If that's any bit accurate, then what other lack of common sense is involved in the audit team's work ?
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Wow terrible service with Dish moving to Directv
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For those who are critical of Dish's method of auditing, perhaps you could come up with a friendlier, less intrusive way of doing it. I'm sure Dish would welcome any workable ideas. I can't think of any, but I'm not terribly creative or tech saavy.
I do believe it's a worthwhile endeavor. It pisses me off to pay full price for a product while others get it for cheap or free by stealing. I think Dish owes it to their paying customers to find those non-paying ones, even it it's an inconvenience to us all.
I do believe it's a worthwhile endeavor. It pisses me off to pay full price for a product while others get it for cheap or free by stealing. I think Dish owes it to their paying customers to find those non-paying ones, even it it's an inconvenience to us all.
All I know is that DISH risks negative word of mouth by pissed off customers ,whether they stacked receivers or NOT, to everyone that they know. DISH spends a lot of money sending mail out to everyone with a mail address ,asking them to either try DISH service or to come back to DISH. At the same time the Audit department has the potential to piss off say 99% of everyone that they come in contact with . Seems kind of like a split personality , one side trying to gain customers and the other side pissing them off . Believe me that the pissed of customers who churn will tell anyone that they come in contact with how bad they were treated by DISH and that negative experience has the potential to reach many more potential subs out there ,than any positive experiences . I mean people listen and remember the negative much more than the positive. This may be why DIRECTV has continue to add more subs than DISH over the years. DISH has been around 13 - 14 million for years. Directv focuses on auditing the big subs with commercial accounts and leaves the residential subs alone.
Dish is not in the business of loosing $$$ and I am betting that if they felt they were loosing because of the audits it would change or end. Once this is for sure we will never have a good way to gauge how much they catch with this. I have never seen a post of one of these threads where someone says, crap I got audited and I was account stacking and they caught me. That isn't the group complaining here.
The best way to fix the problem is to make sure that when they install the customer or allow them to self install, that they must have all their receivers hooked into a phone line or have all connected by internet. IF the customer loses a connection for more than a day or two or a 5 days or what ever DISH decides, the receivers self shuts off until once again all receivers are hooked up to the same phone line or internet connection. Then if the sub calls in for the receivers shutting down, they are POLITELY AND COURTEOUSLY prompted to call a certain department that will once again POLITELY AND COURTEOUSLY inform the customer that all receivers must be connected to the same phone line or internet connection. (IF the potential customer doesn't have a phone line or internet connection that customer is automatically limited to One receiver or to a hopper account with one joey.) They will then assist them in making sure this is done and a call in from the receiver is done and then all receivers are turned back on. IF this becomes a common incident, like more than once a month , then DISH can assess a fine for each call in for this service or limit the customer to one receiver if it is habitual. This makes the customer totally invested in complying with the rules ,because it cost them money each time they have to call to get their receivers turned back on. Eventually the customer is down to one box if they can't comply with the basic rule. Either way it is better than having DISH call at random times and treat all customers that they come in contact with , with such disdain and like they are guilty of a crime whether they are or not. The damage these calls do by DISH, to their current subs and potential subs ,by negative word of mouth ,is too high to calculate. But like I said in another post , it is one of the reasons why I think that they have stayed at the 13 -14 million sub mark for years now.
How effective is that dept really? I know of stackers that have been audited & are still business as usual.
Someone was smart enough to figure out how to make a hopper & all the components. Seems they could use that same know how to take stacking out of the equation altogether.
Someone was smart enough to figure out how to make a hopper & all the components. Seems they could use that same know how to take stacking out of the equation altogether.
So, you are saying that before I can become a Dish customer, I have to have a land line phone or an internet connection? I've had neither for over six years and don't plan to have either anytime soon. I'm on public wifi now and when I can't find it, I tether to my cell phone. I know lot's of others like myself.
Yep, I have 2 family members that only have cell phones for internet and phone. One has directv the other has dish but only 1 receiver. Its one of those 2 in 1 jobs, not sure if she has ever been audited though, I wouldn't think.
I honestly think in the grand scheme of things stacking is a very small issue. Probably like .0o1% or less, I think a big deterrent would be when customers cancel service remove the dish from the house, 99% of the public can't point a new dish, and most stackers probably had dish installed originally then cancelled.
