Sky Complaint

[d0pey]

Correspondence Department
Sky Subscriber Services
4 Macintosh Road
Kirkton Campus
LIVINGSTON
West Lothian
EH54 7BW

15th July 2007

Account Number: xxxxxxxxxxxx

Dear Sirs,

I recently placed an order for Sky+ to be installed. At the same time I setup a multiroom subscription so I could use the existing sky box in the bedroom and have the Sky+ box in the lounge. A letter was sent to me on the 30th June 2007 confirming the products I had ordered and my installation date of 14th July 2007. A new viewing card (286 673 678) was also sent to me around a week ago which I assumed was for my multiroom subscription.

Our Sky satellite dish is installed on the chimney stack so we require the special heights crew to carry out the installations and maintenance. Sky seems to subcontract these types of jobs to a company based in Chester called "First Line Digital". Previously when they have been out they have provided an excellent service.

On the day of the installation, the engineer phoned up at 8:00am on 14th July 2007 and confirmed they would be arriving at our property between 1pm and 3pm. They arrived shortly after 3pm and upon arrival they informed me that the relocation of our existing "standard sky box" was not on their job sheet. He also stated I had not ordered multiroom because I would have been charged only £50 for the Sky+ box. I explained I was not happy as I had already waited over 2 weeks for an appointment. For them only to come out and not complete what was promised by sales. He said to me "Well if you have to wait an extra 2 weeks then that is that" and told me "It was not his problem".

One of the engineers then phoned the Sky engineers helpline and spoke to a lady and he told her they would not be willing to complete the job. I spoke to the same lady on the engineer’s phone and told her because of the layout of the property at most it would be 10 minutes extra work to relocate my box then and there. She informed me she could authorise them to complete the sky+ installation, relocate my existing box and asked to speak to engineer again. Mysteriously whilst she was asking him if he would carry out the work to complete the job the phone went dead.

After much more deliberation the other engineer phoned the helpline back and spoke to another advisor. By this time they had been sat outside my property for over 20 minutes and had not actually done any work. The engineer carried on speaking to him for a few minutes before passing the phone to me. The advisor I spoke to was extremely unhelpful, rude, arrogant, condescending, causing me to get very angry and upset. He then informed me I had 3 options.

1. Cancel the order completely.
2. Have the Sky+ installed and come back out at the next available appointment to complete the box relocation.
3. Have it all installed at the next available appointment date.

Reluctantly, I said I would have Sky+ installed and arrange another appointment date for them to complete the box relocation. At this point he incorrectly informed me I would be required to pay for the 2nd visit. I told him I would not pay anything because this was an error on Sky part and did not see why I should pay for their mess-up. He asked me to give the phone back to the engineer and once I gave the phone back he just drove off without speaking to me.

I then phoned the installation department and spoke to a very helpful lady called Heather (ID: xxxxx) she told me the error had occurred when sales took my order. I would personally like to thank her for the time she spent speaking to me and advising me best she could under the circumstances. I would be most grateful if you could pass on this feedback to her and her manager. I asked if she could arrange a new installation date. Heather explained that my order had been completely cancelled by the advisor without my permission and she would not be able to arrange a new installation date. She then said all she could do is issue a refund and pass me onto sales. In total I was on the phone for nearly 30 minutes at my expense.

I am extremely unhappy with the service I have received from Sky and would like to make a formal complaint. I have wasted a full day for no reason, been put under a great deal of stress, been advised incorrectly several times and had a completely unsatisfactory level of service.

This letter has been sent by Royal Mail Special Delivery. Please acknowledge safe receipt of this letter.

Yours Sincerely,



XXXXXX XXXXX

---------- Post added at 08:02 ---------- Previous post was at 07:57 ----------

What do people feel is an acceptable level of compensation?

[grabbi]

A full days wage at the place you work?
All money you have paid for the installation, plus the phone fees to the numbers you have dialled.
A possible retention deal for being arsed about like this in the first place.

Your experience hasnt got off to a flying start, thus it gives you a second thought about whether to go with their company, so Id be looking for some sort of apology and a deal to suit you!

Hope all goes well for you!

[WHISTLED]

I agree you have had a bad service from them, as I have in the past but why do people always think they are entitled to compensation..?

Is that what you call a 'great deal of stress'? Your life must be great and your job really easy?

You will get a letter back saying we are very sorry and that about it I suspect.

Free month of service I would ask for

[former_suubie]

hi there,i was a former sub-contractor on behalf of FIRST LINE DIGITAL, who carried out installations on skys behalf. I am aware that the service quality is pathetic. unfortunatly 9 times out of ten this is due to FIRST LINE DIGITAL's poor administration. allow me to point out what the subcontractor have to put up with.

1. the subby has to pay for all materials including the cable, duel cable (aka shotgun) works out around 33p per meter, connecter 10p each.

2.the subby has to pay for own petrol, so when the idiots in the office decide you have 2 jobs in bristol and 2 jobs the oppersite side of wiltshire, in the morning. and then the same again in the afternoon. it means that the subby has to waste his own money driving around.

3. jobs are paid at 27p per minute for a fixed amount of time, ie a standard install allows 90 mins. regardless of the size of the property or how long it takes you. (27p X90) = £24.30

4. the subby has to ring sky on a premium rate number (up to 50p) per min on some mobiles. and we all know that it takes sky around 10-15mins to answer the phone.

5. time are divide into am and pm calls. most days i was given aroung 8 hours of morning calls, which when i pick up the sky boxes at 8am in the morning means that their targets are unachievable.

6. as self employed the one right that i have ( should have) is to decide my own working hours. so when they give you 12 hours worth of work a day (on average times without travelling times) you can end up working 16+ hours a day and your not allowed to cancel any jobs even if you only want 10 hours.

In short over the past 6 months i have only earned £3000 while working up to a 80 hour week.
IF YOU EVER GET FIRST LINE DIGITAL, DO NOT ALLOW THEM INTO YOUR HOUSE. YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REQUEST A REAL SKY ENGINEER.

ADMIN EDIT - numbers removed until those concerned contact the site with their expressed permission to have their numbers given out.

[Jon T]

Bit of a bump to the thread, last post was July 2007.