1/13/10 - DISH, Dish, dish.....

Yes, it's that time again. Although there is no set schedule, I can't seem to go too long without having an awesome story about Dish customer service. This time around, it started right after we had our roof replaced. In fact, I roughly documented the origination in a previous post.

Just a quick summary, the roof got replaced which required the roofers to remove the satellite and put it back. We lost signal to our Local HD Channels. Immediately my wife and I knew that the dish was slightly off and needed to be adjusted to point in the right direction.

We called and they walked us through a process that would supposedly fix the issue which resulted in us completely losing the HD channels. They wouldn't even show up on our channel guide. We didn't catch this for a day or two as we rarely watch those channels. During this first call, we specifically said that we would like a technician to come out and take a look, but they of course had to walk through a process over the phone first.

After a week or two, Cristi had enough and called Dish back. This time, we again insisted that a technician come out and check our signal. This time, the support person on the phone informed Cristi that our receiver was bad that it was blocking the channels. Of course, they said this even after running tests (just like the first call), and seeing that one of the satellites was not showing up correctly. At this point, you would think something would trigger in them that the dish is just out of line. Cristi was also told that we could hook up an external hard drive to copy off our DVRed programs so we wouldn't lose them when switching receivers.

Instead of fighting with them at that point, I decided to actually give it a shot so that I could then state with proof that they had no idea what they were doing. When the receiver came in, the first thing I did was hook up the hard drive to copy over our shows. At that point, a message popped up letting me know that this had to be activated. No big deal I thought, so I called the number.

This is where things really went downhill. I explained to the guy what I needed and he explained that there was a onetime service charge to unlock the USB transfer feature....$39.99. That's right, nearly 40 dollars, even though the first support person told my wife that all we had to do was hook up the hard drive. At that very moment, I flipped. Without using any profanity, I began insulting him and his coworkers simply because I had had enough of dealing with unintelligent individuals. During this process, I also explained to him the process I had gone through and what I was trying to get accomplished.

Once he experienced my frustration, he apologized profusely, and recognized what I had been saying since day one...THE SATELLITE WAS OUT OF LINE!!!! In fact, he stated this very thing and then told me that we could get this resolved over the phone. Although I didn't believe him for a second, in order to get the technician out to my house, I had to go through the steps one more time. While the steps were going on though, I brought up a few things including the process to return the receiver that Dish had incorrectly sent me and getting the shipping charge removed from my account. After this guy couldn't get it done, he sent me over to an "advanced" technician who promptly said, "Yup, looks like we'll have to send someone out to your house..."

*ANGELS BEGIN SINGING*

At that point, all was right in the world. The guy came out, and fixed in about 45 minutes. He said the dish was off by about 4 inches or so which is why we couldn't even pick up the satellite we needed to get the channels we wanted.

After three phone calls (the last of which took over an hour) and a 45 minute technician visit, the end result was the very thing that cristi and I both new needed to be done. The dish needed to be realigned. The technician visit was free, except that I had to add a 5.99 package to my plan to get that so all that was lost in this go around was high blood pressure, close to 2 hours of my time and about the same for my wife and a $5.99 charge. I guess it could have been worse, but we will see how my next few bills show up considering the issues I've had previously.

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12/21/09 - I ran out of blog posts...

A couple of months ago, I had scheduled multiple blog posts to appear every Saturday. I thought I had them through December, but apparently I was incorrect.

Instead of Saturday, here is this week's update. This past weekend was my baby brother's wedding. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say about it. As a guy, it was a day where I got dressed up in tuxedo, posed for a few pictures, decorated the groom's car and then went home. A female on the other hand, might say that that day was beautiful, magnificent and all that stuff. As the brother, it was good day with only minimal conflict (that I was aware of) between families, which I think is common in ALL weddings.

Makenna came so close to actually walking down the aisle this time, but she took two or three steps and froze. For abot 2 seconds I thought she might keep going, but she turned around and started crying. As discussed, I once again walked down the aisle and escorted her, along with the other flower girl who also decided to just stay at the end of the aisle. I guess things could have gone worse, but they definitely could have gone better.

I've been playing a crap ton of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 recently and just yesterday leveled up to Prestige 1. Those that play the game, know what that means. Those that don't play, just know that I'm awesome.

