.....you asked
A few weeks ago ,my Sky+ Box started pixilating its recordings, ending in wiping the entire planner. Those nice girls in Livingstone took me through the housekeeping, despite my protests that I knew how to do it, and had already done it. Consequently it struggled on over the weekend.

I purchased the Sky+ box very early and being unsure of the technology, broke a personal rule and took out an extended warranty.

10 months ago, I had a similar problem, called out the Sky people who told me that the system with Sky was that you paid first and reclaimed the money from Comet. Which is fines, as for £65, they gave me a completely new box. The only problem was that Sky's insurers a) Were very rude b) point blank refused to pay out.

It was only by writing to Sky's MD that I a)got my money back b) got £40 in Sky vouchers for the inconvenience.

So, this time, when Sky said I had to pay first , being wary, I phoned Comet's service centre: "Oh you just call them out and our insurers pay Sky", the girl said, "are you sure" I said, and eventually harangued her into speaking to her Manager.

" Oh, no, apparently now, we've set up a service for Sky+ boxes, where you take it into the store and we return it in 48 hours".

Fine, except, of course, when I took it in to the nearest store, both the Manager and the assistant knew nothing about it. finally after a quarter of an hour of argument, I persuaded them to phone the service centre and, yes, of course, they booked it in. Not as good as having a home visit, but OK.

...............except it sat in the store for 4 days, and wasn't returned for ten. Immediately I plugged it in, it became obvious that they hadn't fixed the fault at all.

So I wrote to the MD!!! ...again.

A pleasant girl from the Director's Offices phoned me, and went away to do somethiing about it. She came back and said that she had got it all arranged, except that I had to phone Sky to arrange the home visit for security reasons. Great, except that when I phoned Sky denied all knowledge of it, after an hour and a half, I had got nowhere.

So I phoned comet in the morning, and the same girl got to work on resolving the situation. Eventually, she came back to me and said, after a couple of hours: She felt like throwing the phone out of the window. Fine I thought, now you know the shambles Comet put customers through.

All she eventually came up with was that she could do no better than put me back in the 48 hour service loop. So I asked if I could take it in to a more convenient store, which I did: and, you guessed it, they told me I had to contact Sky.

Eventually, to cut a long story long, they took it in, returned it 2 days ago, and it's working fine. However, the same pleasant girl then maintained that Comet hadn't let me down, when I suggested compensation!!!!!!!!

What Comet don't seem to appreciate, in being dragged slowly, protesting in to the digital age, is that, if you have a plasma screen, your Sky+ box is probably your only way of receiving signals, even if you can't record them, so take it away, and you have a blank screen, in this case, for weeks. Sky appreciate this, hence the home visit, and of course, they don't want to lose subscriptions.

Pity, they picked the time we're upgrading the kitchen, and we're in the market for cookers, fridges and all the ancilliaries!

..........or was it the kippers you were interested in! You'll have to wait a bit for that.

So what was wrong with the box then? Did they replace it ?

Cheers

Cris.

This last time, they didn't take any chances, they got it couriered up to Pace and back, rather than their own people. I presume they replaced the disk: Pity i'd have taken a 160gig by way of compensation!
By the by, I didn't write that piece just for the thread, it's an edited version of the one I'm sending to Comet's MD.

Is Comet a retail outlet? Good idea on sending a letter. I find that just asking for a person's name usually puts them on their "best behavior" and makes them follow through a bit more...

Yes, www.comet.co.uk

Sell fridges, TVs, DVDs, kettles, vacumn cleaners etc etc.

I've had dealings with them in the past and a letter sorts it out.

Care to share an example of such a carefully crafted letter ?

I'll have a look for a good example, when I get to the Office Monday AM.

Rats, our administrator deleted my personal file, with the rest of the contents of my office PC, last Wednesday, he said he asked me whether I had removed anything that I needed, and I said: yes. I can't say he's wrong, my mind has been on........the post I hope to make Friday at the latest!!!!
All I have left, at home, is a rant at the MD of Comet, not typical of what I meant, which is mainly the first post on this site.