Another benefit to having a credit card along with your checking account: You can set up the CC to do overdraft protection (debits from the credit card when there are not enough funds in checking, thus avoiding overdraft penalties.
On-Screen Billing Nags for Already Paid Bills
- Thread starter HanoverPretzel
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The nearest credit union that I meet the eligibility requirements for talks about getting people to sign up for overdraft protection on their website, which implies they have an overdraft fee for overdrafts. There's an online bank that offers to charge a small percentage of interest instead of a normal overdraft fee, but I prefer to have a physical bank I can walk into and talk to someone at if something goes wrong.
I know it's hard for people to believe sometimes, but I actually do look into these things and consider different options. I'm at my bank because right now I believe it offers me the best terms and conditions I can get as a total package locally (Better in some areas, worse in others, but over all better). One or two others I found might be equal, but why go through the hassle of switching just to end up with the same thing? If I'm happy and don't see anything clearly better, it makes sense to stay. If something changes (either my bank changes it's policies or another bank offers something drastically better), I'll reconsider at that juncture.
Same basic reason I don't do auto-pay with Dish. It's not that I don't know that auto-pay exists and didn't consider it's advantages and disadvantages. I did consider it and make an informed decision that it was a better choice for me to pay manually each month.
Dish still shouldn't hassle me over it. They're wrong in principle for operating this way, in my opinion. You don't hassle people about a bill unless it's overdue. If one still has time to pay and be on-time, or one has already paid, one shouldn't be hassled.
so true. Its nice to get an e-mail or a text message that says "just a friendly reminder that your bill is coming due soon"
I can understand why someone might want that and consider it a feature. Personally, I think the e-mail they send me when my bill is first available to be paid is enough, though. If I want an additional reminder, I can program by phone calendar to notify me on the day it's due or use some other method I find less obtrusive than repeated phone calls and messages right in the middle of my screen while I'm trying to watch tv that I have to use the remote to make go away repeatedly. So, make it opt-in- if people want the reminder, they can go to the website and check that option. Or, alternately, make it opt-out, where if someone doesn't like it, they can go to the website and check a box and never be called or have an on-screen nag notification.
When someone, or a company, continues to do something like this, though, even when the customer says "I don't like it, stop.", it's borderline harassment, though, especially when the customer is complying with the terms of the contract and paying his bill on-time. I mean, we now have a national do not call registry you can sign up for to avoid unwanted telemarketing calls. But Dish feels they need to robo-call me twice a month some months, whether I like it or not, even though I'm paying on-time and in full. It's also an annoying system. You pick up the phone and go "Hello?", and it's followed by like 10-15 seconds of silence until their automated message kicks in. Sometimes you say "Hello?" and it just hangs up on you (I guess their machine didn't hear me?). Sometimes it leaves a voicemail that I have to go into my voicemail and start listening to in order to manually delete. It's just a hassle.
And, like I said, bottom line, hassling paying customers who pay on-time is bad corporate policy, especially when your competitors don't do it. I could picture switching services down the line and going "Phew! It's nice to no longer get those harassing phone calls and nag screens on my television that block the hockey game.". Not saying I'd switch just for that reason alone, but when my contract expires I'll probably do a mental pro and con chart of Dish versus Direct versus going back to cable and this is going to be one of the "cons" with Dish, and it might help tip the balance.
Also, getting the nag screen repeatedly 36 hours or so after I've paid is just adding insult to injury. If they can't figure out a way to do it right (Only nagging customers who haven't paid and have overdue bills), don't do it at all.
Hey Pretzel, Don't let everybody give you a hard time. I'm not sure why, but there are always plenty of people coming to the defense of Dish on almost every issue.
You are perfectly justified in being annoyed that a payment nag message popped up on your screen after you paid your bill on time.
This has happened on the commercial account i administer at work on a number of occasions. And, CSR's have admitted to me that it's a known bug.
It's also perfectly understandable why you wouldn't want auto-pay. Most people don't like it, as service providers, be they wireless, utility, phone, whatever, often err on their billing. (Dish is very much included.) And, it is more difficult to take care of errant charges after money has been taken from your account. It can be disastrous if you don't have a lot of money in the bank.
Your best bet is to pay your bill a day or two before it's due. Also, set reminders. Not just an email reminder from Dish, but also calendar reminders. If you use gmail, then setup Google Calendar reminders. If you use Yahoo, then Yahoo calendar. Your cell phone probably has a calendar app as well. (Mine syncs with both my Google and Exchange calendars.)
