Recent cancel experience.

bluenerd

SatelliteGuys Pro
Original poster
Mar 23, 2019
171
237
Bluetopia
Bottom line, Dish just simply is not competitive. Add in the equipment fees and it is just a no. We could go on trying to justify this, but let's not this time. This is a report on what the cancel process was like. Comments about how it is the channel providers' faults and how streaming eat up your data and how unfair data caps are would be off-topic.

The whole process took 58 minutes, 04 seconds, half of which was spent waiting for an agent. The agent did her job, making different offers...however, I got a bum steer or they are not currently empowered to do anything other than regurgitate the offers available on the website. I was not offered any "out of the box" solutions, even though I made it easy and offered two possibilities. The best she could come up with was save five bucks a month by using a fire stick instead of the owned wireless Joey. Then the threats started. "Our equipment fees are the lowest in the industry" (might want to research that one), "streaming services raise their rates regularly" (so do you). In desperation, she offered to pause service for five dollars plus tax a month and if I change my mind I can just unpause. Being out of contract, I countered that I could stop service for zero dollars minus tax and if I changed my mind, just sign up and get the new subscriber discounts. She finally waved the white flag and processed the cancel effective the end of the current cycle.

Turns out when you have an antenna you have all the power. She even tried offering a locals plus service that was just the locals at 12 and the equipment fee at 25. Plus tax, of course. I countered the antenna gave me the same channels minus the 82 shopping channels (nice 'plus'), with no equipment fee.

I really wish Dish could have gotten a little more creative. I bear no ill will (well, except for the sh!tty guide data), the prices just simply were not competitive. They can't even compete with themselves, Sling has better prices and no equipment fees.
 
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I had a fairly easy experience with cancellation just the other day. There was time spent waiting on hold for a CSR but that was no big deal. Once someone came on the line I explained that I had been on Dish Pause for a few months to make sure we were ready to cancel and we were. They asked a few questions about 'how' we watch TV (linear or on demand) but that was that. They did give me the perfunctory locals offer and since I have a 722 equipment fees weren't bad but even at that it would've been nearly $25 per month for something I now get for free. But when I explained that I had an Amazon Recast OTA DVR for the small amount of linear TV we watch and reminded them that we had been paused for quite a while and didn't miss Dish service at all the CSR seemed resigned to closing the account. I explained there were no hard feelings toward Dish and that we had enjoyed the service for over 20 years but that times have changed and we just don't need it anymore.

Overall it was a painless experience. Extricating the 722 from the equipment rack will likely not be as easy as the cancellation process was.
 
Whether DISH is competitive or not depends on what you want and what's available where you are. I haven't found my package out there anywhere for nearly as low price as DISH. And, having an antenna doesn't help if you're in an area where you don't get any ota channels.

So, "bottom line" is each person has to find what works best for him/her. Glad you found yours.
 
Bottom line, Dish just simply is not competitive. Add in the equipment fees and it is just a no. We could go on trying to justify this, but let's not this time. This is a report on what the cancel process was like. Comments about how it is the channel providers' faults and how streaming eat up your data and how unfair data caps are would be off-topic.

The whole process took 58 minutes, 04 seconds, half of which was spent waiting for an agent. The agent did her job, making different offers...however, I got a bum steer or they are not currently empowered to do anything other than regurgitate the offers available on the website. I was not offered any "out of the box" solutions, even though I made it easy and offered two possibilities. The best she could come up with was save five bucks a month by using a fire stick instead of the owned wireless Joey. Then the threats started. "Our equipment fees are the lowest in the industry" (might want to research that one), "streaming services raise their rates regularly" (so do you). In desperation, she offered to pause service for five dollars plus tax a month and if I change my mind I can just unpause. Being out of contract, I countered that I could stop service for zero dollars minus tax and if I changed my mind, just sign up and get the new subscriber discounts. She finally waved the white flag and processed the cancel effective the end of the current cycle.

Turns out when you have an antenna you have all the power. She even tried offering a locals plus service that was just the locals at 12 and the equipment fee at 25. Plus tax, of course. I countered the antenna gave me the same channels minus the 82 shopping channels (nice 'plus'), with no equipment fee.

I really wish Dish could have gotten a little more creative. I bear no ill will (well, except for the sh!tty guide data), the prices just simply were not competitive. They can't even compete with themselves, Sling has better prices and no equipment fees.
And last week I called Dish on behalf of a long, long time customer who had been paying elevated prices for years, asked for Loyalty - explaining the Customer wanted to quit Dish - and told the Agent the Customer's info and said I know you can do a 1 yr contract for $35 off per month and she agreed and we were done. Call lasted less than 15 minutes
 
Bottom line, Dish just simply is not competitive. Add in the equipment fees and it is just a no. We could go on trying to justify this, but let's not this time. This is a report on what the cancel process was like. Comments about how it is the channel providers' faults and how streaming eat up your data and how unfair data caps are would be off-topic.

The whole process took 58 minutes, 04 seconds, half of which was spent waiting for an agent. The agent did her job, making different offers...however, I got a bum steer or they are not currently empowered to do anything other than regurgitate the offers available on the website. I was not offered any "out of the box" solutions, even though I made it easy and offered two possibilities. The best she could come up with was save five bucks a month by using a fire stick instead of the owned wireless Joey. Then the threats started. "Our equipment fees are the lowest in the industry" (might want to research that one), "streaming services raise their rates regularly" (so do you). In desperation, she offered to pause service for five dollars plus tax a month and if I change my mind I can just unpause. Being out of contract, I countered that I could stop service for zero dollars minus tax and if I changed my mind, just sign up and get the new subscriber discounts. She finally waved the white flag and processed the cancel effective the end of the current cycle.

