What to expect from my 1st £65 Sky Callout?
OK, so in brief. My HD box was playing up last night. I made a thread about it HERE.
So, its a problem with the Harddrive, (I cannot record or live pause etc) and sky are sending someone out on monday, for £65 who is going to 'fix it'.
My question is what should I expect / Not expect?
The Box in question is my secondary HD box, in my office. I paid around £300 about 2 years ago. Its a samsung. I have full sky world package, which has multiroom etc, and covers 2 HD boxes, and a standard box in the kitchen. I pay just over £90 a month in Subs. I do not have any extended warranty, because the extra £8 it would cost would take my Sky bill to over £100 a month, and I am not made of money lol
So my questions are -
1) Is he likely to open my box and put a new HHD in it? Or present me with a replacement box?
2) If a replacement, should I expect a refurb, or a new box?
3) Also, is there anything I should watch out for? For example I believe I shouldn't let him take my old box away?
Dont get me wrong - I am not expecting something for nothing. I just want an idea of what to expect for my £65 - Given the fact of my ongoing subs, and the fact that it was a paid for box, as opposed to a freebie. (If that makes any difference or not, I dont know lol)
Thanks in advance. In hard to be sure you are getting your moneys worth out of something, when you dont really know what it is you should expect
So, its a problem with the Harddrive, (I cannot record or live pause etc) and sky are sending someone out on monday, for £65 who is going to 'fix it'.
My question is what should I expect / Not expect?
The Box in question is my secondary HD box, in my office. I paid around £300 about 2 years ago. Its a samsung. I have full sky world package, which has multiroom etc, and covers 2 HD boxes, and a standard box in the kitchen. I pay just over £90 a month in Subs. I do not have any extended warranty, because the extra £8 it would cost would take my Sky bill to over £100 a month, and I am not made of money lol
So my questions are -
1) Is he likely to open my box and put a new HHD in it? Or present me with a replacement box?
2) If a replacement, should I expect a refurb, or a new box?
3) Also, is there anything I should watch out for? For example I believe I shouldn't let him take my old box away?
Dont get me wrong - I am not expecting something for nothing. I just want an idea of what to expect for my £65 - Given the fact of my ongoing subs, and the fact that it was a paid for box, as opposed to a freebie. (If that makes any difference or not, I dont know lol)
Thanks in advance. In hard to be sure you are getting your moneys worth out of something, when you dont really know what it is you should expect
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Comments
Thankyou. I thought it might be that
Thanks. Never thought about asking him to check the dish and LNB etc... Cause its all working perfectly, but it makes sense to ask him to do this.
A couple of people told me not to pay and say I would cancel on a different forum I hang out on. I will certainly try it next time. Only problem is, where I live Virgin isn't available... No where near my postcode has it. Would sky know this, and call my bluff?
But anyway. Thanks for the replies. Forewarned is forearmed, so thanks for the advice guys
Yes, Sky will know you're not in a VM area - a simple postcode lookup.
You don't know need to say you're going to virgin - just say you want to cancel. I've had Sky plus for 7 years had at least 3 callouts for broken hard drives and never paid for any of them.
They'd be round like a shot, free of charge: especially as you part with £90 a month in subscriptions.
no need to be petty, the guy is there to fully service the system & repair the fault, not to rip it all out & start agian, when it may not be necessary!!
A service call is 40 mins, and to clarify this service is to ensure everything is working correctly, not to replace everything.
Each part should be checked, but not changed
Firstly its a 40 minute call. And Secondly a new dish might be necessary but even and LNB change and re-alignment would be sufficient for a service call.
If everyone was like that the world would be a lovely place!!
Sky had said that the guy was coming in the afternoon, and would ring me half an hour before hand. Door bell rang at about 12.50 - Just as I was about to sit down to dinner - No phone call.
I went in and cleared the area, (Which I was intending to do, upon receiving the phone call) He asked me what the fault was, and I showed him. He went and got another box from the van, but needed to plug in a 'gadget' to recharge first.
He came back with the box, and spet about 5 mins doing paperwork on the floor with his plugged in gadget. Then he simply swapped the boxes over and switched it on. BBC1 was on, and he immeaditly said WOW ! Great picture, with slight over enthusiasm. Then he asked me to put a sports channel on, to check it was working. He went back to his box and device while I tried to navigate through a VERY SLOW menu, to reach the sports channel. As I expected, it didn't work.
He took the control and ran through a few settings on the box, and called up signal strength which was fine, and then he set the box to do a callback, which it completed successfully.
He then told me he was going to do something 'very special' that would ensure I had the latest version of 'stuff' on the box. I asked if he meant a 'forced update'. He said yes, and set it going. He told me to leave it for at least 10 mins to complete, then a further 5 before switching it back on. He also said that the movie and sports channels 'should' be back on in about an hour or so, (That was what the 'callback was for) but if not, just ring sky.
Leaving the box doing the forced update, he got me sign something electronic on his gadget, and disappeared. He didn't leave me a card, or anyway to contact him, and the entire time he was here was about 20 mins total.
At no point did he look on the roof, or offer to check or look at the other sky HD box in the lounge, or the sky box in the kitchen.
I then had my lunch and switched box back on. All seemed fine, until I tied live pause. It didnt work. I tried recording. The recording appeared to work, but when I went to playback, it would not let me. So I had to call sky again. Got through to a nice indian lady, who took my model number etc, and paired the card, while I was on the phone. All is OK now, but still suffering the odd stutter when timeshifting TV... It has also gone into standby of its own accord with no warning twice - and come back on the welcome to sky channel... But I guess thats just the box settling in. And my anytime has still not filled up yet. I have one entry 'White Xmas'
So, was it worth £65 ? In as far as it now works, then yes. Did I feel I had got £65 worth of 'attention' from the guy? No, not really, but he was a nice enough chap.
So, that for what its worth, that was the result.
Did you get a Sky Engineer or a Contractor? A Sky Engineer would have left you a card, so if you have any problems in the next 28 days, you contact him direct. So you dont have to contact the Call Centre.
HW
I believe he was a contractor. I saw the van briefly and it had digital 'something' on the side. It was not a Sky branded van as such.
I only realised that he should have probably left me a card, when I realised that after an hour of him leaving, I was having to call SKY again, and talk to a call center.
Just wondering what box you got, as i'm expecting a call out friday. What should I expect, got a thompson at the minute so anything is an improvement i would think.
I 'Think' its an amstrad. But its apparently the same as my old samsung when it comes to the HDD etc...
Contractors shouldn't even be doing service calls anymore because this is the type of behaviour they show when completing them.
No. PVR 4 are HD boxes with 300Gb HDD. PVR5 is the 500GB boxes.