Dish's Locals Pricing All Screwed Up

[Michael2000]

After replacing my receiver, and transferring my packages to the new receiver, my grandfathered Superstations for $3.99 was lost, and replaced at $5.99. So I dropped the Superstations. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about this.

Now I see the pricing on the locals is all screwed up at Dish.

1 I had four CSRs tell me that it is now bundled with the packages. Yet, you can delete them, and pay $5 less off the package. So in reality, it's really not bundled. It seems more like a thinly veiled sales ploy to foist extra locals on unsuspecting customers. "It's bundled."

2) The pricing on the website says the locals are $5.99. Yet, the CSR's tell you that it is $5.00 with your package.

3) If you go into your account, and add locals, it says it is $5.99. If you call in, it's $5.00. The programming section of my account doesn't show anything about locals being bundled either.

4) I asked the CSR when it is ever $5.99. She said when you order locals alone, but she went on to say that there would be a $6.00 access fee, so in reality it would be $11.99.

I'm sorry, but this is not doing business with integrity.

Michael

[Jim S.]

1 I had four CSRs tell me that it is now bundled with the packages. Yet, you can delete them, and pay $5 less off the package. So in reality, it's really not bundled. It seems more like a thinly veiled sales ploy to foist extra locals on unsuspecting customers. "It's bundled."

This contradicts everything I've read here, which is that, as of this month, you can only avoid paying for locals if Dish doesn't have your locals. The situation you describe, where you have to request to delete them instead of request to add them, had been the case for at least four years prior to this current change.

[navychop]

After replacing my receiver, and transferring my packages to the new receiver, my grandfathered Superstations for $3.99 was lost, and replaced at $5.99. So I dropped the Superstations. Needless to say, I wasn't happy about this.

Now I see the pricing on the locals is all screwed up at Dish.

1 I had four CSRs tell me that it is now bundled with the packages. Yet, you can delete them, and pay $5 less off the package. So in reality, it's really not bundled. It seems more like a thinly veiled sales ploy to foist extra locals on unsuspecting customers. "It's bundled."

2) The pricing on the website says the locals are $5.99. Yet, the CSR's tell you that it is $5.00 with your package.

3) If you go into your account, and add locals, it says it is $5.99. If you call in, it's $5.00. The programming section of my account doesn't show anything about locals being bundled either.

4) I asked the CSR when it is ever $5.99. She said when you order locals alone, but she went on to say that there would be a $6.00 access fee, so in reality it would be $11.99.

I'm sorry, but this is not doing business with integrity.

Michael

Locals are not yet bundled with my pkg here near DC. Dish only provides 4 of the locals here anyway- I get well over a dozen with my OTA rig, plus subchannels. HD looks better, too, off OTA.

ON EDIT: Note that the "4" above refers only to HD channels, 6359-6362. They provide a lot more SD- starting at 8070. After reviewing the
list

, it's odd that I get some not on the list, and some on the list I don't get, via OTA. And note, WETA channel 26, which has a "-1" channel they refer to as HD (not quite, IMHO), is only available as SD from Dish, not in HD. And no subchannels? Not sure.

Maybe they're bundling with new folks, but they haven't bundled or made locals available to me as part of my package. I'm sure I could call and get them added for a price.

The "you can drop the locals and save some money" I think is done as an option by DirecTV. I doubt that Dish will be doing that, based on other postings I've read here.

Stay tuned for further changes as Dish tweaks their offerings over the next 6 months or so. I'm sure you'll get a lot of agreement here about how the charges should be simplified. However, when I went to Dish originally, I obtained a sheet listing all the charges my local cableco levies. WAY more weird (& hidden?) fees than the satcos.

Keep in mind, CSR training leaves much to be desired. In almost all businesses.


[ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor"]Hanlon's razor - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]
- Napoleon Bonaparte (supposedly)

[tsr-csr]

ok...here it is...

if you sign up today for a programming package, you automatically get the locals included, which for example shows...Top120 $34.99 ...w/locals $39.99.
So if you dont get locals in your area they wont charge you for it, and your package will stay at $34.99....if they available in your area....package will be $39.99.....
if you dont want the locals through Dishnetwork, they will take them off and you pay again only $34.99.

Now....if you want the locals only ...you would pay $5.99 plus access fee of $6.00.. due to not having a core package...

if you have say for example a international package and want to only add locals to it, you would pay only $5.99 for the locals and no add access fee.

So to sum it up....if you have a reg core package they will give you the locals for $5.00, if not you read above!