E* Billing strikes again

[NR2D]

This all started in Dec. I purchased 2 411 receivers at that time and installed them on my own. The purchase was made through one of the sponsors of this web site. Everything was great until I went to check my account online today, for a possible upgrade to the Platinum package, and I saw that on June 27th my remainder of the extra receiver fee was credited and E* started to charge me for 2 leased receiver fees.

The only transaction with E* was in early May when I renewed my subscription, America's Top 180, HBO/CINIMAX, Basic HD and 2 extra receivers. I promptly called E* to straighten their mistake out when I got a customer support person and went round and round stating I didn't lease the receivers I bought them in December. The person keep saying that I had leased them in June and that I woould have to contact the "seller" to straighten things out.

It went from bad to worse. The person didn't want to hear me out and I finally said just cancel everything. The person asked if I really want to cancel and I stated that I was tired of this BS that I have been a customer for at least 8 years and somebody at E* had screwed up and I should not have to call around and have the problem fixed.

The person sent me to the customer retention department. I got a nice lady on the phone who asked why I was cancelling. I told her what happened and that this all started with me wanting to upgrade so I could get "The National Geographic HD" channel. I continued that E* was going to fix the problem or I was gone. After about 15 minutes she came back and said everthing would be taken care of but it would not show up on my account for a couple of days.

She asked if I still wanted to upgrade and I said I would hold off now until I made sure my account was back to where it should be. I did this from work and I hope nothing has changed to my subscription when I get home and check my receivers.

This incident is kinda' funny in a way since just a few short months ago I was extolling E*'s service to several people here on Satellite Guys who were dropping E* because of the new receivers and their upgrade policy!!! Next time I will keep my fingers off of the keyboard when someone is complaining about E*!!!!

BTW I did my original install myself, my upgrade to HD (921), my upgrade to the 2 411's and the addition of another dish for my 3rd nonHD receiver. All E* has done is to make the changes I requested in my receivers and programmiing.


Rich Dunklee
NR2D

 

[redmach1_04]

Yep, I'm considering dropping E* because they want to charge me $5/month lease fee along with $6/month DVR fee to upgrade to DVR, making it more expensive than D*. Their customer support is definately frustrating at times.

 

[AskATech]

I promptly called E* to straighten their mistake out when I got a customer support person and went round and round stating I didn't lease the receivers I bought them in December. The person keep saying that I had leased them in June and that I woould have to contact the "seller" to straighten things out.

That was probably a computer or account reviewing glitch. Unless the agent really knew what they were doing with the account system, there was no way they could've told the difference, since the receivers would've just been listed as leased on the account. What I'm saying is basically that it probably wasn't a human error on the agent's part in that case--they simply didn't have a way around it, even though it sucks. There is only one other (legitimate) place in the company that could've fixed the account error for you and it sounds like retention called one of them (hence the 15 min hold). Still sucks but in this case it honestly wasn't the agent's fault.