Reply With QuoteI was told the £20 charge would show on the bill but be credited back, so maybe same for you?Originally Posted by lenlec
Deffo a pain. Comes round so quick
Just noticed on my bill online there’s £90 of fees
She told me there would be no fees
I was told the £20 charge would show on the bill but be credited back, so maybe same for you?
Time to do the dance, £88 jumped to £107 in Oct & due to jump to £128 24/11!
Going to phone up tell them £85-88 I stay anything else I am cancelling & going IPTV & 5 g BB.
Well that was refreshing, spoke to a football mad Scottish man & he mentioned the call would go quiet while he worked out the best deal.
Been through this many times over the years & involves many hours of back & forth with little movement, concluding in the cancellation & waiting game for a month!
Not tonight, he came back on the call after 5 minutes & I was ready for the usual games, BUT.
You are currently paying £107 & next bill is £128 in the next few days.
‘The best I can do is £87, waive all the account setup fees & give you everything you already have for what you were paying before the increases’, speechless !
Hi g40steve - That sounds like a breeze!
May I ask what time you phoned (not that this should make a difference!), and which number you went through on?
Just trying to save myself a couple of steps from the usual dance!
Thanks
Last edited by Mainspring; 3rd November 2022 at 22:49.
I moved house back in July and I have to say Sky were excellent. The move team were top notch and they even sorted me out a better deal as we went through the process. Definitely a lot less painful than usual, long may it continue!
Just checked time of call on phone 17.48pm.
03337591018
Good luck, I was shocked after previous battles trying to get a decent deal!
Excellent result mate
That’s excellent - thanks very much for the info, much appreciated! Let’s hope I reach the same football-mad Scottish man!
I've found there is always an element of luck as to who you get to speak to. I've often had situations when you speak to different advisers over a short timeframe and from the same team that come up with very different offers. The retentions team is always the one to speak to.
It's madness having to renegotiate contracts, no reward for loyalty.
I've been with Virgin for 17 years and previously with NTL (I think until VM took over). With a recent £20 month hike on my modest package I'd had enough...basic TV, landline and 100Mbps broadband.
We decided to bin the TV and landline and stay with the BB. Can't have the BB without the landlines apparently and they said keep the whole package with a £5/month reduction.
Not good enough, so after a battle for an hour or so with the price reduced to £37/month I dug and insisted they accepted my 30 days notice.
That was 2 weeks ago and since then they're emailing or on the phone with more reductions or 'tempting' SIM deals. Couple of days ago it was down to £19/month for BB and landline...what I wanted in the first place.
Now moving to a local BB provider and with this City Fibre having dug up the pavements to facilitate full fibre to the router I'm going to give this a go - 300Mbs up/download speeds for less than VM wanted I'll see how that works...neighbour has it and looks impressive.
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I think for me personally, when my contract comes up with Sky it's time to cancel. We now solely watch the popular streaming services and it's a rare thing we watch something live that we couldn't watch on Freesat or Catchup. It's a shame that nobody appears to have come up with a freesat box that has a UI as nice as SkyQ.
…..and all sorted, with thanks!
Noticed that our Sky DD was planned to increase in November, then December, then January.
We have Sky Q, and Sky Sports (complete pack), as well as HD, and a few SkyGo users, but no additional boxes or “extras” as far as I am aware.
Broadband is with BT.
Phoned this morning on that number, reached a Scottish man (no mention of football!), explained I was going to leave, 10 minutes of paper-shuffling and keyboard clicks, then confirmed new 18 month contract at the same previous price of £43 per month.
He explained that there was a £10 charge for setting up the new contract, and when I refused to pay it and would just cancel, he waived it.
Delighted, to be honest, no silly dancing or messing with different packages or “structures”.
Will re-visit in 18 months.
Thanks again for the prompt to check, and advice!
Last edited by Mainspring; 4th November 2022 at 16:30.
Nice one, we can sit back & relax now for 18 months
Looks like it’s my time to see what they will offer. Really wanted to get ultra fast fibre this time as Openreach have recently sorted out our street. Unfortunately Sky are not offering it yet though BT, EE , Vodaphone and a few other are so will see what we can agree on for the TV but will have to look for broadband else where as I don’t really want to tie myself into 18 months on current speed.
