When moving back really means being disconnected....

Forums › One New Zealand (including Vodafone, WxC, Farmside) › When moving back really means being disconnected....

pressF1

77 posts

Master Geek

#68572 24-Sep-2010 20:56

So I am a former VF employee and made the decision to move my home line and broadband away from VF. Nothing too spectacular in that, except I was taking advantage of the My Sky deal through VF.

Upon calling Sky to get this moved back to them directly they informed me I needed to speak to VF to arrange this. Cool, no problems. Spent the obligatory 10-12 min on hold and eventually spoke to a nice and polite CSR who arranged for the service to be relinquished back to Sky.

Was advised that Sky would contact me in a day or so and organise the necessary system "stuff" for me to be billed by them.

All seemed straight forward up until this afternoon, when I arrived home from work to discover my My Sky was no longer working.

A call to Sky confirmed that my service had been terminated by VF and that no detail what so ever had been passed to them to arrange re-connection or migration.

OK, not great but can you please reconnect the service then....yes we can, you just have to pay your first months charge up front by credit card.....?!?!?

Luckily I have said plastic card for just such unexpected situations, but if I didn't then I was going to be out of luck in getting any TV service from Sky.

Couple of points here;

1) I have already paid VF in advance for the service, so am effectively paying again until I get my "payment in advance" refund on my VF invoice. Why should I have to do that, should VF and Sky not have a process to manage this sort of thing?

2) VF never advised me that the service was being disconnected, as far as I was aware the service was being transferred back to Sky, the process to move from Sky to VF was a simple online one which took less than 5 minutes and had zero impact to the service? Why not make the shift back as simple...where has this broken down and who hasn't put the time and effort in to achieve this. My 2c would be VF are happy to make it fall down easy to get to them, but not so keen to make it as easy to get away. Sky have dropped the ball in not ensuring the move either way is smooth and customer friendly.

Anyway, a bit of a moan and a degree of FYI for anyone who has taken the same offer from VF for their My Sky HDi service...beware any move back to the original provider.

richms

28173 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#384174 24-Sep-2010 21:17

Your payment to vodafone for the sky service is nothing to do with sky and you, so why should they let you mooch off them till you get the money back off vodafone? If vodafone have canceled the service then sky are not getting paid by VF for it, so expecting you to pay them inadvance inline with their terms is to be expected.

If you worked at vodafone you should have known that they manage to stuff up the simplist of customer service request so expected it to get stuffed up and to get misinformed on something simple.

Richard rich.ms

pressF1

77 posts

Master Geek

#384185 24-Sep-2010 21:59

richms: Your payment to vodafone for the sky service is nothing to do with sky and you, so why should they let you mooch off them till you get the money back off vodafone? If vodafone have canceled the service then sky are not getting paid by VF for it, so expecting you to pay them inadvance inline with their terms is to be expected.

If you worked at vodafone you should have known that they manage to stuff up the simplist of customer service request so expected it to get stuffed up and to get misinformed on something simple.

Thanks for the reply Rich. Understand what you're saying but I think its not entirely true as VF act purely as an agent and the charges for the My Sky service are passed on to Sky by VF (less a very small margin). I was simply stating they should have put in place a process which addresses this as there will be users like myself who wish to move back to sky and the experience is poor. Irrespective of VF's shortcomings, and I am well aware of them, Sky should be concerned about the user experience..... but maybe thats me being wishful when you consider they ar a monopoly and if you already have the service they figure your not going to be dropping it when you ask to move back.

Oh well....the joys of an uncompetitive market i suppose.

BiggusDoggus

391 posts

Ultimate Geek

#384984 27-Sep-2010 15:34

Anyone who expects anything more than extemely ordinary service from Sky is going to be sorely disappointed.

You hit the nail on the head - there is no competition in that market. They know that, so don't invest in decent systems and (it appears) decent staff training.

Speaking from experience here - they took $600 via Direct Debit from our account in error (full charge for MySky instead of the $15 a month).
Had to fight for 2 weeks to get it back - and then for the next 6 months charged incorrectly for multi-room.

It's a pity though - the actual product they provide is excellent.

Anyway - enough off topic ranting...

Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled of elderberries

graemeh

2078 posts

Uber Geek

#385007 27-Sep-2010 16:13

You will notice that Sky make it very easy for you to increase your monthly spend with them and not at all easy to reduce it.

It seems that a streamlined transfer process from VF back to Sky is very low on the priority list for either company.