I to registered for sky broadband on the 19th of August. The 1st activation date they gave me was the 1st of September that came and went and was only when i phoned sky as to why my broadband wasn't working i was told the problem was with BT and they couldn't give me a date. Sky then wrote to me and said my activation date would be 17th sept again that came and went and again i phoned Sky and got the same reply that the problem was with BT. Sky phone later and gave me a 3rd activation date of the 26th sept again this came and went. I again rang Sky and this time they said your lines active but a port had been un pluged they dont now why. A couple of day later a rang Sky again and was given a Teir 3 ticket number and was told that somebody would call me back within 24 to 48 hours. 7 days later and nowbody from Sky teir 3 had rang so again i rang Sky and guess what they said? "i don't know why they tell you that Teir 3 will ring you back because they never do" this was acutally qouted to me by a Sky tech support man! After 8 weeks of no service and rubbish customer care i finally gave up rang Sky and cancelled, i'm going back to BT broadband and quite fancy BT total broadband option 3.
To all who are thinking of Sky
DONT BOTHER REALLY.

The only possitve to come out of my experience was that Sky have given me this months subscription to there TV package free and the next 3 months at half price and that only came about after about 20 phone calls to customer services. Nobody really gives a stuff if your angry or not and when i cancelled they couldn't care less.

Your not the only one. All you have said sounds very much like my sky hell. I haave cancelled and gone back to orange.

update.
07/11/2006

if anyones interested, i cancelled my Sky broadband on the 20th october nearly 8 weeks after switching from BT. Sky broadband was never activated nobody from teir 3 replied.
i've gone back to BT and have opted for totalbroadband option 3, yes its more expensive but it arrived within 5 days and activated on the day BT said it would and have had no problems what so ever.
On a positive note, i wrote a letter of complaint to Mark Anderson who is the customer marketing director for Sky, i attached an itemised bill from BT with all the calls to Sky, they refunded me the £12 phone bill and gave me £20 as a goodwill gesture so if you have had the same problems as me then cancel, send a letter of complaint and get BT broadband.

You guys think you have problems? take a look at the "SKY BROADBAND, ANYONE GOT IT YET?" forum
I've been trying to get a connection from sky since AUGUST and stil have little or no connection and have been P***d about rotten by Sky with no resolution in sight!

Hi all,

I totally have to agree with what your saying, I registered for sky bb on the 10th of april, I recieved 1 letter to welcome me to sky bb and to let me know everything was going ahead and I would get another letter comfirming the activation date. I was also told that this would be in 5 working days!!! On the 17th april I called sky bb and told them I had recieved no activation date to be told that I would be active by the 19th april, yeh I thought, but wait I had no router!! I told the customer service this and they said if I didn't recieve it in the next 2days to call them...So 2 days later with no router in sight I call them. They then tell me that no router has been sent out because no activation date had been sent out.. so they had to do this manually. On the 24th april router finally comes, few days late yes but atleast its here!!! Set it all up guess what? no internet, so I call sky bb, they have no idea why so they do a few tests, no joy so I go through to the great tier 3 team.....They do more of the same tests no joy!! they will call me back later after they have looked into it. By the next day still no phone call, so I call them again, oh there is a fault!! you don't say!! the port is down and the card Im on doesnt work, ok how long to it does? they dont no, but we will call you, but they dont, so Im calling every day, they dont have any update its down to BT, phone Bt and chase them they tell me, like I work for sky!!! So I do, Bt are disgusted, rightly so its not my job to chase them on behalf of sky. So i tell sky I want to cancel they say I cant as its passed the 8 days you have to cancel, even though i have never had a service, then I find out they are still chargingin me form the 19th april, so again i call them and say that they cannot charge me for a service I dont have, they say its there policy so they can.... I would cancel the DD but I will lose my sky tv and i dont want to. Catch 22 they have me in!! then yesterday I notice my internet light is on...did teir 3 call and let me no as promised, did they hell....but that i should of known as they always say they will call back and never do.. so I try to download something, how slow.... so i again are having to call sky and find out why its so slow, seeing as I have had a fast bb conection through the same Bt line with bulldog, Im wondering what skys excuse will be.... will let you no if your interested

WORD OF WARNING

DO NOT JOIN SKY BROADBAND!!!!! The service is rubbish and the staff dont care at all...

