*** Sky TV Cancellation & Negotiation Thread ***

[El Jimben]

We cancelled Sky over a month ago as we were paying £83.50 for the full TV package including HD & Multiroom and they'd sent us a letter advising of yet another price increase. We did get cut-off for a few days as we refused their initial offer but then they called us back & we're now getting the same deal for £33.50 a month with 2 months free

 

[slipd]

Hi guys,

All I'm after is a new box. Currently got old, non-HD, white thing in the bedroom which is quite frankly shocking! It's more than past it's sell-by...

What sort of approach should I take when I call up CS then? The last time I called, about 3 years ago, they wanted nearly £200 for one! I'm kind of hoping I can blag one for free

Any tips on what to say etc?

 

[enkoda]

Hi guys,

All I'm after is a new box. Currently got old, non-HD, white thing in the bedroom which is quite frankly shocking! It's more than past it's sell-by...

What sort of approach should I take when I call up CS then? The last time I called, about 3 years ago, they wanted nearly £200 for one! I'm kind of hoping I can blag one for free

Any tips on what to say etc?

What about Gumtree? I've just had a look and seen Sky+HD boxes going for £15-£20.

 

[FrankJH]

I'm sure the latest windows updates messed up something to do with Silverlight, there was a framework update I got a feeling it was that. I had Sky Go working fine through Firefox (Your right Chrome no longer supports Sky Go) but now I cannot get it working at all. Have even tried Microsoft Explorer vanilla and didn't have any more luck with that either.

Lots of people are having the same issues too. Last time it seemed to 'fix itself but doesn't seem like Sky like to acknwoledge when theres problems.

For the last three or four weeks Ive been having on and off Silverlight issues with NowTV also , so this makes sense. I got to the point of having a webchat with their helpdesk and they kept on denying there was an issue - I ended up actually reinstalling Win8.1 from scratch just to satisfy my curiosity that it wasn't just me, and NowTV/Sky were still adamant it was my pc causing the issue.

 

[tals]

Note nowtv have a new box coming out in August, based around the roku 3 it will be around £15 and have HD, going to be a game changer imho

 

[Jez]

Note nowtv have a new box coming out in August, based around the roku 3 it will be around £15 and have HD, going to be a game changer imho

Depends if its still possible to sideload apps onto it....

 

[tals]

You would need to pay for a Roku 3 for that. They won't allow apps like Netflix on for obvious reasons However by game changer I meant moving to HD quality. From what I understand NowTV is keeping Sky's results looking positive. Whilst they are losing susbscribers in Sky they are gaining them in NowTV

 

[Jez]

You can sideload apps onto the existing NowTV, will the new one not allow this?

 

[tals]

It won't allow some apps like Netflix, I would be surprised if it was more restricted than the current NowTv box but I wouldn't think they would open it anymore. But till we see it won't know. I would agree if all it has is NowTV and little more that wouldn't be so good

 

[varkanoid]

Decided to cancel my Sky TV as we were getting bit of fed up now of renegotiating everytime a special offer was ended and last couple of times we have not been offered anything good. Currently on £41.25 for just Variety HD pack. No Sports. No Movies which is just too much. We get BT TV for free at the moment which is everything bar Sky Sports. Sky Movies/BT Movies is going to end soon and we are not interested in the alternative Netflix anyway.

So I just rung up and asked to cancel and the girl on the phone gave me a barrage of questions. She tried her hardest to keep me as a customer but all they could offer me was to keep Sky as a freeview recording box for £10. She made it sound like a special offer and only for ten months but I know this is the standard price you pay for keeping what was basically the old Sky+ no HD and basic Sky channels. I didnt tell her I get BT TV for free I said it was £7.50 per month and she just wouldnt let it lie that for an extra £2.50 I was better off. So I stuck to my guns and in the end after ten minutes she reluctantly gave up. I was then on "silence" for two minutes, probably to get more money out of my phone call and then it was cancelled. I've been a sky customer for nigh on 15 years on and off with the last length being 2½ years which she described as "a long term customer".

I am on BT Infinity unlimited. I get BT TV for free with HD and have two G4 boxes at the moment this has no fixed term. I have had this for about 3 years now so I know what its like. I have a Now TV box which we might try for Sky Sports and I hear a new Now TV HD box is coming out in August. Funnily enough Sky own NowTV. So will see how it goes and at least I can take advantage of new Sky Customer deals in the future.

Additional: Just logged back onto Sky website and got the "stay with Sky for 50% discount on any TV Package for 12 months" blurb. Strange thing is Live Chat now works whereas before on the cancel page its too busy

 

[Lewist]

I previously had phone, line rental, broadband, tv - sports + HD, bill was going up to £95 with the june price rises which i decided was too much. Cancelled everything bar the phone, line rental and bb - new cost was £18 per month.

