Where on Earth do I start with this travesty?
Okay here goes... I was using BT as my broadband internet service provider, but after my fair share of downtime and connection
problems - and numerous disastrous experiences with their call centres - I decided to change to Sky Broadband.
Now, on paper, the package looked great -
Up to 16mb download speed, unlimited monthly usage, free activation and a monthly fee of £10 (although we got the TV package with it so paid more). The package also guaranteed that a "trained engineer" would come to set it all up!
It looked so good |
So after placing the order, everything went downhill. This chronological log of events sums it up nicely:-
Friday 9th March
BT deactivates. Having cancelled BT ready for the Sky installation, the 9th of March was the day we were no longer provided with broadband by BT. This was problematic enough, as everyone in the house needs access for varying reasons - banking, work, study etc. The heartening thing was that the "trained engineer" from Sky would be arriving on Wednesdy the 14th to connect us up with a Sky modem/router, which is apparantly "an easy process".
Monday 12th March
We receive a voice text to our home telephone informing us that the line for our Sky broadband connection is now "active". This, in theory, means that when the "trained engineer" turns up, it
should be a simple case of plugging the modem in, installing the software and being connected. I emphasise the word "should".
Wednesday 14th March
8.30am - we receive a phonecall informing us that the "trained engineer" will be showing up "between 12pm and 3pm". This, although not particuarly specific, was fine, as I was off that day and could stay in all day.
Anyway, he shows up at 1.30pm, which is great - right between 12pm and 3pm like they said. I let him in. He has the Sky modem/router in his hand, surely it should be boxed up? This better not be a cast off son. He comes upstairs, ensuring that he puts those mini plastic bags over his muddy boots. Conscientous, I like that, things look good. Despite the fact he looks like a scruff.
So I show him the computer in my room that he has to install the hardware and software on and offer to move the desk away from the wall, granting him easy access to all the sockets. He refuses, clearly a professional who doesn't require the job doing for him. Or so it seemed.
He plugs everything in - bizarrely leaving my old modem still plugged in, but that's okay I guess - and he starts to install the software. It all goes smoothly until the last step, where a message saying "Hmm, you're not quite ready to go online yet" appears on screen. A minor setback, surely?
In all of his "trained" wisdom, he sets about fixing the issue... by doing exactly the same thing again. I give him the benefit of the doubt, but sure enough, the same message appears.
He tries the same thing AGAIN. By this time I am stood behind him getting a little worried, and frustrated to say the least. The same message appears and he looks troubled. He asks me what "Firefox" is. I tell him it is a browser that I use from time to time. He then goes into the "Add/Remove Programs" area in the control panel. I assume he is removing the Sky software, but later find out that the stupid bastard has deleted Firefox for no apparant reason. The monkey clearly thought it was the cause of the problem.
He gives up and heads to his van to get something. When he comes back in, the mini plastic bags that were on his muddy boots are nowhere to be seen, and he wanders upstairs dirtying the carpet. Bastard.
I discover that the reason he went back to his van was
to get an instruction booklet! Does this muppet even work for Sky? And if not, what the hell is he doing in my house?
He tries the same thing one more time. By this time, I am behind him fuming, thinking to myself "THAT WON'T FUCKING
WORK YOU TIT", and eventually I say something. I tell him that the issue clearly lies with Sky. I could tell that already. Everything at my end was fine. He appears miffed, but agrees - probably to avoid argument. Surely these numpties should have some kind of backup plan?
He tells me he has to leave. His "time is running out". Cheers mate! He tells me I should "photocopy the instructions booklet before he goes". Yeah, because I have a fucking photocopier in my house you nobhead.
I quickly jot down some stuff that I think may be useful and let the idiot go on his way. He doesn't arrange to come back or to get extra help, he just goes. Good riddance anyway.
I decide to give it a go myself, tinkering with some settings that the clueless "trained engineer" didn't even know existed. But it's no use. The issue is definitely at the other end. Something that Sky need to do.
I text Jabbslad and Banxy and inform them of the bad news. Banxy arranges to pop round after work to have a look. I feel relieved. Banxy works in networking, if anyone can fix it it's him.
