Satellite TV - Dish Network terrible experience

Complaints.com received the following e-message on August 23, 2001:

From:

RE: Dish Network Complaint

I have made a copy of everyone’s complaint filed on three different sites regarding Dish Network. I can not believe how the puzzle is coming together. After studying all complaints I can see the problems with Dish Network more clearly. Before I begin to tell you about my complaint with Dish Network, I would like to address the person that has been responding to complaints on line, claiming that he or she is an employee of Dish Network. Number one….your replies mean nothing….because we do not know for sure that you are an employee of Dish Network or do we care if you are. You are just a mere puppet for Dish Network and a very small cog in the wheel. An intelligent employee of Dish Network would not respond to these complaints on line or off. Further more you have kept your identity hidden. By the sounds of it, if you are an employee of Dish Network, you are a part of the accounting department and or management.

If you are a part of Dish Network’s accounting department or any other part of Dish Network, and the company discovers that you have been responding to these complaints on air, your days are numbered. Number one….have you heard that anything that you may do for a company or see the company doing is highly confidential?????? Those are grounds to be fired. If this should happen to you, as a retired accountant let me be the first to say congratulations on your first lesson learned. Also to respond to your statement that, "all the people that are complaining are lying". I know that they are not. If you put these related complaints together you can see very easily that: Dish Network has a company policy problem.

Dish Network has a product quality problem.

Dish Network has an installation of equipment problem.

Dish Network has a problem in their accounting department.

Dish Network has a problem with Customer Service.

On April 25, 2000 I signed a contract to have Advanced Cable, 107 Olds Street, Jonesville, MI 49250 who was working as an affiliate of Dish Network, to install a satellite system in my home. The installation was for (4) receivers; I own a tri-level home. One of the receivers was never hooked up to a TV and I was not to be charged for services on the fourth receiver. This contract was never completed. I never received any enjoyment out of this system. We had Advanced Cable out many times and it never functioned properly. My contract has the Dish Logo on it but they claim it means nothing.

The many reasons Advanced Cable gave us in regards to malfunction and the changes they made before going out of business:

First might I explain that only one Dish was installed on the roof of my home. "Trees are in way". The way they went to try to resolve the problem? They turned the Dish to another direction.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? They changed the switchbox. Claimed it was malfunctioning.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? They moved the Dish to a shed.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? They claimed for (4) separate units I would need two dishes and installed the second one on top of my shed regardless of the fact that the fourth receiver was not even attached, there should be one Dish for every two receivers.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? They claimed that a switchbox was not needed at all and removed the switchbox.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? They clipped some branches off of a tree.

Every two or three minutes watching a program it would break up. Called them again. Their attempt to resolve? OOPS out of business. I received a message that they were out of business and that all-further problems should be directed and taken to Dish Network. Thus begins my many ventures with Dish Network.

My contract states, that I have one year of parts and labor warranty. My contract states, I have one year of America’s Top Forty, and one year of Chicago Local. This contract was financed through Franklin Capital. Before Advanced Cable went out of business, I woke up one morning to NO SERVICE what so ever. Immediately I contacted Dish Network.

They claimed that they had not received the money for the service from Advanced Cable. I called Advanced Cable and they claimed that this money was not received by Franklin Capital. I emailed a message to Franklin Capital and they responded on July 13th, 2000. They responded with the fact that they did send the money to Advanced Cable. I called Advanced Cable back. Now it was going to take time for them to cut a check for the years coverage of service as described above. Advanced Cable had to cut a check to me which was done on July 6, 2000….check number 10976….for the total of $524.48 I received this check in the mail on July 12th, 2000 from Advanced Cable, went directly to the bank and turned around and made a check out to Dish Network, check #2340, dated July 12th, for the total of $531.63 that Dish Network claimed that I owed. The difference in the amounts was not understood by me and I still can not tell you why. Late charge? Who knows!!!! After Advanced Cable went out of business, my unpleasant adventures with Dish Network began. Here is a list of excuses as well as responses I received from Dish Network the many times I had discussions with them.. "Advanced Cable did not know what they were doing." Response from a Dish Network employee and or tech.

"The cable is no good and needs to be replaced. The cost would be $125.00 for labor and in addition I would have to pay for the cable they used to get the system working properly. I pointed out that I had a contract with a year of parts and labor coverage and expressed the fact that this system never did function properly. Their excuse is…the contract was signed with Advanced Cable, Advanced Cable bought the equipment from Dish Network, therefore they can not be held to one year of contracted parts and labor coverage.

