Loading ...We’ve heard plenty of stories about the main retailers telling consumers in-store misleading and inaccurate information on the new Freesat service, but Currys have gone one further by publishing a product on their site that we just couldn’t ignore.
Currys have made available (albeit ‘out of stock’) an installation package for £79.99 plus £6.99 delivery. Fair enough you might think, but its what the package is and suggests that really got us started.
It seems that the package does not include a dish, LNB or cable; they simply come out and plug the existing cables into the Freesat Digital Box for you, as if thats so hard to do yourself. So what are you paying £79.99 for? Very little it would seem! All retaillers are meant to be offering a installation service, this isn’t one and hopefully Freesat are taking note.
Also, they make mention to you needing a Sky Digital dish; sure Freesat won’t be too happy about that, not apart from the fact there’s no such thing as a Sky Digital dish, merely a dish suitable for receiving channels through the Sky Digital platform.
Visit the installation product and see for yourself.
Update (16-May-08) - It would seem that Currys have now updated the product to include installation of a dish etc, in line with the other retailers. The link above now takes you to the correct product.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
Thankfully it’s “out of stock” (oddly), so hopefully people won’t get ripped off by it immediatly. In the meantime, watchdog, or something similar? Try to force it off their site before they have “stock”?
Crap like this is beyond belief, and should be fought against by those who know better.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
And they’re charging £6.99 for delivery? You’re paying twice for someone to come to your house! Shocking!!
May 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
I always have detested and always will detest Currys.
May 14th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
With some misgivings, I paid a “Standard Installation” charge when I picked up my Humax box last week from Comet. The sales assistant seemed to think I had to have it and that they would install a dish and connect it, regardless of the fact that I already had a dish.
PLUS HD (albeit limited for now!).
I already have a freesatfromsky dish, so what I actually need is a second feed from it, presumably entailing swapping out the lnb. I checked out the Comet small print and was ready to “cancel and claim a refund”.
My hopes rose, however, when the install people rang (just within the stated 48hrs) and said ‘no problem’ to a second or third feed and that they would put in a quad lnb. No mention of extra money at that point either. They also said something about two dishes not being within planning regs or something - which was fine by me!
When the installer arrived this morning, he said he only had instructions to do a standard, single feed installation and hadn’t time to do more, but at least he didn’t try to put in a second dish and didn’t ask for extra money, as the original Sky installers did …( our dish is high up to get a clear view of the satellite over nearby roofs and trees).
I am finally in the position of being able to watch one digital channel and record another without forking out a subscription other than the license fee
May 14th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
well perhaps we should all boycott currys for this shocking rip-off-£80 just for screwing an f socket into a frresat box and plugging a scart/hdmi cable to your tv is money for old rope to these crooks
May 14th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
Has anyone made freesat aware of what currys are doing
May 14th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Hahaha that’s unbelieveable. Why would you pay someone £80 just to plug in a box?
May 14th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
perhaps Murdoch has got shares in Currys!
May 15th, 2008 at 7:28 am
I was in a Curry’s store yesterday and was told the same. I needed the £79.99 instalation package even though I already have SKY installed.
When I questioned this, the sales person said that they had to install a ’special’ adapter that came with the installation package. When I questioned him further on the adapter he said that actualy it came with the freesat box and I could possibly install it myself if I didn’t want to use there fully trained, professional installers.
I think I know what the ’special’ adapter does now. It extracts £80 from your account for nothing!
Freesat need to be aware of this practice as it is maring their reputation and product.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:50 am
I see today they have announced the closure of 77 shops because business is bad - not surprised if they rip customers off like this
May 15th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Im with you darnall42. The majority of readers of this blog probably shop in Currys from time to time, lets just all decide not too.
Btw - do they sell extended warranties with the install too? You know - just incase the f connector falls off.
May 15th, 2008 at 8:51 am
Freesat seem pretty useless all round. I thought they owned the Freesat trademark, but they don’t seem to have made any attempt to stop Sky from using it, which they should have done months ago if they wanted to prevent confusion.
May 15th, 2008 at 9:43 am
i went in to currys in leeds on a retail park. what a joke. the salesman sought advise from a store expert(not sure what in).i was told i could only buy with an installation. i asked what his reasoning was. well its a different satellite!!! when i told him where in the sky the signal comes from, he then said oh yes but you need a quad feed lnb. after stopping laughing i told him i worked for a euronics dealer at which point he went to play with his ipod or make coffee.
i went over to comet. although the salesman admitted he hadnt been trained, he did establish with the manager that i could buy the box without installation.
so much for freesat thinking that comet and currys where the best way of getting freesat to the masses lol
dave smith
May 15th, 2008 at 10:54 am
Until very recently, the John Lewis website was offering a £50 service to “check” whether your existing satellite dish was suitable for FreeSat, but with no further details of what the “check” would entail.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Sounds to me like the retailers have been given very little information, and are covering their backs…
May 15th, 2008 at 11:24 am
Simon - can you explain to us how you get more than one feed from a dish to enable you to watch one channel while recording another? I’m not a techie, so layman’s lingo please!
