Sky subscription advice!!!!!

Fr. Ted Crilly

Hey lads just looking for a little Sky advice, I'll keep this as short as possible.

I've had Sky installed in my house for over 10 years now and for the past 8 I've had Sky multi room. When the engineer installed multi room I didn't have a phone line but he installed the full system regardless and I thought no more of it. Then 4 years ago I rented a room and installed a 3rd box a Sky HD one. Again an engineer came out hooked up the system, never connected it to a phone line and left me with working sky. 
Last week I was looking through my bank statements and discovered Sky were charging me double the price for my subscription for the past 4 months, I rang and they say it's due to me being in violation of not having a phone line connected. They also claim that they sent me 3 letters about this (none registered) which I never received and that I should have noticed the money taken from my account and rang straight away if I was that concerned (a direct quote from a Sky rep)?
My point is I've had a Direct Debit setup for a decade and its always been the same I'd no reason to suspect this. After a week of arguing via email they have agreed to refund one months extra fees. But the Customer services department that deal with these refunds can only be contacted via email and they are giving me nothing but generic replies and refusing to ring me. I ring the standard  Sky help desk and ask to be transferred to the Sky department that deals with this refund but I can only go through the Sky Services Email service to do that.

I'm so angry with their service as this is the first time I've ever had a problem with them. Does anyone have any addition advice like a name of someone I could send a registered hand written letter to or are my just screwed out of my money full stop?

Cheers
Fr. Ted Crilly

MarkK

Hmmm, that would be an ecumenical matter.

Cantona's Collars

Go straight to the head man. jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com

You're sure to get sorted then.

brian_gall85

If all else fails call customers service and cancel cancel cancel. Worked for us we got a refurb and new dish fitted for free.

watty

Without a phone line to prove you personally are using the boxes you are liable to full price subscriptions.

It's in the Terms & Conditions you agreed to when you got Multiroom. You are lucky they don't want more money.

Fr. Ted Crilly

watty wrote: »

Without a phone line to prove you personally are using the boxes you are liable to full price subscriptions.

It's in the Terms & Conditions you agreed to when you got Multiroom. You are lucky they don't want more money.

Thanks for your input but my point is I never had a telephone line and they were aware of this plus the engineers that came out never refused to install the setup becuase of this. It was never an issue until all of a sudden I became a cash cow. They never gave me written warning that they were going to double the price if I didn't get a phone line in. Surely I have some room for negotiation?

MarkK

Fr. Ted Crilly wrote: »

my point is I never had a telephone line and they were aware of this

Yes and you were also aware of this. I expect the Sky terms and condition that you will have agreed to, whether you read them or not, required you to connect all the boxes to a landline in order to get the multiroom discount.

Fr. Ted Crilly wrote: »

plus the engineers that came out never refused to install the setup because of this.

If you don't have a landline, why would the installers need to care, it's you who will have to pay a full price subscription, not them!

I would say you were hard done by if you did have a landline and the installers did not bother to connect the boxes to it, but if you don't have a landline at all you should just be grateful they don't backdate it 8 years.

Having said that it's still worth trying to get some of your money back from Sky as a goodwill gesture, the customer service people probably aren't as mean as me. :-)

Kristopherus

The installers must indicate in their report if a phone line is/has been connected. At least in the Uk they had to, so I assume with $ky it applies to all countries. Mind you , the OP will have great difficulty in gettin $ky to give him a copy of the various installers reports. That being said, if $ky/installer did'nt pick up on the phone line issue, then the OP should have some cause for arguing the point.

Cantona's Collars

It was the installer who didn't bother to connect the phoneline initially so he's partially to blame,there was no onus on the op to go and connect them up at any stage.

Anyhow Sky should have notified him the first time they noticed that no phoneline was connected instead of simply upping his subscription cost.

