Woman charged for service she never received.

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This is from the Chicago Tribune digital edition.
Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?"

July 7, 2013

Ellen Reidda is not, and has never been, a Dish Network customer.
So the 79-year-old Highland Park resident was a bit startled when she checked her bank statement in May and discovered the satellite television provider had taken $151.29 from her account.
She immediately contacted her bank, Chase, and asked if they could figure out what was going on.

Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?"
Jon Yates' "What's Your Problem?"
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Maps
Highland Park, IL, USA


A Chase representative researched her account and found the May withdrawal wasn't Dish's first.
On Dec. 5, the company took $273.98 from Reidda's account, then $72.99 on Dec. 21.
There were similar Dish withdrawals in January, February, March and April, eight transactions in all, totaling $1,047.21.
Reidda was shocked.

"I have Comcast," she said. "I've always had Comcast. I don't know how (Dish) got into that account."
Chase put a stop to the Dish withdrawals and credited Reidda's account $412.96 for the money Dish took in March, April and May.
Reidda said a bank representative told her it could not refund the money taken before March and instructed her to contact Dish.

She called Dish, but could make no headway.
"Dish has repeatedly rebuffed my attempts to stop debit charges or help in refunding the already deducted money," she said. "Also, they now have my bank account number. Scary."
After several calls to Dish, Reidda thought she had the situation resolved, she said.

"But no. They said to call the police," she said. "They stalled and stalled and did nothing to resolve the problem."
In June, Reidda went back to a Chase branch in Highland Park and spoke to a vice president, who called Dish with her in his office. After a frustrating and fruitless conversation with Dish that lasted almost an hour, the Chase vice president sent Dish an email.

He wrote that Dish's customer service representative told him repeatedly she could not help and instructed him to contact the Federal Trade Commission.
When Dish didn't respond to either the bank employee's email or Reidda, she wrote a letter to What's Your Problem?
"I don't understand how they can just stonewall everybody," she said. "My bank has been very cooperative and they've been helping me but they can't get anything done with Dish."
She said she had no idea how Dish got access to her bank account. Although Chase refunded a portion of the money, Dish has done nothing about the remainder, $634.25, she said.

"It's very important to me," Reidda said. "I just don't know what to do. I feel so helpless."
The Problem Solver contacted Danielle Johnson, a spokeswoman for Dish Network.
Within hours, Reidda received a flurry of calls from Dish promising to help, she said.
"They were telling me that they had found the mistake, (but) they didn't go into detail about what that was," Reidda said. Dish did not return calls for comment.

On July 2, Reidda called Dish and was told the $634.25 refund had been processed and sent to her bank.
"I'm so relieved," she said. "I just don't know why it had to take so long and why it had to be so cumbersome."
 
I'm guessing someone signed up an account in her name and address (and has her banking info). I hate to think it's a relative or someone she trusts....
 
This happened in Fl with FIOS, to a person my family knows. And yes, somehow someone got hold of her information and got a free ride for awhile.
 
Our UPS man wanted to sign up with us for DirecTV and it turned out he already had a DirecTV account with an outstanding balance of over $800 that he didn't know anything about. He's never had DirecTV before in his life. That was several months ago and he's still trying to get it straightened out.
 
ID theft customers sometimes have a hard time explaining what happened in a way that the CSR understands it. Not blaming, but just saying...the article makes is pretty clear what happened. Someone used her credit card/debit card/routing number to make payments on their account. It happens sometimes, and happens all over, not just Dish.

That said, there are procedures in place for issues like this, and it sounds like the CSR did not follow them. It is always a very good idea to first contact the police and file a report. It adds some legitimacy to the complaint. I have seen, in my time at Dish, where someone called in to complain about their card being used on an account, and it turned out to be a son or daughter, where the parent HAD made a payment in the past, but did not approve this one. The checking/credit/debit account info was stored on the account, and the child made a payment using the previously stored info. Stuff like that can get a little sticky.

Does not appear to be the case here, though.
 
That said, there are procedures in place for issues like this, and it sounds like the CSR did not follow them.
This seems like a no-brainer.... If someone calls in and reports anything of this sort, the phone reps should know to pass it on to a fraud type department that Dish certainly must have.

I did have to laugh when the bank guy called... How is Dish supposed to verify who he is ? Anyone can call and claim to be some "big-shot" !
 
Generally the best thing to do when ID or credit has been stolen is to call the police to file a report like you said. After that you should call all three credit bureaus so they have it on file. The sooner you do it the better.
 
Hopefully the criminal was dumb enough to have the system installed by dish rather than buying a system and installing it themselves with a fake address...
 
Where to start......
1.Where did "DISH" or retailer install a system that the woman said she never had?
2.We hear of the DISH police checking out receiver locations,how did this one get overlooked by DISH and the CSR?
3.Upon hearing the complaint the 1st time did the CSR immediately cut all services to this so called account? If not why?
4.Upon hearing the complaint why didn't the CSR bump this up to someone knowledgeable with a possible fraud account?
5.Did the address,phone number match the account info?

