Dish Network- my experience with them

[Harmon]

Your experience with Dish Network anything like mine?

Mom and her BF got a satellite, and program with them. They could not get reception but every other day or two for a couple hours. They contacted DN and asked them to fix it. “Sure, our next appointment is four weeks from today,” Mr Rep told them. “Nothing earlier?” Mom is a lot sweeter then I am. “No, you dumb (female dog). I said four <blanking> weeks,” she asked to speak with his supervisor and was told by the supervisor that he agreed with his technician.

Mom took the system back, to the store, the salesmen called DN and he got a similar conversation. The salesmen- a friend of Mom’s BF, returned their money and talked his bosses into removing DN dishes from their store.

A distant friend of mine got a flier in the mail and called to get the system. The salesguy was really nice and cool. When he gave up a credit card number the guy laughed and hung up. It took my buddy a moment to realize that he had not given his address, and no date for installation was given. He called his credit card company and informed him that he thought a fraud might be occurring soon on his card, he explained. They would keep an eye on the card for him. The following day internet orders on his card started hitting left and right. None of the sales went through of course- the card company knew it wasn’t my buddy.

Now tonight I call to request that I be removed from their mailing list. No fewer then two employees cussed me out- the salesmen and a guy that claimed to be his supervisor. I was as kind as I could be at first then railed by the unprovoked attacks.

Has anyone had similar experiences?

Oh, if you don't believe me give them a call (888) 479-4729

 

[trancejeremy]

Your mother's BF isn't KenM? Sounds like one of his experiences with customer service

Glad I have DirecTV. While I've had problems with it from time to time, they are quick to send out a guy to fix and never had any problems on the phone

 

[Vraille Darkfang]

Your mother's BF isn't KenM? Sounds like one of his experiences with customer service

Glad I have DirecTV. While I've had problems with it from time to time, they are quick to send out a guy to fix and never had any problems on the phone

Have had Dishnetwork for years.

But, that is because it is loads better than the local Cable Company.

The Local Cable rates a 1, Dish Network a 10 (of course the scale is from 1-100).

Lately, we have been unable to get reception on certain Transponders. After several hours on hold, they had be do their little song & dance Turn it Off, Turn it On, Rest they alwyas do.

Said the problem must be in OUR hardware (You have to buy the Hardware wtih the Satellites, they might give it to you free, but you buy it, therefore they get to charge you to 'Repair' it). He said he send someone in 2 weeks, I'd just have to be home between 8 AM till 4 PM (new job, impossible).

I told them "NO".

Got on internet for 5 minutes.

The older, Plastic Dishes seem to have problems when the Temps go over 100. There is also an older reciever style that The Chinese Supplier had to recall (though oddly, enough Dish didn't pass that recall onto the consumers they'd sold them to).

Sure enough, once the Temps get below 100, all the channels kick back on.

100% of the Time.

Wind? No Effect.

Rain? Works just fine as the Temp usually drops below 100.

I called back (another hour), tried to explain that the problem was the heat (they denied it, said they have to send a service tech (90 bucks) to fix it. Said it might be mis-aligned, bad switch.

Gave me all sorts of BS about what it could be.

He called my arguement of "Under 100 degrees, 100% Fine; Over 100 degrees, 100% Down; 100% of the time". He told me I didn't understand the complexity of their system.

I wanted to tell him "And you don't underestand percentages, 100% anything is a pretty good indicator of what is wrong".

Instead, I said screw it.

The heat wave out to pass in a couple of months. We are starting to look for a new house. Once we get it, we WILL NOT be getting Dish Network.

I do not look forward to cancelling it (that's a pain in the rear too). I'll just tell them how horrible there cusomer service is & how we are moving to an area where Dish is Impossible.

So, How is DirectTV?

I've heard bad things about their Customer Service.

But, then the entier industry as a whole has absolutly horrid customer service. They seem to be competeing on whose the least crappy, rather than "Let's try to just have marginally Below Average Customer Service", as that would be leaps & bounds ahead of the competition.

Simple fact is the entire industry relies on the "If you don't like it go elsewhere... Oh, Right You CAN'T! HAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. Give us you money & leave."

