Sky HD Review

Overall Rating

First of all let me make it clear that this is not a review about sky HD, but about Sky HD's shocking customer services. And its a horror story (at least for me)

Initially all seemed well. Sky were ticking all the boxes when it came to due dilligence regarding recruiting me as a HD customer. I would expect this though! after all I am a long standing customer paying for the full package and multiroom, all of which costs me more than fifty quid a month and thats before we add the additional HD subscription.

Having made the initial enquiry and being placed on a waiting list I shortly received an email telling me that my order was ready and the best way to proceed was to order online. Being a regular online consumer this was not a problem for me. Or at least it wasn't until sky's website crashed and asked me to complete the order by phone. With a "here we go again sigh" I picked up the phone and made the call. This went straightforward enough and my order was completed. Apparently I will have HD installed this coming Friday.

It will be interesting though to see if one engineer or two turns up! why? well, because ive paid for two installations! one online and the other over the phone.

It turns out that the customer service rep who assured me that my online payment had not and would not be taken, was wrong. Having reassured me of this she went ahead and processed my order. She also of course took payment from me over the phone.

My wife and I run an online business so we have online banking which we regularly log into. A cursory inspection revealed that the worst case scenario had indeed happened. Two payments of £49.00 for the HD box and another two payments of £30.00 for installation had been taken from our current account.

Ok, so, no big deal! all we have to do is ring sky and explain the situation and they will give us a refund right? Oh no......... hang on, thats me living in an ideal world again. Not, unfortunately the real world thats occupied by sky's digital TV monopoly.

One phone call to the people who I rang to initially place the order and was given a reference number for, resulted in them being completely baffled by the said reference number and had absolutley no idea what to do with it. Cue the security questions which eventually lead you to a person who cannot or will not help you. Another phonecall resulted in being connected to someone who's understanding of english was matched only by my ignorance of quantum mechanics and subspace string theory.

Eventually I contacted some poor waif who seemed more baffled than me (didnt think that was possible at this point) who suggested I go back to the website and submit feedback. I was assured they took this very seriously and would respond accordingly. So I did. And when I had completed the online form and clicked submit I was immediately reminded what had started this fiasco in the first place. An error message. "we are sorry but we are experiencing technical difficulties at present etc etc etc"

At this point I have phoned at least ten times. I have been passed from one department to another who all share one determining factor in that they are all utterly clueless.

In summary I am £79.00 down. I am no closer to recovering this money than I was three emails and ten phone calls ago.

Luckily the loss, be it temporary or permanent is not going to cause me any great difficulty, but there are people out there who cannot afford a mess up like this in their family budget. Frankly it's not good enough.

Sky are very efficient at connecting you to a rep who will take your order and your money (you'll get through immediately to place your order) but not quite as eager to sort out any problems that arise as a result of your order (note that on this call you'll be kept waiting and listening to music! all of which you are paying for by the minute on your phonebill! no free phone numbers here)

Luckily the internet is freeing us all up to express ourselves. We can leave reviews like this for everyone to read and force the big companies to be accountable. Sadly, this seems to be the only answer to companies like sky.

I'll not end by saying that you should not use sky. But, be warned that if you do and it goes wrong they are ever so slightly CRAP

Lee