La Torre resident satellite subscribers asked to pay 1,000,000 Euros between them?

 Can anybody confirm or deny the horrific story I heard today that the La Torre residents who paid 400 Euros to Polaris World for their satellite boxes, were now asked to pay 1 Million euros between them for back dated work and when they said they wouldn't pay, their satellite viewing has been terminated? Hopefully this is not true, I was about to buy the 400 Euro satellite box from Polaris this week, but won't if this is even remotely true..... Best Wishes. Geoff.

Geoff 359,

I made a post regarding this matter in March. It appears Polaris refuse to let the La Torre community take control of the communications equipment, stating it does not belong to the community and through this monoply are setting high prices. On top of this Polaris reguire the community to pay large annual maintenance fees for they upkeep of 'their' system.

The residents have made enquiries to other suppliers who have quoted substantially reduced prices and maintenance fees but Polaris refuse anyone else to use 'their' network. Polaris stated then that if the fees wern't paid they would cut off the service and it appears they have done so.

For behind the scenes info at La Torre and community news go to http://www.ltgr.es/index.php.

 Hi Raff,

  I checked out your link and the figures that Polaris World are demanding are extortionate. I think I'm not alone in saying that Polaris World's actions are unacceptable and has put me right off even thinking about buying one of their satellite boxes. I have been given the name of somebody who has another option at a cost of 300 euros, with sky sports included, but I believe a satellite dish is needed and a guy needs to come and reset the signal whenever Polaris scramble it. Hopefully the signal doesn't get changed by Polaris too often, or it would be a pain in the butt. I would prefer the sky sports option, as I have a list of the Polaris World satellite channels and its not an impressive list if I'm honest. I hope to hear more positive things about the new, cheaper option with sky channels, to give us a fair choice, so we're not being railroaded into buying Polaris World's option only. I can't believe this is even legal. regards. Geoff.

Can PW demand this sort of payment as an addition from CdA owners or are these sort of figures already part of all the costings RPM have come up and which have been subject to all the recent dispute. If the telecom figures are already in the CdA system, then whilst it always seems PW go for top price, at least we would already be aware and wont be having this dropped on us unexpectedly.

 Hi Jann,

  All La Torre's  'English & Irish'  channels have been  'turned off',  as of last week, so I'm not prepared to pay 400 Euros until I find out more about the 1.2 Million Euro debt that Polaris are asking from La Torre residents. And even if I do hear that it's ok for us to buy the box at Condado de Alhama, I'm probably not gonna because of the way Polaris seem to have sprung this debt on La Torre residents.

  Surely some of our spanish neighbors at C.D.A. should have an idea of how we English speaking channels can be acquired without Polaris's involvement, but the Spanish channels are not affected, so they probably don't feel 'put out' by the situation enough to help.

The British & Irish seem to be 'focused on' in this subsequent punishment at La Torre and I'm sure it doesn't make them feel very welcome after spending so much money on their Spanish properties.

  I hope Polaris World are not as bad as I'm beginning to think, because this situation that has happened at La Torre is totally unacceptable to me if true. Best Wishes. Geoff.

These figures seem to be part of the costings that RPM are charging us for - cE300k p.a. so similar to the E1.2m that La Torre are being charged over a 4 year period albeit paid in one hit.

To that end Geoff you are paying your share of this whether you buy the E400 box or not. 

Ignoring for the moment the huge cost of this that is being shared by the owners, I guess there are two upsides from this

1) We wont get a massive bill in 4 years time like La Torre

2) From the work that the La Torre owners have done to find alternative suppliers there may be another cost saving to come through on this one in later years.

Wayne

At the meeting on 20th February, some Spanish residents made it quite clear that they were unhappy paying so much for digital television when they were quite happy with the terrestrial channels.

They were told that digital television was promised to us when we bought, so Polaris had to ensure that it was in place.  However, when the community was up and running we could choose our own supplier if we found a cheaper alternative.

We should have an interesting few years ahead as I can see where the spanish residents are coming from and thats coming from one of those people who have paid €400 for the box.

I noticed on the new budget the cost of the tv maintenace has dropped by €150,000 - perhaps they know that they are not going to get away with these charges on Condado.

When commenting about La Torre Raff says 'The residents have made enquiries to other suppliers who have quoted substantially reduced prices and maintenance fees but Polaris refuse anyone else to use 'their' network. '' 

I know Mike Hardy (hi Mike and Dawn ) has posted that at the last meeting it was suggested that once the community was up and running a cheaper soloution may be possible- so may be CdA will have an option to be more flexible than La Torre, although we asked about this all those months ago when doing our inspection visit and the PW rep said we'd only be able to have PW tv services.

Obviously this means PW have a monoploly on the service for the time being- so on CdA how would people be affected if they have had SKY fitted already or plan to in the future? We have seen quite a few dishes on roof terraces are they using the PW network but recoded for SKY?  This would still leave them vulnerable if similar financial circumstances arose on CdA or if PW want to block to signal. From what I can see we are already budgeting for the PW telecommunication network on CdA and whilst it may be expensive it shouldnt mean a shock request for back payments as it appears is happening on La Torre.

We have been considering  SKY v the PW box as  recent comments about it the PW box have been more positive and as irregular visitors it would probably be sufficient (I think it a bit different if you are a resident) Plus for us to be paying a monthly subscription to SKY when we can have a month or 6 weeks between visits, even with family using the apartment - the PW box then seems more appropriate and if the documentation is correct we are paying for the infrastucture anyway. True, I know we want SKT Sports but without subscription that wont happen and we await the Irish Bar.

Problems are especially true if PW can scramble the signal to the SKY box and that could be something you wouldnt know until arriving back at the apartment causing delays and maybe a call out fee to be able to use it.- a short visit could mean the system was unusable.  Communication with PW makes these decisions more difficult than they need to be.

On another point raised- Is it correct that we now have to pay for a handset if we want to use the internal telephone/ landline system?