Just accidentally came across the following advert on Sky1 - (thank goodness, as otherwise we would have been in for a surprise ...):
“From time to time, things require updating. That’s why over the next few months Sky is posting a new viewing card to all of it’s Sky TV customers. The new card replaces the existing card, located in the front of your Sky box. When it arrives just simply replace your existing card to make sure you don’t experience problems with your viewing. For more information visit skyviewinghelp.com.”
Obviously I don't like that at all. We do not have mail forwarding anymore (after 3 years), thus we will not receive the new card! We cannot have it mailed to my parents or siblings as they all have Sky too. Now that really leaves us in a pickle!
- Has anyone found a way around this issue (getting the new card)?
- And or already uses the new card?
- What do they mean when they write on their website: ... to ensure you receive a secure and up-to-date service.?
We obviously do NOT have the phone connected. Nowadays with the option of using a phone over the internet, hooking the Sky box up to the phone line is definitively not the most up-to-date technology anyhow!
Any input, suggestions and help is much appreciated! Cheerio
Is your Sky account registered to an address in the UK? If so, the new card will be sent there. If you have got your system through a local agent, then they should be responsible for distributing the new cards.
Unfortunately we did it ourselves (we did not want to pay someone something like £150/month just to receive Sky). Thus we will not receive a new card. Unless we find some friends that will allow us to use their address.
I am just not sure what exactly they mean by "a secure and up-to-date service" are they trying to get "rid" off all the foreigners?
I know that it is "illegal" as we do not pay TV licensing and thus Sky might cut our line when they find out we are abroad (have heard of cases where customers did actually get cut off).
do you just use the free to air channels or do you subscribe? if you subscribe then you must have a UK address registered to them - I think if you just have your system set up and are using it to view free to air you can call them and get them to send you a new card for £20 just give them your parents address and say you have a second system set up without a subscription so you can watch sky in another room - be sure to use skype or something to call them up so it doesn;t look like a number from outside the UK
I saw this advertised too but we have ours registered at our in-laws and we still have mail forwarding after 3 years so hopefully it should be straight forward
As far as I know, there is no technology available which can determine where a dish is based geographically. I'm wondering if the new cards are more hacker-proof, but that's just a guess.
I'm a little confused, you must have a UK bank account for the Sky payments (or do you use a CC?), which must be associated with a valid UK address, no?
Fortunately, our dish is registered with my in-laws, and that is where the card will be sent.
Yes, we do use our old British address and British bank account (the bank know our address in CH). But after 3 years the post office does not allow us to forward the mail anymore, thus we will not get the card.
I am currently trying to get more information from other websites about what these new cards are for (as Sky's website does not give too much away).
Thanks for the post. I was sure I'd seen something like that advertised while I wasn't paying attention, so didn't get the website in time.
Now the question I'm asking myself is: How dodgy does it look if I call up sky now and tell them of a "change of address", so that someone can forward on my new card? Will that raise any questions?
I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth changing your registered Sky address to a parent's or sibling's. Just because they have Sky already, it's just a postal address and they can't tell if it's a house or flats etc, or as Nicky said, another account for a separate room. What you don'0t want happening is for the card to be returned to Sky with "address unknown" or something. That could cause a bit of a headache...
What happens if I don't change my viewing card? You will soon be unable to view the channels which require a viewing card. Such channels include all those to which you subscribe, channels which can be viewed on a pay per view basis, and also Sky3, Channel 4 HD, Five US, Five US +1, Fiver, Fiver +1 and some ITV regional variants.
Reading that it sounds as though you have no choice, you need to swap the viewing card or loose lots of channels.
I don't know, it's simply a change in subscriber information and will probably go into an automated system somewhere. With all their millions of subscribers, I don't think they'll bother to chase up any address changers.
I know it doesn't help now but we are in our 4th year here and stil getting our mail forwarded, we changed everything to my in-laws but we still get stuff forwarded to us that goes to my in-laws
I would contact sky and say you have moved and this is your new address (parents/in-laws etc...) and say you have set the system up yourself then at least if the card gets sent to a family member then they can send it on to you - I would do this ASAP
Google some of the supplers, there is most probably a few listed on this forum. Yes, some do charge a lot more but there are a few who charge a few pounds extra per month for the service of providing cards linked to UK addresses.
Sky know that people use the service outside of the UK but they have to be seem to take steps to prevent this due to the contracts for licensing for certain media, films, tv seriers, sports etc.
However they only go so far as the cost is prohibitive beyond a point plus also if they are getting some extra revenue, do they really care?
I worked for Sky for about 3 years so pretty much know the practices, especially as I worked on some of the monitoring detection systems
The reason for the card change is because there are a number of non sky boxes that can use fake / programmable cards. They are upgrading the cards encryption to prevent them from getting hacked.
Anyhow, I do have a cunning plan to get the new card ...
Even though I am Swiss (hubby is British), I cannot imagen myself watching Swiss or German TV again (tried it when we moved back and I couldn't stand it) as it just does not have the oomph that British TV has!
In you have a relative or friend who does not already have Sky you can simply phone Sky and give a change of address. If the address already has a subscription then this will raise suspicion as it would be cheaper to have a multiroom sub.
Sky subscriptions are limited to the UK because of broadcast rights. It seems that Sky do not try to seek out people who are not in the UK but, if you bring it to their attention that you are abroad, they will cancel your card to demonstrate that they are conforming to the rules.
As Flintstone has already mentioned, the reason for the new cards is that security gets breached and so, every few years, new cards are issued. There are several million to replace so it will take some time to complete the operation.
Having two subscriptions at the same address is no problem, ours is registered to my parents address. They have a normal Sky+ subscription with movies not connected to the phone line and we have a HD subscription with movies and sport that is also not connected to the telephone lines.
In the 10 years this has been running there has never been any issues with Sky regarding the multiple subscriptions, never any question about switching to Multiroom either (and if they ask just say you dont have the ability to install telephone connections to the rooms as MultiRoom requires a telephone connection).