Horrible Dish Network customer service...

[rassilon5]

Called to order and schedule a Dishin it up upgrade this past Monday... all seemed to go well, scheduled for that Thursday, great!

Thursday comes, I have to take time off for the 12-5 appt window... a little after 4pm i'm anxious and call Dish. My first call, I'm told my appointment was canceled, as I try to find out why the operator's headset begins to malfunction, but he keeps my on for minutes trying to fix it, why he can't switch to to a handset or transfer to another person I don't know, I even ask him to but he asks that I call back, which I do... I then get greeted in Spanish (I never chose Spanish) Eventually I discover nothing, just that it was canceled Wedsneday and she has no reason why or why I wasn't called. She attempted to get me a supervisor but they were busy on another line and I could have to wait a long time...she offers 3 free months of HBO and I re-schedule for this past Saturday, fine, all seems to be fixed.
Saturday comes, the tech for the appt calls and asks what trouble we're having, I'm confused, trouble? Apparently the appt was resceduled for technical reasons, bad signal. What!?!? The tech advises me to call customer service to reschedule myself, he will do what he has to do on his end.
I call Dish again, after a long confusing discussion, the rep only shows that my Dish in it up appt was canceled and that it shows a reschedule for signal loss. Apparently I have to give them my credit card info and go through the sign up process/agreement again, although they have already taken my money and should have everything in my account notes. By this time i'm waiting for a supervisor again, which I finally get. She explains WHY I have to go through the process again, which sounded like alot of BS to me but I go ahead anyhow... then my card is refused, same bank card used before, no changes, nothing in between has happened with that card... She also needs to know again what I want, which receiver i'm getting and which ones i'm replacing... I fume stating this should all be in my note. She finally disappears and reappears saying all is taken care of... Still no reason why original appt was canceled, why my who Dish in it up request disappeared and the strange switch to a technical appt for signal loss....
I'm now rescheduled for Tuesday, offered 3 free months of Starz and 30 bucks off my bill, I mention the 3 free months HBO I was offered before, she doesn't see it! The rep on thursday never initiated it!

So, now I supposedly have an appt Tuesday, another day I have be home, 3 free months HBO and Starz and 30 bucks off my bill... AND A REALLY BAD TASTE IN MY MOUTH....

What happened to Dish Customer service? I used to think they were great!!! Are they resting on the laurels of their 90's customer service accolades? Very sad... If i wasn't for my long time committment to Dish and my preference for their programming and equipment I would have left.

 

[Dish VIP]

Allright, here's another nightmare story:

I just signed up my folk's for Dish Network earlier this month. I used the DishBuilder on dishnetwork.com. The monthy price came up as $59.97 with an upfront cost of $99. However, when the first bill arrived a few days ago, it showed that their credit card was charged $249 with a monthly bill of $77.96. That is not exactly what was signed up for or authorized to be charged.

So, on behalf of my parents, I quickly called up Dish to understand what gives them the right to charge $149 more than initially authorized and to fix the monthly charges. The first csr was very honest and said she simply "didn't have the codes" to make the corrections and got her supervisor right away to handle the call. Great! This should go smoothly and I should be off the phone in a matter of minutes. Well, that is not the way it went.

The supervisor listened to my concern and then immediately said the bill was "completely wrong." The first thing was that she said we were being charged for the wrong package and that we were trying to get a "free-for-all" and that they do not mix promotions. What?? I explained to here that we signed up on dishnetwork.com and that all I did was follow the instructions and that I have no control over what is offered and asked how is it possible that I did something wrong. Then she said that they have a lot of different sites and I told her that I used dishnetwork.com and did not go through a third party or retailer. She replied that we shouldn't have gotten this and that and furthermore she wanted to charge us even more saying that we had to "pay full price" for additional receivers. What??? She continued to argue with me and it it got so ugly that I just finally hung up the phone. Unbelievable!!

Having been a E* customer myself for 6 years, and being an avid reader of satelliteguys.us fourms, I knew that it was time for csr roulette. So I called again and fortunately this time got someone who had a clue. This time the rep was very helpful and very apologetic about my just prior csr experience. In fact she was as upset as I was that my prior call had gone so wrong. Halleluiah!

