Direct contact for abysmal service?

stevebez

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Anyone know of someone to contact more directly to resolve a complaint?
 
More directly than what?
What have you tried so far?
 
Well I've tried helpline chat & telephone.

Problem goes as follows. Over weekend complete signal loss and suspected LNB water logged / failure. All the trouble shooting process help lines etc etc tried when I knew it was something that was antenna based. Anyhow I jumped through sky's hoops and yes in the end (after 2 chats and a call) I needed an engineer. Now all credit to the engineers sky use but let's be honest they are not engineers. They are DIY aerial fitters with a very basic understanding of sat systems ... Anything beyond a Quad LNB is witchcraft. Perhaps this is unfair and a reflection of sky policy... But I digress.

So my existing aerial has a Quattro LNB. The "engineer" promptly replaced this with a Quad. How on earth was my system supposed to resume its status when a quad clearly is not the same as a Quattro. I have a switcher which requires a Quattro. No surprise he tells me the switcher is not working after replacing the dish with an elliptical dish (without my consent btw). He then says u have signal at the wire ends but your switcher does not work. Right so I have 4 sky boxes (2hd and 2 sky+), how is a quad going to satisfy these 8 signal feeds?

So now I have paid £65 for a dish + LNB I will need to replace with a circular one as I understand a Quattro requires a round dish and is not compatible with an elliptical dish.. I may be wrong here.

Anyhow so I call sky up and say well u installed something which does not work with my system and can u please remove it as I have arranged for a real engineer to fit the correct equipment.

Their stance is tough, it's fitted it's yours and you not getting a refund.

Worst part is I've been one if sky's biggest fans and supporters over the years and have all their products calls, full TV package and fibre broadband.... This loyalty has been dented big time and left me completely deflated.

There is no real competition to sky and this shows increasingly in their customer service.

My issue really is I ought not to have to make a stink here or with their help team about this. I should not have to write this, I should not have to have my day and evening spoiled trying to resolve this.

They really could not care if I was happy with their service or not. I have not been unreasonable with them in the past or present. But I guess customer for over 10yrs and the £200 odd I pay a month they could well do without, and honestly they could care less. They got millions of customers and more join each day, so what if they lose a few here and there.

Anyhow I will escalate this, and have already done so. I'll report back how things go.

Btw if someone does come up with a real alternative for sky, please let me know ...

And also what is a new sky dish and LNB worth more or less ?

Lastly, if anything I have said is technically inaccurate please let me know too.
 
hello steve,
in the uk whatever us sold to you has to be 'fit for purpose', fitting a quad lmb was in competent if the 'engineer', so that should deal with the lmb and dish charges. as for the rest - give them hell! lol!
 
I always try to avoid talking to them. Everything goes in writing from MySky, first on the normal message form, then on the complaints form.
Everyone on the forum knows that, although some Sky agents call their staff engineers, they're not that.
They're not aerial fitters either though - that's a different job altogether.
You must know that quattro LNBs are unusual, and you should have told the installer, which would have prevented all this hassle.
The same applies to the dish - presumably the old one was circular, and the new one does need to be the same.
Whenever anyone has any job done it's an elementary precuation to keep a watch on it, which again would have prevented all the hassle.
Even if you have three multiroom subscriptions for all those machines the total should come a long way short of £200 a month.
So, Sky got it wrong, you got it wrong, and all you have to show for it is a dish that you can find the price of by a quick look at EBay,
One of the worst things about it is that you paid them - anything - with that length of time as a customer and that level of payment they should have been falling over themselves to fix it for you, for nothing.
 
The Jeremy Daroch email route will probably be the best route to try and get things resolved.

That said I think you may have a probelm with calling Sky out to what I assume is a non Sky and I suspect in their T&Cs non standard install. I don't think (could be wrong) that Sky deal with quattro/multiswitch installs at all themselves though they do recommend or go through specialist intallers for them.

Really the installer should have taken one look realised your system was a quattro and multiswitch and left it alone and told you we don't do those and left, probably charging you £65 for the privelage at the same time or saying you need the local specialist insttaller not him etc. As you've discovered a lot of quattro/multiswitch setups don't work with a quad lnb.
 
The message to JD is the next step, after the e-mail and complaints forms.
That's a good point about Sky taking on the job at all.
They must have known it wasn't their installation and shouldn't have tried to fix it.
There's no way a quad can work with a multiswitch - is there?
 
Well two things

I did not know I needed a Quattro at the time but would have expected the sky engineer to notice the difference when he replaced it, so I don't believe I got something wrong here. Same story with the dish I did not ask for it to be replaced.

In regard to my bill 93£ was for sky tv, 3£ for box office, 64£ for sky talk ( I'll need to look into this !!) , and 32£ odd for fibre broadband. So close enuf to £200.