Just like a store like lowes can't stop every shoplifter, dish can't catch every problem customer, but they can reduce it in a much more customer friendly way. If lowes made me empty my pockets and go through my purse every time I left the store I wouldn't be to happy about it.
Dish should be focusing on stopping customers from cutting the cord instead of giving them another reason to.
Here is an update and clarification
First I owe my receivers since I hate being under contract
2 hoppers
2 joey
211k for tailgating
I moved to different state because I was transferred at work.
I let dishnetwork know I moved to a different location via chat also I mentioned that I was interested in getting Directv since they have some great offers and if they could match it since I love the hopper. I got some credit since I have been a good customer with no late payments the past 2 years.
I like setting up my own equipment since it's like a hobby for me, a week later they called me while i was at work i couldn't answer since I was busy.
When I got home I noticed all my receivers where desactivated except the main hopper
I finally got a hold of the verification team and this happened:
First i spent about 45 minutes with an agent then i got disconnected
Got another rep and spent another 30 minutes verifying everything.
Finally I was done the rep says BTW you will need to send us a utility bill so we can activate all your receivers again
that's fine but I just moved in and will take 2-3 weeks before I get a bill.
This is definitely the worst customer service ever.
I prefer the dish hopper receiver over what Directv has to offer.
But treating me the way they did draws the line.
I'm getting Directv since I'm not waiting 2-3 weeks.
Once I get my bill I'll send it to them so I can sell my equipment on ebay or craiglist since I dont want to do business with them ever again.
I can see how this would have brought up an audit. Everything sounds legit on your end but I can see how Dish saw some red flags. The fact that you own that much equipment and the fact that you changed addresses probably made Dish suspicious.
As for customer service I don't think this is suppose to be part of their customer service. They are not doing this to appease customers but instead to protect their business. I know that it seems rude but being a business owner myself I don't have much of an issue with how they do it. It's their company and they have the right to protect it. They have 14 million customers that subscribe to a luxury service and agree to their terms.
It can be about the same for a year without contract. With contract, it can be about the same for two years. After that time, the price goes up almost 40% by my calculations.
The slippery slope to watch out for is their phone service.
Your point is invalid.... Do retail stores randomly walk up to people and search them for items they've hidden ? They don't - they wait until they have proof (via security camera, undercover person, detectors at the door, etc). What the audit team does it based on speculation or suspicion. I say that based on members here who claim to be on the up and up who are audited, mind you.
Good point but are there other ways of doing it that are effective? I has to be much harder for Dish than it is for an actual store front.
On one level I see your point. That said, how would DISH reasonably get proof? I would say this is the way DISH gets proof before accusing you of it. The audit is the surveillance camera.
yes but the surveillance camera is "invisible" to the customer, they don't feel accused of theft by being on camera, most don't even notice they are on camera. Dish needs to make their audit calls more customer friendly so every audit doesn't seem like an accusation.
If receivers all have the same IP address (Dish can check that right now, I'm certain), the odds are greatly decreased that one is account stacking. Someone will chime in about using proxies and what-not though.... If they dial in from the same phone number, the odds are pretty low too. Again, someone will mention spoofing caller-ID to defeat this too.
See my comment above - if receivers on the same account have different IPs or call in from different numbers, I would accept that as proof (of something fishy going on).
In the end, I don't care. I don't believe for a second that the number of account stackers is enough to hurt Dish. Admittedly, I also base this on how members here describe the process or the interaction they have with the audit person and that is, it sounds like they're really treated like sh*t. I've never been audited but if I were, I'd do my best to play along nicely. If I detected the slightest bit of accusation from the person though, my smart mouth would get my receiver shut off I'm afraid ! I get rather defensive when I'm accused of something I didn't do....
Most do not know that they are even getting audited because they do not tell them when they contact the person for "verification of information from their screens". They also try to catch people off guard when they try to verify the information if they are trying to stack. Or did they change the way they are handling the calls now and blatantly telling people why they are calling them? If people knew they were getting accused then many would get very offended and cancel just for the inconvenience or accusation.
That just reminded me of something - doesn't Dish emphasize that they'll never call you and ask for information ? I don't mean your credit card number or even your account number, but plenty of people know not to even give out your receiver ID or smart card ID. If I'm not mistaken, shady resellers can use this information to switch you to them (they get an incentive from Dish for "upgrading" a customer, etc, etc). Do they need more details ?
