Thetownend.com

I am livid.

For the past few months our Sky phone bill has been higher than usual due to calls going out not made by us.
Many of these calls are made one min after the other in the early hours and are billed as us ringing Afinity Intergrated Solutions and BT Low Call as well as others.
We have not made these calls and it seems that many people have had the same problem for many years....seems it is somehow something to do with the Sky Box ringing these numbers automatically.
Will be getting rid of the Sky phone now but it seems even BT maybe having these problems,so if you have a Sky bill check it.

The thing that gets me is they have been having these problems for years...i hav,nt checked my itemised bill for yonks,how much extra have i paid over the last three years :headhurts:

Another reason for why I wont plug my phone line into my sky box

A different line?...or do you just use a mobile.

Ring them and go mad. I expect they will do something for you

Just checked mine Leefer, I also have a couple of calls to NGN  AIF numbers. Both at 05.57 charged at 74p for 40 seconds. Also have a couple of others to BT premium rates. 26 seconds cost me £1.53. These are calls we haven't made so I'm going to call sky to ask them about this. We are looking around for a new deal for our phone, broadband and tv so any recommendations would be welcome.

I'm with talk talkfor phone and broadband and i rarely use the phone,plus i have sky+. My sky box doesn't call anything and is connected to the phone line.

I wouldn't bank on it.

Sky have been the worst company I have ever had to deal with - just a damn shame Virgin don't serve my area.

Also, isn't this perhaps something the ombudsman could help with? Sky are a member of the Communications Ombudsman......

http://www.ombudsman-services.org/communications.html

Its a BT line, I unplugged it from the sky box about 2 years ago. I dont use the interactive services so dont see the point in it being connected

Hi Leefer,

This sounds a bit odd. I do not think it is necessarily Sky box related, more Sky billing related.

Are you 100% sure that **ANY** calls have not been made at the times mentioned?

The reason for asking is it seems a quirk of the Sky billing system is to show calls to "Afinity Intergrated Solutions", but this is not the name of the company you actually rang. Any chance of posting/pm'ing a couple of numbers and I'll try and see? If not fair enough, your chatline secrets are safe :)

If you are 100% sure this is not the case, and that no phone calls were made at that time maybe it is a box issue, or burglar alarm issue or something else. If it is it may not go away by changing provider.

I have only connected my sky+ hd box into my hard drive recently to get a load of extra films etc on Anytime+. Is this the same as connecting my box into a tv outlet?

Forgot to mention - check you don't have a number prefix stored in the sky box. For sky HD:

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-HD/Understanding-the-Installer-Setup-Menu/m-p/3/highlight/true#M2

Hi all....seem to have got some answers from Sky(they answered after 22 mins!)

Seems now that a lot of companys use this Affinity etc......and also the answering systems cost now and in some cases even the engaged tone.

Anyway they are monitoring my phone as they agree that things do not look right....also the red button on the box can be liked to these mystery numbers as well as bill paying facilitys ie water on 08 numbers...they all use these outside agencys.

And wait for it......even the Swindon Town number is billed as Affinity Intergrated Systems!....or at least was when i rang them before Xmas and was put on hold for 16 mins....and being charged £1.60,will be having a word with Paolo about that :D

Thank for the info Leefer/ Batch. I'll be changing providers soon as never been really happy with Sky services and the way they are offering new customers good deals but sod all for us who have been on the full package for several years. Was thinking about Virgin as we have mobiles with them and would probably get a better package with monthly contracts etc. Any others you could recommend ?

Give em hell leefer. cheeky shits

Most companies are PITA when it comes to renewals v new custom.

RAC - knocked down from £189 renewal to £99
Sky - was on a 17.5% off TV package for almost 5 years (I slipped through the cracks system).
Direct Line - Have saved by ending existing policy and taking out new.
etc. etc.

You got to moan and complain to get the deals and play "leaving bluff"*. It shouldn't be like that
but it is.

*sometimes they let you leave though...

Thanks Batch. Was thinking of trying the " I'm leaving sky, because " and then see if they come back to me with a better deal but don't really want to be without broadband and sky sports etc so was thinking about just getting a new provider in place first for a smooth change over.