We recently had our roof replaced, and with insurance and discounts, we got the whole thing for free, and actually made around 2 dollars or something due to a miscalculation on the part of the roofing company. The roof looks great (I guess, I couldn't tell you if a roof looked bad), but they did something with out satellite which has resulted in us losing our locals in HD and ESPN comes in and out. We've already called once, and they did fix it to where we could get our locals in standard, but that caused us to lose ESPN sometimes. I absolutely dread calling them back and am beginning to wonder if it is worth it to not have HD locals just so I don't have to deal with them. Along the same lines, I've been documenting my frustrations with Dish for quite some time and I thought I had it sorted out. They had agreed to 10 months of $10 credits after everything was sorted out. That worked great for about 5 months, then the credits disappeared. Sadly, their customer service is so bad, it would take more time to call them and get it straightened out than that $50 is worth.

Christmas is coming up, and I've got all my shopping done except for one very, very good friend of mine and my dog. We know we are getting my dog a new bed, but I have no idea what to get one of my favorite people in the world, how horrible is that?

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3/10/09 - Dish...the saga continues

The last update on this deal was on 2/20/09. I don't remember what has gone on since then, but I'll summarize the last few conversations I've had with them. First, the $300 has been put back on my credit card. I called and told them to add $60 of credits to my account and they said they would, I believed them. They said that I would be charged only $40, instead of the $120 that was showing up on my bill, I believe them. I got my credit card statement and it was billed $120 so I called them about it. They said that everything had been addressed, that all my credits were showing up correctly, I believed them...both of them...both people told me I would not be billed this next statement...I friggin' believed them.

So today...I got my bill, guess what....$230...that's right TWO HUNDRED AND THIRTY DOLLARS!!!! I immediately checked to see what they had done. I was amazed that they were right, all my credits showed up correctly. $10 credit for my troubles, $20 credit for my premium packages, $29 credit for the service call charge, $30 credit for the taxes I had been incorrectly charged. You would think that would have put my account into a credit state...but you would be wrong, because strangely enough, there was a $300 credit, that for some reason was showing up as a charge. Yes...another $300 charge that I am going to have to get taken care of.

At this point, I'm so close to getting it completed, I am going to stick with Dish, but you better believe I'm going to be requesting another credit of some sort. I might request that my premium channels be extended free for several more months, I might ask for another 5 $10 credits...I don't know at this point, but I'll try to get something else out of this.

It has almost become a game to me. I know that I'm in the driver's seat because I've logged all my calls, I've made sure what the charges should be, and I haven't requested anything above and beyond what I have felt I was due. I'll let everyone know how things go after my call tomorrow.

Labels: Dish Network

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2/20/09 - Dish...resolved?

I made call number 5 on Wednesday which I expected to be fairly painless. After finally receiving the $300 credit nearly a month after it was first charged, I was out to finish things off.

Appparently, Dish has a department by the name of ERT. I believe it stands for something like Executive Reimbursement Team or something like that. Basically, there reason for existence is to refund customers money for stuff they shouldn't have paid. I take this to mean that I'm not the only customer who has had a very similar situation.

The problem with this department is that they only reimburse for actuall monetary losses, and to make matters worse, they don't cover interest charges on credit cards (although apparently they might make an exception for me). We pay off our credit cards, so there was no reason for me to talk to these people.

I still felt that I was owed some sort of compensation considering I got the $40 in credits and the "free" HBO and Starz on only my 2nd call trying to get this taken care of. This being call number 5, I felt that $20 a phone call was reasonable since that was apparently the going rate. With this in mind, I was going to get another $60.

When I spoke with "Harry", at least that is what he claimed his name was. I immediately went in to a complete recap of my last month of phone calls, account checks, so on and so forth. When I finished, I flat out said "What I want you to do, is add 6 months of $10 credits to my account". After a slight hesitation, he simply said "OK". I didn't really believe what I was hearing, so I specified that this would be on top of the other credits I was already recieving for a total of 10 credits of $10. He said that he could only add 6, but then I reiterated that this would be on top of the other credits already on...and he again responded with a postive answer.

Now, I like to think the best of people, even after I've been round and round with these people, so I am going to assume that Harry actually added this to my account. I will wait for my next bill to see if the original credits were added correctly, and assuming they were, February, March, April and May will include the original $10 credits, and April through whatever will have the next 6 credits. Of course, what would be even better in my book is if the next four months have a $20 credit, and so on.

Whatever the case, I'm currently satisfied with the results of everything. I would have preferred to not have gone through all this, but I think the compensation is sufficient.

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2/13/09 - Dish...again...almost there.

Yesterday I made the dreaded call to Dish to hopefully get things straightened out. I was very pleased to speak with a gentleman by the name of Pat. I can honestly say that after getting off the phone, my blood pressure was lower than when I started, which is the complete opposite of my last handful of calls.

I told him why I was calling, which was to discuss my bill. I explained that the $300 would be addressed the next day if I did not get the resolution I was expecting. He voluntarily explained to me that it did appear on my account that it was being processed as expected. This pleased me although he did explain it would probably be three to 5 days before my credit card company recognized the credit. (Side rant at the bottom of this post). More on this in a moment. When I started explaining my problems, he was more than patient with me and offered to explain one by one.

