Readers' Forum: Have your say

Sky’s customer service limits

John Campbell is a Sky television customer and not a happy one. He recently contacted the provider to change his package of programmes and in response he received communication from Sky setting out details of his revised payment arrangements. It was signed by Stephen von Rooyen, deputy managing director – marketing. “There were some matters in the document that were not clear to me so, on August 31st, the day I received the information, I wrote to Mr von Rooyen seeking clarification.”

Two weeks passed and he had got neither an acknowledgement nor a reply so he wrote a follow-up letter and requested a reply as a matter of urgency. “On October 4th, when I had still heard nothing, I sent another letter, this time by registered post. I demanded the courtesy of a reply by return of post.” Nothing came.

On October 13th his television reception broke down so he phoned Sky. “The following day I received a questionnaire by email requesting me to comment on the standard of service I received during the phone call. The email was signed by Kerri Anne Miller, director of services. On October 17th, I wrote to Ms Miller and conveyed my sense of annoyance and dismay at the fact that despite writing three letters to Mr van Rooyen, I had not received as much as an acknowledgement, never mind a reply – and this from a communications organisation whose advertising strategy implies customer care. To date I have heard nothing whatsoever from Sky.”

He asked if we could contact Sky on my behalf. So we did.

Sky’s Irish director Mark Deering said the company was “very sorry to hear that our customer didnt receive a response to letters he’d sent Sky regarding his account. We’ve been in touch with the customer and have assured him that he will be receiving a letter over the coming days addressing his queries.” He said the company strived “to provide the best quality customer service at all times. We are reviewing the delays experienced by our customer with a view to ensuring a speedier response to future queries.”

The truth about supermarket specials

Have you ever stood in a supermarket staring at the shelves wondering if you’d be better off buying a six-pack of 500ml bottles of a soft drink at a price of €7.50, going for a “three for the price of two offer” or buying a crate of twenty 12fl oz of the same drink that normally cost €15, but now has a 10 per cent deduction? Well wonder no more. We came across an app last week we liked a lot. It is called Buy One Get One Free BOGOF and allows you to instantly compare prices on all the special offers in your supermarket and work out if it really is good value for money to buy the thing that the supermarket is doing its best to sell you. While BOGOF is a price comparison tool, it will also give you a lot of information on just how much you are saving even if you only enter information on one product on offer. And it was developed by a company based in Athlone.

Magazine mark-ups

Gerard O'Herlihy has an eight-year-old son. Last week he purchased his latest edition of the Moshi Monstersmagazine and paid €4.16 for the magazine, which has a cover price of £2.99 (sterling). The dad contacted Eason Distributors, who told him that in fact this week the charge for a £2.99 magazine will be €4.26. "Even if we allow Eason a 20 per cent differential on sterling and give them an additional 10 per cent for VAT differences, we still get to approximately €3.95.

“As my son Michael gets €3 per week pocket money, then clearly such a huge rip off on the sterling charge eats dramatically into his weekly allowance. How it is possible that Eason can justify just a mark-up on a children’s magazine?”

Nuclear warning

An alarmed reader got in touch recently after he received his car insurance policy renewal recently and noticed that it had been revised to exclude cover in the event it was damaged in a range of nuclear incidents. “Do FBD insurance know something we don’t?” he asks. No, as it happens. We contacted the company and we wear told that the policy exclusions had been introduced in May at the insistence of the big international re-insurance companies behind all policies. We were told the new rules were industry-wide and while they were not necessarily as a result of a particular incident, the nuclear accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant in Japan was the likely cause of the changes.