Why I cancelled Dish - Scamming customers and terrible service

[SolApathy]

Why I cancelled Dish -They disappointed me with their dishonest practices.

I apologize for the long winded post you are about to read. I have been a Satellite Guys member for years and rarely post, but today was the day that broke the camels back.
I have never been so disappointed in a company. I loved the service and the ease of use, but what happened below has put a bad taste in my mouth. I know I will never hear from Dish on this, but I feel a little better knowing that people will see this and have a second thought before signing up with this company.



After years with Dish Network I finally cancelled my service. I am extremely disappointed and after their latest colossal screw up they can expect that I will never sign back up for their service again. This mess began long ago when I upgraded to the Hopper system and traded in my aging 922/722/211 setup. The technicians took out my old equipment and swapped in the new Hopper and joey setup which consisted of (2) Hoppers and 3 Joeys.


For a long time I was happy with this setup until a few months ago when one of my friends, who is considerably more technical than me asked whey in the world I had all these hoppers and joeys (Including a hopper sitting in my basement not connected to a TV- I was told I needed to have it there). After looking at my install he laughed and determined that I only needed 1 Hopper and 3 joeys. In addition to that he found that one of the Joeys was never even connected (spare bedroom) to a live cable connection and that the installers had coiled up the coax line for that room outside the house and never bothered to install it. In fact they had cut and removed the old coax connection leading up to that bedroom and left a hole in the side of the house that was open to the elements.


Imagine my irritation when I realized I had essentially been paying for 1 extra hopper and one extra joey for almost 2 years, and that there was an open hole in my 10 year old house. Those fees adds up with the hopper fee, the Joey fee, and the additional DVR fee. I called up dish and spent hours on the phone trying to get this mess resolved. Finally I became so frustrated I just decided to cancel my account. At that point they offered to credit me for the leased receivers that had not been used and stated they would send me boxes and there would be no charges for the equipment return. In addition they stated they would get in touch with the department that handles damages and someone would be sent out to look at my home. I agreed and decided to hold off on cancelling to see if they would take care of the issue.

Several weeks later I had still not received the boxes and the call in to have someone look at the hole in the side of my house where they had pulled out the old cable out and not replaced it never resulted in a tech visit. Fed up with the lack of service I cancelled my account. I was not to be charged any additional fees for returning my equipment, and they were sorry to see me go.

Imagine my surprise when I got my email advising me that, not only did no need to return the following (at a charge of $17 per box) including they boxes they never should have installed:
HPR2000
HPR2000
JOEY1.0
JOEY1.0
JOEY1.0
___________
VIP 722k
VIP 922
VIP 211K


In addition I had 3 additional "phantom" boxes that consisted of a 922, a 722, and a 211k that the original installers took with them and that I had heard nothing about for years. So now in cancelling my account they are trying to charge me $136 for boxes, 3 of which I don't even have after being told there would be no charge because of the issues that I had with their service and 2 more that I should have never been installed.. Now I will have to fight this company over boxes that aren't even in my possession and for the return fees they said I didn't have to pay. I live in Ohio and luckily we have a 1 party consent law for recording conversations and I have my entire last call recorded in the event I have to take this to court to prove my case.

The sad thing is I was planning on restarting my service in 6 months after I got married and we moved into our new house. Now Dish has lost me forever and they will have to fight me because I am not going to lie down and let them scam money out of me.


Dish Network, I am disappointed in you.

-Bill
Previous Dish Network customer who will tell everyone he knows how bad of a company Dish is.

 

[Tampa8]

So, do I understand for years you never used or tried the Hopper you said was just sitting there not connected to a TV, or the Joey you said was never connected anything? And there has been a hole in the side of the house for years not noticed?

 

[MikeD-C05]

So, do I understand for years you never used or tried the Hopper you said was just sitting there not connected to a TV, or the Joey you said was never connected anything? And there has been a hole in the side of the house for years not noticed?

Evidently, he didn't notice the hopper not installed in the basement to his tv either. How do you miss that and the hole in your house at the same time for two years? I would think the FEES on your bill alone would of made you question why am I paying so much more with the hopper setup than I did with the Vip setup?

 

[DWS44]

So, do I understand for years you never used or tried the Hopper you said was just sitting there not connected to a TV, or the Joey you said was never connected anything? And there has been a hole in the side of the house for years not noticed?

All three of those seemed incredible to me as well.

