"It's just stupid that Spark is providing a service on your TV that doesn't even work." Photo / Paul Taylor
"It's just stupid that Spark is providing a service on your TV that doesn't even work." Photo / Paul Taylor
A Clive man who spent hundreds on a new television and a Spark Sport subscription, hasn't been able to watch a single game of the Rugby World Cup live since it kicked off last Friday.
Thousands of people around New Zealand had problems streaming the All Blacks-South Africa match lastSaturday, but for massive rugby fan Ted Tobeck there's been no fix since.
Tobeck bought a 50-inch Panasonic Smart TV from Noel Leeming on the day the tournament kicked off, having already purchased Spark Sport's RWC package.
He paid extra to get a package which allowed him to use Noel Leeming's tech support team in the event of any issue.
But when he tried to open the Spark Sport app on the TV it came up with a "licensing error", which no one has been able to fix in an entire week of calls, Ted said.
Ted's niece Erica Tobeck helped him set the TV up and since has spent most of the time on the phone with Spark and Noel Leeming trying to solve the issue.
"Noel Leeming and Spark are both kind of pointing the finger at each other," Erica said.
"Noel Leeming say it's an issue with Spark Sport and Spark say is a device issue."
Noel Leeming's Tech Solutions team told her it had received multiple calls from people with the same problem.
Ted Tobeck brought a new TV from Noel Leeming the Friday the tournament started. Photo / Paul Taylor
Erica says that although they can't access the streaming service through Spark Sport's TV app they still have access to the service their phone and laptop, but that isn't good enough for Ted.
"When I contacted Spark they told me to stream it through the laptop and plug it in the TV through the HDMI cable.
"But Ted doesn't know how to set it up, and he bought the TV to make it easier to watch the games, which he was told he would be able to do."
A Noel Leeming spokesperson said, "we've had a number of customers come to us wanting tech support in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup.
"Some customers have experienced streaming difficulties and our tech solutions team have been available to help."
Spark spokeswoman Althea Lovell said that their customer care team was helping the Tobecks fix the issue.
"The issue they are experiencing is device-related and can usually be resolved with a hard reset of the device, however in their particular case, this is not possible as their smart TV is hardwired into the wall and access to switch-off their TV at the wall is difficult," she said.
"Our team is trying to facilitate this reboot with them and is hopeful that this will fix the issue that they are experiencing."
She said that they had complaints around in home set ups and were working with customers to solve them but said they were unrelated to the Spark Sport platform.
"Spark Sport has streamed nine out of 10 Rugby World Cup games successfully so far, both from a platform and broadband network perspective," Lovell said.
