Dish Network Experience Wednesday, June 18, 2008

I've been using DishNetwork for over three years, and I love it. Been treated well in every contact with them and contractors; I admit that most of my contacts have been to add services, but when I have to make the rare call to get tech. assist. I never have the sense that they want to loose all their customers and deserve to have their wishes come true.
Posted by Mike Reeds at 22:58:17

Dish Network Sucks Worse Thursday, February 14, 2008

Yep. They nailed me too. Bought right into it, hook, line and sinker. People considering Dish, This is laid out step by step, of what you're getting into, no matter what they promise you. The scam goes like this. Pretty full page glossy color insert in your standard Sunday Paper. GET DISH NOW $19.99 A MONTH. NOT A PROMOTIONAL OFFER--EVERYDAY LOW PRICE FREE INSTALLATION Called the 800. Well it's $85 dollars, but you get $50 back, as a rebate, taken off your first few bills. $19.99 monthly after that. Not bad. Directly paid them over the phone, through my account. And scheduled the installation.. Pretty cheap. How can they do that? Well they don't really care about the equipment after all. They will give you $50 just to get their gear to your house. I assumed the remaining $35 goes to the contractor who came to my house to make my roof look like an aircraft carrier. They are not in the hardware business. They are in the service business. Like a cell phone. My cell was $80 but I got a rebate, that actually came, for $50. That means I paid eventually $30 for the phone. Verizon wants to keep you as a customer for the SERVICE. America , gotta love it. We'll give you the plate, heck, just eat our meals off it. For 18 months. Sign a contract. No big deal. Well here's my first bill. $46 dollars, not $19.99 And obviously no rebate form. Understand from my prospective, I've had dish for two weeks, and I'll have given them 85 and 46. - already out $131 dollars. In my rural area, with my basic package, that's what I was paying for three months of basic cable. Well I just got off the phone with them, the first time I was on hold, for a manager, but eventually they just disconnected me. Called a second time, at least this guy spoke English. Here's the cold hard facts, as relayed by this second associate. The rebate? , Well they simply added a $50 charge to the bill as a connection fee , then they credit you. So there you have it, no rebate. OHH but ya got one, see? The $46 new charge? Well, you pay two months in advance, according to them. However, in the same sentence the rep adds I will be receiving another bill in 30 days. Something wrong there. Something that was never fully explained to me, because on the planet I live on, we use the solar movement of the sun to calculate days. I've kinda noticed that for the last 47 years. hence, two months payment pays for 60 days, not 30. Is it possible the $46 dollars IS for two months? Then it probably IS 19.99 times two, with a little tax. But nobody acknowledges that. And I haven't submitted the mysterious rebate form. Are they being nice and crediting me in advance? More than likely, it's theory two....that they are ripping me off. Plus I discovered they took the liberty of having direct billing withdrawal out of my account without my authorization. Had that stopped. Allegedly. After reading some stories about Dish's greedy hands, I may have to blacklist them at the bank. Some Dish victims are finding cash withdrawls even several months after the contract was terminated. And I'm supposed to pay $19.99 a month after I get this form, which actually is handled by a mysterious third party. Whenever I eventually get the form, send it back, I can expect eight to twelve weeks before I see that reflected on my bill. And the $19.99 monthly fee will then only apply for ten months. After that, the bill is somewhere between $29.99 and $46.00. I still have no idea. I'm bound by a 16 month contract, so basically they can charge me whatever they want. They already are now. So yeah $19.99 is the everyday low price .....for a limited time, if it ever gets off the ground at all. I call that a promotional offer. Personally I expect to have ?every days? after 10 months. Maybe they are telling the truth, and in 10 months, the receiver will explode, and kill me at that time. The price will go up that time, but I will be dead. Although I summise they will still bill me. At least then they would be telling the truth, whereas $19.99 would then, indeed, have been my everyday low price. My son says if that happens, he will re-locate the dish to the top of my tombstone. A testament to the almighty dish legacy. They may also be telling the truth, if its' literally an "everyday" price because it's $19.99 every day. It's a "low price" because it's posted at the bottom of the bill. I already did the math, the ?$10 a month rebate for ten months, if I actually see it at all, is actually my own $100 that I was robbed in the first place. And in the end, I paid the exact same amount I was paying for cable. But most likely more. Don?t let this scam happen to you.
Posted by Scott at 02:57:23