Avoid BT like the plague, seriously.
In-laws have had nothing but poor install, service and support.
When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks long into you.........
+1. BT would be my absolute last choice of service provider.
Best Regards - Peter
I'd hate to be with you when you're on your own.
I've been with BT for years and had no issues at all, including 2 house moves.
Got the TV package all sorted and a price slightly less than I was paying before so pretty happy. I was offered another 18 months broadband for £20 which I would have gone for but really looking to move up to FTTP and Sky can’t offer that to me yet so left that as is for now and busy shopping around. Vodaphone have 500mb for £30 which seems the best deal though half of that speed would actually be plenty but nothing really any cheaper right now.
My sky (everything excluding BT sport) and BB super fast has increased from £87/month to £145. Current deal expires December.
Best they could offer for everything was £129.50 so I’ve cancelled the TV package (31 days notice) but they wouldn’t let me cancel the BB (14 days notice) without letting them know who I’m going with next for porting purposes?
In addition, they now want equipment returned within 60 days of contract expiry?
Pretty disappointed with the outcome because I would have signed on if they could match existing deal.
Phone the number I posted above, good luck 🤞
+1
Best of luck.
i did....
I've been with BT a long time too for particular reasons BUT they require a 2 year contract and still have that ridiculous annual review to something like RPI plus 4%
I got rid of all services 12 years ago. I have a Humax free view recorder and it is excellent. I have no internet I hot spot to my mobile if I want to watch Prime, Netflix or Disney on my TV (3
Households all pay for one subscription each and we share). I don’t want a land line it isn’t 1985.
Now I admit I don’t like watching sport I would rather play it, and I hate everything about soccer. So that makes my decision easier. TV wise all we watch is ITV and BBC, even when I did have paid for TV I found I wasn’t watching anything other than free channels 99% of the time, we
Don’t watch much TV in fairness.
I don’t miss the hassle involved with it all that’s a fact.
Just been through this process (again).
I was paying £90 for phone, 70Mb broadband and the basic TV package.
I called and was offered £55.
The Sky website was offering a new customer black friday deal of £46 for all of the above with Netflix basic thrown in. So i asked for that and was told "Sure, I'm sorry for not offering you that, we're not allowed to talk about it until the customer mentions the deal."
I had exactly the same comment last time I renewed, the web price was better than anything offered over the phone.
I thought it was now illegal to offer better deals to new customers than to existing ones. Or is that just insurance?
They must allow the same deals to new and old customers. But no one said they have to offer those deals they just have to allow you to have them. On a ‘new quote’ for services they will ‘try harder’. Circumnavigating around laws is how con men, sorry lawyers, make a living 🤣
18 month TV contract up in January 2023, I currently have multi room, sky signature, sports and Netflix, this started out £58, crept up currently to £64, going up to £74.
Rang up with the decision to cancel.
Were given all the offers available that weren't really decent, so gave 31 days notice to cancel.
I'll see if they get back to me in the next month with anything, if not bye bye Sky.
I have just gone through "The Process" with Sky - contract up in January & increasing from £61 to £101 for just TV.
I messaged to cancel & was offered the same package (without Sky Kids - saving £2) at £50 + £10 (reduced from £30) admin fee upfront for a new 18 month contract.
I was also qouted £58 (+£10) if I upgraded to Sky Q with Multiscreen (currently only on Sky+), or £62 (+£10) if I also went for Uttra HD but would also need to pay £99 upfront for a Sky Q Ultra HD box / Engineer Visit.
Pretty good deals - but I decided to go ahead & cancel to see if I could do better.
Received a text a few days ago saying contact Sky for deals to stay with them.
Messaged them again yesterday & have now got the following for £56.50 (with zero upfront cost) :-
Sky Signature
Sky Sports Full Package
Sky Cinema
Sky HD
Sky Q Multiscreen (incl. 1 box)
Sky Ultra HD
Skq Q 1TB Ultra HD Box
I had to push & ask a lot of questions to get them to remove the £99 fee for the Ultra HD (4K) box - but their deals seem way better than when I negotiated 18 months ago!
I did it all with their chat messaging service available here :-
https://www.sky.com/reviewmyoptions
Same as ENES, received a text saying don't go, contact us to stay.