Trying to find the best TV system is like trying to determine the best way you want to be executed.

All the options pretty much suck.

 

[Dimwhit]

I've had DISH over two years. Not one problem at all. Got bad reception one time. Turned out there was a bunch of snow in the dish, so I cleared it out and it's been fine ever since.

I love my DISH network. Got the DVR service with it, of course.

 

[Kurashu]

We had some trouble earlier in the summer: our guide wouldn't load (well mine would, I don't have a DVR/PVR/HIV/whatever). So we called a support, and they sent a tech out. He poked around our recievers and said everything was fine. Guide still wouldn't download. Ok, we called support again. My mom was on hold for around forty-five minutes.

When she did get somebody, they did the whole hold the power button until it resets routine, and the lady checked our connection with her computer. They said nothing was wrong. Guide still wouldn't download.

After a few more calls and my dad going Dane Evans, we got the head tech guy for our region. He came, looked at the recievers and then went and actually checked the dish. One of the transponders corroded in the box coneected to the actual dish. He replaced it, and after a reset, both DVRs and my reciever all downloaded the guide (not that mine was having any trouble to begin with). He also told us that one of the head programmers had been fired for inserting in a ton of bad code, and that DishNetwork was swamped trying to fix it.

Other than that, we haven't had any real trouble. No rude customer support. No people cursing at us. Just a crappy tech guy who got paid $30 to do a half-butt job. The regional tech guy was cool though.

 

[Kastil]

My husband switched us over to DISH with a deal with our local telephoe company because we 'saved' money on DSL doing this by having multiple services. We get fewer channels than we had with Directv and pay more. We lose reception with the slightest hint of rain while with Directv, we only lost it in massive downpours.

I gave up my NHL Center Ice halfway through the season for this piece of crap, thinking I would get FSN..... NOPE! Comcast... blech.

The bitch of the whole thing is Directv, once my husband called them, offered to match the deal but it was too late. The crap DISH had been installed. We're locked in for 18 months and when it's over, I'm going back to Directv.

Snow clearing........ I keep my hockey stick in my bedroom to do that.

 

[buzzard]

I've had Dish for a number of years now (4 maybe). It's been pretty decent overall. I've had some issues with thier customer service people being rather sub par on the IQ scale. I had a heck of a time getting Center Ice ordered last season because the individual from the sub continent on the other end of the phone had probable never even heard of ice hockey.

I recently upgraded my receiver and dish (got the HD/DRV combo) and that all went fairly smoothly (after some previous attempts to get it done foiled by lousy phone sales people.) I imagine I could have changed to Direct TV since at the high end the packages are about identical in price and channels. However I let inertia win, though it might not have been th best course.

I will say the new dish seems to be more weather sensitive than my old one was. The old dish only had a signal disruption once and that was when we have a blizzard that dropped many feet of snow in a weekend. Once I knocke the snow off the dish, it came right back. Now, with the new dish, a heavy rainstorm can cut my signal.

buzzard

 

[Dimwhit]

I do have one complaint with DISH. They use your phone line to download the program guide. When we canceled our land line (switched completely to cell), DISH could no longer use our line. So they charged us an extra $5/month to do it through the satelitte. Kinda pissed me off. On the bright side, I never have to wait for the guide to download when I restart the system. Seems to do it behind the scenes now.

 

[werk]

I love my cable but that's obviously a regional/local thing. Madison replaced and upgraded all the cable lines in the last several years to accomodate high speed infrastructure the city demanded. Great experience with cust supp, reasonable rates (comparably), and great service (picture, speed, no down time, etc).

Using a dish is basically the same as using cable, except instead of running a cable to your house from the local cable company's satellite dishes, they transmit it. I can't understand how a received signal could possibly be better quality, speed, or reliability than a hard line.

 

[Aesthetic Monk]

I've had DirecTV for maybe three years now, and I'm modestly happy. The reception is good except for moderate to heavy rain. Whenever we've had technical issues, we've basically gotten replacements for free.

However, I'd have to say that I've actually considered going back to cable. We have DTV in only one room, the weather can be an issue, and the price gap between DTV and cable has narrowed considerably since I've had the dish.