"Fix it yourself" Response from a Dish Network employee and or tech.

On November 6th, 2000 I contacted Dish Network again. I talked to a tech and asked him, "If you were me, and you did not received regular programs that broke up every two or three minutes and your paying for HBO and SHOWTIME and not getting what you are being billed for what would you do?" His response was, "I would cancel HBO and SHOWTIME". I said fine. Do that…cancel HBO and SHOWTIME. On the morning of November 8th, 2000 I woke up to no services at all.

I contacted Dish Network again asking why I had service completely turned off when they had one year of payment in advance for America’s Top (40) and Chicago Local and why have they been charging me monthly for Chicago Local when this was included on my contract. And why do you charge me for hook up of four receivers? The answer was, "Dish Network does not allow Chicago Local to be paid for in advance (their company policy), and if you do not pay for HBO and SHOWTIME than you just loose all programming. That’s how it works."

Just prior to my contact with Dish Network after I was shut down completely; the advice I received from a tech....one of Dish Network employees....said, "Sell the systems to someone else and than give us the money". They got their money, and so did Advanced Cable. The people that are out on a limb are Franklin Capital and I. I would NEVER sell a system to someone knowing that it never functioned for me.

After I had been shut down completely I notified Franklin Capital. I informed them that I was completely without service, that the contract was not completed and service was never there, that there was an installation problem as well as Product quality problem. I informed them that the two cables went from my home to a shed and was lying on top of the ground running across a flower garden, as well as grass that needed to be cut, and hung loosely so that any wind up there only disturbed programming which was neither here or there at this point because a year of advanced programming has been paid for and I have received nothing. I asked in writing as well as verbally to please pick up this equipment.

No one will pick it up. Of course they (meaning Dish Network and Franklin Capital) are all saying it wasn’t their equipment. Thus begins my adventures with Franklin Capital. The phone rang on a daily basis from Franklin Capital and they would ask me to call Dish Network and ask them to do this, and that, and back and forth. This went on for several months just between Franklin Capital and Dish Network. The full picture here is Franklin Capital wants their money and they do not care if the contract was completed or not, and Dish Network would not honor a thing nor even try to settle this problem. Damages done???? Holes in my roof.

Holes in the side of my house.

Holes in a ceiling.

Holes in my walls.

I had to listen to rude Tec’s and Dish Network employees.

Harassing calls from Franklin Capital.

Cash loss.

Credit is ruined.

Time spent to resolve was wasted.

Frazzled nerves.

I was not informed of any Dish Network company policies. My contract does not say that if I do not take a full year of programming that Dish Network is allowed to take the money and run. It appears that Dish Network honors only one part of this contract….the money. I have copies of everything to back me up. I will be releasing this information and proof to an attorney that will be representing many of us in a class action suit. For the person that claims to be an employee of Dish Network my email address is Email User And I welcome you to respond. I will be happy to make copies of your name calling or anything else you wish to say. Bare in mind that I will not respond back. Be advised that I will find out your identity if I can. I Thank all of you that have taken the time to read my complaint.

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WOW! They installed mine but destroyed some of the insulation by wiring stuff under my house. They ripped out the insulation and left it on the ground. The insulation is ruined so it has to be replaced. We did not realize it until my husband went under the house to check on something else. That has been ripped oit for a year now! No wonder my heating bill went up!

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If you have a billing dispute you can contact your bank who holds your account and dispute the charges. Another thing I have done in the past is report a lost or stolen card and close the access to your account. it will freeze the account from any more $$$ taken from automatic withdraws. Plus, if you dispute the change, they have to returnj what they take out.

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I have been totally disappointed with my Dish Network service. I ordered service three months ago under the premise that you provided NBA League Pass programming. The sales representative specifically assured me that I would be able to order this pass. Now that the season has started I am told you don't carry NBA League pass which was my determining factor in subscribing to your service. This is coupled with the fact that I wanted 5 rooms connected with two rooms having DVR. I was told that would be no problem but ultimately it was. Therefore, I only had 4 rooms connected with 2 receivers ( 1 DVR, 1 Standard). The DVR was shared between the master bedroom and living room. This restricted me from watching live tv and recording on the same set. I had to record on one tv and watch live on the other. A big problem because when I recorded on the living while watching in the bedroom no one could turn the living room channel and eventually stopped my recording to do so. In spite of this, I kept the service but two lies in three months was the final straw and I have cancelled my service. Due to these false and misleading promises I do not feel I should be forced to pay for an early termination fee.