Sure enough the Banxter arrives on time and sets about looking for the cause of the problem. He sees no glaring errors and decides to log in to the actual modem/router. Everything seems in order except something appears to have not been activated at the Sky end and after a further investigation Banxy leaves - content that nothing that he or I could do would fix the issue.
I leave it for a while and go back to have another go. Maybe whatever needs activating will have been activated by now? To my horror, the modem/router now doesn't work. At all. It won't even turn on. My initial fears about it's "unboxed" origins may have just been confirmed.
I try to connect using my old modem/router with no luck. I text Banx and Jabbslad but they inform me that I would need to change the settings to suit Sky and these settings simply weren't accessible. Sky appeared to be making this as hard as possible.
I decided to ring Sky. I get through to an Indian call centre and speak to a woman from the tier 1 department (the simpletons). I explain the situation and we go through the basics. I tell her that this will NOT fix the issue. I assure her of this, but we still have to go through the script :-
Sky Woman : "Is your modem turned on Sir?"
Me : "Of course it's turned on."
Sky Woman : "Are the cables in the right place?"
Me : "Yes, the cables are in the right place. I assure you that nothing is wrong at this end. Something needs activating at yours."
Sky Woman : "Go to Start and then Command Prompt"
Me : "You're not listening! We've done all this and assure you it doesn't work! Something needs activating at your end!"
And so forth (this went on for a long, long time and ultimately no progress was made). I end up having to pass the phone to my Dad as I was getting so annoyed. And when he passes it back, I end up swearing.
I give up for the day.
Sky's "Tier 1" Advisers pop out for a cigarette break |
Thursday 15th March
I ring Sky again. After holding for a while (something I would later become very familiar with), I finally get through to the "parts" department. Having admitted defeat in trying to connect using my old modem/router, I inform them of the situation and order a new Sky modem/router. The Irish guy assures me it will be dispatched immediately and should take 3-5 days. Not including Sunday, this means that (including today) it should be here by Tuesday at the latest.
I ask the guy if maybe the reason that we couldn't connect was because our line couldn't handle the 16mb download speed. He informs me that Sky already looked into that, and it isn't an issue because they know that the line can only handle 2mb and thus are only sending us that speed. But they were happy not to tell us this! Taking the maximum amount of money from us while not providing us with what
we are paying for!
A few frustrating days pass.
Tuesday 20th March
The afternoon arrives and there is no sign of this modem/router. In my mind I know that the guy probably wasn't including the day of the call in his "3-5 days" exclamation, but even so, it was early morning and he promised me it would be dispatched that day, so I ring them again.
I get passed around no less than FIVE departments, taking over half an hour, just to be told the status of my order. It is confirmed that my modem/router was dispatched on the 15th March - the day of my call. I sit and hope that by 5pm, it may still arrive.
It doesn't.
Wednesday 21st March
Mid-day arrives and there is no sign of the modem/router. I contemplate setting a time to call them up again, but low and behold a delivery van pulls up outside.
I rush downstairs and sure enough it's a box about the size of the box that my modem/router should have been packed in last week. I tear it open and eagerly anticipate the possibilty of connection that day. I also see on the dispatch note that it actually wasn't sent out until Monday the 19th of March. Lying bastards.
The elusive Sky Box |
I ring to inform the family that it has arrived first. I text Banx and Jabbslad to ask their advice - should I go for it myself, or should I wait until they are available to assist? Both replies are a resounding "Try it now!" So I do. Surely Sky had activated whatever needed activating by now? I go through the process... "Hmm, you're not quite ready to go online yet!" BASTARD. What the hell is wrong?
I ring Sky. I ask to bypass the monkies in tier 1, they are useless, but still they question me with obvious queries. Yes, it's fucking turned on you muppet, now pass me to a tier 2 adviser!
Finally, I get through to one. She is Irish and seemingly quite pleasant. We go through a few processes we hadn't been able to try before and she thinks she has found out the problem. She tells me to log off and wait for a phone call. In 40 minutes, apparantly, she will ring back, having activated something that should fix the connection.
