dadams.co.uk

I’ve just checked my bank account and found that Sky have charged me extra money this month. I phoned to find out why, and the customer service representative told me that they hadn’t been getting a call-back signal from both boxes. Regular readers of dadams.co.uk (I know there aren’t many) may remember that this was an issue that was supposedly sorted out a month ago.

I informed the representative that I hoped the call was being recorded for training purposes, because then new staff could get an idea of what an absolute shambles this company is. Their equipment isn’t doing what’s it’s supposed to, so they charge me money… and I have to battle to prove I’m in the right and get a refund. She said that the viewing cards had been swapped between the two boxes, and suggested that the engineer had been into my daughter’s bedroom and done just that. Yeah, and while he was there he went through her chest of drawers and tried on her gymnastics leotard. Of course he bloody didn’t. What is the matter with these people?

I also asked about the terms of my contract and the implications of me cancelling everything. She said she was sorry I felt like this (and she also asked me to stop shouting). Being their customer is such hard work, and I pay them for my misfortune. If Sky really want to prove they’re sorry, they should sort themselves out. James Murdoch, you should be reading this and you should be ashamed.

Choddo and G have both suggested I convert to Sky HD. Pay Sky more money? My next transaction with them is more likely to be along the lines of standing in their foyer, ripping up the contracts, and then inviting the customer service staff to watch me ram both Sky boxes up the customer service manager’s backside.

Thank you, I feel better now, but tomorrow I have to call them back to resolve the issue (which will no doubt involve some more shouting).

Oh, one other thing… I e-mailed James Murdoch. It would be nice to believe that he’ll read the e-mail and take an action to improve things. But I also believe that one day I’ll win the lottery.

Update: I called Sky again. They said that the charge had been levied on April 27th just before the engineer’s visit, and they could now confirm that they could provide a refund as both boxes are accepting a call back. So (a) why didn’t they tell me that last night, and (b) did they intend to refund the money (based on the fact that I was in the right), or do they only provide a refund when you notice a mistake and kick up a fuss?

The lady on the end of the phone said “all I can do is apologise”. Never a truer word spoken, because they do little else.

When we were looking for a new house last year we saw one property which was not in a great road, was okay house-wise, but had a fantastic garden. One of the things that the estate agent pointed out was the wild strawberries growing there. Well, we didn’t go for that property and ended up in a different part of Camberley.

Almost a year later, while trimming the edge of one of the lawns at Castle Adams, I noticed… you’ve guessed it… a small crop of wild strawberries. Further inspection of the flower beds revealed more strawberry plants. It looks like we won’t be opening a ‘pick your own’ farm in the near future, and don’t expect a huge bowl to be presented should you ever come round for dinner (especially not if the slugs tuck in first).

This is not my first encounter with wild strawberries. A few years ago I was having dinner in Paris with some colleagues, including my good friend and dotted-line manager Uffe ‘the Danes have an answer’ Sorensen (who had steak I seem to remember, but I think he always does). When it came to dessert I recognised strawberries as an option and thought it a safe bet. I was presented with a bowl of the stringiest, weediest-looking strawberries I’d ever seen. The waiter must have caught the look on my face and said something that I translated as “strawberries of the wood” and followed it up with a gesture made by kissing his pinched finger and thumb. That gesture summed up that bowl of strawberries well - looks can be deceiving. They were even better than those plump berries you buy in supermarkets or four for £5 at Wimbledon.

You never know, if I can keep the slugs away I might get a full bowl (a small bowl though). Just don’t expect me to share them.

So there you have it, a blog entry about a BlackBerry followed an entry about strawberries. Next week, something about loganberries (or possibly not).

Friday was the big day… our Sky Plus box was to be replaced. I had to go to a meeting in the morning (damn work interfering with my life as usual), so the wife was left in charge for the morning. The engineer called and said we were his first call of the day. Regular readers will know that any dealings with Sky are generally painful, but my opinion almost did a u-turn on this day.

I wasn’t there to witness the first visit of an extraordinary young man who broke the Sky mould. He cared. He wanted us to be satisfied with the service. He wanted to sort out the problems. He was concerned about the poor service we’d received. Hang on, was he really a Sky employee? Was he not a Samaritan with a tool box and ladder?

First thing he did was listen (are you getting this, Sky head office?) to the description of what had happened. He pointed out that because our system was actually under warranty from the multi-room installation last October (ah-ha, no-one at Sky Central told me that) we shouldn’t have to pay. So our young hero called customer service and told them so, and patiently waited (and repeated it five times) until it finally penetrated their thick skulls. He then installed the new Sky Plus box, fitted the correct connectors (the guy in October had used the wrong type), and then adjusted the dish to pick up a better signal. On leaving, he once again apologised on Sky’s behalf and left the wife his mobile number requesting a call if we needed any more help.

