bob haller I contacted the CA AG offices and spoke to a nice gal today, while I don't think any AG will do anything for you as you bought your equipment the gal is going to look into what Dish Network is doing because she said from reading over the contract I signed back 17 months ago, Dish them selfs use the term "Equipment Lease" and "Monthly Lease Fee' and if in fact the receivers I have a true lease then Dish has no legal right to raise the equipment lease price for people who are under contract. She said if I was month to month customers I could choose to reject the price increase and switch my service or Dish could choose to let me out of my contract but they can not just change the terms of equipment leases when ever they fell. Now I am sure Dish at the end of the day more than likely if the CA AG decides to purse the issue Dish will ultimately just put the increases some where else like into the monthly plan or something just to comply with lease agreement on the equipment or something. But that would force Dish either to do smaller increases or admit to super large rate increase which would be super bad press for them.
At this point if Dish just offered to let me out of my contract and go my marry way I would be happy or issue me a credit for the difference between old lease fee to the new lease till my contract was over but I refuse to agree to a new 2 year contract and pay them $100 to downgrade from my 222 to 211 just so my lease fee wont go up and then have them just raise the lease fee on the new receiver next year and then be back in the same position.
I really hope CA AG offices go after Dish Network as they deserve it.
If there is any violation of CA law (perhaps even other states) I do hope it is pursued. However, I am very pessimistic about Dish ever really having to face justice as so many AG settlements take a lot of time to gather facts and negotiate with offending companies and result in letting the companies pay a relatively small fine--for a company like Dish, a few million is nothing compared to what they take in during all that time with the new fees (to be explained next)--or a lousy compensation to affected customers such as $10 discounts for a few months or every affected customer gets 2 FREE PPV coupons or something similar all to be hashed out few YEARS later (OK, maybe a year later on the fast track for a settlement).
Meanwhile the settlement allows the company to continue its practice as the lump sum payment and or measly discount to customers that equal LESS than what Dish had taken in all that time amount to a lot of nothing to the individual consumer. The proverbial "slap on the wrist" justice. Only a few rare cases have really resulted in true justice and usually those cases involve deaths and are the result of private parties civil lawsuits and really big jury awards in the courts.
So many companies do get caught by AG's including Direc TV and Dish and just about every well-known company out there has had to pay and dance the dance, but it seems like they have factored it all in the spreadsheet to their advantage.
Also, a lot of AG's aren't really out for justice, they just want to be able to announce a settlement--way too long to prosecute--so they can crow about how great an AG they are looking out for the people of [fill in the state], and they ought to re-elect him, or, in most cases, vote for him in the coming race for Governor. Many of the AG's settlements are almost as bad as the class action suit settlements. We know that's all true. However, maybe justice will really be served. We will wait to see.