I have to admit I did suspect sky would botch this and was in 2 minds if I should continue with the sky service call or get a local dish specialist to look at it. The local chap took perhaps a day too long to get back to me and I figured mbe sky would sort after all it's only the LNB that was faulty ? Bad call.

O well my fault for expecting that I guess. Lesson learned. However they should simply have said they are not equipped to deal with the issue and recommend and perhaps even arrange for an expert to review the issue? Walking away in this manner is simply astonishing. To say sorry your problem, cheers. Is simply unacceptable.

I really did not want to be unfair to the sky engineers but if they carry dishes & lnb's around with them surely they should be trained in the various types?

It took me 5 minutes doing a web search to discover the LNB I needed and dish I needed. I started searching when the sky engineer suggested my switcher was faulty and I began looking for a replacement (triax 5x12 something or other). It's then I twigged on the LNB issue. And called the engineer to ask which LNB he fitted and he confirmed a quad. I told him that would not work and I needed a Quattro and also a round dish (he had already left the premises at this time).

He basically said "we don't do that" and needed to contact the installers on the system in the home. So fine I can appreciate that, but for goodness sake why go install something which is known would not work... And charge me for it.
 
Update....

So this goes from bad to worse... although not SKY related.

"Independent" installer comes by and says he can use the SKY dish but will need to replace my switcher as there are switchers which can use the SKY dish/LNB. Result. Erm not, cost for this repair just shy of 600£. Worse I find the switcher item on line for 123£.

What the ....? :mad::mad::mad: needless to say he has left the premises.

So at least I can use Sky's Dish and LNB (would be 290£ to remove and replace with a quattro LNB dish etc).

So now back on to SKY for causing all this inconvenience.

:(

:mad:
 
Hope you see this in time - those quotations are preposterously too high.
So is the monthly payment to Sky.
 
O for sure... the £600 switcher quote I just bot online for 123£ delilvered. Ill leave the SKY dish where it is as to re-re a dish is more of a hassle then getting a new switcher tbh.

Rip off britain at its best...

Sky need to help me out here as I would not need to buy a switcher if it was not for them fitting incompatible equipment....

The monthly bill with SKY is nuts ... and I am addressing this now. Looks like to many calls to mobiles manily and there was a double charge for Fibre when I switched over.

Pity there is no real alternative to SKY!

Worse is I cannot call sky accounts from work as its a premium rate line and its blocked at work ***!!!
 
So I was too late.
You don't need a £123 switcher, or any switcher - you don't know there's anything wrong with the one you have.
The original solution was intended to be a new LNB and a quattro costs about £15.
You could try that on the Sky dish.
Then if necessary don't you still have the dish that the Sky man replaced?
 
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This is becoming comical. Not! :(

I guess "old" switcher headed for eBay then. Old dish etc was taken by the Sky engineer.... Thing is the Dish is 8m high on the chimney stack and I dont currently have a long enough ladder.

At this rate I just want my TV back... having withdrawel. Resorting to netflix via ATV is a sure act of desperation - and I STILL have not found something decent to watch.

I've sent my emails and waiting for a call back or something. At this stage I just want to forget about the whole experience.

The sky dish is perforated has this got the same gain / reception as a regular dish?
 
As I understand the difference between a quad and a quattro the quattro simply has the 4 outputs fixed on the 4 possible Hi/Low, Horizontal/Vertical setting combinations, while a quad is designed to be switched by the box connected to it, some multiswitches don't pass the signals used by the box for that which is why they don't work with quad lnbs AIUI. However if the dish should work for one then it should work for either I think, unless the mulitswitch really needs a more powerful input signal.

Actually on a side note to reinforce what Logicel was saying given this installer clearly didn't understand the significance of a quattro and multiswitch setup and just went to the default of changing the LNB/dish you never actually got a reliable diagnosis of the original problem. It is not impossible that your original multiswitch and even LNB were fine. The problem could have been dish/cable/lnb or multiswitch assuming the box is ok.
 
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Its almost certainly the LNB as water poured out of it when it was removed apparently. What is not known is if the short created botched the switcher.

I might feel better if it had somehow. :confused: At least this all would not have been a complete waste. I would much rather have had a Nexus 7 instead. ;)

I reallly have no idea which is better the QUAD or QUATTRO method. Any ideas?
 
As I understand the difference between a quad and a quattro the quattro simply has the 4 outputs fixed on the 4 possible Hi/Low, Horizontal/Vertical setting combinations, while a quad is designed to be switched by the box connected to it, some multiswitches don't pass the signals used by the box for that which is why they don't work with quad lnbs AIUI. However if the dish should work for one then it should work for either I think, unless the mulitswitch really needs a more powerful input signal.
Multiswitches designed to work with quads generate the required signals to control the switching of frequencies and polarisations on the lnb outputs connected to the appropriate input whereas those designed for use with quattros have no need to generate these signals and voltages as the lnb's outputs are fixed to required band and polarisation. Multiswitches in general need a larger size dish to make up for the inherent signal losses within them
 
I reallly have no idea which is better the QUAD or QUATTRO method. Any ideas?

