About 2 1/2 years ago, I left Dish for DirecTV because of the loss of MLB EI. I have regretted the move pretty much ever since. DirecTV's equipment is sub par, slow and buggy. All you have to do is see the DirecTV side of this website or the other site and see how slow their HD DVR's are. I missed my ViP 722 ever since. So I made the decision to come back to Dish and keep DirecTV as well for the MLB EI and suspend them during the off season.
So I called them up Sunday afternoon to order. It sounded like I got a college kid on the line who was at a party and English was not his primary language. I was on the phone for 45 minutes trying to get an HD DVR and a SD DVR. The HD would be on one TV while the SD would be shared with two. With lots of putting me on hold and repeating the same thing over and over again, we finally got that settled. And the install date was scheduled for the next day!
The next morning I get a welcome email detailing what I have ordered. Except what was detailed was incorrect. It stated I was getting a HD DVR and an HD receiver. So I tried to call them to get this fixed before the tech gets here to eliminate any confusion. This phone call turned out to be extremely frustrating. The stupid automated system says "If you are already a Dish customer or you have an installation scheduled, press 1". I would end up hearing that stupid sentence dozens of times in the next hour. Every time I would press 1, it would send me to an operator who could not speak English very well. I stated that I needed to correct an error on my installation order and they would say "let me transfer you to someone who can help". Except the transfer would take me back to that damn recording. Entering my information AGAIN, I would get someone who couldn't speak English very well who gave me the same runaround about needing to transfer me to someone who can help! But it always went back to that stupid recording and having to enter my information again. This went on endlessly for almost an hour to the point where if I was on a regular phone, I would have slammed it down. But I was on my cell phone, so I hit the "end" button and slammed it on my desk braking the stupid thing.
So I went online to chat. The first person that was connected to me said he needs to transfer me to someone who can help! Why can't anybody help me with this simple issue??? So I waited and another person connected to me. I don't know if he/she/it could speak English but at least they could type. I was finally told that they are phasing out all SD equipment completely. So I said fine. Then give me 2 HD DVR's. Well that would cost me $100. I said, fine, whatever. I then went on to detail what the crap I have been through all morning line by line and told him that I was about ready to cancel the whole order. He apologized and admitted that their customer service over the phone is really lacking and that they are working hard in improving that. So he waived the $100 and I got everything for free.
So I finally got that straightened out. I soon as the chat ended, I got a call from Dish asking if the tech can come over right away. I said yes.
The tech gets here and after 30 minutes of looking around with his LOS meter he came to the conclusion that I don't have a line of sight. I told him that I have had HD with Dish before without issue and I showed him where the Dish was (right next to my DirecTV dish). He said that it would not work. He tried one spot that he felt had the best shot. He set the dish up and said that it wouldn't pick up 129 which is low in the sky. At this point, I thought about crying insisting that I had no signal issues with Dish before. So as he was packing up his truck to drive away, he noticed that I had a 500 Dish pointed to 61.5. I told him I used to get Sky Angel off of that. His eyes lit up and then mine did too. He said that he might be able to get the eastern arc. So he put the Dish up there and WHAMMO! 100% signals.
I thanked him for not giving up. I now have 2 ViP 722K's and am finally set up with free HBO and Showtime for 3 months and penny Cinemax. And I got set up just in time for the Tech Chat (which is always exciting). After a full day of hell dealing with Dish CSR's, life is good.
So I called them up Sunday afternoon to order. It sounded like I got a college kid on the line who was at a party and English was not his primary language. I was on the phone for 45 minutes trying to get an HD DVR and a SD DVR. The HD would be on one TV while the SD would be shared with two. With lots of putting me on hold and repeating the same thing over and over again, we finally got that settled. And the install date was scheduled for the next day!
The next morning I get a welcome email detailing what I have ordered. Except what was detailed was incorrect. It stated I was getting a HD DVR and an HD receiver. So I tried to call them to get this fixed before the tech gets here to eliminate any confusion. This phone call turned out to be extremely frustrating. The stupid automated system says "If you are already a Dish customer or you have an installation scheduled, press 1". I would end up hearing that stupid sentence dozens of times in the next hour. Every time I would press 1, it would send me to an operator who could not speak English very well. I stated that I needed to correct an error on my installation order and they would say "let me transfer you to someone who can help". Except the transfer would take me back to that damn recording. Entering my information AGAIN, I would get someone who couldn't speak English very well who gave me the same runaround about needing to transfer me to someone who can help! But it always went back to that stupid recording and having to enter my information again. This went on endlessly for almost an hour to the point where if I was on a regular phone, I would have slammed it down. But I was on my cell phone, so I hit the "end" button and slammed it on my desk braking the stupid thing.
So I went online to chat. The first person that was connected to me said he needs to transfer me to someone who can help! Why can't anybody help me with this simple issue??? So I waited and another person connected to me. I don't know if he/she/it could speak English but at least they could type. I was finally told that they are phasing out all SD equipment completely. So I said fine. Then give me 2 HD DVR's. Well that would cost me $100. I said, fine, whatever. I then went on to detail what the crap I have been through all morning line by line and told him that I was about ready to cancel the whole order. He apologized and admitted that their customer service over the phone is really lacking and that they are working hard in improving that. So he waived the $100 and I got everything for free.
So I finally got that straightened out. I soon as the chat ended, I got a call from Dish asking if the tech can come over right away. I said yes.
The tech gets here and after 30 minutes of looking around with his LOS meter he came to the conclusion that I don't have a line of sight. I told him that I have had HD with Dish before without issue and I showed him where the Dish was (right next to my DirecTV dish). He said that it would not work. He tried one spot that he felt had the best shot. He set the dish up and said that it wouldn't pick up 129 which is low in the sky. At this point, I thought about crying insisting that I had no signal issues with Dish before. So as he was packing up his truck to drive away, he noticed that I had a 500 Dish pointed to 61.5. I told him I used to get Sky Angel off of that. His eyes lit up and then mine did too. He said that he might be able to get the eastern arc. So he put the Dish up there and WHAMMO! 100% signals.
I thanked him for not giving up. I now have 2 ViP 722K's and am finally set up with free HBO and Showtime for 3 months and penny Cinemax. And I got set up just in time for the Tech Chat (which is always exciting). After a full day of hell dealing with Dish CSR's, life is good.
