New box - for free (almost)

[Lee H]

So my HD box has been playing up for a while now. No real surprise as it's one of the older Thompson boxes. Finally had enough of the signal loss and failed recordings last night so I thought I'd ring Sky and try and get a new one. First quote, £199!

"No chance" came the reply. "I pay you full price for Sky World. I have all the movies, all the sport, HD, the works and I've been with you for years." Refusing to budge I asked to be put through to cancellations. "Hello Mr H, I've had a look at your account and you're a good customer. We can offer you the new 3D ready HD box for free as long as you sign up for another 12 months. We want to send an engineer to install it and check all your cables and dish and we can do that for £15."

This seemed OK as I'm effectively paying £15 for a new box. You have to ask how many people just say, "OK then" to the £199 price though! The only thing they wouldn't move on was self install.

 

[RobinKidderminster]

Funny about the self install - unless they wanted to check your dish & cabling. It took less than 5 mins and works a treat. Paid a bit more tho. Nice boxes the 1TB. Not a failed record yet and struggling to use more than 50%

 

[Lee H]

Yes, they said they wanted to check all the cabling and LMB and so on to make sure that I'm OK in the future. It'll be nice to trust the box again!

 

[dirtydean]

I had a similar experience with virgin. I phoned up just to asked how much it would cost for a V plus HD box in my front room ( I already have a normal box in the back room ) 45 pound for the box and 40 pound to fit then 10 pound a month extra, for the extra box, I told them to leave it as I'm thinking about going with sky (I had no intention of leaving) then they put me through to retentions any way I got the box for 25 pound fitted and 5.60 a month. Like you say how many people just pay the first price? But I guess the more that do, means they can give the the odd one away or at least make cheaper.