Neither is better they can both achieve the same thing with the appropriate multiswitch.

Just an idea but if your only using 8 feeds and don't want anymore you actually don't need a multiswitch and could consider fitting an octo LNB and extending the cables from the multiswitch location direct to the dish if possible. This may even be something you could convince Sky to do to rectify the situation.
 
I guess "old" switcher headed for eBay then. Old dish etc was taken by the Sky engineer
The sky dish is perforated has this got the same gain / reception as a regular dish?
Much better to give it a chance to see whether it's still OK, and to cancel the order for the £123 one.
If you do need a new one there's no need to pay more than £30 for it.
Quattros are the usual thing for your setup so there's no need to involve quads and the switches they need.
As kevkbuk was typing faster than me - I agree that an octo with no switch at all is an option.
That dish was yours - the Sky man should NOT have taken it - I'd insist on having it back.
Sky dishes are perforated - it shouldn't make much difference.

I'm still very much with this comment:
Really the installer should have taken one look realised your system was a quattro and multiswitch and left it alone and told you we don't do those and left
and there's also the point that you ought to have told Sky in the first place that it wasn't a normal system.
 
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I reallly have no idea which is better the QUAD or QUATTRO method. Any ideas?
The only issue is one of reliability - over the years the quattro with its associated multiswitch has proved more reliable than the quad plus its multiswitch purely down to the fact it has two fewer areas of electronic circuitry to fail - the quattro lnb does not have the switching circuitry between bands and polarisation and its associated multiswitch has no need for the circuitry to generate the switching signals to control the lnb. This is assuming both sets of components are from similar quality manufacturers.
 
There are many points in this comedy of errors that need to be made clear and that blame for this situation rests both with the OP and the installer who came to the service visit.

The original installation was certainly not by Sky and whoever installed it should have made it clear to the OP that this was definitely not a standard installation a point that would have been emphasised by the price he paid for it. A standard install for that number of Sky boxes would have been a Sky minidish and octo lnb. The OP having been made aware of this fact should have notified Sky when booking the initial service call and made the installer who turned up aware of this.

The installer on the service visit was almost certainly a sub-contractor as Sky would not allow a single man team to service an installation on a chimney. However neither Sky's own installers or most of their subscontractors would be aware of the difference between quattro and quad lnbs as they have no need to as they are not used by Sky's own installers but only by their approved communal installation specialists and other independants. At the point the installer realised what the installation was he should have either replaced the lnb on the Sky minidish with an octo and extra cabling OR washed his hands of the problem and left the original dish and lnb with you.

So basically blame for this whole fiasco lies initially with the OP for not informing Sky or the installer it was a non-standard system and then with the installer for taking away the initial dish and lnb.
 
As an aside, the subcontractor that fitted your new Sky dish and quad LNB may not be as dumb as you think. Every time I have a dish replaced, (Sky seem to do it whenever they add a new box or swap an old one), the old dish and LNB are just left lying in the front garden. I now have a garage full of dishes/LNB's!
 
On my first call (and on line chats) to SKY I mentioned I had 4 sky boxes being fed from a switcher. At the time I personally did not know the difference between a quad and quatrro LNB. I just knew I had 4 wires coming from the dish and they had to be fitted in a particular order on the switcher. I also mentioned I suspected a faulty LNB but still they made me jump through all the signal loss hoops that I had already tried about 10x.

The engineer called me the day he was coming and I explained the location of the dish was about 8m up on a chimney stack - which was honestly my main concern of them attending to the fault. I may have or may not have mentioned that I had a switcher fitted, but think I did mention I had 4 boxes.

In my opinion SKY were informed about the "level" of my installation as much as I could, so honestly, I dont think I am to blame here.

Running extra cable for an octo is a non starter ... they were run when the building was contructed and are routed internally, also this layout is not comaptible with how the rest of the home is wired.

I got a call from SKY this morning to get some info on what happened and said they would come back to me. So we shall see what developes.

I just want my old dish back and a refund for the service call. I don't think thats unreasonable.
 
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I may have or may not have mentioned that I had a switcher fitted, but think I did mention I had 4 boxes.

Running extra cable for an octo is a non starter ... they were run when the building was contructed and are routed internally, also this layout is not comaptible with how the rest of the home is wired.

I just want my old dish back and a refund for the service call. I don't think thats unreasonable.

Best to call it a multiswitch rather than switcher, Sky employees are very easily confused.

Chances are you will be replacing the cables to the multiswitch anyway as the LNB was full of water... If you could get 8 cables from dish to multiswitch location the rest of the home writing is not relevant.
 

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