Cancelling Dish Question

[RPMD]

Hello.

I have had Dish since the mid-late 90's, my current account I have had since 2004. A few months ago I dropped down to the Flex pack with News and Heartland but with the equipment I am still spending over $100 a month. I have signed up for YouTube and using Roku's and am at the point I can call and cancel Dish. Honestly though it's a little hard and seems strange not to have them any longer but still don't watch most of the channels I have and have paid for THEIR equipment many times over. I pay $30 per month in equipment alone, and that is after returning 2 Joey's.

My guess is when I call they will try to get me to stay with some sort of offer and I am wondering if anyone knows what that would be? I have been out of a contract for a number of years now and I don't want to get stuck in a 2 year contract where the first year is less but goes up the second year. Does anyone know if they offer anything will it include a 2 year commitment?

I will miss the Dish's DVR and Dish is much easier to use but I can't say its worth $50 per month to have. I imagine when I call I have to be ready to cancel on the spot for them to offer something and I am ready to do that but just want to be prepared before I call.

 

[pattykay]

With Flex Pack, I would be very surprised if they offer you any kind of discount at all. Dish has been cutting way back on offering discounts to subscribers with lower-tier packages, or at least that has been my experience. They no longer even offer the $5 per month discount for having AutoPay with Flex Pack, like they originally offered when Flex Pack first became available. You may be lucky enough to get Dish to agree to a two-year price lock at your current rate for Flex Pack, but that would require a two-year commitment. Otherwise, maybe expect a half-off deal on your Heartland package for six months, but not much more of a discount than that, if any.

If you are not sure about completely cancelling Dish just yet, you could try looking at their lowest package options, such as Welcome Pack. Someone posted awhile back about being offered a Locals Only package, but that may only be available as a retention tool for customers who threaten to cancel. I personally subscribe to International Basic, but that requires an international dish that receives the 118 satellite, and it requires another international package add-on in order to qualify for either International Basic or Chinese Basic.

As far as equipment, you could drop down to just one Hopper. (I am assuming that you have two Hoppers, with $30 per month in equipment fees.) After all, one Hopper is better than no Hopper at all. If that is still too much money per month, you could also try downgrading to a Hopper Duo, which has a regular-priced DVR fee of only $10 per month. A Wally would have no DVR fee, but then you have the extra one-time expense of buying an external hard drive to go with it, and it would not be compatible with your existing recordings.

After considering all of the above options, if your monthly Dish bill would still be too high, then cancelling may indeed be your best option, unfortunately.

 

[Slamminc11]

Dumped Dish for YouTubeTV back at the beginning of the year and haven't missed them a bit.
Yeah they tried to get me to stay with some offers but not enough to keep me around at twice what I am paying now.

 

[RPMD]

Thanks for the info! I currently have 1 hopper with DVR @ $15/mth and 2 Joeys @$7/mth each for a total of $29 in equipment per month. I used to have 2 additional Joeys with the everything pack and it got be over $160/ month, no HBO or premiums. So I returned 2 Joeys, now I am paying $109 for the Flex pack with News and Heartland and use the Dish Anywhere app on 2 lesser used TV's with on a fire stick. I just hate to pay so much for channels I don't watch and equipment over and over each month - like everyone else. Really the only thing that has kept me a customer is the DVR, the ease of use and everything being in one place - and my wife knows how to use it. If I drop equipment then those reasons start to go away.

I just put up an antenna on the roof and am hooking it to a Amazon Recast that I had sitting around, so I am all ready to cancel. I will probably make the call next week. On the positive side, I can always sign up again if things don't go well. But I haven't used the Dish in probably 2 weeks and it's not even connected in the bedroom anymore because I ran out of HDMI ports on the TV.

 

[richeydog]

You can always put dish on "pause" for $5/month. That will allow you to try out other services(recast dvr, youtubetv, etc...) and see if you like them or not. If you decide to go back to dish all you have to do is call and restart your service without commitment.

 

[chiodo]

Yes Dish receiver fees are just as bad as Channel carriage deals for locals that are Free Over the Air. I'm considering cancelling Dish also. The Hopper is an amazing box, and probably the main reason I've stayed with Dish over any other provider. But streaming is getting better.

 

[pattykay]

You can always put dish on "pause" for $5/month. That will allow you to try out other services(recast dvr, youtubetv, etc...) and see if you like them or not. If you decide to go back to dish all you have to do is call and restart your service without commitment.

Actually, you don't even have to call. You can restart your service simply by logging into your mydish account and selecting the option to restart service.

 

[HipKat]

I've been using Dish less and less and exploring streaming more and more. With Free apps on the Firestick and other ways we don't talk about here, I really haven't used Dish at all except to stream DA on one of my monitors on my Computer in the morning while I drink my coffee and get caught up on forums and stuff. I'm at the point that last week I paid my last Dish bill.

 

[Jim5506]

You can always put dish on "pause" for $5/month. That will allow you to try out other services(recast dvr, youtubetv, etc...) and see if you like them or not. If you decide to go back to dish all you have to do is call and restart your service without commitment.

I believe pausing your Dish account wipes out all your discounts, so be careful about that.

 

[long dog]

I believe pausing your Dish account wipes out all your discounts, so be careful about that.

Yes it does. Why? I do not know as they will still charge a early cancellation fee.

 

[Jim5506]

Pausing Dish also stops the clock on your two year (or whatever it is) commitment, so if you cancel you still have the time left on your commitment when you paused, you must still pay the early cancellation months left. No always a good deal.

 

[pattykay]

Yes it does. Why? I do not know as they will still charge a early cancellation fee.

The early cancellation fee is a punishment for cancelling service entirely. The discounts are a reward for keeping continuous service. Pausing falls somewhere in-between those situations. It is the "carrot and the stick" approach.

 

[shortspark]

To resurrect an old thread I have a question about returning equipment if I cancel Dish. I have one hopper and one joey plus the dish on the roof. I am pretty sure I have to return the joey and hopper since I don't own them. What about the dish itself on the roof? Will they make me return it as well?

 

[Bobby]

To resurrect an old thread I have a question about returning equipment if I cancel Dish. I have one hopper and one joey plus the dish on the roof. I am pretty sure I have to return the joey and hopper since I don't own them. What about the dish itself on the roof? Will they make me return it as well?

They might say that they want the LNB, the dish itself is yours, but you tell them that the LNB is on the roof and difficult for you to access. They will waive that part.

 

[shortspark]

Thanks Bobby, just what I needed.

 

[omeletpants]

The 2 year customer commitment is the trade off for a discount. Why doesnt that seem fair to you or do you think it should just be a one way commitment?

 

[pattykay]

The 2 year customer commitment is the trade off for a discount. Why doesnt that seem fair to you or do you think it should just be a one way commitment?

I'm not sure who you were directing this reply toward, but whoever it was probably already cancelled months ago.