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I couldn't agree more. I called Dish to purchase service. I agreed to pay be check over the phone, and they assured me the check wouldn't be cashed for 1 week. They cashed it the next day. When they finally came out to install my service, they brought only service for 1 set and no DVR, as we had agreed.

Now, this all started at the beginning of Oct. and I'm still waiting for my $200.00 back.

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All I want to say to future customers is STAY AWAY FROM DISH NETWORK, NO MATTER HOW GOOD THEY SAY IN THE ADS -it's a scam.

If you sign up, what you will experience could be just like mine: First they will lock you in a contract. Then, on the first month bill you will see numerous hidden charges (took me several hours of phone calls to dispute them off). Then soon they will increase your monthly fee for several dollars more (while the contract is still in effect), and shamelessly explain that it's required by your state. If you confront further, they will change the reason to "due to increase in programming fee" and insist that in the contract, they have the right to change the programming fees and charge you more. What a joke!

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Yea if Dish network had top noch equipment than why am I on my 3RD RECEIVER IN 5 MONTHS!??

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I had 600.00 debited from my account by dish network for equipment charges. I can see by all of the online complaint centers that I am not the only one who has had this to happen. Tell all of your friends to not do business with this shady bunch of characters.

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I so sorry that we trust dish network they was suppose to cancelled my service on 8-21,2008 they did not now they are saying that i will be charge 200 some dollar on my creidt card WHICH I told the girl that she did not have the right to do that .I don't know what to do about this I Do you know how or who to file a complaint about dishwork Please if you can help I have a address to file but i dont know if it the right one thank you

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I am looking for an Attorney now that can help with some thing like what you're stating, but they couldn't find a line in sight to install and now it's been almost 3 months and they keep giving me the run around about my money. I need some help, too.

E-mail is chanrahming AT yahoo.com

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Dish Network - Never again! They withdrew $300.00 from my checking account for an equiptment charge. Why? Who knows, I was still using my equipment because my service was still active. I called immediatley and they said it was a mistake and my money would be refunded in 3-5 days. I was very upset and told them to cancel my service.

Next problem: When I canceled my service, my contract clearly states that I have 30 days to return my receivers before they charge my account. It has now been 16 days since they took my money for no reason at all and they refuse to return it until they get the receiver, even though I have 30 days to return it.

I have spent hours on the phone talking to someone different every time only to get more frustrated and nothing has been resolved. They stole my money and won't give it back!!

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If any one can help me resolve this issue. I have made complaints with the FCC and I am waiting for a reply from them. I am looking for more agencies to complain too.

On 2/9/08 Dish Network sent out a contractor to my house to install satellite. He worked from 8:00 am until 4:30 pm with out stopping or taking a break. I have asked him several times through out the day that he should take a break and I brought him water he refused. I did notice by the end of the day his working practices started becoming unsafe. He wanted to wire the satellite wire at the main entrance in my garage under hardwood flooring which would eventually come out and hurt someone. I told him no he can not do that the floor is not glued down.

After he left my house I started having hard outages on my house. What I mean by hard outages is that when the power went out you could hear a surge sorrowing through my house as the power went out. This happened constantly everyday numerous of times in one day. My husband would have to go outside and switch the beaker switches to get the power to come back on.

I called dish to come out and look at what the problem was because it only started after they connected their services to my house. They sent a Technician out on 3/29/08 and the technician told my husband he needs to replace a couple of breakers. My husband replaced the couple of breakers but the power still was having hard outages. Though out the day and throughout the night.

I called dish again and told them this is dangerous their ground is wired wrong to my house and you need someone out here to fix this. The second technician came out on 3/3/08 and said we need to call an electrician. The technician did nothing but left.

I called them again and told them they need to remove their ground from my breaker box before it burns down. They sent another technician to my house on 4/5/08.

I called dish 4/4/08 and talked to a guy named Seth, I wanted to know if they would be held reliable for the damage it caused it my house he told me snobbishly that I would have to prove it. I went out and took pictures of their ground and the TV box located next to my breaker box.

When their technician arrived he told us that they had a meeting at work that morning regarding grounding. He said that a customer got electrocuted the day before because of a bad ground one of their technicians has done. He told us the company said if the ground is bad just too undue the ground and leave it ungrounded. He undid the ground and we waited for 15 minutes to see if the power would go out. The power did not go out, the technician left, and about 30 minutes after he left the power went out very softly and turned back on, on its own. I have not had not had any power outage since.