May 15th, 2008 at 11:32 am
Lucy - In very simple terms, your satellite dish has an arm and a block on it, the block is called an LNB. Most standard install LNB’s have a single port, to allow a single cable to be plugged in and the other end plugged into your satellite receiver. To obtain a second feed you need an LNB with more than a single port. The most common is a QUAD LNB which gives 4 ports. You’d need to install one and add the additional cable as required.
May 15th, 2008 at 11:44 am
When I first heard about Freesat (from a Saturday paper flier) I found your site through Google. A lot of usefully banter and was looking forward to launch day.
I bought a LCD TV when my old “weighs a ton” black one packed in. I have never subscribed to Sky and therefore I don’t have a dish.
2 days after launch, I went to my local Argos at Fosse Park, Leicester. The guy didn’t know about Freesat but the screen told him 2 weeks delivery at the store. So I went next door to Currys who had Humax HD boxes on the shelf at £150!
I ordered the £100 installation package as well, which they said I would have to pay the installer for. They contacted me later and said I would have to pay Currys. Although they had already sold a couple of boxes, mine was the first installation package they had sold which was for the following Monday PM. They had had a few hour’s training but were still on a learning curve.
They supplied me with a full installation spec by TechGuys for the 3 installation packages. The 3rd one, £50, was for an upgrade for PVRs when they become available which I decided to have when the installer came. He arrived on time and did a very professional job (the dish is the same size as a Sky one). There was no problem doing the upgrade while he was there and I paid by card over the phone.
He left me watching BBC HD, so full marks to Currys and TechGuys.
PS. The £20 extra for installing the dish I thought was good value. I agree the £80 package for plugging in the existing cable and setting up is excessive. This could be that they think most customers already have a dish.
May 15th, 2008 at 12:22 pm
Seems a search for ‘freesat’ (and also the original link) no longer brings up those ‘install’ items lol… I’m sure it’s not related but I did email them yesterday pointing out the obvious claim of profiteering from the general public’s lack of knowledge of freesat - I also pointed out that sites such as this (and others) had noticed the items and it would not look good for Currys in terms of customers looking for information on the new service..
May 15th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
and Comet told me I must order a dish as well as pay for the Humax box … so I went to Argos and bought my Humax HD box.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:28 am
Seems like (some) stores are filing the information vacuum with lies to maximise their profits - if there were any kind of information advertised to the general public then there would be less chance the stores could get away with it.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:31 am
!!! UPDATE !!!
It’s now been changed to include the dish and full install:-
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@2112569772.1210937362@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccddadeedjikhjfcflgceggdhhmdgmi.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=174387&category_oid=
* Freesat dish and installation
* Installation of cables and box connector
* Suitable for standard & high definition
* CAI approved dish and cable installation
* For property up to 3 storeys high
Excellent - hopefully by flagging it up we did something good - or maybe it’s a co-incidence.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
I’ve got the opposite problem - having reserved a box at Argos last weekend, they told me that I could order installation when I came to collect. When I did, they told me that Argos are not offering installation and I was on my own. Hm. Perhaps that’s a blessing in disguise!
May 16th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hi Jonathon. As the install is basically the same as sky (in terms of the dish etc) maybe there’s someone in the yellow pages that might be able to help - most probably cheaper than £80 just to stick a mini-dish up to - hope you get it sorted.
May 17th, 2008 at 7:10 am
This will probably get deleted as spam, but I’ve just seen Humax HD boxes here: http://www.spectrum-skytv.co.uk/
May 20th, 2008 at 3:45 pm
well reading all the posts about installation i agree the sales people in shops have had poor training .But £80 for a full dish install and cabling and set up is a small price to pay for peace of mind . Try using an independant from the RDI website or IDSC there you can get a local professional within 5 miles of your post code Iam a rdi fitter with the price of fuel; insurance and cable costs going up £80 fitting wont be around long i agree if you have a dish setup diy the box
good luck and dont get ripped off by cowboys
May 21st, 2008 at 7:45 am
[…] all the talk on here about Currys shocking installation options, then the subsequential change only a day later, we half expected Currys had learnt there lesson, […]
June 29th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Dont be suprised if the engineer you get does a lame job, The retailers give the jobs to outside companys, who subcontract the jobs to the engineers who end up receiving about 20 quid for freesat,
You dont have to buy the install from curry/comet you can use independent companys who wont be in such a rush to bang your install in ,because they dont have to do 10 jobs a day to cover fuel, vans, insurance, and stock before they see a profit
BTW how many of you were sold a scart lead or HDMI cable the comet/currys bloke said you needed despite the fact the boxes come with perfectly good ones!!!
July 8th, 2008 at 5:51 pm
Dont be suprised if the engineer you get does a lame job, The retailers give the jobs to outside companys, who subcontract the jobs to the engineers who end up receiving about 20 quid for freesat,
These lame engineers you are talking about have had training so they could get there licence to install Freesat. They do a proffesional job and yes they are getting ripped off by big sub contractors that have been awarded the contract to do work for places like Currys and Argos.