3 Receiver ( Audit Question )

[NightRyder]

I think anyone who knows they are going to be audited should record the call. If you get one of the really nasty ones post it here and send a copy to someone like Consumer Reports or your local TV station (if they have a consumer action type of segment). Maybe that will get Dish's attention.

Can you imagine the commercials the cable companies could make out of this?


NightRyder

 

[Stargazer]

What if you have bedrooms or your office with locks on them and the person is not in their room but gone somewhere and you cannot access the receiver in the room? You cannot read off all of the location id's at that point but percieved as a criminal. We have had issues here with theft and have to keep things locked up.

 

[slimer]

I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying "just don't answer the calls from Dish" I just went through one of these audits. I have 3 receivers at my house and 2 more at my parents house (all under 1 account) . All but one were not hooked to a phone line and they just cut my service. 4 out of the 5 would just view the ppv channels and when I would try another channel it would say I wasn't subsribed to the service. I called them and they wanted me to give them all the info off every receiver and it all had to be done at once. so I figured I would just do a 3 way call and that would take care of it, but they said that the software had voice recognition and that I would have to be in front of each one. I now have only 2 recievers under the account and my other 3 can only be added to a brand new account (never to an existing account). As far as I can tell if you get auditted and some of your receivers are in different locations your screwed.
It ticked me off pretty bad, but at least now if I sign up for a new account I'll get new equipment.

 

[CPanther95]

I'm not sure why everyone keeps saying "just don't answer the calls from Dish" I just went through one of these audits. I have 3 receivers at my house and 2 more at my parents house (all under 1 account) . All but one were not hooked to a phone line and they just cut my service. 4 out of the 5 would just view the ppv channels and when I would try another channel it would say I wasn't subsribed to the service. I called them and they wanted me to give them all the info off every receiver and it all had to be done at once. so I figured I would just do a 3 way call and that would take care of it, but they said that the software had voice recognition and that I would have to be in front of each one. I now have only 2 recievers under the account and my other 3 can only be added to a brand new account (never to an existing account). As far as I can tell if you get auditted and some of your receivers are in different locations your screwed.
It ticked me off pretty bad, but at least now if I sign up for a new account I'll get new equipment.

Case in point as to why they are doing these audits.

As far as all the various scenarios, I'm sure their fallback position or argument is simply that if they are not continuously connected to a phone line, they are in violation of the customer agreement anyway - so they do not qualify for mirroring service.

 

[rowemance]

Everyone that is having audit problems you can thank all the account stacker like Slimer that make it necessary for this action and raises our rates.

 

[slimer]

Everyone that is having audit problems you can thank all the account stacker like Slimer that make it necessary for this action and raises our rates.

funny you think that's what raises rates.... I always thought it was competition with the other companies that offer this same kind of service that raises rates. Guess not....

Good to know we got a professional here

 

[dfergie]

What slimer did was wrong, and he got caught... lets keep it civil here...

 

[CPanther95]

There's no way to effectively catch people without trying to close every possible loophole there is in the procedure. Otherwise, the thieves will simply exploit the system and the only thing you'll accomplish is annoying your subscriber base.

Obviously, this is annoying some legitimate subscribers, but at least it is accomplishing the goal of catching those trying to steal the signal.

 

[HokieEngineer]

The point of not answering the call, and making them leave a message, as another poster stated, was to get your act together before going through their grilling. In my case, it would be to turn on all my tvs (one being a projector in a basement). They would still bitch because I can't take my cell phone down into my home theater since its in the basement, and I get no cell phone service down there. I could probably even avoid this by jotting down all the system info down there, then calling, since the location ID only changes every 10 minutes.

Pretty much everyone's story so far in this thread can be handled by not answering the phone, getting your stuff in one location and ready, then calling back. If you're account sharing with some random and cant get all the recievers in one location, then you shouldnt be account sharing in the first place!!!!!!!!!

 

[smooth28la]

Location ID changed on the hour from my own observation.

 

[daveh69]

I went thru an audit... it was a pain in the ass as we have spotty cordless phone signal thru the property, and one of my boxes has no TV connected (used for music in the den).

If the built in modems worked with Vonage over a neighborhood wide wifi system, we could have avoided all of the inconvenience.

 

[lakebum431]

funny you think that's what raises rates.... I always thought it was competition with the other companies that offer this same kind of service that raises rates. Guess not....

Good to know we got a professional here

How would competition RAISE rates. I think what you mean is LACK OF competition would raise rates. Competition would have the inverse effect (lower rates).

 

[Stargazer]

They should just require all new accounts or all new receivers to be dual tuners to prevent these problems. Most people do not have more than two rooms and if they have four they could have two dual tuner receivers which could be active if they both use the same satellite/hooked into the same switch.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Why doesn't everyone just use wireless phone jacks and keep their receivers plugged into the same phone line? Wouldn't that keep the auditors away?

