BSkyB and Virgin 'boxes and routers'

[br2975]

About eighteen months ago, I became dissatisfied with BSkyB inasmuch that having been with the company since its' UK inception in 1989(ish) I found I was paying far more per month for a lesser service than their newly acquired customers.

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As BSkyB were either unable or unwilling to reduce my costs, I moved to Virgin Media.

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My Virgin experience was as bad, and our landline became an ornament in the hallway - as everytime we walked past the 'phone, it appeared Virgin would charge us. Heaven knows how much it would have cost us had we chosen to use the 'phone !!!!

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Anyway, we have reverted to BSkyB (or whatever they are now called).

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Now, over time I have acquired a Sky 'router' - a Virgin 'router' and two Virgin 'boxes'.

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The question is "what do I do with them ?"

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And the supplementary questions are:-

 

Can I sell them ?

Are they mine to sell ?

If so, are they worth anything (I doubt it) ?

Is there a ready market ?

Can they be used for some other (lawful) purpose ?

Or, is there anything within the boxes worth salvaging ?

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Thrown open to the floor.

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Brian R

[Free At Last]

I am on my 4th Virgin router, they told me to just recycle the old ones. The power supplies can be useful.

[bertiedog]

Be  very, very, careful, the Virgin items remain their property. and should be returned. Sky sell you the items,(via a retailer), but you should check. They can only be used again under re registration with the provider.

I do not understand comments about the Phone and Virgin, you simply had the wrong contract, the calls are in the main free after paying the rental. Virgin do have to be pressed hard to alter the package, but they will do it.

Stephen

[chris p bacon]

When they upgraded the last set top box the packaging was designed to be used to send the old one back to them.

 

Virgin is ok but like the bearded one it's all smoke and mirrors.

[bertiedog]

I should add the Virgin are in two distinct forms, via their own cable, and sub contracting BT to provide the lines where cable does not exist. This should not however affect the phone bill as such.

Sky use BT exclusively for phones, they do own equipment in exchanges though.

Routers are low value items, it is the Tivo boxes that they are mainly concerned with returning to them. When an upgrade is done they provide return packaging etc.

It has come up about insurance, somebody claimed the cost of a stolen box via insurance, was paid, but it turned out that the money should have gone to Virgin, as it was their property stolen. It was sorted out amicably but they pointed out you cannot claim the box is yours.

Stephen.

[br2975]

(i)

Be  very, very, careful, the Virgin items remain their property. and should be returned.

(ii)

Sky sell you the items,(via a retailer), but you should check.

(iii)

They can only be used again under re registration with the provider.

(iv)

I do not understand comments about the Phone and Virgin, you simply had the wrong contract, the calls are in the main free after paying the rental.

(v)

Virgin do have to be pressed hard to alter the package, but they will do it.

 

(i)

My initial intention is to inform Virgin that their items are available for collection, by appointment at any reasonable hour, from my address by a certain date. If they (Virgin) fail to collect the items by the date given (e.g. 28 days hence) I will assume that they (Virgin) have forfeited all rights of ownership.

 

(ii)

 

(iii)

I don't wish to use the items again - unless the items become my property and contain component parts which may be useful to me e.g. my hobby.

 

(iv)

I don't think you detected my sercasm here - my telephone bills were far higher under Virgin than with Sky, even though I used a mobile 'phone instead of my Virgin land line.

 

(v)

As was my orginal arguement with Sky........... there is no recognition of consumer loyalty to the supplier, be it Sky or Virgin. It is downright rude to the customer who has been with you since before some of your staff were born to find he or she is paying 50% more for the same service or package than a customer who is joining that supplier today.

It insults the customers intelligece when a communications company tells them they are unable to identify who their longstanding customers are.

 It should not be for the customer to seek out a better deal, any 'customer focussed' organisation would / should offer benefits to loyal, longstanding customers.

But then, those loyal / long standing customers who are paying up to 50% more are those who are providing Sky and Virgins profits.

 

Brian R

[Purley Oaks]

Virgin told me to recycle my old router and set-top box.

 

I'm thinking of getting an Apple Time Capsule which automatically backs-up your stuff; but as my Virgin router is also the wireless thing, can I use the Time Capsule with that? Be grateful for your thoughts.

 

Mal

[Kelly]

The Sky routers are hard-coded to your account and Sky only so are useless to anyone else I'm afraid. The same is likely true of the Virgin ones.

 

The Sky boxes that aren't Sky+ or Sky+HD are next to useless now, only of use to anyone who wants a cheap freesat set up (you can ask Sky for a £20 card that will make the box act as a FreeSat box with no subscriptions etc (just how Freeview works). The Sky+HD (especially 2Tb) are sought after by people who don't want to pay Sky for them.

[JJGraphics]

Virgin told me to recycle my old router and set-top box.

 

I'm thinking of getting an Apple Time Capsule which automatically backs-up your stuff; but as my Virgin router is also the wireless thing, can I use the Time Capsule with that? Be grateful for your thoughts.

 

Mal

 

 

Yes, you can use the Time Capsule. Connect it to the Virgin router with an Ethernet cable, set it up in DHCP mode and create a wireless network on it, and then connect your Mac or whatever to the Time Capsule's wifi rather than the Virgin one. If you connect anything to the Time Capsule with an Ethernet Cable, that will also be backed-up.