Where are you from in Michigan? I grew up in a small town called Ludington. I now live in where your name implies, tampabay.
Account Stacking
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Where are you from in Michigan? I grew up in a small town called Ludington. I now live in where your name implies, tampabay.
Not here in SoCal. My Father-in-law owns two properties in the same Time Warner service area and had inquired about doing exactly this and was told each individual address had to have it's own account.
Well, if he owns two homes in SoCal he obviously has money (or at least assets) and can afford two TW accounts! Cheapskate!
hahaha, kidding
If/when I own a second home, i'll just bring an extra receiver along when I travel. Leaving it at my 2nd home full time would have me worried about a possible audit.
With cable companies, they're almost always "no contract" and unless they physically disconnect your service, they can normally turn service on or off quickly. Best thing to do is rent a set-top from them which they can activate or deactivate from their offices. When they shut down your box, they don't presume that people will simply plug the cable directly into their TV and continue to get analog service.
You do need two accounts. They charge you $10/monthly for the second account. If you OWN your equipment you can pause it and start it as much as you like.
HOWEVER it can be a real PITA. For weekend trips on Sundays especially the hold times are long to get a pause and half the time they tell you you can't pause but once a year (wrong) resulting in additional hold time.
They make it tough and until they figure out a way to start and pause using your remote instead of a telephone you are better off to just cart a receiver with you. But take it back to your primary residence, the audit team are ALIENS FROM HELL.
Heck, they would even need less CSR's if they did this. It's a total no-brainer!!!
Once you activate your programming it's pro-rated for the time it's on.
I've stayed with Dish because I like their receivers better than those of DirectTV, but I'm thinking about switching after my commitment ends just because of this idiotic restriction. I have two neighbors with DirectTV that have seasonal homes, and they switch reception locations with no problems or extra fees. They just call D* to switch local service and take their receivers. If D* can do it. why can't E*?
The key point being that they're taking their receivers. You can do the same w/ E*, as long as you take the receivers.
Dish can do it. I did it with no issues. Got to the point it was a PITA to keep calling and moving the box from one house to another. Now I leave it as the one addresas and put up a OTA antenna for locals at the other
yeah, why pay for a 2nd account, or even $5 extra for that matter, just carry the box back and forth.
Actually, the point I was trying to make is not that it is impossible to move receivers with Dish, but that it is confusing as to what is permitted and a hassle to do it compared to DirectTV.
I called Dish and asked about transferring receivers back and forth to a vacation home and was told flat out that I needed a second account at full price, but could suspend service on the first account for a holding fee. I then asked about "moving" and was told that you can only move once in a 6mo period, which does no good if you are only going to be gone a month or two and have to "move" twice.
If you move a DVR unit on the sly, you can't hook it up to phone line with a different number without flagging the audit police. There may be ways to dodge some of these bullets, but with D*, you don't have to worry about them. I also learned from one of my neighbors, that he bought an additional receiver that he just leaves at his winter house and doesn't have to transfer the one from his home. D* switches activation from one to the other.
Wow great info!
Account Stacking is legal but DishNetwork may get peeved if you do it. What a bunch of greedy puss-heads.
Well if they cut me off, I'll go back to DirecTV in a blink - I never took the old dtv dish down.
Account Stacking is legal but DishNetwork may get peeved if you do it. What a bunch of greedy puss-heads.
Well if they cut me off, I'll go back to DirecTV in a blink - I never took the old dtv dish down.
I think DISH has a way to put your vacation house account on hold or something like that for a small fee and then only ativate when needed.
Although some are saying there may be no specific language in a law that directly address the practice of account stacking, nevertheless, account stacking could be construed as theft. For Dish, it seems to be a matter of scale.
While Dish has chosen not to bring legal action on scattered individual account holders who may practice account stacking (cheaper and easier to just shut down those accounts), I do recall a few years ago an news item where Dish was successful in bringing criminal charges against an installer who facilitated a fair amount of account stacking along with all those account holders who participated in it. Of course, Dish also sought the money it felt they were owed.
Let's be clear: taking your boxes to your second home for your enjoyment, etc, may be ethical, and even allowed in some cases as Dish reserves the right to waive parts of the Residential Agreement, while, on the other hand, account stacking, as defined by hall in the second post, particularly doing this for any residence(s) that are not yours (such as your next door neighbor's) is certainly unethical, a violation of the Residential Agreement (a contract) and could, in fact, be illegal, and it would be up to Dish to pursue the matter as a criminal one.
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Dish is a wireless service and so is a cell phone. You can take your cell phone anywhere you go and you can activate additional phones on the account for a small additional monthly fee. The cell phone companies don't care who have the additional phone.
I have had E*, D* Voom, TW cable,(same area provider it two sites), moved Voom receivers, and D* with no issue (apparently no audit team). E* audited me, so fortunately, moving ALL receivers if you are going to be at the second home for a significant period of time is important so that you can be able to answer the audit questions.
Interestingly if not off topic: TW cable service, one just the basic, the other with HD DVR, you can move the HD DVR & Premium service to the second location for premium's and HD, however in one case the receiver was deactivated at the second site. I just took it to the TW shop and swapped for a new one whcih works fine. My guess is that if you use the start over feature, it may identify that you are not in the correct site??
Interestingly if not off topic: TW cable service, one just the basic, the other with HD DVR, you can move the HD DVR & Premium service to the second location for premium's and HD, however in one case the receiver was deactivated at the second site. I just took it to the TW shop and swapped for a new one whcih works fine. My guess is that if you use the start over feature, it may identify that you are not in the correct site??
Cable companies can restrict your equipment to your "home" UBR (I think that's the term). It basically means your general neighborhood (bigger than a 'node').
Does Dish still have their "Pay as you go" service? Seems you could buy those cards and use them on the receiver at home, then use them to activate your vacation systems. I don't know if DirecTV ever had a similar system.
My Dad has D* at his house in town and at his vacation place in Northern MI. He uses the vacation hold for moving from one location to the other, but then he's gone long enough to make it worthwhile. Me, I'd just take the receiver with me.
My Dad has D* at his house in town and at his vacation place in Northern MI. He uses the vacation hold for moving from one location to the other, but then he's gone long enough to make it worthwhile. Me, I'd just take the receiver with me.
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