NOW I know why people cancel Dish Network - VERY VERY HORRIBLE service and screwups !

Stargazer

Supporting Founder
Original poster
Supporting Founder
Sep 7, 2003
16,567
340
Western WV
Now I know why so many people cancel satellite, especially Dish Network. Had a bad 522 and DPP twin. It was a pretty big hassle just to get them to replace it then they want to charge $14.95 fee for each item even though I have the $1.99 warranty and autopay when before they told customers that they were waived the S&H fee if they had this warranty with autopay. They changed their policy without notifying customers.

I got the DPP twin but no 522 receiver. Call them up. They give me tracking number for DPP twin and tell me that the DPP twin and 522 should have been sent in the same box. They told me that UPS dropped it off at a neighbor's house. I call UPS and they said that it was NOT delivered to a neighbor's house. They told me to call Dish Network back up. I called them back up and they transfer me to technical support. I was finally able to get them to tell me that there were two different tracking numbers. She almost forgot to tell me the new tracking number! I had to ask for it! I call UPS up and it was sent to the wrong address. The lady on the phone did not tell me that. The lady on the phone just told me that they got lost. I should have received both packages in the same day. I give them my correct address and I receive the receiver the next day. They had also told me that I was to return two receivers. I told them NO I was to only return one that it was a dual tuner receiver. They were also trying to get me to explain what happened to them again and I told them I was not going through that bull again that I had already explained it numerous times and that it should all be on the notes on the account.

I call Dish Network up and activate the new (refurbished) receiver to replace the bad one. It gets activated and I request for time without service. They give me $55 saying that the computer does it automatically for them and that there is nothing he can do about it. I pay around $80-85 a month total for everything by the time I pay those extra DVR and additional outlet fees. The man on the phone tells me they do not give credit for those for time without service. I settle for the $55. I think all is fine now.

I notice that one of my other receivers is now shut off. They had shut off the wrong receiver when doing the swap. I call them up and tell them to hurry up and get it turned back on. The Asian tells me real fast "hold on while I transfer you" and gets me to the automated tech support. I hang up and call back. This person is an American. He tells me that they RA'ed that receiver. I tell him no and start getting very upset and tell him that I am missing my shows because it is deactivated. They do not want to offer anything for my hassle but I finally get them to turn the receiver back on and shut off the correct one. I told him that when I had these turned on that they were certain that they had the correct receiver number on the notes to shut off. That was a LIE! I get off the phone after I see that the receiver has been activated missing some of my shows now.

The next day I get a bill that is higher than it should be. They charged an extra $49.99 on my bill. I call them up and I cannot get through their stupid phone system the first time, it just hangs there. I try calling again. When I finally get in touch with someone the man tells me that the charge is supposed to be there that there is still supposed to be a $49.99 fee for changing the receiver out. I tried explaining to him that it was not supposed to be there, that the warranty is supposed to cover ALL costs of replacing the receiver, that is what the warranty was for. He said no, there was still a $49.99 fee. I told him to just transfer me to the cancellations department that I was going to shut my service off and switch to Directv. The imcompetant man does so. I tell him the situation. He says that I am right and that I was not supposed to be charged the $49.99 fee. I tell him that it would take a LOT more than just taking that $49.99 fee off my bill to keep me as a customer, he asked what would it take, I told him a free lease on the 622 receiver or an equal amount of programming for free for what it would regularly cost to lease one. He said he could not do that. I told him that I have had this system for a while, have automatic bill pay, and always pay one year in advance for my programming, and that they get quit a bit from me in an average month. They said taking the $49.99 off the bill was the best that they could do. I know that was bull because I heard where they gave others a bit to keep the system on. I told him that if I have this shut off that I need my money back for what I paid one year in advance. He said he could not do that, that I would be forfeiting what I paid in advance for the remainder of the year. I told him he could not do that, that I paid in advance for service that I cannot get and that I would turn him into the Attorney General's office and sue him and cost the company lots of money by telling this all over the internet and have a lot of people I know switch to Directv costing them thousands. He still said he could not do anything for me other than removing the $49.99 off of my bill. I said to just give me one month programming credit for all of my hassle I have had with them and that will be ok for now very sternly to him, that by the time I pay annual and what I pay monthly for extra channels and fees it should come out to $80 some dollars a month average. He said he would take $80 off of the bill. I said ok, that should be good for now but my annual comes up in Feb or March. I figured that if they were going to try to rip me off $49.99 that it should cost them $49.99 for the mistake, that they are the ones that should end up paying it for trying to charge me that especially after all of the hassle I have been through with them for a while now. I had told the gentleman that I had to keep calling in because of one mistake after another that was made and that it was a never ending thing.

