Sky a bunch of idiots

roy

I rang sky CS today to query a direct debit. I was on the sky sports world package which cost £30.00 a month, which was to go up to £35.44( €45.00euro) a month in my payment in Januray. Last month I upgraded to sky world. When I ordered the package the nice Scottish person told me it would cost me £34.00 punts a month. When a got my bank statement today Sky actually debited €53.20euro (£41.90) in December. Sky had actually passed on the subscription increase a month early. I was told that this was the correct amount. When I told the CS person that the contract that I signed with sky stated that there would be price increase in the first 12 months, she says that no such contract exists and when a told her that a got a letter from sky about the increase which said the subscription would not be going up till January she said that they have no record of such a letter. The best is yet to come, she said that I was always paying £35.44 for sky sports not £30.00 (my bank statement said £30.00) and she blamed the bank!!. Basically I got no where with her so I am going the ring them tomorrow.

I am right about the price freeze in the first 12 months of subscription.

Sky are showing all the signs of being a monopoly, price increases, crap customer services. I might even to back to chorus.

chernobyl

If you upgrade between billing periods you incur charge on top of the cost of upgrading to a package "x".

As for chorus..bah!! i could not be bothered.

Sky are showing all the signs of being a monopoly

No such thing, when it comes to Satellite TV.
If you are serious about sport coverage then Canal+ and Tele+ are what you should have.

bmg

i encountered the same problem.was told that because of the upgrade to the new package (after only 4 months) that the new price matrix would apply as effectively it was a new contract.

Sky is a monopoly alright and they can get away with anything they like -pricing wise-why should they be any different-they are the only providers at the moment of a service the people want.
I can tell you I Long for competition in this area as much as I Long for Buffy.
Hopefully before the year is out the competition will happen,as I think I've already met the Buffy lookalike:D
mm

chernobyl

Originally posted by madman

I can tell you I Long for competition in this area as much as I Long for Buffy.
Hopefully before the year is out the competition will happen,as I think I've already met the Buffy lookalike:D
mm

Seriously it would be stupid to even try to compete with Sky and ITV have learned that the extremely stupid and costly way.
Even if someone could come up with the cash to beat sky on a technical level you still have to convince ppl to switch and oh yes you will have to pay sky £300 for your breach of contract...it will never happen.
there is competition out there, so stop whining, if you want better viewing then get the thumb out of your ass and do something about it!!

rymus

Originally posted by madman
as I think I've already met the Buffy lookalike:D
mm

Does she have any sisters? lol

Even if someone could come up with the cash to beat sky on a technical level you still have to convince ppl to switch and oh yes you will have to pay sky £300 for your breach of contract...it will never happen.

Well in my case,my contract is now a year old, so I own the box-so one months notice and I'm out.
Same applies to the majority of existing customers within the next year-so no cost at all.

I may decide to stick with Sky if their channel options/pricing suit me.I will remain with sky as the only plausible alternative untill DTT arrives in Ireland-If it doesn't I'm stuck with Sky.
I do not want to go down the route of Pirate cards and dishes pointed at other countries services.While thats an alternative for some-it's not for the masses.

DTT as a possible platform in ROI cannot be compared by the way with it's disastrous performance in the UK.
Because it is a failure there, it does not follow that the same will happen here.
I repeated my view on this thread:http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=34182
but here it is:
What happens in Britain on the digital terrestial front, while interesting, has precious little to do with such a project in Ireland.
I say its interesting because its an example of how not to go about setting up a Digital service .
Firstly: Because all analogue transmitters in the UK are UHF and the ITV digital ( previously "on digital") transmissions are also on UHF , the latter have had to be very low power-this is so they wont interfere with the majority of peoples analogue signals.
The end result of that has been a disasterously poor coverage for Digital terestial in the UK-most people having to put up a new outdoor aerial to get it.
This has given it a bad name.
Secondly: as most of the UK population live in towns and cities, many are served by cable systems.these are being offered digital with no aerial or minidish-ITV Digital already having such a bad name for reception there, means the majority aren't going to switch to it.
Thirdly: If you have a bad name for reception ( and believe me ITV digital has ) and you live in a rural area-of course you will go to Sky.
The situation in the Republic of Ireland is entirely different!!!
Here the Government through the ODTR has regulated that who ever gets the Irish DTT licence must make reception available on indoor aerials;this being done through transmitters operating with 50 kw powers-In the UK,the ERP of digital transmitters is generally around 1-2 kw.
The effect of that regulation is massive and in my opinion alone sets an Irish service miles apart from the one in the UK.

eg: picture being an NTL subscriber in Dublin- to get an alternative service all you would have to do is go down to your local retailer, sign up , pay your sub and bring home a set top box, that can be plugged in and set up as easy as a video!
Now compare that to sky??? for the same switch-you would have to put up a dish and pay £60-£80,or more, for the instalation(not to mention extra cable if the dish has to be sited in an awkward place-or worse still cannot be mounted at all),before paying any sub.

There are other issues in the Republic of Ireland, that also favour a much better take up of DTT than in the UK.
Historically, the demand for multichannel here has been for BBC and ITV-these were always obviously available in the UK-meaning that in the UK, demand for multichannel was always going to be "Sky based".
Also, Much of Ireland is served by an atrocious Chorus Cable and MMDS service-I suspect that the fact that switching to an Irish DTT service as described above is so simple,that getting disgruntled Chorus customers to move would not be difficult.

Of course the argument that Sky is taking over could also be applied to Eircell prior to the arrival of Esat Digifone-I think the latter is doing ok at moment- as will the new one ( great TV adds for meteor btw but thats another story )
I've tasted ITV digital and cant wait to see the Irish version-So Ethain Doyle if you are reading this....Pleeeease hurry up and get it up and running!
mm

Does she have any sisters? lol

Rymus, She has three-would you like an introduction??

mm

chernobyl

Originally posted by madman




I do not want to go down the route of Pirate cards and dishes pointed at other countries services.While thats an alternative for some-it's not for the masses.

In about a month it will be FTA for all with practically all providers changing their encryption systems and no hack in sight (well none have been made public).
and no way am i going to loose Canal+...damn it.