Phone line charge? Avoidable?

[MDB in SE La]

Two months ago my next door neighbor ordered Dish with a dual tuner and a single tuner. I told him he had to connect a telephone line and he said the rep he talked to and the installer didn't tell him about keeping it hooked up. He said he wasn't going to do it or pay it. He's a stubborn old coot and right now, the installer is out, removing the dish and the receivers. He told me that he tried to talk to the old coot(his words) but since he wasn't told he is having it removed and going with DirectTV. He said he is going to challenge his charges on his VISA card which is how he paid for it. I've had some experience with that and I think it's a slam dunk as VISA really takes care of their customers that charges are in dispute. Bottom line is DirectTV may charge him for the receivers hooked up to phone lines but they are going to have to tell him first. Hard headed.......sure was a lot of trouble to go through for a phone line he may still have to pay for. Any ideas on this from any others.

 

[Zero327]

This hogwash is tempting me to lock out my receiver by punching in the wrong PIN a few times requiring me to call Dish to unlock it. I will of course disconnect the phone line before calling. Who thinks they'll be able to unlock my receiver ?? I'm confident it will.

Think about this Zero, to do what you suggest would require the receiver to dial in to Dish. Why would it dial in ?? Is my phone going to ring while I'm on the line with the rep and my receiver will answer the call ?? Don't think so.....

Now now children, if you don't calm down I'm turning this satellite right around and we're going home!

I said SOME "updates" or commands, I never said all. And like any good electronics service there's a redundancy. After all, it would be very difficult to authorize customers with no land lines if there weren't the ABILITY to send commands via the sat feed. That doesn't mean you can't run it through the phone line either. As a matter of fact it means you could switch off depending on the load for a given transponder. But as usual, people overreact and don't think about the possibilities.

Realistically, it could be used for almost anything, but merely for a location check is unlikely if you think (and keep bias opinions to yourself) about it. As far as "baseless speculation", baseless speculation is that it's ONLY used for location checks and nothing further. In all honesty noone but DISH really knows. And IF I were employed by DISH, you think you would listen versus accuse me of bias supposition. You could potentially learn something.

Regardless of what you think (and personal attacks on me don't change the facts that you WILL be charged if you don't hook your line up) the phone line can be used for any number of low volume data transmissions, from locations to PPV downloads, to logs on receiver activity, just about anything except programming itself.

And it's very difficult not to be "biased" on a pro-consumer forum when neutral statements are considered pro-corporate.

 

[DML]

I was told by E* that they get checked (autited) by there program suppliers and are made to prove that the second recevier, less $. is in the same residence (phone #) as the main one. The easy way to do that is to ping each reciever by phone. If the phone is not connected E* will call the your residence phone and have you go through the menu and read the secret code. They did with me.

 

[dishcomm]

A few clarifications. Account stacking is any instance where multiple parties are serviced in one dwelling at the same address (family w/ renter) or cases where receivers are in multiple physical locations (vacation home/residence) but all appear on the same account. DISH requires a seperate account for each party utilizing the service (otherwise it's reproduction issue, same as copying DVDs to give to friends, even if you don't "sell" them) and a seperate account for each residence a receiver(s) resides in.

Keep in mind, DISH COULD prosecute if you do any of these things, it's a form of commercial fraud. (But then again so is rebroadcasting PPV boxing matches.) It's more lucrative though to correct the issue by forcing the customer to have multiple accounts. Each account allows a recharge of base programming fees and additional receiver fees, versus just charging an additional $5.00.

Next, some updates are pushed out via phone line (because DISH has decided you do not need to know what does not make the statement any less true.) Not entire software updates, but commands to the receiver, authorization checks, any number of functions can take place via the phone line that would otherwise be inefficient to manage on the satellite uplink. Imagine every CSR sending out commands to receivers and having to funnel that through the satellite. That would bog down the feed, yes? Every activation, every parental lock release, all of it requiring sat bandwidth. It would add up quickly to 13 million customers and probably three times that or more in receiver units.

The reality is if people spent as much time playing by the rules as they do trying to find ways around DISH policies, Charlie might be far more lenient with audits and fee policies. But too many people are trying to take advantage at any given point in time between threatening disconnections (I saw a Usenet article the other night where the CSR transferred and shut off someone who did this. A threat to disconnect is the same as a request to.) insisting on free equipment and misuse of resources (you would think the CEO address would be used for only the worst issues of all, uh, but it's not) I'm not surprised. People don't learn. Charlie learns, he's demonstrated that. And Charlie doesn't like being milked, or being threatened. He's demonstrated that too.

As far as the class action concerns...it's a service. Read the fine print, DISH may do as it sees fit with it's own programming and equipment. All they are required to do is let you know what they're doing, when and sometimes why.