They said we are the ones who offer the best prices. Then gave me a price that was a few pounds dearer than when I first put cancellation in.
After a bit of to and fro, they only dropped a couple of pounds so I said leave it.
Got on to Virgin with mates rates and got 1gb internet, all Sky and BT sport channels, all sky cinema channels, Netflix, included UHD and HD, multi room and an all unlimited O2 SIM.
Free install.
£63 p/m for 18 months.
Never been with Virgin before, hoping it's decent.
Prices certainly are.
Last edited by Nigel306; 14th January 2023 at 21:16.
Prices are always cheaper if you cut your ties with your previous provider.
It is obvious when you look at the tempting offers your current provider offers to new contractees, and offers that they won’t provide to you.
It is the pain of leaving that makes 95% agree to stay in the end.
I have been with Virgin for 12 years. Every year I go through the merry dance. I can never get the price they offer to entice new subscribers, but that is the same for everyone.
When going through the merry dance, if I can get around £10-15pcm of the new subscriber rate then I stay.
That I figure is the price to pay for not having hassle for me to properly change and have to go through the whole disconnection and reconnection. Plus, I have had excellent service from Virgin for 12 years which helps.
Bumping this in case anyone has recently gone through the process. Contract up shortly so let the games commence
I just went through the process with the same package and maximum VIP status. The best deal is now £63, with no ability to waive the £20 admin fee. So the days of 50% discounts are gone. I'm sticking with BT BB for now, Sky would have been £25.50 for their 56-62MB service and any calls packages on top. BT Sports would be £25, not good value.
FWIW I'm about to start the dance with Sky....actually first steps taken last night.
Current bill is a ridiculous £146 for Ultrafast Plus (500MB) Broadband, Sky Sports UHD, Cinema and Multi-room plus Netflix. Apart from the total costs the 500MB just doesn't seem to add value as much as I thought so I'm happy to downgrade that and hardly watch Sky Cinema so there are some easy wins.
TBH the biggest gripes are having to pay extra £ for HD and UHD which seems archaic in 2023.
Called to cancel and give 31 days notice yesterday but thought I would give them the opportunity to match an alternative from EE Broadband (BT) plus Apple TV and BT Sports. Even if I add in Sky Sports via NOW TV and Netflix its 'only' around £85 per month.
Their initial 'offer' was to drop the package to £134 without changing anything. Whilst laughable they reckon I have discounts running through my account and the full cost is actually £175 per month so that a good saving! I just checked on-line and no sign of a £175 monthly cost so that's not a great start for them.
I offered to reduce the service dropping Sky Cinema and Broadband and they came back with £119 which feels like a long way off the EE package and then we got cut off..........
Sky Q is still a great bit of tech and works really well so happy to pay a premium but not that much.
I get my BT Sport via my EE moble phone contract (as an add-on) this is a much cheaper option than going via Sky.
I can watch BT Sport on any mobile device as well as on my TV using the BT Sport App on an Amazon Firestick (or similar streaming device).
If you have BT BB you get BT Sport, and Discovery+ (inc. Eurosport) included in the monthly cost.
BT Sport will be changing to TNT Sport in a couple of weeks time, don't know if that will change things.
Well that escalated quickly.....
Turns out I had accidently renewed my Sky TV contract for 18 months via the SKy website back in April whilst exploring a mysterious discount they were offering. Genuine error and as I hadn't realised I'd done it, I missed the cooling off email they sent me at 12.30am the next day. So I'm tied in for another 14 months!
I explained this genuine error with a slightly chippy wee girl in Customer Services who went away to see what she could do. She came back with an 8% discount from the full fat £147 per month package. I declined.
Her response was that was the best they could do and that I was contracted now until next October.
My response was to question if that was the right approach towards a customer of nearly 20 years that had paid them many £,000's in subs and was happy to pay around £100 per month.
Their response was to offer a reduction to basic Essentials pack costing £15 a month which was just terrestial TV and cancel the rest within 24 hours.
So that's £210 for almost nothing or about £1500 for the full package. I went with the terrestial option and await their call or head to Apple TV and BT Sport.
Genuinely surprised they weren't willing to negotiate any more but lets see what happens.
