Our Broadband Isnt Free!!!!

[g0fhm]

Hi All,

After signing up to "See, Speak, Surf" last year, we were under the impression that we would be paying £31/month, for the TV, Phone, Broadband & the optional free daytime calls package. Oh how wrong we were...

My other half checked her bank statement today, and noticed that we are in fact being charged a total of £45/month, and have been since last November!! We are being charged £17/month for Broadband (which incidentally the connection speed has dropped from 8128kbps to 5636kbps in the last 2 weeks).

She rang Sky, and was told that as our exchange hasnt been upgraded to Fibre Optic standard, they cannot offer us Free Broadband, similar to the Talk Talk Broadband fiasco a couple of years back. The person on the other end of the phone, looked through all the letters that we had been sent regarding signup etc, and not one of them stated this.

As a "goodwill" gesture, they are crediting £7/month, leaving us to still pay £10/month, for something that should be free.

The person on the end of the phone only offered "email your concerns to head office" as a remedy.

This, I think anyway, is not good enough, it should be free!!!

Does anybody know of a number/email address for someone "higher up the food chain"? No way are we going to pay for it, and, we want a refund for the past X months, where we have been paying full whack!

If we had known this was the case, we would have stuck with our existing ISP & Phone provider, and just had the TV!!

Any advice (other than check bank statements more often!) would be appreciated!

Ta,

James

[speedyrite]

My Broadband Isn't Free either!!!!

Sorry, but I just couldn't resist the urge to share ;-)

I check my bank & credit card account every day. Trust no-one to dip into your account correctly...

[NewsreadeR]

If you send me a PM with Sky Account number, Post Code and name of Account Holder, along with a Contact number, I can pass this on for you.

[PaulSky]

You should have been told at the start whether or not your exchange has been LLU'd or you should have checked yourself before signing up. If it's not been LLU'd then there is no Sky equipment in your exchange and you will be paying for connect.

[g0fhm]

That's the thing... we werent told!!! And sky have more or less confirmed this on the phone, by looking back through our account & sign up details etc. We checked with our neighbour, and she WAS informed at the time of signup.....

If we had known, then we would have stayed with our existing Phone/ISP, as the hassle of getting MAC codes, changing the phone back to BT, then being hit with a £93 BT bill, as Sky didnt take the phone line over until 6 weeks later (we were told it had been done when we checked a couple of weeks after signup, and of course, all the calls we were making were via BT, and thus not free).

So far, the TV is about the only thing that HAS performed the way we want it (altough from the word go, a group of channels are totally unwatchable under certain conditions, mainly most of the music channels & Horse & Country... the installation engineer checked them & just grunted that there wasnt an awful lot he could do about it!).

Our 12 month contract is up for renewal at the end of October, and I can see little to keep us with Sky as an ISP/Telecoms provider at the moment, unless they pull one hell of a rabbit out of the hat in response to the Broadband rip off! Couple that to a falling line speed (5636kbps vs 8128kbps as previous), and at sometimes diabolical download speeds (struggling to hit 0.5meg last night), then unless they do their usual trick of offering you a sweetner, then we'll be off elsewhere!

Very unimpressed so far!

James

[knightswood_bear]

Did you not wonder why you were getting line speeds of 8128kbps, when on the 'free' broadband you only get 2000kbps?

Not at all trying to justify what sky did by saying that I think it is shocking.

[Mystic Eddy]

OP, check Samknows Broadband - Broadband Availability Checker and see if there are any LLU operators at your exchange.
Send an email to enquiries.uk@easynet.com listing your exchange name asking if your exchange is due to be unbundled.
To be honest, if you're not happy with the speed you're receiving now, you won't be happy going from 8Mb Connect to 2Mb Base. If your exchange does get unbundled, you could consider going for the 8Mb Mid package. Same as Connect, but full speed all of the time but £5 per month.

[Satine]

I can sympathise. I signed up for the full package, i.e. TV/broadband and talk thinking it would be £26 as the internet would be free, but I am also having to pay £17 as the area I am living in does not qualify for free broadband. I find it really unfair that, depending on where you live, some people can get it free and some have to pay £17.

[PaulSky]

If you check before hand on a site that shows if your exchange is unlooped it would save a lot of problems, some of the sky sales agents don't seem to be doing a very good job of warning customers that they may be put onto BT Connect if the exchange has no capacity or is not unlooped yet and some customers don't read the small print on the sky site when ordering online that says about going onto Connect if Sky LLU has not been done on the exchange.

[ToniFerrino]

Originally Posted by g0fhm

That's the thing... we werent told!!!

Yup you and another million users.
All very typical of the excellent sky sales team, or to use another term, a set of complete lying bleeps
they never tell you its not free, cos if they had, you wouldnt have signed up, targets wouldnt have been met and no bonus would have been coined.

Another trick from the sales lot is to sign people up on a max package 8-16mb, when they know the users line will only ever support 1-2mb, funny how many people miss this and pay thru the nose for a service they can never attain.

If you are completeley mental and do insist on subscribing to sky BB in the future (meaning if ur isp is some 1 else at the moment and u are looking at sky BB as an alternative choice) after reading the many posts here, give a few other isp's a call to see what average speed your line comes out at, general rule is, dont beleive what sky say on the phone, always ask them to confirm their claims in writting, or record your calls.

Be carefull out there, its full of lyers and incompetants