Um, hotrod gotta ask..What's your angle here?..
I think you're reading the fine print and running with it..
I am a 9 year Dish customer..Never had a phine line attachewd to any of my receivers and never been audited..In fact I am one of those "5 star" customers..
So now what?..
Oh yeah, perhaps there are instances where customers have threatened to disco their service over disputes..But those occurances are far and few between..With each work order I get, I also gett he account notes..There is plenty of "winback" free stuff on there..Free service calls. Free EQ upgrades. Etc...
Account stacking......This is common. Especially among latinos. I'l go to a service call and the reciver is bad...I'll install a new one(reman) and call Diswh to get the old one deactivated and the replacement authorized..Surprise!!! The one at the house isn't the receiver on the account...It's someone elses...Great, now it's my headache....Or I'll go to a house with two or three dishes on it..A "reverse account stacking"...
I went ot one a couple of weks ago..A new connect..The customer had an active acount on site...The cust wanted upgraded EQ so they just changed a couple of letters of their street name...I found the house using a little sleuthing..Anyway upon discovering the duck and cover I called Dsih..The CSR put me thru to Winback.. The Winback chick said go ahead and do the job...Took her name and OP ID....Did the job....
POint is things are not as cut and dried as you seem to imply...Dish regualrly usurps it's own policies to keep existing and connect new customers.

 

[Zero327]

Well I would hardly equate CSRs not doing their jobs to DISH breaching its own policies but anyways... Realistically, who here honestly believes a front line CSR, Winback or otherwise is authorized to tell a retailer how they can and can't do a job? What do you want to bet if you get nailed on that basis, DISH will hold you responsible as the party doing the work and not the CSR?

CSRs have issues, noone's disputing that point, LEAST OF ALL me. I'm saying that there's more headaches present from those that usurp the "correct" policy for the "easy" policy. Just because you can find one out of (what was that last estimate?) 22,000 employees working for DISH to say it's ok doesn't mean it won't come back to bite you. Same principle as doing an install correctly, or like a third-party sub (no offense, but most of that classification sucks at installs, and T/C's, and well...anything sat related.)

*shrug* The point is really moot, because at the end of the day anyone that reads this post, this forum, this website or any other source of information is just going to do what they want anyways. And then when they get nailed they're going to call DISH screaming and whining about it, and a retailer will be sent out or take a hit for $100 over it, and it'll be something amounting to a half-assed install or the customer took the batteries out of the remote, or they hotwired their 622 in an attempt to get free TEN, and then whatever unlucky retailer gets stuck with that will be calling into DISH for help, and will be told they're SOL.

Or...everyone could do things correctly from the start. I like my ideal universe in which the latter occurs more often than not. I guess I just need to vent a litte, because it's really amusing but also annoying to see so many customers and retailers shocked and dismayed when they are run through the meat grinder because they not only didn't they play by the rules, but had to question the rules, try and get the rules rewritten, sued DISH over the rules, and end up being force-fed the rules anyhow. Why not just skip to the end of the story? Less headache for everyone involved.

Is plugging in the cord really that difficult? It takes more effort to run some RG.

 

[dishcomm]

Well I would hardly equate CSRs not doing their jobs to DISH breaching its own policies but anyways... Realistically, who here honestly believes a front line CSR, Winback or otherwise is authorized to tell a retailer how they can and can't do a job? What do you want to bet if you get nailed on that basis, DISH will hold you responsible as the party doing the work and not the CSR?

CSRs have issues, noone's disputing that point, LEAST OF ALL me. I'm saying that there's more headaches present from those that usurp the "correct" policy for the "easy" policy. Just because you can find one out of (what was that last estimate?) 22,000 employees working for DISH to say it's ok doesn't mean it won't come back to bite you. Same principle as doing an install correctly, or like a third-party sub (no offense, but most of that classification sucks at installs, and T/C's, and well...anything sat related.)

*shrug* The point is really moot, because at the end of the day anyone that reads this post, this forum, this website or any other source of information is just going to do what they want anyways. And then when they get nailed they're going to call DISH screaming and whining about it, and a retailer will be sent out or take a hit for $100 over it, and it'll be something amounting to a half-assed install or the customer took the batteries out of the remote, or they hotwired their 622 in an attempt to get free TEN, and then whatever unlucky retailer gets stuck with that will be calling into DISH for help, and will be told they're SOL.

Or...everyone could do things correctly from the start. I like my ideal universe in which the latter occurs more often than not. I guess I just need to vent a litte, because it's really amusing but also annoying to see so many customers and retailers shocked and dismayed when they are run through the meat grinder because they not only didn't they play by the rules, but had to question the rules, try and get the rules rewritten, sued DISH over the rules, and end up being force-fed the rules anyhow. Why not just skip to the end of the story? Less headache for everyone involved.

Is plugging in the cord really that difficult? It takes more effort to run some RG.

A clarification. My post applies to DNS jobs....
I don't have to cherry pick CSR's..Not every technician on here is on the sly.
Contractors suck huh?...Yeah I am offended..How's the view from that pedastal of moral superiority looking today?
We also are a retailer for Dish. We don't pussy foot around. If a customer breaches their contract we nail them with a backcharge on top of the one they suffer from Dish. At point of sale the prospect is given full disclosure of our backcharge policy, If they don't like it, they can find another retailer. Each of our retail customers signs a form at time of install agreeing to the backcharge.Perhaps you ( Iam reading you as a retailer) should consider a simialr policy...This way, if one of your customers screws around with their EQ it is they who get slapped...
How we got away form the topic of the thread is a mystery..
In my ecxperience, whenver a customer has asked about waiving the phine line fee the answer was always no...
Attention all customers who don't like the phone line fee, STOP ASKING...