"Ret." wrote in message
news
bill wrote:
Hi All,

Getting into little dispute with Sky over what I consider to be the
premature failure of my Sky box after circa 18 months. They came and
took the box away (for which I had paid £65) as faulty and left a
refurbished one and charged me another £65.

Main issue for the purpose of this post is do I own the box? Can they
take it away and charge me for another? I am pursuing the premature
failure too but its kind of linked.

Any advice appreciated.

When my old Thomson HD box failed 6 months ago I phoned up and was given
the option of taking out a Sky maintenance agreement (which is
ridiculously overpriced and makes no sense at all), or paying £65 for a
visit to repair or replace my box.

I opted for the latter but complained about having to accept a refurbished
box. When the engineer arrived a couple of days later he replaced my old
box with a brand new Amstrad. He said that it was not his policy to supply
refurbished boxes because they rarely lasted for very long... He also,
while he was at the house, checked the dish alignment and replaced the LNB
without any additional cost.

I only ever had to pay the single £65 'repair/replace' charge however. I
don't believe you should have been charged twice and I would take that up
with Sky if I were you.

--
Kev
I presume that the first 65 pounds that the OP paid was for a second hand
box bought off ebay or similar, he doesn't say he paid that to Sky.
Regards Mike GW8IJT.

On Oct 28, 5:13*pm, mike
wrote:

I'm giving Virgin a try, limited HD channels + ESPN + faster broadband
for 8 per month more than I was paying for sky. *They own the box so
should it go wrong, free replacement!

So far so good, customer service has been top notch, barring throwing in
a massage I'm not really sure how it could have been improved. *Virgin
box has subtle but slightly annoying differences from sky+ but I guess
I'll get used to them in time. *Internet is easily twice as fast as sky
could offer on a BT line.

Mike

As I have posted on here I have had problems with my Thompson box, but
on both occasions I have been luky enough to know somebody who had a
spare / solved the problem here.

We currently use Virgin - cable - for broadband, it's a bit pricey BUT
we pay for 20 meg and get 20+ all day every day. We could probably
save a bit if we migrated Sky to Virgin but last time I tried, Virgin
were not intersted in giving me any decent offers to switch. I must
admit I found this quite strange, they wanted cash up front for the
two boxes. I know it's a bit rich "expecing" freebies like this, but
they were asking me to sign an 18 month contract. Of course I got the
follow up calls which were swifty dealt with by asking them if they
were prepared to better their offer, which they were not.

So I am left now noting that when Sky finally becomes a problem
whereby I call them out, I simply say goodbye to them in the hope that
they grovel to me, or see if I can be bothered to see what Virgin are
"offering". I am actually quite happy with Sky+ and am not in need of
HD.



Richard

On 12/11/2010 16:27, Fat richard wrote:
On Oct 28, 5:13 pm,
wrote:

I'm giving Virgin a try, limited HD channels + ESPN + faster broadband
for 8 per month more than I was paying for sky. They own the box so
should it go wrong, free replacement!

So far so good, customer service has been top notch, barring throwing in
a massage I'm not really sure how it could have been improved. Virgin
box has subtle but slightly annoying differences from sky+ but I guess
I'll get used to them in time. Internet is easily twice as fast as sky
could offer on a BT line.

Mike

As I have posted on here I have had problems with my Thompson box, but
on both occasions I have been luky enough to know somebody who had a
spare / solved the problem here.

We currently use Virgin - cable - for broadband, it's a bit pricey BUT
we pay for 20 meg and get 20+ all day every day. We could probably
save a bit if we migrated Sky to Virgin but last time I tried, Virgin
were not intersted in giving me any decent offers to switch. I must
admit I found this quite strange, they wanted cash up front for the
two boxes. I know it's a bit rich "expecing" freebies like this, but
they were asking me to sign an 18 month contract. Of course I got the
follow up calls which were swifty dealt with by asking them if they
were prepared to better their offer, which they were not.

So I am left now noting that when Sky finally becomes a problem
whereby I call them out, I simply say goodbye to them in the hope that
they grovel to me, or see if I can be bothered to see what Virgin are
"offering". I am actually quite happy with Sky+ and am not in need of
HD.



Richard

My V+ HD box was free though I paid £49 for installation. I understand
they do charge for a second box. Similarly I have a friend already with
virgin with a SD box without a PVR, even after thretening they would not
give him a V+ box. They insisted he paid a one off upgrade charge
(£70?) plus installation.

He's now with Sky.

Mike

On 21/11/2010 11:33, Martin wrote:
On Fri, 12 Nov 2010 08:27:53 -0800 (PST), Fat richard
wrote:

We currently use Virgin - cable - for broadband, it's a bit pricey BUT
we pay for 20 meg and get 20+ all day every day.

Only if the other end supports 20meg.


By other end do you mean the server at the other end?

That's quite true, some websites/download servers are so slow that even
reverting to dialup would make little difference but I share my
connection with 3 other PCs and moving from sky, which got 12meg on a
GOOD day to virgin's service has made a significant improvement.

BT are upgrading the cables in my area so maybe in a year or two they'll
be able to match virgin.

Mike