Dish Does Not Care for my $130/m, Would Rather have $15 One Time

[jayiw]

This is crazy...

About a month ago I had the new dish installed in order to get the new HD channels that are on the other satellite. I asked them if there was any charge and they said no because I have pay for the DHPP and it's waived for anyone that has it. I specifically made it a point to ask more than once if there was any charge and I was told no. When the installer came and I asked him as well and got the same answer. Fast forward to Friday and I get my bill and there is a "service" charge of $15. Ok so $15 is not a big deal but I was told no charge. I call dish and explain this and they tell me no it's a valid charge. Again I told them I was told more than once that there is no charge. I asked for a supervisor and got told there is not one available and they were all tied up. She then offered me a PPV coupon after I threatened to cancel. I told her no of course. She then told me she can connect me to a specialist. This so called specialist told me it's a valid charge and they cannot and will not remove it. I told her then I will have to cancel and give someone else my $130 a month. She said "Ok I can do that for you now if you wish". Just like that. She did not care, the other rep did not care. They could care less for my business over a crappy $15. Unreal.

I have been with Dish more then 4 years and I get the Everything package, the HD & HD Platinum package, 2 DVRs, and DHPP. I pay my bill every month. Any advice on what I should do or should I not even bother because they do not care for my business anyway and just go to Directv or Cable?

Thanks,
Jay

 

[bkimbler]

I hate to say it but your not going to win. I know it's principal but it's part of doing business with big companies. I would just eat it and move on. No reason to go through the pain of canceling and changing simply "to show Dish". No one there will loose sleep.

Plus you will see stories like this with any other provider: satellite or cable.

Sorry.....

 

[Mr Tony]

I thought the EA dish upgrade was $15 with DHPP?

otherwise you can email ceo AT dishnetwork DOT com and explain the situation. Maybe the executive office can help out

 

[bkimbler]

I thought the EA dish upgrade was $15 with DHPP?

otherwise you can email ceo AT dishnetwork DOT com and explain the situation. Maybe the executive office can help out

I had them come out a few weeks back and put in an additional receiver. I was told the service call would be $99 without DHPP or $15 with DHPP. Not sure if there is any time they would come out and not charge you the $15 if you have DHPP.

 

[busdriver72]

There is a difference between a "dishnitup," which is an upgrade consisting of a receiver and possibly a change in the dish, and an antenna upgrade.
I think what happened is an issue of semantics. There is no charge for the antenna upgrade per say, but there is a tech visit fee of $15. If you have the service plan, any visit by a technician is $15 including trouble calls. That is about half what it used to be.

 

[cditty]

So I take it you didn't cancel then?

 

[Claude Greiner]

I agree and disagree here.

If what your saying is correct and they said there would not be a charge, then you should not be charges especially on an HD upgrade.

When you look at the big picture it costs Dish $80-$90 to dispatch a tech to your home, and the $15 is just a fraction of what the service call cost them. Its probably going to take Dish another 2-4 months of you paying $130 for them to cover the service call.

As far as them not waiving it, you got to draw the line somwhere, where as $15 is very reasonable for the customer to pay

 

[delawaredave]

DelawareDave

I would call in again, (or live chat) and run the same senerio by them. Sometimes you just need the right CSA! It has worked for me in the past. I got the upgrade with no cost.

 

[tomcrown1]

I agree and disagree here.

If what your saying is correct and they said there would not be a charge, then you should not be charges especially on an HD upgrade.

When you look at the big picture it costs Dish $80-$90 to dispatch a tech to your home, and the $15 is just a fraction of what the service call cost them. Its probably going to take Dish another 2-4 months of you paying $130 for them to cover the service call.

As far as them not waiving it, you got to draw the line somwhere, where as $15 is very reasonable for the customer to pay

So if he cancel dish does not get the $130.00 per Month plus they are out $85.00.

I wonder if dish will be in business for much longer? It makes more sense to waive the $15.00 and get his $130.00 monthly payment.