 

[CK SatGuy]

It sounds to me like the person who installed your hopper/joey setup was either a complete idiot, in a hurry to finish the install resulting in a half-a$$ job, or just completely took advantage of you. Most likely, it's one of the 1st 2 scenarios, but regardless I'd be as frustrated as you are if I found out I'm paying for equipment I don't need. The $17 per box charge is actually part of Dish's policies when you cancel (listed in their service agreement), but keep in mind they should only that fee if you ship the box with their shipping label that they send you. I.E. if you ship the boxes yourself and pay out of your own pocket completely for the shipping, they won't charge you the $17 per box fee. This my cost less or more than the $136 they would charge you, but look have to look at UPS or Fedex rates to see what's the most cost-effective way to ship the boxes back. Dish shouldn't even charge you at all for the VIP boxes because they should have those boxes already if the installer decided to ship those 3 boxes back to Dish.

I would refer you to sending a PM to any of the Dish Internet Response Team folks here at the forum to discuss these matters with you. Those folks have done a fantastic job resolving these kinds of matters, a lot better than phone support.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/members/162833-MattG-DISH-NETWORK
http://www.satelliteguys.us/members/162775-maryb-Dish-Network
http://www.satelliteguys.us/members/167918-ZachS-DISH-Network

 

[KAB]

I don't believe Dish would have arbitrarily installed those units unless the OP told them he wanted service to 5 TVs. I can't justify the unconnected Joey, unless MAYBE it was set up wireless? But to my understanding, an installer would not have done that.

 

[satjay]

If I am reading the OP post he had receivers connected but not connected to a TV, if I am reading this right at the very least if I was a tech novice I would have asked here and said is there something wrong with this?

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[darrengs]

Sorry to hear about all of this, although I am also shocked that you had no idea for 2 years that there was equipment not working. You never even tried to watch TV in the spare bedroom in all of that time? As a long time Sat Guys regular, you should have come here looking for some help, and if you didn't know you would have been directed to contact DiRT.

I do not know what your plans are, DirecTV, Cable, OTA? But if you go with a service I suggest that you have the installer show you that all of your TV's are working to your satisfaction before signing the work order. Also be aware that no matter what service you move to, there is nothing that would require you to have any equipment that is totally unplugged, not working, not connected to anything, be sitting idle.

 

[dwarren2]

If you view the OP's posts. The original install was done by a new tech and the boss had to come in. Something sounds fishy to me. Others should view the OP's past posts and see what you think.

 

[darrengs]

If you view the OP's posts. The original install was done by a new tech and the boss had to come in. Something sounds fishy to me. Others should view the OP's past posts and see what you think.

It even gets fishier. Somehow he had 278 recordings on the Hopper that was never hooked up by the installer:
"Well my situation is even better. I have 278 recordings on my basement hopper and it gives the same subscription error message on every program I try to play. On top of that message another one pops up that says event playback completed, even though I selected start over. Already called Dish and they have a report in on it and said I may get a call back in 48 hours. I am not happy."

http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads...n-t-play-archived-shows?p=2914338#post2914338

 

[satjay]

When I saw the original post, I wondered about it all myself. We all have a right to go to programming we like but the whole not reaching out to members or dirt was a bit different

Sent from my iPhone using SatelliteGuys

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Something don't seem right here. I think a lot of members feel the same way and I don't want people to pile on the original poster as he may indeed have valid issues in there somewhere, so I am going to close this one.

It would be my suggestion for the member to contact a DIRT member so they can help him with the issue and get to the bottom of it, as if DIRT can't help then no one can.

DIRT ROCKS!

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

An update to this story...

While it sounded far fetched by working with DIRT it turns out the user was not telling a tall tale. As far as I am told the DIRT team worked with the user to handle the issue to the users satisfaction.

I closed this thread because after this new member posted his frustration other members just pig piled on top of this member and if I didn't step it it would have continued. I have to admit parts of the story didn't seem right to me, but it was not for me to judge and instead we worked to get him in contact with the DIRT team.

SatelliteGuys should be a place where someone with an issue should be able to come post it and hopefully get a solution to their issue either from our members or the DIRT team. Our members are usually helpful and courteous but this was not the case here. In fact I have noticed a trend of this over the past few weeks, in order for SatelliteGuys to survive and grow this type of thing can not be.

Please think back to when you were a new member and how you felt. Did you feel welcomed or did you feel like people treated you bad. If the answer was the second then I doubt you would still be with us today. Would you want to come back if you were treated like this member was?

SatelliteGuys aims to be a fun place without the over moderation that is found at other sites. And while we have fun we must still make new users feel welcome... no mater how unbelieveable sometimes a story may be... because sometimes like in this case what might sound strange or even unbelievable might just be true.

Again please help us make new members feel welcome, everyone at one time was a newbie but yet over time we all learned more and not only became better SatelliteGuys members but for many of we are part of the SatelliteGuys family.

Thanks everyone. And thanks DIRT for their handling of this issue.