First of all, please read my Article on the Scam that Dish Network has caught us in . Then come back and read this post.
Gotta love ‘em for trying right? Hardly…
For the past month and a half we’d get TV recordings on our Dish DVR that would pause or become completely distorted. It didn’t happen that often so we brushed it aside. Then out of nowhere our signal would become completely lost and we’d have no TV! This happened after we arrived back home from our 4 day trip to Monterey. We had missed recordings and zero signal, then 20% signal, then 30 % then back to zero. We called Dish for help and instead they said “Well, there’s nothing more we can do to help you so we’ll send out a tech to fix this for you”. How nice, right?! WRONG!
I cleverly slipped in “Will we be charged? Because Dish seems to like to slip in ’secret charges on our bill every month’ that they can’t seem to find the source of…” and before I could finish the tech on the other line started to laugh like he knew exactly what I was talking about. When I caught him in the middle of his chuckle I said “& you know exactly what I’m talking about don’t you?” He replied “Uh… errr… well you will be charged $50, but I can give you a discount”
“A discount? Dish is going to charge us for something we didn’t do. Their product is malfunctioning and we have to pay to have a tech come out and fix what you won’t tell me needs to be fixed?” I requested to speak to their manager because in no way was I going to pay to have them come out and fix their mistake! We didn’t move the Satellite, we didn’t touch their equipment, I saw NO reason to pay for something we didn’t do!
I was on hold for a Manager for several minutes and didn’t feel like waiting any longer. We called one more time and got the same words told to us. “You will be charged, but I can cut the price down for you.” No thank you… The next day we got a message on the machine that a tech was coming out. An appointment we didn’t make but Dish felt that they were going to get their money either way. We called and canceled that appointment promptly but you never can take their word that they really are not going to charge you. We’ll probably see the $50 charge regardless on our bill and another explanation from Dish that they don’t know where that charge came from and another 30 min wait on hold to resolve their mistake .
Why haven’t we canceled our subscription with Dish? Good question. You can find your answer here: Consumer Affairs ‘Dish Network Billing’
& Consumer Affairs ‘Dish Network’
Well, how we ‘Dished it’ to Dish Network is Clark went ahead and fixed our signal problem. Either the Satellites moved in Space or our heavy rain as of late had moved the Satellite somehow. All he had to do was nudge the Satellite up a bit and to the right slightly and we were back in business with HD Satellite TV.
Now, would you have paid $50 to a company that was already scamming you to move your Satellite up and to the right 1 inch?
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8 Comments
What a scam!!!!
My blood is boiling on your behalf! You go girl!
Remember, you always have more power than you think. The chain of command is always and I do mean always higher up. When you dont get the answer you want, ask to speak to their supervisor, then their supervisor, and so forth and so on. I have had this happen to me many times. The key is persistance. Letting them know that you wont be going away. Do it kindly and firmly. Be professional and well spoken. Do not lose your cool. Document each time you call, write or whatever. If it comes down to it, you can have a case against them.
We as consumers give our power over because we don’t know the rules about complaint. We don’t keep documents of events. We don’t go through the correct channels. We never do write to the BBB or other organizations who are there to help us in these instances.
The choice is yours… is it worth your time, effort and stress or not? The big companies count on it not being so…………and simply wearing you down. Are you gonna let them do that?
When we bought our house, the cable was connected – excellent quality, too. Being the ‘follow the rules’ person I am, I called the cable company and asked to be ‘connected up’…big mistake.
Their ‘guy’ came out, got mad at me that we had a signal already – NOT MY FAULT!!!! WE followed the rules!!! – did not matter, he was ANGRY. He snipped all kinds of cables, including OUR INTERNAL ones in the house!
Ever since then, we had HORRIBLE reception…I mean, really bad. I would call, nothing. Again and again. I even paid th $55 for ‘their guy’ to come out, he said ‘all was fine, could not understand why our signal was bad…’ and left. Got told NEXT visit would be double the cost, since the first one could not fix it!!!
What that logic was, I’ll never know!
Eventually, after 3 years, we DID get a ‘good guy’ to come out: and he said our signal was only 5% strength!!! And did a bunch of stuff to fix it.
Now, we CAN watch TV (well, most channels)…..but the signal is nowhere as good as before we actually ordered it and started paying for the cable service….
And people wonder why people feel justified stealing cable or satelite signal….
Amber:
You have very good points. It’s all about consistency and keeping a good trail of evidence. I’m 100% with you on that.
The trouble for us is that we find ourselves justifying our time. We’re so busy making money to pay the bills that we end up keeping the Dish Network issue on the back burner hoping that we find some class action lawsuit along the way that we can participate in. Until then we try and keep good notes of events like the [above] so we have some stories to use against them.
We could just cancel anytime but not really or we get slapped a fee plus some. There’s so much to it that it’s overwhelming and aggravating. If we didn’t have to worry about money it would be so much easier to kick them to the curb. So to reply to your statement, right now they are not worth our time, because we don’t have the time to fight them as our main priority is to pay the bills. We’re hoping that by the time our “contract” is up with them [supposedly it's an 18th month and that isn't up until this upcoming Nov/Dec] we’ll TRY and cancel with them without them taking more money from us. The most common complaint of consumers is Dish Network charging their credit card after “sending them their boxes” that you have to use to send back the equipment – which they end up never sending until after they charge their card for a “missing equipment fee”.
We hope to find where their headquarters are and hand deliver the equipment and canceling our credit card we’re using with them so they can’t charge it. Who knows if that will work, but that’s the mess we’re in right now.
Good point though on keeping good notes and not letting them take advantage of the consumer world. Every time we do speak to them on the phone we end up requesting to speak to the manager which ends up being a 30+ min wait and having to call back several times until we get to them. Again, that’s taking up A LOT of time and after all that we have to get back to work (to pay their bill).
It’s hard though when you truly do not have the time to devote to fighting back.
xanthippa:
What a story. Don’t you hate when that happens? You were just trying to be honest and not use something that you didn’t pay for and you end up getting punished for it. So unfair.
I wish there was such a thing as an “honest cable/satellite company.”
We are currently in a huge mess with Dish TV. We had lousy reception and the service would go off for a day or two so we would go rent movies. We kept calling they refused to fix the problems so we canceled. Now they have taken $620 out of our account (3 months after we canceled). And say they equipment has never been returned although we have called, gone to their local office and contacted Dish TV online. Turns out the entire problem we had were staples the Dish guy stapled through our cable that would cause the problems so it was there fault for the 7 months we tried to use their service.
Melodie:
I feel so bad for you in your situation, but unfortunately I am not surprised to hear this.
I have heard literally 100’s at the very least of people complaining about being charged a ridiculous amount due to “missing equipment”. Clark and I are very nervous about canceling our account because we cannot afford a “missing equipment” fee that they are so famous for charging. 
When will this dishonesty stop?
dish is ulgy
The dish looks cool but there service is bad. Can i have your dish?