Warning About Sky and Routers

[dpswatson]

This is staggering and something I must let everyone know. Not even the cancellations department could understand this.

If your router goes down and needs replacing, you will get a brand new one. Even if it's the white netgear, you will get a new one - you have a warranty.

If your router goes out of warranty, Sky have NO PROVISIONS to sell you a new one and WILL NOT replace it free of charge, leaving you with a Sky internet bill and NO ROUTER and NO WAY OF ACCESSING THE WEB.

My router went down the Saturday week before Christmas, by chance the day before it went out of warranty. The tech support tier one guy had no quibbles and went ahead with the replacement BUT the computer decided that it was already out of warranty and would not let him replace it. He had to manually reorder one by sending an email to the router guys. After a week, and on Christmas eve, I telephoned asking where my router was and discovered that none had been ordered.

Four weeks later and no-one can get me a router. Cancellations, No; Tech Support Tier one or top tier, no; Customer Services, no; Sky main customer services, no.

The excuses were endless, computers were down, I have a wierd flag on my account, the email was lost - even that a Team Leader (who I could NEVER talk to by the way) was too lazy to deal withmy router and that I had no alternative to leaver Sky because there was nothing else they could do!

I got my MAC code, although was reluctant to leave - purely because I pay a tenner for a product that costs at least 15 pounds more elsewhere. Not even the threat of leaving was able to get me anywhere.

I spoke one last possible time to Cancellations (who are the ONLY SkyBB dept that I can guarantee speak English, or would give a damn). I said that thy should sell me a new router, charge my Sky account and refund me the difference. The guy said 'good idea' and went away to find out how to sell me one. The guy came back and said (I quote) that he could not believe he was telling me this but the only way I can get Broadband back was to go somewhere else, that there was NO WAY OF PURCHASING A ROUTER ONCE IT WENT OUT OF WARRANTY. In my case, even though it was in warranty, gross neglagence was the cause of me not getting one.

He did eventually put me through to the rudest person I have ever spoken too to get a router sent out. She scournfull said she needed my router s/n and mac code (they don't keep a record ?!?!?!?) but I was at work so just gave up.

Luckilly I was prudent enough to rip the user name and p/w from the netgear as soon as the utility was put on this excellent forum and I eventually went to Comet to get a Belkin N router (which, took me four minutes to unpack and get set up with all pcs in my house).

Be warned, get your passwords from your routers or you could be in big trouble. Three people told me on three occasions that I had to leave Sky. Believe me, I would happilly but the line has just got stable (took months to tech support for them to finally get it sorted) and 100 pounds for a new router was better than 15 a month extra for broadband.

Again, GET YOUR PASSWORDS ASAP.

UPDATE:
Randomly, my router arrived today by courier. No idea why because they never said they were going to get me one. I have not and will not get it out of the box. I need this one as a backup in case it goes out of warranty.....

[commandercarr]

can NR stickie this because it is very important i think

[penrhyn]

Can this be correct?
I've been thinking of getting a spare Sky router off ebay, some of the new ones are available now.
Could one of the Sky posters comment?

[NewsreadeR]

***stickied*** by requests.

Definitely something that needs addressing, as the T and C's seem to indicate that a replacement router would be made available.

[dpswatson]

That's what I said, but they just offered me a MAC code instead. The only reason I got the replacement was because my 100th rep chased it up, and because when I called it was in warranty.

The CS and Cancellations were as dismayed as me when they were told by their team leaders that you cannot buy a new router.

[TheVoyager]

This is totally unbelieveable, good job I have a spare one just in case :-)
I would think this would be one for the OFT or something similar.
I can understand them not wanting to give them out willy nilly for free, but some sort of minimal cost should be available.

As an afterthought I wonder if it is covered in the SKY Repair Plan that I have.

[James67]

Originally Posted by TheVoyager

As an afterthought I wonder if it is covered in the SKY Repair Plan that I have.

See here for one forumer's experience with trying to get a replacement router under his Sky repair plan.

[RickyC]

as far as i understood that if the router failed after the first year they would provide a new one free of charge!