Comcast did this to me Thursday, February 14, 2008

This is how bad it is: it's taken me 3 weeks to disconnect my service. When I cancelled, the gal in the billing department kindly informed me that I'd have to call customer service repeatedly to disconnect my service or else I'd keep getting bills (yes, that happened. Thanks for the heads-up.) I then received collections calls almost every day for several weeks. And every time, I'd repeat my story about why I didn't owe anything and requested that they stop calling me. And then the phone would ring the next day: "Hi, this is Comcast. I'm calling to see if you can make a payment today." Someone finally figured out that no one ever officially submitted a disconnect order. The funny thing is, I thought they'd disconnected my service because my service wasn't working. Just a bunch of static. (I'd always had problems with the digital music channels.) 3 weeks after my initial call, the contractor showed up at my door to collect my cable box... and whadayaknow, another contractor showed up (from a different contractor company) to do the same thing. Both of them nodded knowingly when I remarked on Comcast incompetence... they both said they'd heard the same thing from other cancelling customers. Last straw: I just got off the phone with -- guess who -- Comcast. I'd given back my box and final payment a week ago. Apparently my number got back in the collections cue because they keep billing customers after the cancellation date. Why? Because the actual line outside isn't disconnected. They have to send someone out to disconnect the line (which happens 4 weeks after cancellation) and then the customer is credited back the amount they paid. So the obvious question is, why didn't the contractor who picked up my box disconnect the line while he was here? This has got to be costing Comcast a fortune in repeat visits, billing, customer service, collections, and any residual customer goodwill... all because their cancellation process is broken. There's more, but I won't bother going into the details. It just feels so good knowing that with a single diatribe, I can inform potentially thousands of potential Comcast customers that they'd be better off finding an alternative for their cable TV service.
Posted by drew at 02:52:46

Direct TV Sucks Thursday, February 14, 2008

Here is a letter written to Best Buy; I'm writing to bring your attention to a problem I've had with overall experience with one of your products. I hope Best Buy will address this problem to my satisfaction. This concerns a retailer located at Houston, Texas. This incident has left me extremely angry. Here's my problem: We received a Direct TV Dish from our son for Christmas. As instructed by Best Buy (BB) we called their installer's phone number and made an appointment to have the dish installed. It was installed and the installer with Digivision installed our dish on our composition shingles with glue and (6) lag bolts. We had so much trouble with Direct TV, we just had the dish taken out and went back to cable, for many reasons. The dish damaged our roof and pulled up shingles with the base of the dish. I called Direct TV and they said they were not responsible for the damage and that the dish should not have been installed on shingles like that. Even the local BB store that I took the dish back to also were taken back at the shingles that were still stuck to the base of the dish. They even took digital pictures of the damaged shingles for me. I called the number my local BB store asked me to call, Digivision, and they told me they were not responsible either and that the contractor in Houston was responsible and the manager at Digivision in Buffalo New York Ann, started yelling at me on the phone. I asked for her supervisor and she told me she did not have a supervisor. My wife called the the installer's number in Houston (Digital Direct) and the Manager, Terry Adams, hung the phone up on her. We paid an extra $80.00 to have the extra box hooked up which nobody told us we would have to pay and now we have a hole in our roof due to the faulty installation of the satelite dish by Digital Direct. Nobody is taking responsibility for the damage to our roof. Here's how you can help: Have someone take the responsibility for the damage to our roof and reimburse us for the extra installation of the second box which was never explained to us. I occasionally use Best Buy for electronics. Based on all of my dealings with your company, I am fairly unhappy. I have decided I may do business with you again. Also, I might recommend your company to others. If you were to correct this problem, I definitely would pay more if the improvement increased my satisfaction. I know you like to keep your customers happy, so I am sure you'll take steps to rectify this situation. I expect to hear from you soon. Thank you.
Posted by Mike at 02:39:48