Finally, you may wanna take a look at your programming, and drop premiums, reduce package levels, or remove extra receivers. A lot of stuff is available OTA and streaming. It isn't necessary to subscribe to expensive sat/cable programming anymore. If your TV/BD player doesn't have streaming apps built-in, a Roku is a beautiful thing.
You are perfectly justified in being annoyed that a payment nag message popped up on your screen after you paid your bill on time.
This has happened on the commercial account i administer at work on a number of occasions. And, CSR's have admitted to me that it's a known bug.
It's also perfectly understandable why you wouldn't want auto-pay. Most people don't like it, as service providers, be they wireless, utility, phone, whatever, often err on their billing. (Dish is very much included.) And, it is more difficult to take care of errant charges after money has been taken from your account. It can be disastrous if you don't have a lot of money in the bank.
Your best bet is to pay your bill a day or two before it's due. Also, set reminders. Not just an email reminder from Dish, but also calendar reminders. If you use gmail, then setup Google Calendar reminders. If you use Yahoo, then Yahoo calendar. Your cell phone probably has a calendar app as well. (Mine syncs with both my Google and Exchange calendars.)
Finally, you may wanna take a look at your programming, and drop premiums, reduce package levels, or remove extra receivers. A lot of stuff is available OTA and streaming. It isn't necessary to subscribe to expensive sat/cable programming anymore. If your TV/BD player doesn't have streaming apps built-in, a Roku is a beautiful thing.
Yeah, it's an interesting phenomenon. It's a little foreign to me culturally. I grew up in a household where people had a lot of complaints about the price of things and the customer service they got, and they were under far less financial stress than I am and I think customer service was generally a whole lot better back in those days. Yet, these days, anywhere you go online, there are people who will defend virtually any practice a company might institute and say it's great and say how dare anyone criticize it (Not just with television, anything). I don't get it.
But maybe people are just raised with different values when it comes to this stuff. Personally, I've never felt like it's out of line to mention it if something doesn't give you enough value for the price or a company doesn't treat you right in some way. How else are companies going to improve if we don't tell them what's bothering us and if necessary publicize it a little or take our money elsewhere after a certain point? People just sort of nodding their heads and taking it is how we got to-- well, the current state of pay television in general (Not singling out Dish here- Comcast was bad in some ways, too). And if people don't ever mention anything or vote with their money, companies are just going to treat us worse and worse and give us less of what we want in return for more money.
Thank you.
Yeah, I'm at one receiver, no movie channels or anything like that. Where they've kind of got me is that I like local or semi-local live sports. And there's basically no legal way to watch most of those games except for cable or satellite. I also can't get any OTA channels where I live.
But if I weren't a sports fan and could get the big broadcast networks OTA, I'd probably have "cut the cord" years ago. Someone could get Netflix by mail and streaming through a Roku box or whatever and supplement with OTA broadcasts and be saving a lot of money. That's part of why I sometimes have trouble understanding non-sports fans who live in major metropolitian areas complaining about paying for sports programming-- it's, like, in this day and age, why would you pay for tv in the first place if you don't like sports and have access to OTA and Internet and DVDs by mail and whatever?
Just strategically, what Dish doesn't seem to realize, and other companies do, is that live sports that are exclusive to cable/satellite are basically the only thing that has a chance of keeping their industry alive long term. People who want movies or episodic TV now have other cheaper options to get those things. It's someone who wants to follow local live sports who doesn't. So that's why, just from a business perspective alone, to me it's a very risky move for Dish to monkey around in their negotiations with local RSNs and ESPN and stuff. Those are the indispensable channels that keep people subscribing to cable and satellite. The non-sports stuff can be replicated elsewhere, and in the long-run most of those customers will disappear no matter what Dish and other companies do. It's the sports fan customers who will be their bread and butter going forward if the industry survives at all.
News channels might be a similar phenomena, but we're already seeing some fringe news channels broadcast directly for free online. In the long run, people will probably be able to get something similar enough to their favorite news channel online. We might not be there yet, but we will be eventually. The thing that can't be replicated online is the big sports leagues, at least not without one league yanking their contracts and trying to sell directly to the fans online.
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I had to go back thru the thread to see who was defending Dish in here, but I didn't see it. All I saw were acknowledgements of the problem and suggested solutions to work around it.
Those channels may be indispensable to you, but others wouldn't blink an eye if they disappeared. I did perfectly fine without FSN last year when Fox held Dish hostage to rate increases for over a month during football season. Yes I missed 2 of my teams games but I wouldn't have watched FSN other than those 6 hrs for the whole rest of the month.
