Incompatible Technology - running out of patience

I ordered Sky Fibre and Sky Talk on the 4th May. Since then my order has been cancelled 3 times and reordered. The levels of knowledge seems to vary when speaking to customer service agents, and having spoken to 4 seperate ones during a single call (maybe even 5) I was quite amazed at the rubbish they tell customers.

At first all I was told that my order could not be completed due to an unknown reason. I informed them that since I have lived in the house (approx 2 years) the line has not been connected and that the person living here before me used to have ADSL fine. There were no services on the line (like alarm systems etc..), which they said should make the order easier to process. Any way, the advice I was given was,

- Contact the previous owner as they haven't had the line disconnected (I have no contact details for the previous owner nor should this be required).
- I already have the broadband on my line so I need to cancel it first.
- I don't have a telephone line. I already made it clear I have a physical line, it is just not connected.
- I cannot have any services provided by my line.
- I should try cancelling the order and replacing it. The guy I spoke to said the system can be 'funny' sometimes, I let him off for this comment.
- I cannot get fibre on my line. I told them I can get BT Infinity and according to the btwholesale.co.uk/Sky website/BT Infinity website I can get fibre (I'm guessing they get all their data from the same database anyway).
- I should wait and someone will get back to me soon, with no definite time limit.
- Someone else 'ran a line test' on my line, then I got disconnected from the call.


After a conversation today with a lady at Sky, she offered to cancel my order and try again, with which I said it is pointless and won't get me anywhere. I asked why someone at Sky cannot just speak to Openreach using a telephone and find out exactly what the problem was and she told me they did and were told the line has "incompatible technology" on it. I couldn't be bothered to probe further as I'm sure that if a call was made, it wouldn't have been just two words, hangup, that they would be able to provide more details.

So now she has decided to esculate the problem and she will get back to me tomorrow. I don't have any faith in this but it is just 1 more day. To really wind me up, the money has been taken from my account on the 9th of May and cannot be returned if I want my order to be esculated/continue. Generally people exchange money for a service/product/charity, Sky have provided nothing.

Running out of patience with this, might actually have to place the order with BT as this is just wasting my time.

Any advice welcome!

Bah.

What is your actual current phone and broadband situation?

Has this changed at all in the last month or so?

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

What is your actual current phone and broadband situation?

Has this changed at all in the last month or so?

In reply to a post by jonface:

At first all I was told that my order could not be completed due to an unknown reason. I informed them that since I have lived in the house (approx 2 years) the line has not been connected

I would think the line is still not in use or even connected ,unless there is a dial tone ?

Sorry I wasn't very clear.

- I have a physical line coming in, as far as I know it is not connected (I don't pay line rental). Nothing has changed in the 2 years since I have lived at the property. I assume when the last owner moved out the line was disconnected and he stopped paying as I have never received any bills from BT or anyone else regarding the line.

- I don't have any broadband or any other service on the line.

I'll find a phone and check to see if it is live, would be strange if it is.

Cheers.

Jon.

Suspect this the problem, i.e. Sky's systems have not been setup to cope well with a new line provide and the ordering of fibre at the same time.

As you have no live telephone number, the fibre checking will not probably work, as betting they don't have a fall back to postcode.

One solution would be to activate the line with PostOffice get a telephone number and migrate the line to Sky after a month or so. (Do check that I've not forgotten some odd clause about any minimum term on Post Office for new line provides)

Its strange because its Openreach telling them this, although I wonder what information Sky are providing them.

I've got a call back tomorrow with an update but I'm not holding my breath. If this fails then I'll check up on the postoffice option.

Will post with an update tomorrow,

Cheers

If Sky put the order through with the wrong information then Openreach will simply reject it, and say try again.

Update from Sky today to tell me there was no update. They are phoning back tomorrow :/

I thought you said Openreach were telling you this, not Sky.
Ah, no you said Openreach was telling them.

Edited by BatBoy (Tue 15-May-12 19:58:27)

According to Openreaches website, you (a normal user) can't speak to them directly, ever. Shame really :/

So you just have to trust what Sky call centre say.....