 

[n0qcu]

If you called them at the special number that is in the notice about missing HD channels they mailed you there should be no charge. If they did not yet send you the notice, well, then there should be a charge.

 

[cornflakes]

From a business perspective, a line has to be drawn as many have said. If they bait-and-switched you, that's an issue. But if it's a case of miscommunications in that there's no fee for the upgrade, but there's a fee for the truck roll, then $15 I feel is quite reasonable.

But that doesn't seem to be your point. Your point (to me) seems to be, even if the $15 is legit, Dish should waive that fee because you've been a good customer and you're paying for a lot of stuff.

But think about it from Dish's point of view. This can become a slippery slope. This is something discussed all the time in business school. The cost of acquiring a new customer is huge... and for the most part, it's better to keep the customer than to lose one. This is why there are retention deals.

But if everyone who argues about these fees got their way, Dish would lose a lot of money. Not only that, everyone's going to call and try to argue about every fee under the sun just to try it out. This is why you don't get retention deals until you're already half way out the door. It's to prevent people from just calling them up and trying to see what they can squeeze out of them.

Just the same as you are willing to quit Dish and go with DirecTV purely on principle, Dish is standing firm on this issue purely on the principle that they feel you should pay $15 for the truck roll. Who's going to blink first?

Not everyone who argues about a fee and loses will quit Dish. Especially if it's $15. At this point it becomes a numbers game. I would imagine a lot of people would suck it up and pay the $15 just to get it over with and not deal with the hassle of switching providers. Chalk that up to "Dish Network are such jerks, lesson learned, next time I gonna get everything in writing." And Dish knows this, and so they're probably ok with this.

I'm not saying you're right or wrong on this matter. I'm just saying it's not such a clear cut case of "Dish would rather lose my $X dollars a month over 15 bucks." There are a lot of other factors in here.

 

[Bob Haller]

it wil;l cost you 15 bucks per receiver to return leased boxes to e......

thats the new lease return fee

 

[Big Dawg 23]

I would push back hard on them. If they did tell you this then you shouldn't be charged end of story. Does matter if it is 50 cents or $100 the point is they told you NC.

 

[rjruby]

Call them and have them connect you to the Customer Loyalty Help Desk.

They were able to help me the last time I had a billing issue that the first level help desk personnel couldn't handle.

 

[mthr1]

I agree with rjruby.

The loyalty dept (which is coincidentally also the CANCELATION Dept) generally has far greater success for me than anyone from their tier 1 CS team.

Here's my short version of my story...

Two weeks ago, placed an order for my satellite migration. I also didn't agree to the idea of paying out $15 for a tech visit to fix a satellite providing issue that is no fault of my own...but $15 is a small amount, so I embraced their mentality.

Tech came, repointed my dish, verified signal...came in the house to do a check switch, verified 61.5 was migrated over to 129, and he was on his way. Nice enough guy. No new hardware was installed, no pre-exisiting hardware was removed, and all the HD channels were now coming up. Life was good.

One week later, I got my online bill notification. After pulling up the bill, I see the $15 tech visit charge...as expected. The unexpected charge was a "DISH ANTENNA KIT" charge of $199.95. WTF?

I logged into my account on their site and brought up a live chat. The chat was not productive. He came up with two different (ridiculous) theories as to why I should pay that charge, then proceeded to tell me to call a 1-800 to dispute the charge to their "executive team".

I called...and got a tier 1 tech. He stated 1 other (ridiculous) theory as to why I am being charge. After clarifying things for him, he said I'd have to call back tomorrow and be conferenced in with Dish and the contractor that came to do the migration to sort it out. I was not happy.

After the call, I waited about 30 mins and did another live chat. Got a tech that was the most worthless of the bunchg so far...and suggested an even more ridiculous reason as to why I should pay. LMAO. It was really funny. After I clarified his misinformation, he said..."Oh, there's nothing I can do."

