Quoted from the AVForums on
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...threadid=90921

Speaks for itself really.

"My Sky+ County Court Claim"

"I posted a few times about my Sky+ troubles, primarily in the threads
here and here. I haven’t posted anything since I said I was filing a
claim against Sky, and a few people said they would be interested in
how it went so I thought I may as well post the outcome. I’ll start
with a bit of background so you know why I took them to court.

I subscribed to Sky+ back in May 2002 after being a very happy Tivo
user. I experienced 7 major problems that caused me to miss insane
numbers of TV shows, the worst being the one were scheduled recordings
set from the EPG disappear prior to the broadcast of the programme. On
the channels I watched, which were most Cartoon Network, CNX, Fox Kids
(I’m not ashamed to admit it ), this happen on in excess of 80% of
recordings.

I reported the problems I was having many times to Sky by phone, email
and letter but I was essentially ignored or offered explanations like
“we’re not equipped to deal with such complaints� or advice to
“monitor the situation.� I tell them 80% of recordings are
disappearing and their solution is to “monitor the situation� - Great!
Despite the fact that all of the problems I experienced were entirely
and solely Sky’s responsibility, and the fact that the software could
easily be modified to solve the problems, Sky didn’t want to know
about the problems I was having and never took any action to remedy
the faults. Phoning them was just a waste of time and money.

Sky+ caused me a lot more annoyance and upset than it did
entertainment so I cancelled as soon as the 12 month minimum contract
allowed me to. To say I was angry and disgusted that Sky had released
a product with such a huge array of problems is an understatement, and
Sky’s attitude to the problems angered me further. There was no way I
was going to let Sky away with providing such an appalling service, so
on the advice of my local trading standards office I sent Sky a letter
giving them four weeks to rectify the faults. Sky never even bothered
responding to my letter, though they did produce it for their defence
to the claim, so I assume they just ignored it like they ignored my
other communications. After the four weeks all the faults were still
present so I filed a claim in the County Court on the Small Claims
track.

I put in a lot of effort preparing myself for the hearing, and wrote a
presentation which detailed the faults and described why Sky’s defence
was invalid (their defence was an absolute joke). My hearing took
place on 25/07/03 and I turned up confident I was going to win. I was
quite surprised when I found Sky had sent word that they wouldn’t be
represented at the hearing and that they were going to let the defence
they filed represent them. I can only assume that they decided it
would be cheaper to pay the claim than to send someone, because they
can’t have seriously though they were going to win with three pages of
nonsense.

The hearing was over in about 50 minutes and I was awarded £406 in
compensation and expenses. I thought Sky would dispute the decision
but to my surprise I received a cheque on 14 August.

I had originally planned to look into a class action when I won,
because if I’m entitled to compensation then logically every other
user who has experienced these problems should be. However, it’s been
about three months since I stopped using Sky+ so I’m no longer
experiencing the extreme annoyance of constant failed recordings.
Without my daily dose of Sky+ crap my motivation to take this further
has gone away. I think I’ve been fairly compensated so I’m not going
to take it any further.

As I’ve said before, it’s my opinion that Sky have some excellent
channel packages that are incredible value compared to the BBC licence
fee. It’s a shame that these superb packages are let down by
diabolical software and their refusal to do anything to fix it. Most
of the major problems I experienced could be fixed very easily, so I
really don’t understand why they won’t invest a few days (or for some
problems a few minutes) to fix them. If they’d sort their software out
I’d subscribe again without a second through, but it looks unlikely
that they’ll do so.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/guiv
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

Jomtien wrote:

Quoted from the AVForums on
http://www.avforums.com/forums/showt...threadid=90921

Speaks for itself really.

"My Sky+ County Court Claim"

"I posted a few times about my Sky+ troubles, primarily in the threads

There should have been end quote marks at the end of that long quote,
obviously. Sorry I missed them out.
This is NOT my personal court experience.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/guiv
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

Jomtien said:

There should have been end quote marks at the end of that long quote,
obviously. Sorry I missed them out.
This is NOT my personal court experience.