FRIENDO

1. Sky make it very clear that multi room must be connected to active phone line.
2. An Installer who carry's out work on behalf of Sky, connecting multi room in contravention to sky terms and condition and without approval from Sky is not to be trusted.

Fr. Ted Crilly

FRIENDO wrote: »

1. Sky make it very clear that multi room must be connected to active phone line.
2. An Installer who carry's out work on behalf of Sky, connecting multi room in contravention to sky terms and condition and without approval from Sky is not to be trusted.

Yes I see your point and my point is that I got Sky multi Room 8 years ago, they contacted me trying to upsell it and said that it was perfectly acceptable for me to work away without a phone line. Then they sent out their engineer and he never made a fuss about the phone lines. Then I just added onto my subscription with a 3rd box. Again the phone line wasnt a problem when I rang and arranged to buy a new connection. Why didnt they say Ive not been adhearing to their criteria and that a new box couldnt be installed till I did? They sent out their Engineer again (not some lad I picked) and fitted the system and all was well for another 4 years.
My problem is that they just out of the blue altered my subscription charge. They didnt notify me that my Direct Debit was going to change and after 8 years of them being happy enough you must see my point that I wouldnt be looking at my Direct Debit to see if it ever changed? They have admitted that they must write to me and now are claiming that they did write but have no prove of writing. Its the direct debit being altered thats the problem for me.

Fr. Ted Crilly

zerks wrote: »

It was the installer who didn't bother to connect the phoneline initially so he's partially to blame,there was no onus on the op to go and connect them up at any stage.

Anyhow Sky should have notified him the first time they noticed that no phoneline was connected instead of simply upping his subscription cost.

Thanks Zerks my point exactly.

justsomebloke

Just as a matter of interest have you now cancelled the multi room?

FRIENDO

@Fr Ted Crilly,

Ok Q.
8 years ago when you got first multi room installed you had no phone line.
4 years ago when 2nd multi room install you did not connect to phone line.
Did you get a phone line installed between these two dates ?
If so copy Sky proof that you had no phone line 8 years ago and point finger at sky Installer who did this installation.
I would deal with sky by email or registered letter as ringing will only cause stress and time.

Fr. Ted Crilly

FRIENDO wrote: »

@Fr Ted Crilly,

Ok Q.
8 years ago when you got first multi room installed you had no phone line.
4 years ago when 2nd multi room install you did not connect to phone line.
Did you get a phone line installed between these two dates ?
If so copy Sky proof that you had no phone line 8 years ago and point finger at sky Installer who did this installation.
I would deal with sky by email or registered letter as ringing will only cause stress and time.

Well I haven’t cancelled the Sky yet because when I tried to do this they just told me to go ahead. Now I didn’t know what to do if it was better to call the bluff and see what happens or do what I did this morning. I wrote a hand written letter to Jeremy Darroch plus I put in documentation to show there was no line in my house when they up sold me Sky Plus. At least he'll see Im still a customer at the time of writing. If I get no joy from it Ill take the single months refund and cancel my subscription. I also emailed him at jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com so Ill see what happens now. Ringing them is one thing but the smug, matter a fact generic emails I keep getting back is enough to drive me mad.

Thanks for all the help its very much appreciated.

FRIENDO

The sky selling agent and installation company have to carry blame on this matter.

I hope sky can see from your correspondence to them that you are an honest person and that this is a genuine mistake on your behalf. Its not nice to lose money like this.
Hopefully all works out for you.
Friendo.

Fr. Ted Crilly

FRIENDO wrote: »

The sky selling agent and installation company have to carry blame on this matter.

I hope sky can see from your correspondence to them that you are an honest person and that this is a genuine mistake on your behalf. Its not nice to lose money like this.
Hopefully all works out for you.
Friendo.

zerks wrote: »

Go straight to the head man. jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com

You're sure to get sorted then.