I asked to be transfer to a loyalty rep. He did so.

Got a lady for the loyalty/cancelation dept. I regurgitated my story to here again...and at first, it appeared that I was headed to capping off a two hour long waste of my evening, but towards the end of our dialogue, she read all the notes on my account and said, "I see the notes here...sorry, I will make the adjustment right away."

I asked why none of the three previous reps that I spoke with didn't see those offending notes to fix the problem. She apologized again and for my troubles, gave me 3 PPV coupons and fixed the charge.

Sure enough, 1 hr after, the credit appeared on my account and my billing looks right.

So...yes, it depends on the CSR that you get on the phone, how capable they are, and how willing they want to fix your problem. If you don't get the results you want, ask for a loyalty rep and try them. I've had good success 2-3 times already when their tier 1 team failed to fix anything.

Good Luck.

 

[riffjim4069]

I hate to say it but your not going to win. I know it's principal but it's part of doing business with big companies. I would just eat it and move on. No reason to go through the pain of canceling and changing simply "to show Dish". No one there will loose sleep.

Plus you will see stories like this with any other provider: satellite or cable.

Sorry.....

That's why I always take copious notes (to include the CSR's name and ID number), ask that detailed notes of the discussion (promises) be placed into my account history, and always repeat back twice what I am told over the phone to ensure the CSR has a clear understanding. In this case, the OP did everything right...assuming he wrote down the CSRs name/number and asked for his account history to be noted.

Conversely, if I were Dish I would just eat the $15 charge vice losing a loyal customer. Besides being the right thing to do, DISH certainly doesn't need to lose a customer over nickels and dimes charge like this one. And they certainly don't need to spend hundreds of dollars in labor charges (customer service, customer care, executive services researching this issue.

 

[Scherrman]

When you were told that it would be no charge, were you talking to a Dish CSR or aa retailer? If it was a CSR then you need to have good notes with their name and ID and you should be able to be reimbursed. If you talked to some kind of retailer then I would talk to them and they should help out.

As a retailer I make mistakes like that often. There is a lot to remember when it comes to business rules and what charges there are. If you do not have any proof of what was said though, it's just your word against theirs.

 

[ncted]

When I had my Dish modified to receive 129 for similar reasons, I was told that there would be no fee, so I asked would there be the usual $15 DHPP fee, and they said yes. I think they just meant that there would be no fee for the parts, not the labor. Still, if you asked numerous times, you'd think it would have sunk in to mention the $15 fee.

Ted

 

[oldave]

When I had my Dish modified to receive 129 for similar reasons, I was told that there would be no fee, so I asked would there be the usual $15 DHPP fee, and they said yes. I think they just meant that there would be no fee for the parts, not the labor. Still, if you asked numerous times, you'd think it would have sunk in to mention the $15 fee.

Ted

Dish is apparently putting our HD locals on 77W... most installs in this market are 1000.2, and we all get HD from 129.

So I tried online chat, I tried phone calls... sorry, you'll have to pay $95 to get your HD locals. And we won't even do that until they become available. Or I could pay $6/month, and then $15. In a year, that comes to a whopping $8 savings.

Not going to happen. So I will just have to stick with OTA HD locals. Or switch providers.

Even thinking about just shutting it all off and going back to basic OTA and that's all.

 

[cditty]

Dish is apparently putting our HD locals on 77W... most installs in this market are 1000.2, and we all get HD from 129.

So I tried online chat, I tried phone calls... sorry, you'll have to pay $95 to get your HD locals. And we won't even do that until they become available. Or I could pay $6/month, and then $15. In a year, that comes to a whopping $8 savings.

Not going to happen. So I will just have to stick with OTA HD locals. Or switch providers.

Even thinking about just shutting it all off and going back to basic OTA and that's all.

They are putting mine on 77 as well... Of course, I will just buy a 1K4 Dish and install it myself. I would rather do that than stay at home for 4 hours and wait for someone.