I think my time with sky is probably up. It’s a shame because I do like the product but having just got off the phone with them they don’t seem willing to negotiate in any substantive way and my bill is heading way too far north shortly.
The thing that pisses me off most is the fantastic deals available to “new customers”. I kind of thought they were banned from doing this these days but they no doubt have a nice legal workaround in place. I’m not a penny pincher - I’m happy to pay a decent price for a good product but it’s their attitude on this that irks me.
Anyway I’ll cancel and if see if they try to retain my account. If not, so be it
Had a similar experience to above.
Eventually cancelled and Sky never contacted me, other than wanting some equipment back.
I’d been a customer for almost 30 years, and there was no effort to keep me.
You soon find other, and MUCH cheaper platforms, and I find myself significantly better off
Recently cancelled Virgin Media and got a Sky Stream box. I don’t watch much TV but my wife seems happy enough with it. You have to pay to skip adverts which we did but they still show them, just you have the ability to skip. Chancers.
Not bad for about £25 per month
https://www.sky.com/tv/stream
Bizarrely I went online to cancel and they immediately matched my current price and after some fairly benign moaning from me knocked another tenner off per month. Tried to have them add sports but they wouldn’t cut a decent deal on that so I left it.Had a similar experience to above.
Eventually cancelled and Sky never contacted me, other than wanting some equipment back.
I’d been a customer for almost 30 years, and there was no effort to keep me.
You soon find other, and MUCH cheaper platforms, and I find myself significantly better off
Happy with the package I have and feel it’s a fair price now. Maybe worth trying the online chat if phoning is no good (they were crap on the phone and offered absolutely nothing)
Understand you cannot record with Sky Stream (as it's name would suggest) - but how do you find the VOD offerings? i.e. instead of being able to record something (like on Sky HD and Sky Q), can you simply find it to download and thereby end up with the same result? Or is the VOD catalogue far more limited to begin with?
Yes, mine was all done by phone.
They openly admitted that they couldn’t improve on the price.
So I left, and I won’t be back.
Delighted with my ‘alternative’ set up
I have Freesat, going on for nearly 6 years now with a Humax box. Never looked back. No way would I entertain Sky again. Looking at the channels available on Sky Stream, most are available on Freesat anyway. And if you don’t have a satellite dish, Freeview is almost as good.
I don’t have much of a clue but right now we are watching Married at First Sight and to get it on my wife just turned on the TV, went into Sky, found it somehow and now we’re watching it.
Shame you can’t record but I finally had enough with Virgin and was leaving them no matter what.
Edited: just asked my wife and she said you make a playlist of shows you like and then when you turn the tv on you go into your playlist and select the show you want. Apparently iPlayer and 4OD are linked to it so when you select a specific episode it automatically opens in the relevant app. She said Virgin was definitely better but this isn’t terrible.
Last edited by wileeeeeey; 11th October 2023 at 20:54.
I recently cancelled my Sky (I had everything Sky Q, sports, movies, UHD etc, was way too much money), they made no effort to keep us with them we had been with them for 20 years, I ended up renewing my broadband about a month later and took the sky stream for the Mrs which worked out the same I was paying for BB the year before so that's fine. I have another system I use for the main TV now.
Because I’m an idiot, I didn’t noticed that my discounted period had come to an end a few months back.
I had everything including the broadband. My bill was a ridiculous £199 per month, absolute rip off.
I have cancelled everything, they offered me just the sports package for £130 PM.
I have declined and renewed my broadband only £48 for 18 months. I’ve got the 1G package.
I honestly don’t know how anyone would pay this amount of money now, when you can get IPTV for £50 per year.
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Got seven months to go on my contract.
Awaits the BFD & see if I can negotiate a new contract.
I think Sky are trying to get everyone onto glass but not interested in that option.
I reduced my package right down a year ago to the Sky Essentials package which, at the time, was £5 per month.
Effectively its free view on the Sky Q box which we were happy with as I like the interface a lot and we do record and watch back quite a lot of ‘Council Telly’.
That’s now jumped up to £15 per month which for me isn’t worth it.
Can anyone recommend a decent box for watching and recording Freeview as this is really all we need?
Humax boxes are good for recording on Freeview. Come in various sizes 500 GB , 1tb etc. Should be a few on eBay at decent prices.
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