Advice wanted!

The Donegal Man

I recently got sky in again but I'm f****** p***** off big time with what is going on. This is the story.


I got sky in (a sky+HD box) and I got multi-room on the Thursday before last. Part of the deal was that it would only cost €30 as long as I signed up for a year. Grand. It was a third party but judging by the companies website and indeed their van you would think it was sky themselves

During the installation however the **** started to the the fan if you'll excuse the expression.;) Firstly, the installer didn't connect the phone line to either of my sky boxes. The excuse? In case lightning hits the phone lines and went down them and damaged anything! Sky wouldn't stand over it apparently.But if they are a third party would sky be liable anyway? In stead they give me a long phone line to plug in to the multi-room in the kitchen. ''You'll only need to use it the once'' they said.

Then no scart lead for the box in the kitchen! They didnt have one! He put the box on it's side. Clearly this block's the air vent on one side but he side it could sit like that.

Finally from the installation day, he took my bank details etc but I didn't sign anything (a signature)

He left saying to ring them when I recieved my cards and they would activate them.

Problems Mount
The HD box in the Living Room started to act strange like it would go into standy after being idle for as little as 45 minutes. The brightness in the screen was flickering on occasion's too.

Farce pt 1

When I got the cards (Tues or Wed of this week) I activated the card in the HD+ box myself. But there was a complete farcical situation where RTÉ One, Two were the same number as.....BBC One London and BBC Two England in the box!!!!!!! Both were channel 101 and 102! :mad::mad::mad::mad:

I then rang the third party on the Thursday to tell them I got my cards. They said they already activated them. I told them about I wanted the box in the kitchen moved as it couldnt sit ion its side and was too close to our sink whilst sitting normally. Rather cheekily imo he said that should all been sorted at the time. I also said that sky informed me that I have to have the telephone line connected. ''No you don't, they'll just say that he replied''. He said it would be next week anyway before they could call.

As someone who is passive and doesn't like conflict I didnt complain to him.

So I rang Sky on Thursday night about the situ regarding the telephone lines and mixed up EPG and they suggested and said someone would call on Saturday (free of charge) to rectfy the situation. Brilliant!


Farce pt 2 -TAKING THE P***! :mad:

8am came and went and no call as to when the engineer would come. Before 10am I rang sky to tell them I heard nothing and wanted to know to what time he would come. Incidentally I am about 90% sure I was told Finlay's do here (Donegal).

A call came around an hour after with the engineer saying he would be coming in the evening.


THE FINAL STRAW!

The enginneer landed. He did work for me before with sky boxes through a now newly named electrical store...he must have been sub-contracted. When I complained about not being given a scart lead he said you don't get scart leads with the boxes anymore. Is this true? He said he was on a service call.

He asked what I wanted done and I explained the whole scenario but was carefull not to run down any company in case they knew one another (Donegal can be a snmall place!!!)

All he did was fix the EPG and left!! FFS! He said I would here from either him or the third party on Monday! #]

Once he left I rang sky and demanded and explainion for this farcical situation.

They said, as I got the box off a third party, they should not have sent someone out and queried as to how that happened but they said he should have carried out the necessary work but seen a loop-hole and left it.


I've decided, I'm gonna give the boxes back. I'll send them back to the third party. Mind you, I never signed anything contracts etc.

Finally guys, if I just want to get the boxes directly off sky, is there any way that Finaly's would send out someone else 'cos that guy seemed like a chancer.

Thanks for reading.

Cantona's Collars

Contact Sky with the name of the 3rd party you dealt with,they are representing Sky and shoddy work practices wouldn't be accepted.Phoneline is needed for multiroom and scart leads come with the boxes,hdmi in the case of hd.
It's amazing what some installers will try and get away with these days-they give everyone a bad name.Find it a bit weird that they claimed the cards were pre activated even though they arrived to you from Sky.
Normal practise with a third party is you order Sky by filling out order for which includes direct debit mandate(the installer has nothing to do with this).Sky send you the cards,you contact person you ordered from to arrange install,installer arrives and does professional job to your satisfaction.
None of the above seems to have been done in your case and I wouldn't blame you for being pissed off.

kbell

Scart leads, 1.5 meter phone lines, and rf fly leads no longer are supplied as contents of either standard or HD boxes.
Both come with power lead, remote and batteries, and HDMI for the HD box.
This has been the case since mid last year.

Cantona's Collars

kbell wrote: »

Scart leads, 1.5 meter phone lines, and rf fly leads no longer are supplied as contents of either standard or HD boxes.
Both come with power lead, remote and batteries, and HDMI for the HD box.
This has been the case since mid last year.

Are you sure scart leads don't come with standard boxes-kinda hard to connect em to a tv without leads.
Even so,what happened to the op was extremely unprofessional,claiming the cards were pre activated and leaving the op to do it himself is very dodgy indeed along with all the other shenanigans that went on.No wonder people get put off getting satellite tv installed with cowboys out there doing bodge jobs of installs,there's a couple of threads here about it trying to address the problem.

steveon

Kbell is 100% correct in stating that the Standard boxes no longer come with any scart-leads. This happened last year when Sky controlled all the boxes e.g. Amstrads.

Its a complete joke and regardless of a large amount of complaints on my behalf and others nothing has been done about it. I have been supplying scartleads all along as I have amassed alot over the years but these have now run out..

It is however rare I get call for even a standard box as part of a multiroom.

You are not alone in companies both used by Sky and 3rd party installers doing shoddy work and leaving the rest of us to clean up the mess...

watty

Heitons has really fat (i.e. proper separate coaxes internally) Philips SCART cables about 6 Euro I think. Most places have just the skinny rubbish kind (even if charging €40) that have no coax and just one overall screen. They give bad crosstalk.