Phoned them today to find out there is no update. :-\

Edit: Someone just phoned me to tell me there is no update.

Edited by jonface (Wed 16-May-12 17:21:56)

Order canceled and refunded. Total waste of time, incredible lack of motivation from Sky Talk staff.

Ordered a line through the post office, took about 4 minutes. Will ring on Monday just to check everything is OK but I've already got the engineer booked in.

If it's of any interest to you, Sky did very well with my switch. Also, I found a link to directly contact Openreach if you are still interested in this...

http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/submitFeedback....

Best of luck,
Xplosion

I ordered the line through the Royal Mail and it was reconnected within 2 weeks. I spoke to the OpenReach engineer and he said he couldn't understand why I couldn't get Sky Fibre.

So now with a telephone line (which Sky couldn't reconnect) I've reordered Sky Talk / Fibre, in the hope that this progress helps them out.

Just spoke to Sky and the order has been rejected again! Obviously they don't know why which isn't surprising. They want until Friday to find out what the problem is, I can't wait.

In reply to a post by jonface:

I ordered the line through the Royal Mail and it was reconnected within 2 weeks.

Why do these things take so long, depending on which company you use?

I've just had to have my phone line reconnected as I need an ADSL connection, due to having to leave Virgin Media cable as the connection they have been providing is atrocious (network over-utilization).

Anyhow, the point I'm getting at is that I moved into this property 14 months ago and had Virgin Media cable from the start. When I needed to leave them, I spoke to Plusnet through the online advisor medium on a Sunday afternoon, about 1830hrs. As the line was disconnected, they told me that it would cost £49.99 to reconnect; I asked, "Why?"; they dropped the charge. The phone line was reconnected (reactivated?) and working approximately 15.5 hours later at 1000hrs Monday, the following day.

I do understand that Plusnet are part of BT, but I'm led to believe that they have to go through the same channels as every other company. For instance, my ADSL(2+) broadband connection isn't being connected till tomorrow, a full 11 days after ordering.

Edited by RapsterUK (Wed 06-Jun-12 12:15:19)

In reply to a post by RapsterUK:

As the line was disconnected, they told me that it would cost £49.99 to reconnect; I asked, "Why?"; they dropped the charge.

Because they have to send an engineer to the exchange (who doesn't work for free). Good of them to drop the charge though.

Thanks, Oliver.

I thought the same and was a little surprised that they didn't even argue about the charge. Still, a very quick reconnection, nonetheless. I was informed of the time of reconnection within 30mins of ordering.

Edited by RapsterUK (Wed 06-Jun-12 12:36:31)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by RapsterUK:

As the line was disconnected, they told me that it would cost £49.99 to reconnect; I asked, "Why?"; they dropped the charge.

Because they have to send an engineer to the exchange (who doesn't work for free). Good of them to drop the charge though.

I've just been thinking, maybe someone more knowledgeable could reply to this?

Could the £49.99 connection discount be an Openreach promotion open to all, and obviously, some companies not passing it on to consumers, unless specifically asked? I was thinking that because quite a few companies are showing 'free reconnection's' at the moment...

Oliver, maybe you know the answer to this...?

Edited by RapsterUK (Wed 06-Jun-12 12:37:11)

In reply to a post by RapsterUK:

I've just been thinking, maybe someone more knowledgeable could reply to this?

More knowledgeable than you, or me?

Could the £49.99 connection discount be an Openreach promotion open to all, and obviously, some companies not passing it on to consumers, unless specifically asked? I was thinking that because quite a few companies are showing 'free reconnection's' at the moment...

Very unlikely, as Openreach have a monopoly in that business sector, and their prices are regulated.

Hi there

I would email high up. I'll PM you.

Openreach has a variety of promotions running and these can be found on www.openreach.co.uk if you hunt around

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Openreach has a variety of promotions running and these can be found on www.openreach.co.uk if you hunt around

Indeed they do, but specifically in the sector of MPF/WLR line provision/conversion?

I know of new lines and second lines having an offer, but not the time to find the link at this time