I have the same problem, and a little bit more…it took 6 weeks until they came to install the equipment as on the they it was promised they didn’t turn up. After activating the internet there was no internet but payment has been charged. Another 3 weeks when an engineer was available, although I was calling their IT team 5-6times for help. Those people are in the Philippines, and they are useless!!! If you want to waste your money and enjoy yourself better to call a sex-phone than SKY IT Help desk. They told me to switch off the laptop and call back next morning and similar funny advices. The engineer couldn’t find the reason but he could fix the problem after 2 hours…for 1 day. Realizing the wi-fi service is ZERO we had to purchase UTP cables on our own cost. The 16MB is 1.5-2.7 with cable!!! Next surprise…after 2 months I have decided to accept their Direct Debit offer. Letter on the 8^th April: ALL SORTED, we will collect your payment on the 15^th May all you need to do is just enjoy the whole new entertainment from SKY. Letter on 11^th May: because of outstanding amount the service is suspended, they are threatening me with collector agency, credit status decrease, talking about their suffer, their loss, their claims and on the 12^th May the channels were switched off, I missed the Eurovision Festival and since that day no TV at all. My account had been debited of course on the 15 May…I am just thinking to cancel my contract after 3 months slow cable internet, useless customer service and no service at all although payment has been agreed…so if you are looking for a reliable, trustworthy company choose anything but SKY.      

My experience to date, after around one month with Sky Broadband, has been absolutely terrible.

They messed up setting up the account leaving me with no broadband for 3 weeks (which given I make my lving via the internet was a disaster).

The connections are slow and VERY unreliable and the "help" staff are anything but helpful.

I used to be with BT and lost connection around 2 or 3 times a month - with Sky it is around 8 to 10 times everyday.

I couldn't state strongly enough that Sky Broadband is without doubt one to AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

 

Oh dear, it seems I am not alone.

Wish I had never signed up for Sky's crappy broadband. As a result of doing so, I am almost certainly going to lose my sky TV, which I want to keep.

 I waited almost 3 months for BT to provide me with a phone line taking from 12th January until the beginning of April, and then contacted Sky, as I had to have a phone line before I could have a sky installation done.

 I waited 6 weeks to get a sky engineer to come and set up my dish, because that was the first date they could get a team out to deal with my location, due to the fact I was on the third floor. When the Engineers arrived, they tried to get out of it saying there was no way up there, which of course there was, they were just too *** lazy to be bothered. I demanded they carry it out the installation, and they did.

I then contacted sky about broadband, they told me it would take about 2 weeks to happen, I got a letter through saying I should be connected on the 21st of  April, then another saying 'congratulations' you're service is now active, which of course, it wasn't.

 And so it remains to this day, the 18th of May, almost a full month later. After several calls to Sky, who blamed BT, until I phoned BT and found it wasn't their problem, but a problem with Sky's equipment at the exchange, at which point Sky suddenly 'discovered' a fault with their equipment, but have since done nothing about it.

I've lost count of how many hours I've spent listening to some thick *** in India/China/Holland reading through a set of 'troubleshooting' guidelines and totally ignoring me when I tell them the problem is with their equipment.

 Sky haven't given me any indication as to when this problem can or will be fixed, but of course, they have sent me a letter demanding payment for my non existent service, and get this, not only do they want paying for now, they also want payment in advance for June's 'service.'

 When I pointed out that this was rather unfair, they said 'oh don't worry, we will refund the money to your account for any time it's not working.' So, right, I have to pay up front, in the hope my service will start working, and then wait to get the money back for all the time it didn't work.

 That's like me going into a restaurant for lunch every day, order egg and chips, only to be told they don't have egg and chips, or indeed, any other food, but they will charge me for it, and give me the money back whenever they do have egg and chips. Who would want to eat at a restaurant like that? Certainly not me!

Hell will freeze over before I pay them a single penny for their non existent service provision, but I fear that it is me who will end up the worse for it. I will probably end up with a county court judgement against my name, but I don't give a *** any more. I am not giving money to these people for nothing, which is what they expect me to do.

Be warned! From everything I hear, getting a MAC code to transfer to another supplier is harder than finding rocking horse ***, these people are best avoided altogether.