I realised - the bit that said "the channels I watched, which were
most Cartoon Network, CNX, Fox Kids" was a bit of a giveaway. ;-)





--
Gareth Kitchener
Bedfordshire, England
http://www.garethkitchener.org.uk

That is a fantastic story!

I am not surprised at the outcome, but I am surprised someone took the time
and effort to do it; well done to whomever it was.
Could this be the start of it all now.....wonder if the contract for new
subscriber's will be tweaked?

Ahh...
memories...

Memories of a similar nightmare episode I had with Dixons Stores Group after
the £550 widescreen TV I purchased from Currys was declared faulty by their
engineer a mere 6 weeks after purchase. I had to go to court in order to
get my refund.

(They argued that it was past their "28-day" deadline policy)

Why do large companies treat us public like ****?

Brendan
Why I never shop at Dixons/Currys/PC World...etc:
www.djmurphy.demon.co.uk/dixons.htm

On Fri, 22 Aug 2003 18:28:52 +0000 (UTC), "rachel"
wrote:

That is a fantastic story!

I am not surprised at the outcome, but I am surprised someone took the time
and effort to do it; well done to whomever it was.
Could this be the start of it all now.....wonder if the contract for new
subscriber's will be tweaked?

IANAL.

If they do tweak the contract to exclude their SOGA obligations, then
it's quite possible that the contract will be ruled "unfair".


--
QrizB

I sound like I know what I'm talking about, but don't
be fooled.

In article ,
says...
Ahh...
memories...

Memories of a similar nightmare episode I had with Dixons Stores Group after
the £550 widescreen TV I purchased from Currys was declared faulty by their
engineer a mere 6 weeks after purchase. I had to go to court in order to
get my refund.

(They argued that it was past their "28-day" deadline policy)

Why do large companies treat us public like ****?

Because too many people still shop at such companies, and they believe the
**** spouted, such as the "Currys - always cutting prices" adverts with Linda
Barker.

Since when did a DSG store ever cut a price?

I won't enrage you further by mentioning the "Currys - no worries" tagline.
--

Dom Robinson Gamertag: DVDfever email: dom at dvdfever dot co dot uk
/* http://DVDfever.co.uk (editor)
/* 940 DVDs, 259 games, 33 videos, 67 cinema films, 69 CDs, laserdiscs & news
/* star trek nemesis, bringing down the house, phone booth, human nature
"Your eyes, they take me... to eternity." - Natalie Imbruglia, Identify

"Brendan DJ Murphy" wrote in message
...
Memories of a similar nightmare episode I had with Dixons Stores Group after
the £550 widescreen TV I purchased from Currys was declared faulty by their
engineer a mere 6 weeks after purchase. I had to go to court in order to
get my refund.
(They argued that it was past their "28-day" deadline policy)
Why do large companies treat us public like ****?

Because the public clearly let them.
Else they wouldn't.

Loz

Gareth Kitchener wrote:

I realised - the bit that said "the channels I watched, which were
most Cartoon Network, CNX, Fox Kids" was a bit of a giveaway. ;-)

I never miss 'em!

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/guiv
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)

Brendan DJ Murphy wrote:

Memories of a similar nightmare episode I had with Dixons Stores Group after
the £550 widescreen TV I purchased from Currys was declared faulty by their
engineer a mere 6 weeks after purchase. I had to go to court in order to
get my refund.
(They argued that it was past their "28-day" deadline policy)
Why do large companies treat us public like ****?

I got a full refund for my £650 TV recently, some 18 months after
purchase. It was a letter to the MD of the company that owns the chain
that produced results, not the filing of a court case as apparently
the local shop management wasn't even aware that they had been
summonsed when the Head Office contacted them about my letter.

The fact that I am a shareholder of the said company may have had
something to do with it but even so the company acted perfectly once
they were aware of the problem. The local (franchised) shop was at
fault.

--
Digibox problem? : A reboot solves 90% of these.
The Sky Digital FAQ: http://tinyurl.com/guiv
How to get UK TV overseas: http://tinyurl.com/6p73
Fed up with logos / red buttons? : http://logofreetv.org/
BBC gone? : http://www.astra2d.co.uk/
----
Only the truth as I see it.
No monies return'd. ;-)