Question about Dish Service and Receivers

[jbleser]

Hey there everyone.

First off I am a Newbie to the site and love it! I was a cable customer for many years and finally moved after many service problems and the high prices.

I now have DISH installed in my home with three receivers (vip722, vip222 x 2). My question is I live in N.E. Wisconsin and have a cabin about 225 miles north in Upper Michigan.

Can I install a dish and receiver in the cabin up north and just activate the receiver under my account at home? A friend of mine has a dish111 receiver and a 500 dish with the dual LNB on it that he said I can have for FREE (there is No balance on the account and he owned the receiver). My thought is that i could pay the monthly activation for the dish111 receiver vs. getting a whole new subscription up north at the cabin. Is this possible?

My home account has the Eastern Arc dish if that makes a difference??

Thanks...

 

[steve4810]

As long as you own the receiver and it isn't a dual tuner DVR, where you take it and plug it in isn't anyone's business. Just don't volunteer where it is to Dish support. Just tell them you bought a used receiver and to activate it on your account. If they start up about switches to tell them you and a friend will take care of putting of a separate dish and they needed worry about it.

One variation is to tell them it's for your RV and just activate it when you go to the cabin. That will be 5 or 6 bucks a month pro-rated for actual days on.

Only caution is don't call asking for a service call.

If you want a Dish installer to put it in or adjust it THEN they will tell you you must have a new account. This is because of how they pay their installers.

Just own the equipment and "do it your self" installation and pay them for when you use it.

And my personal feeling is it wouldn't ethical to rent out the cabin to others and provide Dish service.

 

[garys]

What you are proposing is termed Account Stacking and is not permitted by Dish. People have done it, but the EA will not work with the 111. Most of EA is mpeg4 and the 111 is an sd mpeg2 receiver which will work with a Dish 500 but you may see a difference in pq from what you are used to. Also note, your local channels may be on spot beam and may not be viewable at your cabin.

 

[boba]

I believe with EA only MPEG4 receivers can be added to your account.

 

[steve4810]

jbleser,

I believe with EA only MPEG4 receivers can be added to your account.

My advice was only general.

I'm not in EA territory so MPEG4 only service is something you would have to take up with Dish. Use the online chat at their website to ask "I have been given a used xxx. Can I use it if I put up my another Dish500?

Standby for possible loads of "missing the point" crap-ola but if you're lucky you might get a tech support CSR that will actually address what you asked about and not go on and on and on about what HE thinks you should know.


If the receiver you can get is incompatible then ask what used models will work to get just those channels you think you need in "the spare room" or RV. Just be clear that you, under no circumstances, would consider buying or leasing more equipment from Dish. Your mind is set on getting some cheap used equipment since it would be used so little. That and your friend will help you will the install.

 

[pabeader]

or do dish ya! really pretty cheap and easy for occational use.

 

[Jim5506]

You are probably better off NOT getting an extra receiver, but just setting up the dish at your cabin and take one of your home receivers with you when you visit.

 

[Zero327]

As long as you own the receiver and it isn't a dual tuner DVR, where you take it and plug it in isn't anyone's business. Just don't volunteer where it is to Dish support.

Haven't been paying attention to the fraud press releases DISH has been making, have you?

 

[v0rt3_x86]

Account packing/fraud aside, you can't activate a non-VIP receiver on an EA account so it's useless to you.

Unless you follow business rules and avoid defrauding the company by getting a direct no-promotion account for your cabin and then take advantage of the DishPause promotion... just a thought.

On a side-note to Steve4810: What do you do for a living?

 

[jbleser]

Thanks for all the replies...

I called DISH today and a no go. I cannot add anything except MPEG4 receivers to my account. However if i set up ANOTHER account i could then use it but then my monthly charge would be more than the $5 a month. HOWEVER, they did say they would sell me a vip222 for $100 to add to my account. I think i will take them up on that offer and just look for EA Dish. The only thing that i think will cause problems is that i will need to have a phone line hooked up to it.

Does anyone know if DISH will complain if i use the receiver for a week or so without the phone line hooked up. I will bring the receiver home with me when i come home and plug it in then.

 

[Andrewwski]

No...that won't be a problem. You don't NEED a phone line, but you pay an extra $5 a month without it...and risk being called by the audit nazis. But in order to avoid the charge, you only need it to dial out once a month.

And you don't need an EA dish...110/119 for SD and 129 or 61.5 for HD (if desired) will work too.

 

[v0rt3_x86]

Audit nazis?

You're talking about theft of services. jbleser - You do understand you're talking about defrauding a company, right?

Andrewwski - what do you do for a living?

 

[Andrewwski]

Audit nazis in the respect that they hassle legitimate customers who are being ridiculed by them for no apparent reason.

Say what you want, but it is common for people to take their receivers to their second homes. It's not like they're leaving them there permanently.

I don't even have Dish service so you can't accuse me of doing it either.

 

[steve4810]

On a side-note to Steve4810: What do you do for a living?

Retired from a bunch of stuff including accountant and undergrad business instructor, corporate controller, owner of distributed accounting systems company. And a way way long time ago I was a custom electronic equipment designer. Prior to that, I was a sailor. And between high school the Navy, a decent rock drummer.

