Sky Extended Warranties

[davb]

My Father's Sky warranty expired some time ago, and he has had the usual phone calls and letters offering extended cover for his Sky+ box.
These are usually £99 per year for full system cover. He recently had a call from a company called Satellite Direct offering the same thing for £50 per year.

He has checked with Sky customer services, and they say they know nothing of this company. Has anyone had any dealings with them, good or bad.

[beerhunter]

Fifty quid pa for a piece of modern kit is still disgusting.

[Tony Hoyle]

You can get a new box every year for that kind of money, never mind insurance.

[SamRadford]

There's a scam about right now where some company phones and asks if you have Sky. Usually an automated call. If you say "yes", a human calls back and asks for credit card details etc. for your "insurance". Then you get cleaned out.

[pjclark1]

Why would you pay extra to insure something Sky will repair/replace for free?

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by pjclark1

Why would you pay extra to insure something Sky will repair/replace for free?

Sky don't repair/replace nothing for free if its outside warranty. The only time they might consider this is if a customer threatens to cancel.

[davb]

Thanks for the info.

I would be interested to know the best place to buy a new Sky box cheaply, as that sounds a good option if it does fail.

[Knyght_byte]

doesnt the sky box still come under the Sale of Goods Act tho? ie its supposed to work for a reasonable amount of time, to fail within a couple years means the vendor should still repair/replace it for you..(normally a shop, but in this case Sky if they sold direct to you)

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by davb

Thanks for the info.

I would be interested to know the best place to buy a new Sky box cheaply, as that sounds a good option if it does fail.

Just pay Sky the £65 for a replacement, you probably won't find them that much cheaper elsewhere.

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by Knyght_byte

doesnt the sky box still come under the Sale of Goods Act tho? ie its supposed to work for a reasonable amount of time, to fail within a couple years means the vendor should still repair/replace it for you..(normally a shop, but in this case Sky if they sold direct to you)

This is where Sky have been a bit clever in charging only £65 for an engineers visit and replacement. Don't forget that after 6 months it becomes the buyer's, Sky customer in this case, responsibility to prove that any fault was inherent to manufacture. In other words you would have to pay for an independant inspection and report and the hassle that goes through this and going down the small claims court route which is likely to cost you more than the initial £65 that Sky would have charged you in the first place.

So you may as well pay up or threaten to cancel.

[FRANTIC FRANC]

The trouble with paying the 65 quid service call is that sky will only give you 3 months warranty on it . Threaten to cancel and they'll usually give you a recon amstrad for free. Cheers, Franc

[pigbite]

Sorry if this is a bit of a late response but I just came across this thread by accident.

I will leave it up to you to determine if the warranty from Satellite Direct is good value or not however I do know the company. I have just finished installing a lighting and blind control system in their new offices in West Sussex and can vouch for them being a real company with lots of resources. Every thing is done here in the UK - no offshore call centres etc - and they have a large team of qualified engineers. I've heard them on the phone to customers and they seem a helpful bunch of people.

HTH

jez

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by pigbite

I've heard them on the phone to customers and they seem a helpful bunch of people.

I've heard them on the phone too as well as listened to other peoples experiences and telling Sky customers that they will have to pay for expensive parts and labour to fix their out of warranty Sky equipment if they don't take out an extended warranty is far from helpful and a downright lie.

[number4]

I had to get an engineer out last week as I was getting a message saying no sattelite signal being received,he was in and out in about 10 minutes after leaving me a new box,a Grundig dv3? only thing is when you press any button on the remotre there is a delay before anything comes up on the screen,never had this problem with my pace box!

[Greg]

I'm with Satellite Direct. I have an old V1 Sky+ box, so £50 to cover that, the dish and LNBs is not too bad I thought.

Very quick at sending engineers out. Usually 2 days max.

Just a couple of things to clarify that they don't tell you when you sign up.

If you call them out within 14 (or 30?) days of taking the policy out it will cost you £25. Fair enough I suppose, to stop people taking out policys with already knackered equipment.

The policy is to replace your damaged equipment with reconditioned equipment of the same type. So if you have a V2 they will replace it with a fully working recon V2. I wish I had known that when I took it out as I have an old V1 box and they are getting very hard to find to replace with recon units. In fact I had a V2 as a temporary box, whilst they were trying to track down a V1 box that worked. Also the new software updates Sky keep chucking at them seem to break the V1s quite often.

Having known this I personally wouldn't have taken out the policy due to being stuck with replacements of V1 boxes all the time. But if you have a more modern box (V2,3,4 etc) and are looking for some level of cover then it seems a good deal.

They are very quick to answer the phone, so you won't have to cue 45 minutes to speak to someone. Friendly and helpful too. Just a bit short on details when they get you to sign up though. People may say, it's only another £15 to get Sky out, but this £50 payment is for the whole year and unlimited call outs.