She quickly corrected the issues with the monthly charges. One issue was that I had signed up my folks for credit card autopay and paperless billing in order to get the Cinemax for a penny deal. Somehow that didn't go through with the initial signup. The other issue was the programming fee for the 722 tv2 phone connection. She had me go through the setup on the 722 and so forth and reversed the charges. Very good!

The issue of why my Dad's credit card was charged $149 extra was never figured out and she had no answer for that but again was very apologetic. Still, it is disconcerting to know they can charge whatever they want up front without informing us or without authorization. I can see where this could be a huge problem for someone with a tight budget and is just plain wrong and a terrible business practice.

So it is no wonder that despite having the best equipment and now the best HD programming package deals, that DishNetwork is losing net subscribers in the thousands. Mr. Ergen, stop blaming the economy and start looking at your own sinking ship! Sheesh!!

 

[teneightyp]

E* has the worst customer service of any company in the WORLD, and I'm not exaggerating. I think it has cost them some serious revenue.

 

[Mojo]

You guys are not allowed to be angry with Dishnet. The usual suspects will soon be along to put you in your place.

 

[jessshaun]

All of these sound about right. I also have a pretty horrid experience with Dish Network. The CSR's are horrible. They should fire them all and start over again, it's gotten so bad. Don't even get me started on the installers.

I've had my fill with this company, and I'm finally moving completely away from Dish soon. For the first few years I was with them, everything went smooth, and it was great.

Since then, however, I've put up with fights between dish and service providers (dropped channels), Installers that won't even look for line of sight to 129 until you threaten to cancel, losing my Chicago ABC due to Dish's stupidity, CSR's that treat you like dirt.

I'm sick of it all. Simply sick of it. My big beef with Dish started when I wanted to upgrade to a 722 and get HD service. The installer didn't even look around the yard, just said, "no line of sight." I called Dish and made them issue me a refund for the money to upgrade. No refund. Called again, FINALLY 3 days later, a refund showed up. I immediately called directv, and signed up, then canceled Dish. The neighbor a week later got the same installer when they were upgrading, and he told him the story, and guess what, the installer found an area where we could have put a dish to pick up 129. What a surprise...

And then later when I decided to purchase a 625 to pick up locals that Directv didn't provide, I called to activate my receiver, which they did, but they put it in the system as a dish'n it up. Huh? I had just resubscribed! How could I use dish'n it up when I had nothing before? So my just purchased 625 was put in the system as a lease. I fought this for 3 months before they finally got it right.

Now I'm purchasing a good antenna, selling my 625, and probably dish as well, and I'm just going to use my HR21 and AM21 for my OTA locals.

...and this is only the tip of the iceberg... What's happened to Dish? They went in a few short years from being THE satellite company to have, to being worse than the local cable company. Sad. Very sad.

 

[Hemi 6.1]

You guys are not allowed to be angry with Dishnet. The usual suspects will soon be along to put you in your place.

Yep , Your aloud.
D* your not aloud

I agree E* customer service is the worst. Way worse then my Cell Phone company(ATT). You really have to stay on top of E*. My advise to anyone getting new service . Don't place your order online. Call up the Dishnetwork, or another Dish retailer like Claude, Radio Shack,. That way you know for sure what your paying word for word, $ for $! Placing an order online just leaves your Credit card number flapping in the wind , with a Terms and Agreements acceptence, that no one reads fully because it 50 pages long . Most times talking to a CSR could get you some other benifits thats not online as well.

 

[moon8]

I agree !!! All of my calls in up in either India or the Philippines.

 

[osu1991]

Well I had a hard drive fail in one of my 508's this week. I didn't have time to wait on hold or hope for a US call center. I used the dish chat and I was disappointed as I was disconnected the first time just as I was typing that I had a hard drive error, reconnected and had a replacement receiver being shipped to me. Took about 15 minutes total. I also used the chat to drop down to hd essentials after Voom was removed. So up to this point I would recommend trying out the online chat for some problems.