A cautionary tale with Smart TVs and Foxtel

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My story is less about “retribution” and more about buyer beware!

My wife and I have been Foxtel customers for many years. We have a Premium multi-screen subscription, some $111.00+ per month. Likewise, we have had various Sony Bravia TVs, over the years and happy with their products.

In November 2020 I purchased a Sony 42“ Android TV for my wife however, she wanted a smaller set taking up less real estate on the wall of her room.

Back to Sony Centre Nunawading. Can we change the new one, unboxed, for a 32” smaller screen? No problem, great.

By the way, does the 32” display Foxtel? No problem it has an app for Foxtel Play.

Home I go with my Sony KDL32W660E, get our local electrician to relocate aerial and power supply, and fix a bracket to the wall.

Then the fun begins.

After a lot of messing around, I achieve the status that Foxtel displays on the screen. I can view the Foxtel Sky News and the program menu, but I need to log-in. I enter my Foxtel Login and password, Nothing!!! Try again, no response.

Contact Foxtel by phone, can’t wait beyond a half hour. Try their chat-line and have multiple on-line conversations with a help centre, friendly and in a way helpful, but with limited written English, and still no result.

Contact Foxtel by email, lots of exchanges, but no remedial result. Then an email saying I will be contacted by a Manager.

This occurred on a Sunday morning, and after a lot of questions and answers with Lynda at Foxtel I get an answer.

I can log in to Foxtel on my new TV providing I pay for another subscription.

The Foxtel multi-screen subscription only applies to android TVs. A new subscription will cost $25.00 per month for the basic package, and if you want Sport and Documentaries you pay a lot more, of course.

My new Sony has a LINUX operating system (as advised by Lucas at Sony) and they don’t supply a 32-inch android TV !

So, the moral of this story is ask a lot of questions, check and double-check the answers. Sony and Foxtel have not directly misrepresented their products, but they have failed to provide answers that actually answered my questions, but only after wasting my time and some effort on my part.

I have a premium-priced, $600.00 tv, that does not deliver the service I specifically wanted, and my service provider will only facilitate access if I pay double the fees of the current service. Not happy with either of them.

Mike Reece

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Foxtel has been haemorraging subscribers and money for some time now, and is struggling to survive.

Your experience with the entrenched lack of customer service is one reason many have fled Foxtel. Another is that their basic subscriptions are at least 2.5 times what the other streaming services charge.

If you search the forum you will find others with similar poor customer service experinces. Perhaps it is time you joined the exodus and looked at alternate services?

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Many thanks. To add petrol to the fire my Foxtel subscription of $111.00 was evidently only for one year and expired at end of January 2021. The next invoice was for $143.00, the “regular” price. I phoned them and received a discount of $20.00 per month for the next year. So it pays to question the charges.
I would cancel the sub. but my wife enjoys the reality shows and after many years of hard work and frugality, we can afford it :slight_smile:

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Or, you could spend $6.99 a month and get all the reality shows you can stand, without ads, on Hayu.

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So if one were to willingly choose the path to madness through watching reality TV shows, what does it matter how much you pay?. Surely it is a truer sign of utter madness to pay $100+ per month when you can get to the same state for less than $10 a month. :laughing:

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Agreed!
I paid a fortune to live on a rural lot and look out the window at reality every day. Mostly the same program daily, although like changing Chanel’s one can choose to view from a different position. Sun rises, boy turkey comes to check out nest, old boy turkey comes to steal nest back from young boy turkey, crazy turkey chase for 30 minutes better than the KeyStone Cops, and so it goes on. Occasionally there is some relief as the hawk eyed wise one asks if that Red bellied black snake coming out from under the house is the same 1.5m one we saw yesterday. I’d usually suggest today it looks much longer. Possible outcome similar to the turkey chase. :worried:

Who needs reality TV?

It’s likely @MikeR1 is referring to a bundle that includes home internet, (NBN)?
In that instance.
https://www.foxtel.com.au/shop/broadband-bundles/foxtel-plus.html
Not as bad an outcome as we might think.

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Thanks, but Hayu doesn’t appear to offer the British Shows. m

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Thanks Gregr, but you are obviously not married. :slight_smile:

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Thats a shame, just thought the cost of foxtel just for reality… seems excessive.

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Hi Sue,

They’re smart marketeers at Foxtel; as you’d expect from Murdoch. The packages people really like, my assessment, are combined to ensure you pay top dollar for Favorites ( like British reality,) Sport etc m

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