I called at 8am ET and had a fairly smooth experience. She told me the earliest available install date was 2/22 from 8am to 12pm. Oh well, there goes the Olympics in HD (other than the stale 24 hr. old feed on the HD channel). I told her I was going to swap my 4900 for a 622. OK, she says (hmmm. no shortage so far, unless they bump my date at the last minute). It will cost me $299 and there was no choice on her computer to just ship it, so I have to wait for an installer. Oh well, I'll have him run an extra line to my bedroom and I'll move my 921 there, and move my 510 to the basement.
I commented that things must have been busy and she said that THAT was an understatement as they had been slammed since 6am with callers doing what I had done. I figured I'd have a good chance of getting through since the west coast hadn't woken up yet. I got through with no hold time, and was picked up by a CSR within 10 seconds after navigating the voice prompts menu (I went through the "Add Programming" section which rarely has a delay). The woman who had a voice that sounded like Nell Carter so no Indian CSRs today...... She seemed to be fairly on top of things and I couldn't fault anything she said (other than the fact she kept trying to call it a single tuner DVR - she also initially said it would be $49..... I told her that I didn't want the 211 I wanted the 622, and she quickly corrected herself... everything else seemed to be spot on the details we've been talking about).
She did try to charge me the $299 on my credit card TODAY which I balked at and told her that I had previously been able to add it to my account and been billed during my monthly cycle (that will buy me another month before it hits my card). She went away for a sec and then came back to say that would be OK because of my 5 years with E* and my excellent payment history (CC Auto Pay will do that). She did say that she needed my AMEX card for a $1 hold for three days (um, OK..... whatever) She also said that I would be agreeing to stay at AT60 or higher for 18 months or a $400 equipment fee would be charged. (OK, no Fios until at least 7/2007) She also said that I would be paying $6 month for a lease fee. I asked if that would be mostly offset by the elimination of the $5 additional receiver fee on my 4900 and she said yes. Big deal, an extra buck for more buttery HD goodness.
SO FAR, it looks like it won't be too bad other than the 3 week lead time for an installer. I'm gonna go the ceo@echostar.com route and see if I can improve on that date. We'll see though if things go south in a hurry if they run out of boxes by the time my install date shows up (which is a nagging fear at this point). She gave me an RA number for the 4900 just in case the installer doesn't ask for it during the install (she wasn't sure which way that would go). She then asked me if there was anything else. I said No and that was the end of the call.
She never asked me any questions about my switches (although that info was probably on my info screen in front of her). I'm ready to go and just need the box to be hooked up as I have a Dish 500 looking at 110/119 and a Dish 300 ooking at 61.5. I have 2 SW64s feeding a 921, a 510, 2 508s, and a 4900 currently. I'll be a 100% PVR household when this is done (and I'l keep my 921 for another year until they have to sweeten the deal to swap it out to be able to kill the old HD MPeg2 streams in 2007).
A better experience than I expected although the 3 week lead time is a bit of a letdown with the Olympics coming......
I commented that things must have been busy and she said that THAT was an understatement as they had been slammed since 6am with callers doing what I had done. I figured I'd have a good chance of getting through since the west coast hadn't woken up yet. I got through with no hold time, and was picked up by a CSR within 10 seconds after navigating the voice prompts menu (I went through the "Add Programming" section which rarely has a delay). The woman who had a voice that sounded like Nell Carter so no Indian CSRs today...... She seemed to be fairly on top of things and I couldn't fault anything she said (other than the fact she kept trying to call it a single tuner DVR - she also initially said it would be $49..... I told her that I didn't want the 211 I wanted the 622, and she quickly corrected herself... everything else seemed to be spot on the details we've been talking about).
She did try to charge me the $299 on my credit card TODAY which I balked at and told her that I had previously been able to add it to my account and been billed during my monthly cycle (that will buy me another month before it hits my card). She went away for a sec and then came back to say that would be OK because of my 5 years with E* and my excellent payment history (CC Auto Pay will do that). She did say that she needed my AMEX card for a $1 hold for three days (um, OK..... whatever) She also said that I would be agreeing to stay at AT60 or higher for 18 months or a $400 equipment fee would be charged. (OK, no Fios until at least 7/2007) She also said that I would be paying $6 month for a lease fee. I asked if that would be mostly offset by the elimination of the $5 additional receiver fee on my 4900 and she said yes. Big deal, an extra buck for more buttery HD goodness.
SO FAR, it looks like it won't be too bad other than the 3 week lead time for an installer. I'm gonna go the ceo@echostar.com route and see if I can improve on that date. We'll see though if things go south in a hurry if they run out of boxes by the time my install date shows up (which is a nagging fear at this point). She gave me an RA number for the 4900 just in case the installer doesn't ask for it during the install (she wasn't sure which way that would go). She then asked me if there was anything else. I said No and that was the end of the call.
She never asked me any questions about my switches (although that info was probably on my info screen in front of her). I'm ready to go and just need the box to be hooked up as I have a Dish 500 looking at 110/119 and a Dish 300 ooking at 61.5. I have 2 SW64s feeding a 921, a 510, 2 508s, and a 4900 currently. I'll be a 100% PVR household when this is done (and I'l keep my 921 for another year until they have to sweeten the deal to swap it out to be able to kill the old HD MPeg2 streams in 2007).
A better experience than I expected although the 3 week lead time is a bit of a letdown with the Olympics coming......
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