I too once had upto 4 receivers at one time and got audited. I was cell phone only at the time and she called while I was driving to town to eat lunch and see a movie. The girl was quite rude and didn't understand why I couldn't read the receiver information while I was driving. I said I would call back when I got home. When I got home about 3 hours later , all of my receivers except one was cut off. I had to jump through hoops with the man I talked to and he was a real ASS.

After that I decided to change some things at my home. I went with SBC and DSL and cut off the TWC road runner. I then got phone service and internet for less than what I was paying TWC. I also traded in all of my receivers and got 2 new 942 receiver which I keep plugged into a phone line with wireless jacks. I still got the use of 4 receivers with the 2 new 942s, and I don't pay any phone line fee either. Guess what? I don't get anymore calls from Dish auditors either.

I came out cheaper in the long run than what I was doing before. I still have cell phones , and landline phone service as well as my satellite tv. There is always different ways to look at things.

I too agree that the while there is obviously a reason for audits , there is no reason to act like the Gestapho when they call. I am sure this turns off many a customer. I know my mom and dad would cut their service off in a second if they felt they were being treated like thieves. That is why their service is in my name and is my third account with Dish. I do all the bill paying and dealings with Dish so they don't have to. My Aunt is my second account with Dish. She is so technologicaly fearfull that I have to do all of her sat dealings as well . She is in Arkansas , so this is quite a trip to make just for a service call.

Dish ought to be kissing my but , by bringing in three accounts for them, instead of harrasing customers like myself.

 

[CPanther95]

They should just require all new accounts or all new receivers to be dual tuners to prevent these problems. Most people do not have more than two rooms and if they have four they could have two dual tuner receivers which could be active if they both use the same satellite/hooked into the same switch.

Assuming you have hardline telephone service, I'd think it would be a hell of a lot easier to run phone wire throughout the house than running an extra cable out of every other STB (unless every dual tuner STB happened to be just on the other side of a wall from the 2nd room).

Phone wire is extremely small and even a 1/2" hole with coax running through it can easily accomodate a phone wire. It's very easy to run a phone line whenever you run a new satellite coax line. You also don't need to do a home run every time, you can daisy chain like hell without affecting the signal.

 

[aquaman67]

Location ID changed on the hour from my own observation.

Being fascinated with this whole “Location ID” thing and having way too much time on my hands, I decided to check this out for myself.

Here are my findings:

The “Location ID” changes every 10 minutes, on the 10s.

At exactly :00, :10, :20, :30, :40, and :50.

And, if you push the “System Info” button at say 12:39, it will not automatically update on the “System Info” screen. The Location ID will stay the same as whatever it was when the System Info button was pressed. It could be hours old on the screen. So, you can’t push the System Info button and then call. If the call takes longer than 10 minutes or you call a :09 past the hour, the Location ID will have changed on you. You have to have pushed the System Info button with in the last 10 minutes at most.

As for them having "voice recognition technology". First I doubt they do, I think that's just another scare tactic, bold face lie.

And if they do, I think that would also account for "price increases", as much as "stacking".

I agree that if they really wanted to fix this problem, the solution is already there.

Mandatory phone line on EVERY receiver.

No phone line, no TV.

Cell phone only? No TV for you!

Why don't they do this?

Because they would lose 50 % of their customers overnight.

 

[rowemance]

funny you think that's what raises rates.... I always thought it was competition with the other companies that offer this same kind of service that raises rates. Guess not....

First thing competition lowers rates not raises them.

Second thing people who steal the service cost all of us honest paying customers money by the company having to employ audit teams and extra phone lines ect. Also the amount of paying customers they can claim will be lower to the programmers and they are charged higher rates for programming. The more customers you have the lower your rates.

 

[Stargazer]

Exactly. The more customers the cheaper it should be, not more more more. With every business there has to be some allowance for theft. You can only go so far though. If you walked in a store and got accused of taking something when you didn't would you want to go back? What if you got accused twice? Some people see it no different with what Dish Network is doing. It is one thing to ask the questions to verify but another to accuse. If someone does not pass the audit then they should be given the chance to call back with the information then they could be checked upon again knowing what the auditor has told them with the new requirements.

 

[rowemance]

But the problem here is that a phone line conected to every receiver has always been the policy it just hasn't been enforced. That has been the policy since we became a dealer in 1999. I have 3 out 4 receivers in my house connect to phone lines and have never had a problem.

There are certain flags that alert them to a potenial problem like more than 2 receiver with no phone lines.

 

[Stargazer]

It is their fault for not enforcing it. They know that they may lose a lot of subscribers by requiring the phone line.