Problems With Sky

We've been with Sky for a few years now. We originally had Sky when we lived in Crownhill. Then we had to move from that house (full details in an earlier blog post.) to this house. We opted for Freeview. More out of necessity rather than choice, because there was no Sky dish at this address. Neither was there a decent out-door ariel, which you needed if you were to receive a decent signal from Freeview. We had a Freeview set-top box and had an indoor ariel, but the picture quality was very poor. We did an on-line search through a price comparison site in an attempt to find an alternative television provider. We had intended to set up a Virgin media account, but soon discovered that we couldn't have one basically because Virgin, which is a cable company, wasn't available in Milton Keynes, which seemed a bit strange, considering that the place is so modern, you would imagine that it would have been cabled when the place was built. So we didn't have much of a choice but to go with Sky. We also wanted to switch our internet provider as well as having a land-line telephone, so we decided to have all of these services with one provider. Also, with Freeview, even if there was a decent enough signal, their service was (and probably still is) fairly basic, to say the least. You get BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 and a handful of what can best be called 'cast-off' channels. All very well if you don't want to pay for a subscription. We wanted to be able to watch a wider range of programmes and Sky was beginning to branch out and make it's own shows. As I'm not very interested in sport,  and neither is Carol, if it comes to that, football in particular, there seemed no point in having any of the sports channels at additional cost. We felt we were missing out as there are exclusive channels they have which Freeview and Virgin don't provide. Such as Sky Arts (at that time they had two Arts channels.) Which is why we set up a Sky account and had a Sky + box as well as internet and landline telephone. It makes it simpler if you have all these services from one provider, meaning only one direct debit payment each month.

We upgraded our Sky service to Sky Q fairly recently. We wanted to have a television in our bedroom, so chose to have a multi-screen service, which means we have the main Sky Q box in the lounge. It is connected via wifi (the router is in the hall near the telephone socket.) We bought an HD television just before we got the new Sky contract sorted out. It was a 39 inch Toshiba. But it didn't last long. It failed to work and it seemed we were going to be without television for a while until we could afford a replacement. I still can't believe that set only lasted four years at most. We now have a 43 inch Hitachi and, quite honestly, it's a better set, which, like the old Toshiba, has a built-in DVD player.

So, why have I waffled on for two paragraphs? Where is all this leading? Well, the other day Carol mentioned that she couldn't get some of the channels to work. You'd get a 'no satellite signal' message come up. BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4 and 5 appeared fine, which was odd, because if they worked, why not the Sky subscription channels, such as Sky1, Sky Atlantic and the Sky Arts channel? I eventually rang the sky helpline and the on-line man ran me through some self-help instructions, the usual range of options to re-set and re-boot the Sky Q box, but nothing worked. Those channels would not work. We have booked an appointment to have an engineer come and sort the thing out on Saturday afternoon, so, hopefully, it will be back to normal after then.

I'm intrigued by the automated telephone system Sky has when you ring their helpline. It's voice-activated for a lot of the menu when you first call. I think it might put some people off ringing at all, those who don't like using automated systems. But the voice they use is quite realistic, which is probably why it might be off-putting. But I soon got through to a human and there wasn't the usual long wait you often get with call-centres and then listening to awful music for what seems like hours and hours.

TalkTalk Trouble

We have been customers of Talk Talk for around 3-4 years. We have broadband and landline telephone with them. It is easier to have both as it means you only have one bill. We have been considering changing providers for some time and had learned that our contract with TalkTalk would come to an end in either January-February next year. We have Freeview as our television provider, but we don't have an outdoor aerial and have to resort to using a somewhat poor-quality indoor one which means our picture quality is poor. It has a tendency to freeze up and at times goes pixelated, which can make watching television really impossible. We would like to have a multi-channel provider such as Sky or Virgin. But we weren't sure which provider to go for and accepted that we couldn't change either our broadband/telephone landline provider until early2014 when the TalkTalk contract came to an end or take on the extra multi-channel service until then. We then got a letter from TalkTalk, which came out of the blue last Saturday, informing us that their service costs would soon increase, and if we did not decide to continue using them as a phone/broadband provider we had 30 days to change to a new provider without incurring any early-contract ending fee. So, as a response to this letter we began to look around for a new provider. At first we had considered Virgin, with a broadband, multi-channel and landline telephone package a possibility. We then discovered that we couldn't have a Virgin Media package for the simple fact that there is no cable installed in the Milton Keynes area, as their service comes through cable. This is something of a shock as I had imagined that a modern city such as Milton Keynes would have been covered by cable, possibly being one of the first cities in Britain to be cabled. But no. We then decided to try Sky (we were with them at our other house in Crownhill, but cancelled the contract due to financial problems which I don't intend discussing here.) We rang their number and have now got a contract organised and they are coming to install the dish and set up the Sky Plus box tomorrow (Friday).
Then yesterday we got a call from Talk Talk. Apparently Sky have got in contact with them to tell them we are changing our provider to them. I was asked, by a surprisingly very rude call-centre agent, why we were changing, who our new provider was and what were they charging? We said we wanted to include multi-channel television in the package, and we were told by the TalkTalk agent that they could provide a package, but we were unaware of this. I have to say their customer service is really poor, they don't seem to know anything about the letter we got telling us we don't need to pay the cancellation fee. So, it's a case of the left hand not knowing what the right is doing. 
We have had a couple of  further letters from TalkTalk, which virtually contradict the earlier on telling us we don't need to pay a cancellation charge if we change providers within 30 days. One says we'll have to pay around £15 for every month left of the contract. The TalkTalk agent we spoke to yesterday seemed to suggest we would have to pay the cancellation fee. So, why did they send the first letter?And today another letter came from them saying we needed a code to transfer the phone/broadband. On phoning I was asked why we were moving our account. I refused to say. And we now don't need the code to transfer accounts to Sky. Why do they need to know. And I got an email this morning with a survey to rate the TalkTalk agent's performance. I gave a very low score, as you may have guessed. So, you can see why I would never recommend TalkTalk as an internet/broadband/telephone provider.
There was one other issue with TalkTalk. When the account was originally set up we paid by Direct Debit, as with most services. It's the easiest way to pay most regular bills. You aren't likely to forget and it's generally cheaper than paying by cash or card.
The only problem was the time of the month it goes out of your account. It would have been better at the beginning of the month, as that's when we are paid, so, logically, there will be cash there to pay bills, such as Council Tax, water, etc, etc. But, no, for some unaccountable reason, best known only to themselves,it had to come out on or around the 20th of each month, by which time there probably isn't sufficient funds in the account to cover the Direct Debit payment. This happened a couple of times and as  result meant we incurred an unauthorised overdraft payment.  I then had to ring TalkTalk and attempted to get them to move the date the D.D. was taken to the beginning of the month, but no amount of trying would get them move it. So I had no alternative each month to either pay using my debit card on line or ring up, which meant we had to pay a good deal more than if we'd paid by Direct Debit, which, over a year, was around £35.