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What is wrong with Dish Network? I had to call multiple times and was on the phone for hours trying to activate a few used receivers. The customer tried calling in but had issues with them and could not understand what they were saying (and neither could I half the time). Every dang time I got someone from the Phillipines. Some of them sounded American!!!

These people got flooded out earlier this month in a trailer park and was moving to the next lot over. These receivers were on my account previously. They first told me there was a $50 balance owed on the receivers and could not be activated until I paid the balance. I told them that was a lie but she said that was what the screen told her so I hang up and call back and verifiy that these receivers were shown to have been on my account. I have annual prepay and checking account autopay on my account. To top it off the guy starts by asking me what my secret password is. There is NO secret password on my account. He says that since I verified my name and address that he could still address my issue and he verified that there was no balance owed on the receivers and I told him that I needed him to transfer the receivers from my account to someone else's account. These receivers were not activated on my account but they still show up on the account until transferred to another one. The guy said that the computer was giving him some messages not allowing him to transfer but he would put notes on the account so that the customer could call in to activate it.

I hang up and call back and tell them my account information and to transfer it to the other account and am told that it was done. Receiver is not activated. I waited about 5 minutes and decided to call back and make sure. Sure enough they said the information was not in the system about any receivers being activated so I have to read off the numbers once again. I am told that it was activated and that it would take about 10 minutes to become active. I hang up and sure enough the programming does not become activated. I did verify that the receiver had the latest software version as well.

I call back once again and was told once again that these receivers were not shown in the system as activated. REDICULOUS!!! It's almost midnight now and I had a guy with me waiting to get done that I had hired to do some minor carpentry work for these woman. Everyone was starting to get impatient including myself but they did not get rude with me and understood my frustration and did not take theirs out on me. Well the lady tells me that she had to talk to a supervisor because the computer says that it is not a promotional receiver and I tell her that they are used, just activate them. I tell her to tell her superivisor to help her get this done and she said she would have the sup do it to overide it. She comes back on the phone and says that the receivers are outdated/too old to activate with the type of dish that I have. I told her that I know what I am doing and that I have the proper dish (a legacy setup). She then comes back on the phone and tells me that her supervisor had to call someone else and be on the phone with them to get it activated that it would be another 15 minutes. I must have talked to them for 3-4 hours but they finally got it activated. I asked for credit on the customer's account after this fiasco and they said they could not do that because they had no down time. I spend over 3 hours on the phone yet it only took me about 30 minutes to install the system.

I had other phone calls that had to be made as well before I got the dang things activated. I had to make so many that I lost count. REDICULOUS! I used to be able to activate these in about a few minutes, now hours?

Even the tech support is from the Phillipines now. No wonder why Dish Network has sucked on churn lately. They have the lousiest customer support there is and they should be extremely ashamed of themselves or having this type of customer service. The time before this when I had a system activated I was on the phone for an hour trying to get receivers activated. They couldn't activate one of them saying a balance was owed on it when Dish Network told me it was cleared before. I had to hunt up another receiver with clear balance and the weather got bad and icy. Customer calls me up and says that he almost cancelled the check he gave me but figured I already cashed it in (and I did) and was going to sue me in magistrate's court if I did not come out and give refund or bring him his receiver. I had to drive out icy roads to prevent a lawsuit.

I have had issues myself trying to get receivers activated at home and they tell me I have to pay $50 for a new smart card everytime I turn around it seems. I got the warranty on my account to prevent this. What a load of bull! Even after I got my warranty they charged me for one of the two smart cards (the other showed up as $0 charge for one) and I had to contact them again about it. I told them if the $50 credit did not show up on the account next month then I would switch to DirecTv. It showed up on next month's bill.

Is there any way to avoid this crap? I don't know how much more of this pathetic customer support I can take. It's like they don't know what they are doing or make it so hard to activate a receiver on an account. Even when I check in advance for a balance on a receiver it does no good because later on they pull some kind of crap and can't activate them.