I was quite happy to stick with that and just go with free to air tv for a while. They've rang me up a couple of time in the meantime but i've declined as the offers were not upto much.

However, eventually I got offered (via phone) everything back as was for £36 pm for 10 months, then going to 41 for 2 then reverting, i decided that was a fair price so have rejoined. Total time without tv was about 9 days!

 

[rodders]

On my very last day, a deal came through the post. I rejected all others as they were rubbish.

They gave 60% off and £50 credit. Signed back up as it seemed a good deal.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Sky want to offer me 60% off and £100 to renew in one of the houses we now rent out.

I know exactly what i'm doing when i need to actually renew my contract, robbing *******!

Wish they would just charge 'good prices' rather than trying to take people for a ride.

 

[dillingerdan]

A bit of help if anyone knows.

I am considering (well pretty much decided) to move over to BT, as I have BT sport for the UFC, and with that going up my TV bill for 3 boxes is in the £130 ball park, and I don't think its justified when the majority of watched TV is terrestrial channels...

I have Fibre with Sky and am outside of my contract (of that I am pretty sure, gonna phone up tomorrow to find out). Switching to BT fibre, now how does that work? Do I just apply or do they need a migration request/code like on ADSL? What is the best way to do it? Obviously getting BT should cancel my Sky fibre, and contract and then phone up and tell them to cancel the rest?

Anyone have a good decent way to move, with minimal hassle, is essentially what I want to know...

 

[woppy101]

I think it's shocking how the quality of HD keeps going down the pan I have just done a bit rate calculation for a GOT ep I have recorded and its bit rate is 6.25mbps which is shocking Considering the sky HD bitrate on release was 18-22mbps yet they have the Gaul to keep putting prices up, I have 6 months left on my sky contract after 13 years with them and will be leaving at the end of it because the quality isn't there any more especially for £100+ per month.

 

[TheHitMan-1973]

Got my full sky package including HD + Broadband and Line rental for 12 months £47.35 per month

+ £50 credit

Happy Days

 

[derv]

I cancelled Sky years ago and used the dish to hook up to a FreeSat HD box.

My in-laws have the full Sky package with multi-room so I use one of their SkyGo logins to watch Sky through a PC hooked up to my TV.

£0 per month and no contract. Two fingers up to Sky, they are a truly awful company with terrible customer service.

 

[Jez]

I cancelled Sky years ago and used the dish to hook up to a FreeSat HD box.

My in-laws have the full Sky package with multi-room so I use one of their SkyGo logins to watch Sky through a PC hooked up to my TV.

£0 per month and no contract. Two fingers up to Sky, they are a truly awful company with terrible customer service.

Ive thought about this over and over, but i cant make it make sense - maybe you can help as i would like to ditch sky in theory....

Sky cost for all bar sports and movies;
£16.50pcm*12=£198

Less (last contract renewal);
£50 prepaid credit card
£50 previous contract box sale
£20 previous contract dish & LNB sale

= £198-£120 = £78

£78/12 = £6.50pcm

For this you get a new warranted box every 12 months with "cutting edge" features (on demand, decent maintained and updated epg etc)

A high end freesat box is fairly expensive and will need updating from time to time too.....

 

[derv]

Ive thought about this over and over, but i cant make it make sense - maybe you can help as i would like to ditch sky in theory....

Sky cost for all bar sports and movies;
£16.50pcm*12=£198

Less (last contract renewal);
£50 prepaid credit card
£50 previous contract box sale
£20 previous contract dish & LNB sale

= £198-£120 = £78

£78/12 = £6.50pcm

For this you get a new warranted box every 12 months with "cutting edge" features (on demand, decent maintained and updated epg etc)

A high end freesat box is fairly expensive and will need updating from time to time too.....

I paid a fair whack (probably around £150-£200) for the FreeSat box which is the Humax HDR-1000S.

It's still just as 'cutting edge' as any Sky box. 1TB of HDD space, I can record series, rewind, pause, all the usual stuff. It's hooked up to my wifi and will stream movies from my PC/NAS, has apps for YouTube, BBC iplayer etc. There are occasional firmware updates which push through automatically.

I think the FreeSat boxes hold their value quite well so wouldn't be a massive hit if you went back to Sky in the future.

 

[Hawklan]

We Just cancelled ours after we realised that we hadn't used it for 6 weeks
We much prefer steaming services and our own media via Plex

That saved us over £70 a year