About an hour and a half later, she rings back. I try the connection. It doesn't work. She asks me if my computer is connected to the main phone socket in the house. I tell her it isn't. She says that for the next test, I will need to connect it to the main one, by the front door. But that's downstairs, and I've got a desktop PC, not a laptop. So she says she will give me half an hour to take it all downstairs and connect it up.
Half an hour passes and I have my PC in the hall on the floor, connected to the main socket. Where the hell is this call?
My Dad arrives home and I inform him of the
situation. He says to ring them back, but I don't see the point. An hour passes and I decide that ringing them back was the only way. I get through to an Indian call centre and tell them I was halfway through talking to a tier 2 woman in Ireland. He puts me on hold for ages (as usual). He finally forwards me to someone back in Ireland - another tier 2 adviser - who informs me that "Pamela" (the woman I was talking to earlier) had gone home (how nice of her), so he would take over now that I'd rang back.
I tell him that it is connected to the main socket now and we go through some tests.
I inform him of the error message (error 300) and he says it is easily fixable - GREAT! - but only by a tier 3 technician - not so great! I ask him if this would happen now, and after some confusion I get a resounding "no". He puts me on hold while he speaks to tier 3, and when he comes back, he tells me a tier 3 technician would call me back, either that same night or the day after. All this tier 3 guy needs to do is designate me an IP address by clearing a session at the Sky exchange. The tier 2 chap tells me to stay logged in downstairs (keeping my PC on, on the hallway floor, until I receive the call!), but I am convinced that the issue is not the socket and take the PC back upstairs.
While I was confused as to why this problem couldn't be fixed right away, I was simply pleased that progress had been made. But I certainly wasn't going to hold my breath about receiving a call that night.
Sure enough, I don't get a call that night.
Thursday 22nd March
Mid-day arrives. No call. I'm really pissed off now and decide to ring them again. I tell the muppet in tier 1 that a tier 3 guy was supposed to ring back. He puts me on hold for a minute while he speaks to tier 3 and comes back, informing me that he was putting me on hold again until a tier 3 guy becomes available. I wait. I wait some more. I wait a bit longer.
This music is really pissing annoying.
My Grandma arrives at the door to collect my dog - she does that sometimes - and I show her the amount of time my phone is displaying, signifying how long I'd been on hold - 35 minutes so far. My Grandma was fuming! She was going to ring them and tell them but I told her I was used to waiting now, and I persisted.
Anyway, after 55 minutes (yes, FIFTY FIVE), a tier 3 guy finally picks up. These guys must be rarer than sausages in mosques. I tell him the problem and he asks me if I am still plugged in to the main socket downstairs - I say "yes" just to hurry things along, even though that's a lie (as I know the socket is not the issue). He says "give me a minute". 10 seconds later he comes back and says "try the connection now". It fucking worked.
It took him 10 seconds.
Why the fuck was I passed around like currency when all that needed doing was a small little activation, AT THEIR END (like we said all along)?
Personally, I think Sky purposely cause this issue with a designated percentage of their new users. They must rake the cash in from the calls they receive for assistance.
Anyway, I thank the guy, begrudgingly, and put the phone down.
I'm sure there was more to this story than that. More examples of incompetency, but I really can't remember them all because there were so many.
Friday 23rd March
My parents sent letters of complaint due to the awful "service" and the rubbish "help" we received. I can only assume this will take ages to get a response from, but we want some money back! Not only have we not had a full month's connection, but we've had to travel elsewhere to use the internet for work etc, costing us petrol money! We WILL get that money back, or we go to
Ofcom.
Tuesday 27th March
Oh, and despite the near 2 weeks of downtime since the supposed initial "activation", we were notified (via a bank statement) that Sky have still taken a full month's worth of payment from us. How very nice of them.
As it happens, since I've been connected, the connection is actually very fast - although sometimes I do lose connection. But it doesn't make up for the awful service anyway.
Sky, you need to train your "trained engineers" so they know what the hell they are doing.
You really are shit.