When I returned home all was well with the Sky Plus box, apart from live pause not working (but a forced upgrade on the software fixed this, I knew the problem was there on older versions). I was amazed to hear the story of some good customer service from Sky and the existence of an employee whose first directive was not to extract money from us. However, I then discovered that the movies and sports channels weren’t working. I called the engineer, and he confirmed that he had phoned Sky Central and asked them to pair up the viewing card and the box - a process which can sometimes have a short delay, but not four hours. He offered to come back to us on his way home… a promise he kept. I stood with him while he called customer service and went through the process again. He offered to stay until service was resumed but it was getting late so I insisted he should go and have a great weekend. I offered him some money to have a drink on me which he politely declined as he felt Sky had given us poor service (this is a true story). He told me to call him if there were any further problems.

By Saturday morning we still didn’t have movies or sport. I thought it unfair to call the engineer (he wasn’t on duty) so I called Sky Central. I went through the process yet again… account number, viewing card number, serial number. The lady in customer service admitted she didn’t know what was going wrong. After a few minutes she said that she was transmitting the fix and the channels would be available after a short delay.

Sunday… what a surprise. No movies or sport. I rung Sky Central again, same process again, except this time I asked what they were going to do different. I was passed onto an expert (hmmm) who asked me the same questions again. And then, get this, she told me that if both Sky boxes weren’t attached to the phone line I might incur extra charges. This is typical of Sky… I have a problem and I’m receiving crap service, and they’re more interested in their own revenue. Words fail me. After a few minutes she said she knew why the updates hadn’t worked and the channels would be enabled in two minutes. And she would call back in five minutes to ensure they were working. The channels did work, almost as soon as the call ended. Good. But did she call me back? What do you think?

By the way, if anyone from Sky’s top brass should happen to read this then contact me and I’ll give you the engineer’s name. Promote him, give him a pay rise… he is the ONLY person in your organisation who has ever given me the impression that Sky cares about it’s customers.

Okay, I used that heading once before. A couple of years ago we had Sky Plus installed, and in the first six months had four replacement boxes until, eventually, we got one that worked and stayed working… most of the time. Even then it wasn’t the most reliable of units - recordings would fail and live pause would stop working from time to time.

In the past few weeks however it got worse. This Sunday marked the third occasion this year that all the recordings disappeared into some technological black hole. It was getting to the point where half of the recordings failed, and those that did succeed would freeze numerous times during viewing (which does rather interfere with your viewing enjoyment). As for recording two channels at the same time… forget it.

Phoning Sky is something I dread and relish. Dread because I know that ultimately it’s going to cost me money. Relish because I know I’m going to have an argument with them and that I’m right (their customer service IS poor and their equipment IS crap). As my warrantly had expired, Sky’s answer was for me to pay £65 for an engineer to come along with a refurbished Sky Plus box. Now bearing in mind the obvious poor quality, the 90-day warranty on a refurbished box is worth the square root of bugger all. We recently got a new box for our daughter’s bedroom, and for nearly seven months that’s been trouble-free, a Sky Plus record in my experience. So £160 buys a new box with a year’s warranty. But let’s recap… their customer service IS poor and their equipment IS crap, so on top of the monthly £53 I pay already, I’ve paid £160 so that I can carry on being their customer. Am I a mug or a victim of their monopoly? Or both?

One saving grace is that I got to put one of their people in his place - on telling the sales department about my woes he chuckled, whereupon I told him to stop laughing as their poor service (now with added lack of empathy) was not funny in any way. Does anyone else have experiences of Sky that they’d like to share?

Fans of dadams.co.uk might have noticed a short break in service… nearly seven months actually. Sorry. Various reasons, not all happy ones. We moved house at the start of October, an experience which could eventually be described as ‘happy’ (especially now that I’ve finished decorating the lounge). Decorating three bedrooms (one is now my office), the landing and stairs, the family room and the lounge took a bit of time… just the fourth bedroom, the dining room, the entrance hall and the kitchen / utility room to do.

Among the unhappy events was the sudden death of my dad, John ‘Jim’ Adams. This happened less than a week before we moved, and between then and moving house I went to Florida and back in 48 hours. Needless to say this was a very sad time and I guess the major reason why I didn’t update the web site - I thought that if I wrote something I’d have to mention it, and I didn’t feel ready to.

The other major unhappy event was the death of our dear old Cocker Spaniel, Molly. After developing an infection of the pancreas she fell gravely ill and there was only one decision left - this was fairly recent, Good Friday in fact. We’re still getting over her loss - she was part of my daily life, always there in the morning, going out to do a final wee last thing at night, walks in the evening, always one step behind me in the kitchen.

Anyway, dadams.co.uk is back, and hopefully the mood will improve. A big change is the fact that I’ve moved away from the old static HTML pages (another reason for the lack of updates, it was a pain) and I’m now using WordPress to manage the blog and pages. And you can leave comments. I haven’t decided what to do with the old content - of course there are some absolute gems there, but if you think I’m transferring it all to the new system, think again.