I talked to the damage department regarding my electricity to my house because of their bad grounding. They sent a Claims adjuster to my house by the name of Matt. I was not home when he came he did not call me to let me know he was coming. I had friends at my house at the time. They let him in and he took pictures of my 4 televisions sets and told me the reason why they are denying the claim is because I have 4 televisions. I called PG&E and talked to PG&E regarding the televisions and asked them if that could hurt my house. They told me, 4 televisions in my home can not hurt could not hurt my home. My power box is designed to withhold that many televisions. I talked to an electrician at my work and he told me that a bad ground can cause the damage to my house.

Jeff at Dish network told me that he believed the ground is what created the problem and caused the damage to my house. But his electrical engineer said because I had the one outage after the technician left on 4/5/08 that the problem was not because of them. The breaker was weaken and on the verge of going out and that is why it had a soft shut off and not a hard one. I have not had an outage since so that shows dish network created the problem.

I called dish and cancelled telling them that since they do not want to own up to the damage they have caused to my power box I do not want them on my house. The representative that helped me cancelled my service and he told me I would not be charged for anything as long as I return the boxes back to dish. I returned the boxes on 5/9/08 I received the box just a couple days before.

They are now charging me $295.00 dollars and are threatening to turn me into a collection agency. I am refusing to pay them they cost me more money than that.

What about the next person�s home they hook up too with a bad ground might not know or understand the seriousness of what it could do to their home. I know I am angry with Dish Network but my anger is beside the problem. I am still very concerned on what damage they have caused to my house and I worry when the main breaker box actually completely breaks or the wiring in my walls actually catch on fire, I can not afford to fix this or pay someone right now. I might be just the little guy but what about the next person who doesn�t know about the dangers and leaves ignores the signals of the bad ground on their house and their house catches on fire. They have already electrocuted one of their own customers. Next it could cost lives I do not think a life is replaceable.

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I too have had mysterious billings for porn on my account. I have set limits, passwords, etc. on my acct and Dish network has continued to charge me for unauthorized pay per views. I am so angry with this company. I am soooo sorry I signed up with them.

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A Tip for those having issues or want a new install: SAY YOU WANT AN INSIDE TECH!!! No, DEMAND it. The contractors for Dish are not people that I would let into my house, well I cant say all but either way gimme an inside tech. Request a Level 4 tech and theyll know you mean buisness. When he gets there tell the tech to show proof he is employed directly for Dish.

Alot of the errors you guys are explaining are user errors and/or lack of knowledge of your system. Dish goes to great lengths to make the customers happy and educate them. Others sound like Contractor done work...Not that all techs are perfect and do not make mistakes. But since they are graded on jobs they go to further lengths to make the system work and the install up to standards. As well as teaching customers how to use the system.

Not all problems are becuase of the install or customer. Sometimes equipment does go bad and must be replaced, unfortunatly that is unavoidable. Dish has AWARD WINNING hardware...It it top knoch.

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I have had Dish for about 3 years now and I must say the service has worked fine 99% of the time. I am a soccer fan and I especially like the fact that I can get my GOL TV with their service. Other cable companies and Verizon has now begun to carry Gol TV but Dish Network was the first. Having said that everytime I need to make a change on my network and have to make a service call it really becomes frustrating. For the past 4 days I have had no service from Dish and it all started when I upgraded to Dish HD. They have sent several technicians to my house and they cannot get the software to load. However as a technical guy myself I am not impressed with the technical level of the technicians that they have been sending to my house. Case in point last night one guy came to the house and he did not even know how to turn the power off on the VP 622 DVR. I have been very patient. Please note it is 4 days now and I really do not want to lose them Stay tuned

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When I subscribed to dish network,trouble started from the begining.We lost the first half of a steeler game with no explaination,we were loosing programs,and my garage door started opening and closing at will. I work late into the night, so when I get home it may be two or three in the a.m. like clockwork at 3:00 a.m. the message comes on the screen saying"the system is powering down"you must quickly grab the remote control and push no.If for some reason you are slow on the no button, you will lose your programming.You must turn it back on, wait ten minutes for it to power back up, and wait another five minutes for it to aquire the signal missing at least 15 mins. of what you were watching. I am still waiting for one of my recievers to power up after three days.I called and was told I would be billed $29.99 for the the service call and would have to pay for repairs.I proceeded to utter profanities and threatend to cancel by stopping all future payments on my credit card she then gave me a "courtesy" and waved the fee.I am sorry I dropped comcast and will return as soon as this is over.