Another words never figured what I wanted to be when I grow up. Or more to the point, couldn't keep a job.

 

[steve4810]

Haven't been paying attention to the fraud press releases DISH has been making, have you?

Is that felony or misdemeanor fraud?

I'd be interested in what the district attorney's response if he learned my wife and I watch the Dish service we pay for at a location other than our usual residence.

On the other hand if you are implying there are pin-heads at Dish that spend their entire carriers trying to squeeze the most money they can from their customers, I'd agree that implying it's "fraud" if someone brings a receiver to a second location when they vacation, I'm certain that is something that they'd love to "enforce". Too bad they don't have police powers.

Or don't they need no stinking badges!!

 

[jbleser]

v0rt3_x86 - I never looked at it as fraud but I guess technically you say it is so be it. However, when I am up at my cabin I am not at my home using the service. I have talked to many people and just about all of them that have satellite do it. Is it wrong? maybe so now. I remember when my parents called dish to cancel their service because they will be in Florida for 6 months (snow-birds). Dish sent them a FREE dish to their florida address and they haul there receiver back and forth. This was 4-5 years ago. Anyway, I look at it as speeding on the highway. The speed limit is 65 but sometimes i go 68-70 and never get i trouble but someday i could......

 

[v0rt3_x86]

jbleser:

I don't know what moron was working when your parents called in, but they're supposed to have a separate account. Then, when in either location, the inactive account can be "paused" for approx $5 / $10 a month.

It's not technically fraud either, it is definitely fraud. It's the same as account stacking (ie. one account, four receivers, four apartments in an apartment building,) or stealing cable from your neighbor.

Last, just because you haven't been caught doing something illegal (no matter how harmless you feel it is,) doesn't mean it's okay to do.

Andrewwski:

They only audit people when suspicions arise at which point the Customer Service Agreement every customer has to sign is enforced - receivers are required to be connected to phone lines at that point (and for some time thereafter) so that their location can be verified.

Steve4810:

Enforce as in the fraudulent receiver will be disabled. No huff. No puff. No screaming - just turned off. When you were the owner of the company, would you have been upset if your customers knowingly and willingly stole your product with the arrogance and audacity that television customers do?

Not only do people pack accounts, but it's like they're "owed" something.

Look, I'm not saying you're all the bad guys or whatever, but there's two sides to everything. If one or two people are at camp and the rest of the family is at home, that's the same thing as Apartment 1 and Apartment 2 having one acct. I'm sorry if people don't see it that way, but call the cable company up and ask them to have one account for two houses... Or a second cell phone at no add'l cost because "we don't use it when we're home - we use the main cell. We only use the second cell when we're up at camp so it's ok to let us do that."

 

[steve4810]

Steve4810:

Enforce as in the fraudulent receiver will be disabled. No huff. No puff. No screaming - just turned off. When you were the owner of the company, would you have been upset if your customers knowingly and willingly stole your product with the arrogance and audacity that television customers do?

Not only do people pack accounts, but it's like they're "owed" something.

Look, I'm not saying you're all the bad guys or whatever, but there's two sides to everything. If one or two people are at camp and the rest of the family is at home, that's the same thing as Apartment 1 and Apartment 2 having one acct. I'm sorry if people don't see it that way, but call the cable company up and ask them to have one account for two houses... Or a second cell phone at no add'l cost because "we don't use it when we're home - we use the main cell. We only use the second cell when we're up at camp so it's ok to let us do that."

v0rt3_x86:

Look, I don't want to start a flame war.

Stepping way back I'm saying that folks tend to place moral authority on the side of the transaction that is bigger, worth more or has a habit of using legal terminology. In fact morality doesn't enter into it. At most it's contract law where disputes have a last chance to be settled in civil court proceedings.

Account stacking is theft of service and not contract law. But where there are four total eyeballs in a customers family and they all are at location A or all at location B there is no service that Dish is "rightfully" owed money for.

As for the disabling one's box; that is just one of the parties terminating the deal. Same as when terrible service causes a customer to "enforce" his rule about theft of his hard-earned money and he calls and says "Stop my service. Where do you want me to ship your junk"

And finally I completely sympathize with employees feeling it's them against the customers most of the time. The public can show a really ugly face at times. But same can be said for the consuming public; there are some really bad people in business just there to take the most of our money with the poorest product that they can get away with.

In public forums I like a balanced conversations where words like fraud and theft left out. All of us have a moral compass and usually know who the thief is. And we all live in glass houses and ought not throw stones at one an other.

I'm sorry if my earlier comments offended anyone.

 

[harshness]

Say what you want, but it is common for people to take their receivers to their second homes. It's not like they're leaving them there permanently.

It sounds like a permanent distant installation is what the OP has in mind.

It is usually best to quote the terms and conditions and leave it at that rather than getting your teat in a wringer over advocating that someone violate the conditions of their user agreement.

 

[harshness]

The speed limit is 65 but sometimes i go 68-70 and never get i trouble but someday i could......

The difference is that driving a little faster than 65 isn't prohibited by the terms of your drivers license. Having receivers in multiple residences under the same account is expressly prohibited.

The terms over at DIRECTV are similar and they have the additional condition in their equipment lease addendum that demands that you not physically relocate a receiver.