When I was a Sky call centre oik in my Yooni days we could go to 50% discount off all services for up to 12 months without even having to pose the question to anybody more senior than myself. Ditto M&S vouchers up to £100.

Just bleat on and you'll get bags of free/discounted shizzle.

Thanks for the help, I'll give Sky a call ( even that gripes me as it should be free to sky customers ) and see what they can do for us. :sherlock:

I think Sky have clamped down in recent years and pull most peoples bluff now, guy I work with said he was leaving as he wanted a better deal, they just gave him the termination date and didn’t offer anything. He had to ring back the next morning saying it was a mistake and he now wanted to stay.

Every time i have moaned to sky,tiscali-talktalk i have been given money off,had new routers etc. Going mad does really work i've found. With sky i said i dont want to go but i'm really skint etc what can you do and they cut money off for a year.

I'll just tell sky that I'm leaving as times are hard and I'm not interested in reducing the family package including sports as its not fair on individuals ( children, wife ) to just keep sports or movies. If they can't do anything I'll then definitely change providers. I pay over a hundred pounds a month so must be able to get the same package for less.

What the fuck?!

We used to play £90 a month, for movies, sports, HD and 3 bedroom multiroom, too expensive so we left them, told them why we were leaving and they never offered us any special cut price package deal, but then we didnt ask for one.

I'm with Virgin and get a 1 TB Tivo, HD channels, one extra HD box, phone, 20MB broadband for less than £45 a month. No idea how much Sky Sports or Movies would be extra but surely not £55 extra.

I currently pay 55 quid for my sky and about 20 quid for phone and broadband. I don't use the phone much though. I have always found sky to be really good. Got a new dish,hd box and an extra feed from the dish fitted into my kids bedroom for freesat boxes for nowt, ontop of the reduced monthly charges. Reminds me i'll have to give them a call as its been over a year now. Talk talk are cheap as fuck but their customer service aint much until you shout at them.

Always found Sky to be helpful when calling them up...although their smallprint fucked me over at Uni, bastads!!!

here is a brief break down of my bill: Entertainment extra with sports and movies £52
Multi room ( sons tv ) £10.25
Sky+hd pack £10.25
Sky broad band unlimited £7.50
Sky talk- ( phone bill ) £ 11.95
Sky talk line rental £ 12.25.
The Virgin deal sounds much better so will be looking to switch soon.

Disconnect any of their poxy boxes from the phone line just to rule them out

How much would virgins top tv package cost? hd sky sports is a must which they couldn't provide when i last enquired. Has that changed now?

Will do Ugg Man.

Ugg Boy, it's Ugg Boy  ;)

Looks like you can only get Sky Sports 1 and 2 in HD

http://shop.virginmedia.com/digital-tv/channels/sky-sports.html

Sky Sports 3, Sky Sports 4, Sky Sports F1, ...are only available in standard definition.

The entertainment extra sports and movies package used to be called the family package and was £30 when I first got it over 10 years ago though. I haven't got my box connected to a phone socket but have a line going from the box to the hard drive for extra anytime tv channels. Would I still get sky sports on my computer if I went with virgin instead of sky ? Suppose I would as long as I subscribe to sky sports ?

 An improvement but not enough to tempt me then.

Thanks for the heads up Leefer since I moved in Novembet I've changed to getting everything TV/Phone/broadband through Sky rather than just TV
I've always found them very helpful and the installed my new system promptly - I only have the most basic TV package available mind!! No way I'd pay over £60 a month

It's horrendous the prices some people are paying

I simply couldn't afford it
It's much cheaper for us to have everything from them though than pay for phone & broadband separately - managed to blag free line rental for a year too

Is it possible to cancel a Sky subscription before the contract is up? I rarely use it anymore I'm paying top whack.

I pay far too much.

Sky world (everything)
Sky hd sub
One multiroom box
ESPN
Premier sports

Its about 95 a month.

I need to cut it down, have far too much time on my hands

Can you only get the Virgin media ivo etc thing if you live in a cabled area ? Chippenham is about the only town I know that has no cable