Believe me I know a lot about online streaming. More than I should talk about. It isn't there in the US, if you want to watch current seasons of shows online. Some network stuff is available the next day or within a week but many many other shows are not available for at least a year if ever online.
Edit: I posted in the computer forum earlier today. Apple is rumored to be looking at bidding on the EPL soccer rights in the UK and make it a dedicated channel on the Apple TV. I don't think it would work here as too many rural people without broadband, but you never know Apple could one day have the sole NBA or NHL rights and it would only be available online thru Apple TV.
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Believe me I know a lot about online streaming. More than I should talk about. It isn't there in the US, if you want to watch current seasons of shows online. Some network stuff is available the next day or within a week but many many other shows are not available for at least a year if ever online.
Edit: I posted in the computer forum earlier today. Apple is rumored to be looking at bidding on the EPL soccer rights in the UK and make it a dedicated channel on the Apple TV. I don't think it would work here as too many rural people without broadband, but you never know Apple could one day have the sole NBA or NHL rights and it would only be available online thru Apple TV.
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Anyways it looks like Dish's computers need an update. Going back to to original problem where he pays online, Dish should instantely credit his account and they should not send pop up notices any more. If they can do a programming change in 30 seconds they should be able to send down the receiver hit to stop them from nagging in 30 seconds. All the rest of this thread is just suggestions on how to get Dish the money a day or more earlier so Dish will not put up the pop ups.
I lasted about two weeks when I cancelled my cable and Internet without a replacement about a year ago when the cable company's prices got too high for me to handle. It was making me miserable and I then realized I had to figure something out- thus leading me to Dish network for television, and a mobile "broadband" card for Internet. I have to admit, I may have some complaints about Dish from time to time, but it definitely worked out better for me than the mobile "broadband" thing which was a worse experience than even AOL on dial-up back in the 90s.
So I went back to cable Internet only eventually, when I qualified for the new customer promos again- of course that almost fell through when they gave me a run-around that involved filling out forms on the Internet only to be told to go to their office, several trips to their office that included them telling me they couldn't offer me the Internet offer even though I'd tried to sign up online and was told to come to their office, telling me that I couldn't complete my sign-up because it had been less than 72 hours since I had tried to sign up online (and been told to come in), three trips from them to my apartment, a missed installation, them claiming they couldn't verify my identity (Even though I was their customer at the same address 6 months prior), them trying to backtrack on the deal, etc. and so on. It all ended with me writing a letter to the consumerist and conferencing with corporate VPs on the phone and stuff.
Honestly, I was all set never to deal with them again- some of the conversations I had with people at points would have made sailors blushed, I was livid. Until someone very high in their hierarchy basically let me set my own terms for the first year of net access. I told him I need x, y, and z including a particular price (Lower than anything advertised), and he agreed to it- and the service has been great since. But when I occasionally allude to having issues with the cable company, I'm not exaggerating, I'm understating it.
Which is part of why I want to be happy with Dish for my television. And to Dish's credit, they are generally very easy to deal with in terms of logistics. I called them up, they took a card number for payment and set an appointment, they showed up and installed it, and I was good to go. If I need to change packages, I make a few clicks on the computer. I like all that. But they definitely have issues to work on, like some of the stuff I've mentioned in this thread.
It's frustrating in the television field to find it's all about tradeoffs. No one provider really seems to get everything pretty much right. I don't think it's impossible that one could one day, though- there are companies in other fields that I've been very happy dealing with all around and think I get a good bargain with (i.e. the sports I want for a price that isn't too much of a sacrifice). I'd love to see Dish Network or one of the other providers evolve into a company like that one day. Anyone have any ideas on how we as consumers can help make that happen?
I hadn't really thought of it that way. I do enjoy episodic television sometimes, but I'm mostly content with waiting for it to hit DVD and getting it a disc at a time from Netflix. I caught up on Dr. Who recently and have been working my way through The Borgias that way. That's something that doesn't really work with sports- somehow if the game isn't live or at least close to it, the suspense is just gone for me and most sports fans I know.
I don't know whether to be scared of that future or to hope to comes really soon. On the one hand, it could wind up making things cheaper (No general TV package to buy) and easily being able to guarantee one gets one's teams games all the time (Rather than missing certain channels that might telecast an occasional game). On the other hand, it could turn into something too exclusive where the equipment and the expense is out of reach of folks like me. Probably be somewhere in between, I guess. We'll have to wait and see. We're living in interesting times.
If you pay it early then when the due date comes there won't be anything for autopay to pay and nothing will happen. If you don't want auto pay to pay it one month log in to your account and cancel it for that month then restore it the next month.
