that don't care about anything except the commission.

I've had them all. The "dodgy guys" and the "legitimate companies". I've done door to door work too when I was young and naive. There is nothing good or useful about it. The only answer is banning it. It's far worse than Spam.

NewHillel

watty wrote: »

Eircom.Bord Gais,Airtricity
They have had some of the worst. No, it's evil. It only will blacken reputation of "proper Companies".

Libel?

watty

I've made no specific claims about any specific person or company. Door to door has been banned at least one place in UK as it's an evil practice.
There is no personal attack on anyone.

LH Pathe

You said it. Try engaging them outside the formal sky related chat, they are total oddballs