Dish Network, YOU SUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! when it comes to service. I like your programming and your DVR, but I do not like your service on the phone and your ripping people off on their bills charging them for things that do not belong on the bills. You better do something before your churn runs away from you. Me and many others are sick and tired of putting up with the ripoff's and imcompetency you guys try to pull. Train your people better and have them treat us better. Give us something for our hassle when we call in with issues. Me nor anybody else should have to tolerate such bull as you put onto me as a customer. You will go out of business if you treat all of your customers this way. It is MUCH simpler just switching to somebody else than keep putting up with this bull over and over again.

Now I know why so many people cancel. They will not go through half of the bull I did. Just one mistake and they will switch without giving them a chance to fix mistake. Those that give them a chance, they blow it by not wanting to take wrongful charge off bill or fix mistake as they should. I will not pitty Dish near as much as I would have before if they start losing lots of business because of poor customer service! I just had to flame to get this out. I think you should know that things need to be done to improve your service on the phone or you will lose lots of customers that you didn't need to lose because of stupid things such as this.
 
Hmm well I suggest that you E-mail them at ceo@echostar.com to see what they could do for you. Sounds like that yes there were somethings they could have done better then the ups thing is something else. Either way E-mail them and let us know what they say due to most likey they will get you taken care.
 
It is kind of hard to cancel when he says he will NOT refund what was paid for in advance. Thats a big loss. That's why I told him in Feb or March the year is up. That is when I will explore other options (Directv). I told him I could sell my hardware and get the Directv hardware for free plus their special offer.

Yep he called my bluff that time because of me having paid the year up front but when it comes time to renew maybe they will think differently. I am sure they are trained to handle situations like this to try to get out of giving anything away if they do not have to. Would they now tell me that they already offered me something to stay with them before if I were to have a situation with them again and want to switch and not offer me anything and just shut it off? I think it sucks that they do not want to offer customers anything for the time and hassle. They used to offer it to you but now you have to threaten to cancel or ask for it to even have a chance of getting it.
 
Yeah I understand it can get bad sometimes! Either way if you ever do HD Dish Rocks and when you go HD just do a upgrade to a 211 or 622. But again main thing is E-mail and you should be fine and let us know how things go.. :)
 
I can understand why Dish doesn't offer more when someone calls into cancel. They have seen I 'm sure all the freebies that Directv offers and if they were to start doing the same , everyone would to cancel at just to get them. Yes they should have been more understanding with your situation but I don't think that trying to extort a free 622 out of the deal was worth all your trouble. THat is wrong and I don't see how you can rationalize that you are owed one because of a few screwups at Dish.

IF you could have seen all the dishplayers 7100/7200 dvrs I sent back for rma in 1999 and 2000, you wouldn't have said a word about your situation. I finally gave up on rmas since it was an internal fight between Microsoft and Dish, and settled for 501 receiver when they came out since they were the same price. And I didn't have to go through cancellations to get it either.

Next time you have ANY problems please use the TECH department for your problems. They are staffed by Americans who speak ENGLISH and can be understood by most people. I have learned that using regular csrs will get you problems like you described above. That is one thing I learned in 10 years with Dish, the other thing is this: ALL electronic things break . So if you stay with Dish be prepared to rma your receiver when they break. Be prepared to rma the lnbs when they go crazy. I had to rma over 3 dishpro plus twin lnbs over the last few months on two of my Dish accounts. It turns out there was some heat related problems with the ones made, in I think this country. I now keep a couple of spare dish pro plus twins that I bought , just in case of any more problems. If anything else like my receiver goes bad , I just add the dish warrenty for 5.99 and when it is replaced, I take it off my bill.

In the end be patient, as service is not what it used to be ANYWHERE in this country . IF you can't then go ahead and try the competition and see if they are any better.
 
Yeah very true! Some installers do a better than job than others it all depends on how good installers are in your aera. They will be diffrent from state to state..
 
Now I know why so many people cancel satellite, especially Dish Network...

So many??? If it were so many, then Dish's numbers would be going in the other direction, but since they are still growing (12.47 mil at the end of Q2), I would have to say that it isn't necessarily "so many"
 
So many??? If it were so many, then Dish's numbers would be going in the other direction....
Too many like to think that their experience with customer service is how EVERYONE's is. Remember, "no news is good news". People (generally) only speak out when things go wrong. I mean, do we want people starting threads every day like "Hey, I turned on my Dish receiver this evening and it worked. All the channels came in too. Man, I LOVE Dish !". Then lots of us could reply "Me too" and go on for days.
 
Just to add my tale of woe...