Can someone explain how companies are allowed to behave like this in this country, it's absolutely abysmal, and from the research I've done the likes of OFCOM AND Otelo are pretty much powerless to do anything about it. They can

27th May, still no TV although 2 weeks ago 13th May "DD" collected my money from my current account...I can't find words, this company is more than USELESS. They take your money and give nothing for it. You can call of course the customer service located somewhere in the Philippines...wasting more money and time on pointless conversations with English speaking idiots. When I told them their router is faulty because our laptops can receive all the wireless connections from from the street except sky one they told me to contact the laptop provider...so I should call Toshiba, Dell, Fujitsu and complain about their "faulty" laptops which are not receiving any signs from sky broadband, but all the other ones are perfect. Now we use utp cable to get broadband and the connection is more than slow....extremely slow (I am the only one who is on the net usually). Paying £10 for an unlemeted 800k - 1.6Mbit/sec broadband (+£15 for channels which are not available) I can tell you honestly this is a money for nothing company. Oh yes, the advertisement is talking about 16Mbit - maximum....why not 50Mbit, 100Mbit or if we lie let's lie up to the sky: 10000Mbit/sec, unlimited! The customer service is 0, the service is 2, the costs are +8 (scale 0-10). I feel like joining a Nigerian company, promising you the SKY for the lowest price on the market...and at the end this is what you get!    

haranghy 

I feel like joining a Nigerian company, promising you the SKY for the lowest price on the market...and at the end this is what you get!    

Nigerian company?....... what experience do you have with them,,,, curious

 

my nigerian friends had some...e.g. invest 10 USD & get back 300USD. Sky way: pay monthly £25 (x12m year contract) & get a whole new world of entertainment! Maybe get, maybe not! I have experience only with SKY as I never believed those cloudy nigerian ads, but after 1 month without sky service there is no difference between them, wherever you pay your money the same you get. There is only one difference between them: I can call Sky customer service anytime for a little useless chit-chat and realise I was stiffed by professionals.   (the nigerian company was a metaphor)

i was thinking of joining sky but seeing this and my friend also rejoined virgin from sky!

 

STAY AWAY! 

I was considering Sky Broadband but after seeing all the problems I definately will not bother.    Cheers everyone for opening my eyes.

I applied for sky BB/TV and Talk on 27FEB07. By  May I still had not been given the broadband part of the package and it also took 6 weeks for the sky talk part to be established. Iam so disgusted at the run around I was given by sky and the constant back handed apologies from the call centre staff who really could not give a  **** and just want to get you off the telephone.  When I applied for the broadband (BB) I was given an activation date of the 14th March,Low and behold I was not activated on that date. I made loads fo calls to the call centre and spoke to different staff from different parts of the country who kept on telling me different things, One person told me I had to call BT Wholesale and get a MAC code, I doen this to be told by BT that it were sky who would have to speak to the as BT Wholesale do not deal with public. Sky then eventually agreed that BT were correct and that it was down to them. I can details allof the phone calls I made and all of the fob offs and lies I was told by different staff who just wanted to get the call finished or I would be here all day. But I must say this one call I made tops the lot,,,,,,,

On one of my many calls, I was put through to portsmouth call centre and after being told more rubbish by the person who had answered my call I requested to speak to the supervisor...I had by now been waiting nearly two months for broadband, I was reluctantly put through the a supervisor called Mr Hannigan. He seemed reaaly helpful and agreed that my calls had not been handled proffessionally and that the information I had been given previously was incorrect and that I should not have been lied to by call centre staff, I had informed him that I was going to jin virginmedia and cancel all sky subscription. Mr Hannigan has informed me that I had to cancel my order and wait for the cancellation to clear which could take up to a month then apply again which would take a further two months !!!!! Mr Hannigan reassured me that he would take my order on personally and over see it and try to get it out through asap, he aslo promised me that I could trust him and that he would call me everyday and update me as to the progress of my order (give and take his days off etc) but never the less he would stayin regular contact with me, he even said when my phone bill came through to call him and he would personally see to it that I was refunded sky bills etc ,,, he also gave me a telphone number to contact him on.   I therefore stayed with sky,,, I came off the phone much happier and sang his praises to my husband saying how helpful he was and that 'this was he reason he was a supervisor because he could deal with problems'  That telepne call took place in March.. To this day I have never recieved and telephone calls or messages from Mr Hannigan and no apology from sky for the blatent lie this SUPERVISOR had told me. I have tried to telephone the number he gave me which I might add puts methrough to scotland and also I have tried to contact him at Portsmouth but alas NO answer from him.

The bottom line is DO NOT join sky BB. Sky do not make money from the BB part of the package the money that they make is from the phone and the tv therefore once they have you subscribed to that they don't reaaly cae about the broadband.

 

I have now cancelled everything with SKY and have joined virgin media which is cheaper, more efficient and the staff are really helpful and give you direct contact number to call them on, also they call you back when they say they will, they go out of their way to fix any problems you may have on the day you call and are without a doubt much more professional than Sky. I might add from applying for virgin media I have tv and braodband and telephone within 10 days.

 I have had no problems since and just wish I joined them in the first place.

 

Does anyone know the e mail address for customer complaints at sky, i'm trying to e mail a director called mark anderson with no success.  ta