What I see was a DISH CSR that either does not know their job or didn't want to take any time in resolving an issue. It may sound harsh but if I was the supervisor/management this CSR would be severely warned and if it happened again would be terminated. I am tired of people just skating by in minimum mode to collect a check.
As for DISH I wonder what their "official" response was to now what they seem to be admitting was their mistake. How did DISH compensate this woman for their mistake? Yes ID fraud happens every day now. Maybe DISH needs training on how to handle fraud in today's world.

As an example yesterday I received an email from USAA stating there was a problem with my bank account. Problem is I do not have a bank account with them. I called a USAA CSR and explained what I had received and he checked the accounts I do have with USAA(non banking). No problem there so he immediately talked with his supervisor and came back and told us to send the email to the USAA fraud department. Then thanked us for bringing this to their attention and told us they would be making USAA members aware this "phishing" email is out there. See, a pleasant interaction between a customer and a business, and in less than 5 minutes. Maybe DISH should call USAA and see if they can get the same training the USAA CSR's have.
 
What I see was a DISH CSR that either does not know their job or didn't want to take any time in resolving an issue. It may sound harsh but if I was the supervisor/management this CSR would be severely warned and if it happened again would be terminated. I am tired of people just skating by in minimum mode to collect a check.

Harsh? Not harsh enough, CSR's are the root of so many problems with Dish, yet they never seem to want to correct it. We don't know if any CSR's were reprimanded of course, (or to be fair exactly why this went on for so long) but it doesn't seem whatever Dish is doing with CSR's in training or reprimanding is working.
 
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Where to start......
1.Where did "DISH" or retailer install a system that the woman said she never had?
2.We hear of the DISH police checking out receiver locations,how did this one get overlooked by DISH and the CSR?
3.Upon hearing the complaint the 1st time did the CSR immediately cut all services to this so called account? If not why?
4.Upon hearing the complaint why didn't the CSR bump this up to someone knowledgeable with a possible fraud account?
5.Did the address,phone number match the account info?

What I see was a DISH CSR that either does not know their job or didn't want to take any time in resolving an issue. It may sound harsh but if I was the supervisor/management this CSR would be severely warned and if it happened again would be terminated. I am tired of people just skating by in minimum mode to collect a check.
As for DISH I wonder what their "official" response was to now what they seem to be admitting was their mistake. How did DISH compensate this woman for their mistake? Yes ID fraud happens every day now. Maybe DISH needs training on how to handle fraud in today's world.

As an example yesterday I received an email from USAA stating there was a problem with my bank account. Problem is I do not have a bank account with them. I called a USAA CSR and explained what I had received and he checked the accounts I do have with USAA(non banking). No problem there so he immediately talked with his supervisor and came back and told us to send the email to the USAA fraud department. Then thanked us for bringing this to their attention and told us they would be making USAA members aware this "phishing" email is out there. See, a pleasant interaction between a customer and a business, and in less than 5 minutes. Maybe DISH should call USAA and see if they can get the same training the USAA CSR's have.
Good post, but I'll answer the rhetorical questions 1. and 2.

1. If it really was CC fraud, then likely Dish nor a retailer installed the system, instead the fraudster did it themselves.
2. If there was only one receiver on the account, then there would be no Dish police actions to be made.
 
It could have been as simple as a transposed number in the account number, or an out right fraud.

Of course the real problem is that the lady did not catch the first charge. If she had caught the first charge within 30 days of her first statement the bank could have reversed the charges and block future ones from coming in from Dish. The burden of proving that the charges were legitimate would have fallen on Dish.
 
It could have been as simple as a transposed number in the account number, or an out right fraud.

Of course the real problem is that the lady did not catch the first charge. If she had caught the first charge within 30 days of her first statement the bank could have reversed the charges and block future ones from coming in from Dish. The burden of proving that the charges were legitimate would have fallen on Dish.
Very true. The bank refunded 90 days of charges, so in reality she had a 3 statement window to notice and notify of the problem, not just 30 days. All she had to do was notice one of the charges in the first 3 months (Dec-Feb).
 
It could have been as simple as a transposed number in the account number, or an out right fraud.

Of course the real problem is that the lady did not catch the first charge. If she had caught the first charge within 30 days of her first statement the bank could have reversed the charges and block future ones from coming in from Dish. The burden of proving that the charges were legitimate would have fallen on Dish.

I believe credit card numbers are generated such that transposed numbers, which result in a difference of 9, are detected as invalid.
 
I believe credit card numbers are generated such that transposed numbers, which result in a difference of 9, are detected as invalid.
Clever those mathematicians...wait, I is one, and didn't pick up on that.
 
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