Last weekend I installed my Dish1000. Living in the Pacific NW I found it hard to get acceptable signal levels on 129 --- but thats a different story. Anyway, I finally got it to the point where most transponders stayed up most of the time :rolleyes:

Then I called to see about getting the extra HD programming turned on. I had the old 180 program package + DISH HD (pre-paid 1yr) + 2 movie channels package.

I ended up speaking to someone who I had great difficulty understanding, and apparently had great difficulty understanding me. She pretty much insisted that I couldn't have the extra HD because I had to have another dish pointing at 61.5.

I told her I had 129, and that the HD programs were on there -- no, she insisted.
Finally, she went away and came back to say that, yes, 129 was a Dish satellite, but HD programming was all now on 61.5. I finally had enough and asked if I hung up and called again, would I get a different person -- she said yes.

So I called again. Different person, but equally difficult communication. So I asked where she was -- Phlippines. I gave up.

Next day - monday - I called the 800-333-DISH number and got to speak to an American. He was confused that they didn't have a Dish1000 listed in their system, so I explained that I had set it up myself. He seemed a bit surprised, but had no trouble crediting the existing HD payment and authorizing the additional HD content.

Night and day difference.

I wonder if they realise just what outsourcing customer support really costs?
 
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My friend in Denver Has 3 receivers with legacy LNBs. His switch died so he called and got India, they sent him a DP44. Obviously it didn't work so he called again and their far-east CS sent another DP44.

He was getting pissed about not having service for a month so he called again and got, you guessed it, India. He told them he didn't call to order a strawberry squishie and explained the problem to them to no avail. So he said "Listen, what you are sending me goes together like Hindu's eating beef and I want to speak to an american so I can slaughter this cow and grind it up to make sandwiches! He was IMMEDIATLY transferred to Dish HQ (5 miles from his house) and 2 Dish trucks showed up at his door the next morning!

Pretty effective!
 
My friend in Denver Has 3 receivers with legacy LNBs. His switch died so he called and got India, they sent him a DP44. Obviously it didn't work so he called again and their far-east CS sent another DP44.

...

Oh man, I would have milked that cow until it died. I'll take DP44's all day and all night in the place of some stupid TV! CHA CHING!!! :D
 
I just felt like I had to vent. I feel the pain people are going through when they are going through problems. I have had problems before but nothing compared to what I went through this time. It is getting worse. I wonder if Dish Network considered if it was really worth getting the Asian call centers were worth it if people had to keep calling back and if churn increased because of increased misunderstandings on the phone and mess ups. It might end up costing them more to go the Asian route than the U.S. route. Maybe they are spending a nickel thinking they are saving a dime but costing them a quarter? I just felt that there were way way too many issues all at once to deal with and that you have to know what to do and who to talk to in order to get them resolved. It should not have to take that to get problems resolved. These problems should not happen to begin with. A company should learn from their mistakes and fix the problems so that they will not occur again. If it would have been just one of these issues then it would not have been that much to deal with.

I figured they wouldn't give me the 622 lease for free for the hassle but I figured it wouldnt hurt to try. I wanted to see if they actually valued my business and they just do not show me that they do and I am sure if I feel this way then many others do as well. I also understand that they cannot just give a bunch of people a bunch of free stuff everytime they complain about something but in special circumstances they should OFFER people something for their hassle like they used to, to make them feel that they actually care and are a valuable customer, even if it was a few free ppv coupons. I figure if they wanted to try to sneak an extra $49.99 out of me then they owed me a bit more than that for trying to pull that trick. I do not think all of these overcharges people see are by mistake. How many times have you seen an undercharge on a bill or when you go to store and they make a mistake on your receipt?

People must have abused the system for so long that they think everybody is trying to get something for nothing now but when you give away free systems, free programming, free upgrades, free this and free that then what are people going to expect? I forgot all about the email route and I will try that next time I have a problem just so that I will not have to keep calling to get problems fixed and have to deal with a live person on the phone that cannot understand me or someone I cannot understand.
 
Sorry about what happened Stargazer. Feel free to vent, I'm sure you feel better now.
 
Well a little better anyway. I hope things stay improved.
 
Yeah very true! Some installers do a better than job than others it all depends on how good installers are in your aera. They will be diffrent from state to state..

I think it varies more from installer to installer than from state to state.
 
Im sorry for the experiance you have had with dish network. Dealing with any large company can be a pain in the butt and this will go for dealing with direct tv as well..The quick and easy solution to this problem is when deciding on ordering a dish check for local retailers in your area. Most (not all) local dealers will always be on call for you and will take care of you personally. No more voice prompt hell when calling for service no call centers over seas to deal with. Give your local dealer a chance to put a local face on what is by nature a faceless service.
 

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