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This makes me irate. My husband and I are going through what seems to be a very popular issue with Dish Network. Mysterious billing charges that are unexplainable by Dish Network to which they blame AT&T and or the third party vendor who "sold us" the Dish Network Promotion (that ended up never being a Promotion - yet a scam - because we have yet to receive the promotional rate) and extra charges for fixing their signal - their mistake- which we end up fixing ourselves because we don't want to give them anymore money than they are already stealing from us (literally). Anyways, I'd love to share my entire story in detail but I've already spent enough time typing it out in full on <a href="http://blog.smokebrush.com/2008/02/20/how-we-dished-it-to-dish-network/">my blog</a> (blog.smokebrush.com)

*If there is a class action suit going on my husband and I would love to be a part of it. It is ridiculous that a company like this has gone as long as they have literally stealing money from customers.

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Dish network does it again. Me and my girlfriend decided to order dish, We ordered this on January 28 2008. The first date they could install was on Feb. 5th so I took the day off work to be here. That day came and went till 6 pm that night the installer called and told me that the equiment didn't show up. Seems kinda strange since they had 8 days to get the equipment to them. So anyway we went ahead and rescheduled the install date. They would be there on the 11th of Feb. This time I could not take the day off work so I paid a friend to come and be at the house when they were coming. Again that day came and went. This time no one even called to let us know. I then called Dish network to find out what is going on and they said that they had us down for the 12th. So I called the installer and he told me he didnt know why they changed the day to the 12th. We called back to Dish and got so feed up with them on how rude they were we just told them to cancel and give us the money we had to put down one month earlier. WE were transfered between 5 or 6 people just trying to do this. By this time I could not take it anymore so my girlfriend called them again and started all over at canceling the order. She to was transfered between many people before they would cancel. The last person did talk her into waiting one more day and they promised they would install the equipment on the 12th. I again paid a person to come and stay at the house to be there for the install. At 5 pm again no equipment was installed. I called back to Dish Network and they had every excuse in the book of why they did not install or call for the third time. Need less to say I will never install Dish Network again or ever!!! I will do everything in my power to make Dish go under. Yes I guess I will go with Direct TV , since I have talked to many of people with this and have been happy. All I can say is Dish Network is the worst sat. on the market.

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Very well written and very well documented! Did you sue? Did you win? I just now found your story while looking to see if others also have had trouble with Dish. Would love to hear how your story turned out.

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It just sounds to me like this woman wants a reason to bitch. It sounds like she's just trying to get money out of the company. My husband works for dish and he said that if they can't do the job for some reason, then they explain to the customer the reason being. Most people he said he meets want the service anyways. How old was this woman by the way?

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we went through a night mare too. for us it very nearly meant the death of my husband after the theft of money for his medicine, which we did get back, daily harassment about equipment we did not have. that we had to prove over and over again that we did not have. it is a night mare that still continues today. if you file a class action against them we want in. thank you

john and Virginia lane

sailingchefinthekey AT yahoo.com

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Oh my; that sounds really bad. My complained is almost nothing compared to yours. I have great TV service just a problem with the ignorant customer service people from Dish Network. One doesn't know whet the other one is telling customers. I ordered a fourth receiver (DVR) and paid $119. The tech came to my home installed it and it works fine. I also have a DVR with a broken hard drive. I got a new one send by mail and need to send the broken one back to them. In the mean time I found out I could have bought a DVR accommodating 2TV at the same time and I would save $11.98 a month on fee’s. I told them to reverse my order, and send me a 2TV DVR. This customer service person told me, that I need to pay another $119 and that the first $119 I’ve paid will not be refunded since Dish Network doesn’t do reverse billing. In clear English, I have to pay for a second receiver because the customer service person didn’t tell me all the options I have, only the most expensive one. I’m researching Direct TV now and maybe Time Warner cable. I will cancel Dish Network as soon as I find something suitable in my area what fit’s my needs. Emailed customer service three times these clowns don’t even bother answering the email customer send them. It’s clearly a customer service problem I have because I do have great TV programming and it has never failed since I have it (2003). However, I don’t like to be told that I’m a valued customer and then get screwed.