Turns out when you have an antenna you have all the power. She even tried offering a locals plus service that was just the locals at 12 and the equipment fee at 25. Plus tax, of course. I countered the antenna gave me the same channels minus the 82 shopping channels (nice 'plus'), with no equipment fee.

I really wish Dish could have gotten a little more creative. I bear no ill will (well, except for the sh!tty guide data), the prices just simply were not competitive. They can't even compete with themselves, Sling has better prices and no equipment fees.

I canceled dish about 2 weeks ago because of a plethora of technical issues that no one could seem to fix. my cancel experience wasn't as aggressive as what I expected. I wasn't asked to stay, I wasn't offered any discounts or equipment changes, in which I previously asked and was denied. which was part of my reason for canceling. the only monetary discussion was that of my ETF, which considering the amount of problems I had, a complaint to the bbb and state ag took care of that. dish was more than happy to let me go.

although I'm with directv again, glitch free so far. (knock on wood) I think that dish top 200 was the perfect package for me. it had everything I watched and because I'm a healthcare worker I got the heartland package free. directv preferred xtra package is as close to the dish 200 as I can get in the same $$ ballpark. which is still a good package. preferred xtra is for people who want to get rid of the rsn fee & give up some sports in exchange for more variety entertainment channels. fits me good... I'm not a sports fan.
 
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I canceled dish about 2 weeks ago because of a plethora of technical issues that no one could seem to fix. my cancel experience wasn't as aggressive as what I expected. I wasn't asked to stay, I wasn't offered any discounts or equipment changes, in which I previously asked and was denied. which was part of my reason for canceling. the only monetary discussion was that of my ETF, which considering the amount of problems I had, a complaint to the bbb and state ag took care of that. dish was more than happy to let me go.

although I'm with directv again, glitch free so far. (knock on wood) I think that dish top 200 was the perfect package for me. it had everything I watched and because I'm a healthcare worker I got the heartland package free. directv preferred xtra package is as close to the dish 200 as I can get in the same $$ ballpark. which is still a good package. preferred xtra is for people who want to get rid of the rsn fee & give up some sports in exchange for more variety entertainment channels. fits me good... I'm not a sports fan.
I'm curious, wheres the package for those that WANT the Sports and don't need the Movie channels ?
 
I'm curious, wheres the package for those that WANT the Sports and don't need the Movie channels ?

probably the ultimate package, but I'm not sure. I only assume most packages besides the preferred xtra have the regular sports channels & rsn fees. the only sports that come with my package are espn & pursuit channel which is an outdoors type. that one I can watch. but the choice pack I had contained a lot of sports channels like golf, tennis, the espn channels and some others. a few times they offered me a few months free sports package, not sure if they still have that one. they seemed to be shocked that I would always decline & take showtime instead :) what package do you have? I hope you are eventually able to get all the sports channels you like.
 
And last week I called Dish on behalf of a long, long time customer who had been paying elevated prices for years, asked for Loyalty - explaining the Customer wanted to quit Dish - and told the Agent the Customer's info and said I know you can do a 1 yr contract for $35 off per month and she agreed and we were done. Call lasted less than 15 minutes
And had she done that I would have happily accepted. It was basically one of the easy offers I suggested.
 
Pause works for me. $5 a month isn’t much and I’ll finish up my contract later this year when I reinstate service for 4 months. Then right back into pause I go.

If dish messes around with pause, then I will outright cancel.
 
The new service you get that blows Dish away.
I'm not here to recommend anything else. I made it quite clear this was a report on the cancel experience. The 4th sentence stating precisely this should have been a clue. If it wasn't, the next to last should have revealed what I think of Dish service.
 
"No ill will...just looking for a better price"

Gee....I guess I stand corrected.
What is wrong with that, in the world we live in now, there are many options that are less expensive, if he finds that those options are not to his liking, he could be back.

I found that paying for Live TV is just not worth it no matter who is the provider, there are 2 reasons why I still have YTTV, first the wife factor, she likes the familiarity of Live TV with the guide and second, it does not costs me anything, the majority of streaming services I have are paid with Gift Cards that I get with Bonus Points from my Credit Cards.
 
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Dish can only be beat via no at home equipment or via a bundle. They are cheaper, almost by a long shot against straight up Cable/Sat competition. Cable/Sat is just getting expensive, and the content is getting poached behind online paywalls.
 
Dish can only be beat via no at home equipment or via a bundle. They are cheaper, almost by a long shot against straight up Cable/Sat competition. Cable/Sat is just getting expensive, and the content is getting poached behind online paywalls.
Directv is currently $162 without discounts, 4 wireless receivers, and ultimate package.

dishnetwork is $163 without discounts, 250 package, h3 + 3 wireless joeys.

Source: my dish bill breakdown vs my parents directv bill. The only advantages dish has over directv, billing wise, you can buy a traveling receiver for a $5/month fee, and drop locals for a $12 discount. Also their price lock, directs is a teaser rate at best, but dish’s has become a joke at barely a $10 discount.