Hey guys brilliant news and a massive thanks to everyone involved in this thread. Thanks to Zerks for the above email address. I sent an email and a registered letter to the above Jeremy Darroch this morning and got a call back this evening. They have unreservedly apologised to me for all the distress of contacting them and banging my head off a brick wall. They read my mails and agreed that I had been nothing but courteous and didn’t deserve this treatment. I have been refunded all my money, plus money for my phone calls made to them. I also have been given 25% off my Sky subscription for 12 months a free Sky HD terabyte box plus an upgrade of my Sky Plus box to a HD one too. I’m so delighted with just getting my money back that it’s the best Christmas present going. Thanks again to everyone who helped me on this thread I really really appreciate it.

Merry Christmas to everyone,

Fr. Ted Crilly

kbell

But have you resolved the phone line issue?
Chances are this will happen again when callbacks aren't successful.

Fr. Ted Crilly

kbell wrote: »

But have you resolved the phone line issue?
Chances are this will happen again when callbacks aren't successful.

Well I have a land line in the house now so Im going to get points put into the relevant spots on Wednesday and they are going to send out the an engineer on Friday with a new HD box. He will ensure that the system is working the way they require and I will be able to talk to a Sky Rep while the Engineer is here to be sure they are happy. Plus the person I was speaking to tonight is going to call back in 7 days and make sure that everything is still correct this and their end.

marco2068

good news.

Irish Steve

There is an issue here that has somehow slipped through the net over time. In the very early days of Sky Digital, when they first put Digital boxes out to replace Analogue boxes, there was no obligation to have a phone line connected to the box, which must have had some sort of flag on the computer to say that it was the case.

I am "aware" of cases where a customer has done upgrades over time, including to multi room, and the boxes are live, and have been live for a long time, but there's never been any contact from Sky regarding the absence of a phone line to the boxes, and no letters or similar.

Almost afraid to mention this in case it changes, but if it did, I am not sure where Sky would be from a legal position, as the only contract that has ever been signed by the customer was for a service (via RTE if I remember correctly) that did not have to have a phone line.

eggy81

Some unreal comments on this thread.do ye work for sky or what.sky installers are not supposed to put in a multiroom system without there being a landline in the location.
They do it anyway cos they wanna make their money.sky will then let you away with it for a certain ammount of time,and then start taking full subscription fee for both cards without telling you quoting you t&c's when you question it.

Have had experience of both sides of this argument as I have installed many a sky system and some people when you explain that they will need a phoneline will say how come Joe bloggs ever the road has it without a phoneline and insist on getting it then cry when the get billed six months down the line.I have no sympathy for these people but there are plenty getting genuinely swindled by sky installers not telling them the story and putting in multiroom knowing full well what will happen.

radharc

Had the Sky installer in last week to set up multiroom but he didn't connect it to the phoneline (which is working perfectly) as he said it would be "a hoor of a job" because the telephone socket is at the other end of the house from the TVs.

Can anyone recommend what the best way of getting the job done is eg bringing a wire down from the attic or what. If possible i'd like to avoid that as the house has just been painted, is there any way of doing it wirelessly?

Cantona's Collars

radharc wrote: »

Had the Sky installer in last week to set up multiroom but he didn't connect it to the phoneline (which is working perfectly) as he said it would be "a hoor of a job" because the telephone socket is at the other end of the house from the TVs.

Can anyone recommend what the best way of getting the job done is eg bringing a wire down from the attic or what. If possible i'd like to avoid that as the house has just been painted, is there any way of doing it wirelessly?

Get wireless phone extenders which are about €40 to €50, here's some http://www.tvtrade.ie/wireless-phone-extender-base-and-extension-unit.html

NewHillel

zerks wrote: »

Get wireless phone extenders which are about €40 to €50, here's some http://www.tvtrade.ie/wireless-phone-extender-base-and-extension-unit.html

These work fine with Sky HD. One tip, there's a switch on one of the units for 'Voice' or 'Data'. (Can't remember whether base unit or slave.) It must be set to Data.