The service fee was removed with no hassle whatsoever. I truly believe I could have just said that I didn't want to pay it and he would have removed it. The part that was the most confusing to me was the multiple line items for multiple premium packages pro-rated on different dates. He too was completely confused by them, but tried to explain the best he could. The point is, he genuinly tried and didn't try to make something up. When I mentioned that I was not receiving my $10 credit as promised, he asked to put me on hold, came back and explained that it had been applied to my account, but wasn't showing up on my bill. I said that his comment made no sense, but we would move on for the time being. The next question was in regards to the taxes. He explained that when the credit was truly applied, the taxes would also be removed and my account would display this.

So, after he made a few modifications to my account and bill, I asked him what I could expect to be applied to my credit card (automatic bill pay) on the 28th of this month. He said that he couldn't give me an accurate figure because the taxes might be different but that the best he could tell it would be around $47. I was very satisfied to hear him through out a number that I had basically calculated before making this phone call.

Back to the $300 charge, today, I got a phone call from Dish, an automated system. They informed me that my refund had been processed. That's great, I'm glad that happened, but the bad part is, it is 24 hours too late. I was told 2 days, and after this much trouble, I'm holding them to that. Because of this, and more thoughts I had, I will be making a call to a different department, probably on Monday to request more monetary compensation for the my trouble. On top of that, it just so happened that my credit card billing cycle starts and ends on the 15th. If I did not have the money to cover this charge, that $300 would sit on my account, and accumulate interest to the tune of 13% (we pay our credit card bill off every month, so this percentage rate does not bother me). Because of this, I feel that I am entitled to at least $40, plus compensation for the more recent calls I've had to make, as well as to make up for the poor attempt at appeasment by offering a programming package that was offered to all customers (I believe I've mentioned my frustrations in previous posts with offering new customers one deal, and not providing the same, or comparable deal to current customers).

*Footnote from above - why do companies say things take 3-5 business days, or 5-7 busienss days. That's a bunch of crap. We live in a world where technology rules. Computers and networks are advanced enough to do millions and millions of calculations and transfers in seconds. I also know for a fact that this mega corporations spend millions a year on technology infrastructure and software. It is more cost effective to have stable software as opposed to the possiblity of manual calculation errors when it comes to bills and financial transactions. At the end of the day, I could understand 1 business day. The first day, the customer rep would have to process a form (probably electronic) which was sent to the accounting department or some other similar department for approval. Upon approval, that would be immediately queued up for that evenings processing. Upon processing, the bank or credit card system was be alerted of the debit/credit immediately thanks to the use of ACH. This is a technology that I have worked with personally and it is awesome. So...don't give me this crap about how a credit/debit will take 3-5 days, much less the 61-90 as promised by the first lady I spoke with. Oh, and don't get me started on rebates...

Labels: blog, Dish Network, rant

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2/11/09 - Dish Network, revisited

Well, my incredible story gets even better. I'm sure everyone has read about my my previous dealings with Dish, so I'll jump right into it.

Five to seven business days passed as of Tuesday, the 11th of February. I called and spoke to a nice girl who seemed to have no knowledge of my previous calls. I can only assume that the service reps are required to log notes in the system explaining previous dealings with customers. Either this girl did not look for this information or it simply did not exist, and the previous two people were just pulling my leg about getting that money back.

I had to go through the whole thing from the beginning, explaining that I only had one receiver in my house, how I should not have been charged this money, and I needed the money returned. She put me on hold, only to come back to tell me that she did some research and sees where she needed to fill out a form, send it to another department, and someone would contact me with 7-10 days. As soon as she started talking, I knew I was going to get the run around, so I stopped it right there, and explained that I would be getting the refund today.

Again, she put me on hold, only to come back moments later to let me know that she had talked to the executive department and they would be able to expedite my request and I would have the money in 2 days. It's still on my account, but they still have 24 hours to get it on there. On top of that, I've decided to give them until Friday, just in case there is a lag in the update on my credit card statement.

With that out of the way, I began asking about the movie package that I was offered for all my trouble. The reason for this is that I was informed by a friend of mine that they were also being offered 3 months of free HBO and Starz....yet they were not going through my same hassle...(a different hassle, but still). I asked the girl about this and she stated that since I had been so adamant about getting my $300 back, they waived the 24 month contract extension. That didn't make me happy, but the movie channels are just a bonus as far as I'm concerned...it just frustrated me that I was led to believe I was getting this great deal with all these new channels, when they were offering this anyways.

