The Stick it to Dish anyway you can thread !

[DefDude]

After reading all the dissatisfaction and complaints in all the other threads and in my case seeing a 30% + coming in my bill in fees on equipment I own, I think we need a thread to discuss ways to over come this sneaky and I think illegal way to impose fees on owned equipment. In my case I only have the welcome pac for $14.99 and pay $21.96 in fees for a 322, 522, and a 722. after the increase I will pay $37 in fees, $14 for the 322, $17 for the 522 and a $6 dvr fee. all this for a $15 package. I posted in another thread my thoughts so far. First you will now be able to take your receivers any where you have a another dish and lnb setup, "the equipment is fairly cheap and available" maybe to a friend or relative's house who wants service but doesn't want a contract. Since you will not get a $5 credit for a phone connection anymore that would one way to share the cost. another idea I had was to share the service with a neighbor who may want to save money by running a line into their house and connect one of your boxes. another idea is that you can now take your boxes with you to a summer house and have service just like at home. These are a few ways maybe some of you have other ideas. If we can explore this idea of ways to save money by taking advantage of the new fee structure and no more phone line connection requirement , maybe they will have a change of heart. I believe when these new prices are known to more than just the Satellite Guys members this site will get a lot more members and viewers that will be more informed of the unjust fee hikes and then maybe we could see a more reasonable price structure for owned equipment, after all if it breaks it does not cost them anything.

Scott, make this a sticky and see what happens.

 

[Lt Disher]

Sharing an account is illegal. You also say "all this for a $15 package", but you seem to forget that you also have 3 receivers. The price increase is very big for you, I admit, but you do have TV in at least 3 and maybe more rooms of your house.

 

[DefDude]

I would also consider it illegal to charge a lease fee on my own equipment. they should have a separate fee structure for owned equipment.

 

[navychop]

 

[KAB]

Milk, Graham Crackers, rug, nap.

 

[Scherrman]

You basically give up the right to do any of that when you sign a contract with Dish. Remember that it is their service provided to you. You want it, you pay for it. If customers don't like it they are entitled to quit. I would have to say that other providers do not seem to be any better.

 

[DefDude]

I started this thread in the hope's that maybe dish will see it and realize that they have opened themselves up to the possibility of account stacking and other problems that will result from their unjust fees being charge to customers who save them money by owning and servicing their own equipment. In this economy people will take advantage if they can. They took away a credit to prevent this so they should expect this to happen.

 

[Scherrman]

I think the main reason they are getting rid of the $5 credit for hooking up a phone line is because more and more customers are ditching their phone line service. I myself do not have a phone line, cell phone only in my house. We have more customers going to cell phone only.

 

[navychop]

Milk, Graham Crackers, rug, nap.

:up :up

 

[EdZackery]

Is it at all possible today to prevent the stacking another way besides a credit? Do we know exactly all of the functions of the new receivers? Could there be some functions that we don't use in there that are used by them?

I wonder what percentage of the customers even have HD, 20% ?? Or more than 1 receiver?

 

[osu1991]

That is why mine are connected via ethernet, because we are cell phone only at the house. Guess i wont worry about that anymore.

 

[jsanders]

I wonder about this on a few levels.

1. Individual people will go back to account stacking, like OJ Simpson
2. Some shady retailers might be inclined to do account stacking - I'm not sure how but I am sure they will figure it out.
3. Dish makes money when your receiver is connected. They are anonymously collecting data about your viewing habits.

They did the phone line hookup originally after they switched to locals on a spotbeam. People not in their DMA were calling Dish customer service complaining that they couldn't see their locals anymore. That is how Dish learned about account stacking.

The phone line costs dish money to operate, but I am sure broadband is cheaper.

I would have expected Dish to give people the $5 credit for connecting over the internet, but I could see them wanting to discourage the phone line.

What I wonder is if the phone line costs more to run than the $5 - money from viewing habits to run. I suspect they still loose on the phone line.

Two things to do is not connect the box to the phone line or ethernet. It might also stick it to Dish by everyone switching back to the phone line and costing Dish more money.

The other one that puzzled me is why they required this of me in the first place. I only have one receiver on my account - there is no possibility of account stacking in that scenario.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

If your boxes are not hooked up to phonelines and you have more then 2 boxes then chances the audit department will call you and make sure all the receivers are in your house.

It is best just to keep the phone or broadband hooked up, it dont hurt anything and also gives you other features such as DishOnline.

 

[LER]

I have 2 out of 3 with access to the phone line and broadband. Getting cable to the third is an issue. Do you think the Audit nazi's would be a PITA about it?

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Maybe... maybe not...

The boxes also send out pings over the powerlines to the other receivers using DishCOMM. And while in many cases DISHComm wont work that well there is often enough of a signal to see other boxes and their unit id's in that ping when they are not hooked up to the phone line.

 

[LER]

the 3rd one is on a crappy power strip so I doubt it's getting dishcomm. It also doesn't show on the other 2 which DO see each other on DishComm.

 

[DefDude]

In any case It will give them more to do and worry about. that's the idea, to make them do more for the added fees so they might give us back our carrot. The audit dept would never be able to keep up if everybody disconnected their phone lines anyway. they would be taking a shot in the dark and pissing more people off.

 

[stone phillips420]

yup and mostly upsetting people with 3 plus recievers usually all hd dvrs

they will learn one day but by then it will be too late

Dont bite the hand that feeds you!

 

[STL]

It want to "stick it to the man" for raising fees on the hardware, then simply drop some of the hardware! Take advantage of the rec'rs that can output to multiple TVs. Also be aware that one rec'r can be connected to multiple TVs. I have one 722 sending TV1's HD to three different TVs and TV2's SD output is sent to all my TVs (three HD and two SD). I myself have an IR distribution system so I can control the 722 from any room with a TV, but you could also buy a few extra RF remotes and do it that way.

 

[chikagobnd]

It want to "stick it to the man" for raising fees on the hardware, then simply drop some of the hardware! Take advantage of the rec'rs that can output to multiple TVs. Also be aware that one rec'r can be connected to multiple TVs. I have one 722 sending TV1's HD to three different TVs and TV2's SD output is sent to all my TVs (three HD and two SD). I myself have an IR distribution system so I can control the 722 from any room with a TV, but you could also buy a few extra RF remotes and do it that way.

OP's point is that he's paying a "lease" fee for boxes he owns...paid for with his money...he does not lease the receivers! Kind of hard to swallow when you've spent hundreds of dollars on receivers based on a price structure that gets pulled out from under you. Dropping the hardware means pissing money away. I'm not saying E* isn't within their right to do it, but I can understand his frustration.