Move on to later in the afternoon when I got an email from Dish. When I first saw it, I thought it was going to be an apology letter, or some form of confirmation that my refund was being processed. I was quite surprised to see that it was a Bill notification. Since I'm on paperless billing, I get an email when the new bill is processed. I immediately went to check it out and was very intrigued by what I found.

Where we normally are charged about $55 a month for our services, the bill showed $110. In this, was the charge for the service call ($29) which will be waived. I just have to call and explain that to them. The service guy himself stated that he had to fix the crappy job that the previous guy had done. There were also 3 seperate pro-rated charges for multiple premium packages. At the same time, there were 3 seperate pro-rated credits for multiple premium packages. They were all different dollar amounts, so I don't know what they each are for. I just know that totalled up, I was still charged around $4 or so. Last, but not least was $27 in taxes. Most of this coming from the now infamous $300 charge. After all this mess with the charge itself, and explaining that I shouldn't be charged, they went ahead and are making me pay a sales tax on it now.

I will be calling tomorrow about my bill, and again on Friday if the money does not show up. I promise you there will be a follow up post to this one.

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1/31/09 - Dish Network, what am I going to do with you?

We are going to go back in time to start this post. Roughly two years ago, my wonderful wife and I were living in Conway where Conway Corp reigns supreme. We were paying about $20 a month for basically all the cable channels we needed (although we didn't get Food network at the time). Life was good.

Then we decided to move to Sherwood, where we knew that Conway Corp would not be providing service and instead we would have to deal with Comcast. I have NEVER had a good experience with Comcast. Not to mention, in order to get the same service we had in Conway, it would have cost roughly $60 a month. (although we would have been getting Food network). Internet was also issue, but that is a different story (and on that note, I can't recommend AT&T DSL service more...it rocks).

In an attempt to save us some money, and stay as far away from Comcast as possible, I looked into getting Dish or DirectTV. My research showed that Dish had better service for a better price. I knew going in that the price listed on their website was not the final price as they would manage to sneak in fee after fee. After several phone calls, I was right. There was a fee for local channels, fee for not having a phone line hooked up, so on and so forth. I also asked about HD services as I knew that at some point, I would upgrade to that. I was told it would be an extra $10 a month, end of story...I know, I know, I should have known better.

So here we are, about 3 months ago, and I have now bought a new TV and need HD service. I call up, and ask them to add the HD service at $10 a month. Then I find out that I will need to upgrade my dish AND receiver. It would be an additional $100 to upgrade my receiver. This, of course, did not make me happy. I explained to them that I had apparently been lied to when I signed up, and I pointed out that if I were a new customer, I could get all of the equipment free of charge. They were "nice enough" to discount the installation by $50. The put the $50 on my bill, and we had our stuff upgraded and after a wonderful conversation with the installation guy, found out that when I signed up for the new service, everything was great except for the fact where they didn't actually sign me up for anything. After more conversations, everything worked great on the HD end, as I believe I reported on multiple times.

Next billing cycle, I check my bill and see a charge for $100, with no $50 discount. I had to call which takes time out of my day. The phone call ended with them crediting my account for the correct amount. Problem solved, all is good.

Now comes the really fun part. Last Thursday, I checked my credit card only to find a $300 charge from Dish. Immediately, I called to find out what was going on. Again, I had to take time out of my day, to fix something that shouldn't have been broke in the first place.

If I had to guess, I would say it was about a 30 minutes conversation. During this conversation, I had to explain that I only had one receiver set up at my house, forcefully request that they credit my account, and then explain that getting my refund in 61-90 days was unacceptable. This conversation ended with the $300 being credited back to my card on that day. I said I would give them 5 business days, and then I'd be calling back.

This afternoon, 6 business days later, the money was still not back in my account. That really ticked me off (the fact that our dish has been reliable about 25% of the time over the last two weeks doesn't help this story). I called and spoke with the first Caucasian male I've ever talked to on Dish support, and explained that I was not happy and basically had no reason to continue service with Dish. He said there was a problem with the refund and he had reprocessed it. At that point, I told him flat out that I wanted to know what Dish was willing to do to keep me as a customer. This conversation ended with her saying that the money would be credited to my account in 5-7 business days, I would start receiving HBO and Starz free of charge, and I would be getting a $10 discount for the next four months. They are also coming out Tuesday afternoon to try to fix the problem with our dish.

Altogether, I still prefer Dish over Comcast, I still think Dish's prices are better than DirectTV, but if they screw up this $300 credit again, and if I have any issues with these new "free" services and discounts. I don't think I have a choice but to move on.

I'm sure there will be a follow up to this episode....stay tuned.

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