We’ve had a lot of storms blow through in the last few weeks, and some very windy days, so our dish satellite – understandably – has gotten a little wonky. So as we’re watching t.v. a little error message pops up and tells us it’s trying to connect to the satellite. It usually corrects itself in just a few moments, so we haven’t bothered with it.

Last week, I called Arkansas Satellite, the company that installed and has serviced our system. I told them about the wonky signal, and also asked about the receiver that we recently hooked up only to find that it’s not working. It’s been sitting in the living room for a year or so waiting for us to put up a projection screen and stuff. It was pretty frustrating to get everything set up and find out the unit we’ve been paying for is broken. Anyway – Arkansas Satellite said that if they come out and find out the receiver is bad we’d be paying for a new one and the service call which would be $69. They suggested I call Dish to make sure we aren’t covered under any warranties or anything before they come out. I hung up and called Dish and a service tech told me that we do have a warranty that we’ve been paying $5.99 a month for that provides for free replacement of equipment as well as FREE service calls. Great! No problem!

So tonight, the signal was konking off more than usual so I called Dish. I got a service tech on the phone who took me through the whole testing process (we’d already run through this on our own, but she chose to ignore what I told her about our results). The testing showed that one of the satellites, number 129, wasn’t connecting with our receiver – wow! that’s what it told us when we did it too! Then, as we proceeded through the steps she tells me to select “save” to choose to reconfigure our system.

Here’s where the first part of the continued sucking begins…
As the girl in my ear is telling me to select “save” I’m reading the message on the screen that says that saving is “not recommended” because it will delete the non-working satellite from our configuration. You’ll remember that the channels were not inoperable completely, they just kept popping up an error message intermittently. Okay, so I tell the girl…

Me: “the message on the screen tells me that I shouldn’t select save or I’ll lose that satellite”

She: “yes ma’am, but we have to save to see the results of the testing process.”

Me: “but I don’t want to lose the satellite, and we already know it’s not working so what else do we need to know?”

She: “but we’ll probably have to send out a service technician, and they will be able to repair it and get that satellite set back up.”

So, stupidly, I selected save. Number 129 disappeared, and the idiot at Dish proceeds to tell me it will be Saturday before they can send anyone out to fix our system. The system that we’re already pissed about. But wait! It gets better!

Not only will it take four days to get that satellite back (which carries the majority of the non-HD “HD” channels) but apparently the guy who told me service calls were free with that warranty we’re paying for was “improperly trained”. This was what the supervisor told me. I spoke to her to tell her about the idiot she had working for her that told me to select save.

The cherry on top is that the guy at Arkansas Satellite says they can come out tomorrow. However, Dish will not reimburse us for the cost of the call because THEY didn’t call them. Yep – Dish would contact the SAME REPAIR COMPANY, but if we do it we will have to pay the entire amount. Apparently, Arkansas Satellite gives Dish certain days that they are available, and at this point, it’s not until Saturday. Sounds like Arkansas Satellite is making some cash on this deal as well, doesn’t it??

We’re signing up for Direct TV.

20 comments

  1. I think reading this gave me a little brain aneurism. All of a sudden, I LOVE my cable provider.

  2. Uggh. Why must companies that we have to deal with in life be such asshats sometimes? I swear they must train their “customer service” reps to toss common sense out the window when they put on their headsets.

  3. I think I’d slit my wrists with a dull tin can lid if I had to do that kind of work.

    1. Hey Mrsmarshall,

      Just read your rant the other day.I know it’s an old post.It helped inspire somehow.Read my complaint,you may feel lucky.
      Steve

  4. Call and ask to speak to a supervisor…and don’t let them off the hook when that sort of thing happens. They will say something like “there’s no supervisor here” and to that comment you can say “so that’s why you’re so poorly trained and can’t help me?” then “what’s your name, and what address do I write my letter to report your lack of service and product knowledge”. I usually end up with a supervisor who’s happy to rebate, refund, whatever!

    On the other hand..I have DirectTV and love it. I cancelled Dish for poor service.

  5. I couldn’t help but laugh while reading this post. So true. We’ve got cable and almost never have issues with the TV reception. The internet, however, is another animal completely. Six visits in less than two months and the promises were flowing freely from the customer UN-service folks. We were to receive all the tech visits for free, and a month of free service. I just called last week and discovered we’d been billed for the service call and the credit was never applied. And when I asked why, guess what they told me? The ‘original’ rep that made the promise of a credit was ‘improperly trained’ and also had not entered any ‘documentation to support issuing a credit’ (ie: notes of our conversation) into the computer.

    Yikes…but not surprising at all.

  6. yess yess yess… dish network prople are lier and thier service suck big time…. everytime you call they tell you a different story and always try to beat about the bush as if the person who is calling is a nerd…… i have disconnected their service and have told all my friends never to get service from dish network…… i am never going back to dish again… there are soo many other options out there we didn’t even know about untill the dish network squeezed out the last bit of patience from us……….

  7. I signed up for DISH, and it is a pos. The user interface is unfriendly. I have been a Dish Network Stockholder for the past 5 years based on financials, and am so sick of their customer service, I am cancelling my Dish service after only 3 weeks. AND SELLING ALL MY DISH STOCK!!!. I am sorry to have supported this company for the past 5 years with out being a subscriber, and only caring about the stock. BTW, after having the service for 3 weeks and cancelling, I also get charged $230 to cancel the service. But it is worth it to be rid of this very, very, very poor quality service.

  8. BTW, I am so p…sed off right now, I tried to register dishsucks.com or dishnetworksucks.com to start a forum on the subject. Seems like others beat me to the punch. Too bad the sites are down all the time. I is worth spending some free time online to share the experience with DISH. I wish I had found this site before signing up.

    1. I’m sorry you didn’t see this post too! I would be willing to bet that Dish owns the dishnetworksucks.com sites, just to keep them from being legitimately utilized by people who think the way we do. :)

  9. Very simply, their sales staff will agree to send you an email confirming in-writing all the particulars of your packege and payment requirements BEFORE the installers arrive. This would, of course, give you time to review everything promised. In my case the email never came. When I aked why they said they sent it. When I asked them to re-send it, four different people said they could NOT re-send it. Amazing! This certainly leads me to believe that the dishonest salesman did not want written proof which would confirm his lies. BEWARE !

  10. I have had dish network for 3 months- I live in Chicago, I have not had ONE month of service that did NOT require a technican to come to my house to FIX the service. DO NOT USE DISH NETWORK- THEY ARE THE WORST-

  11. I’ll never go back to dish. From the start it was one lie and sham after another. The “free installation”

    INSTALLATION CHARGE = +$80
    INSTALLATION CREDIT = -$80

    ACCOUNT SET UP FEE = +$80

    Feel the value …..

    The $29 a month I was promised never happened. I was billed $79 a month. Then I had to ASK for ” rebate forms ” and after I filled them out, I had to send the yellow origional contract to a third-party rebate company in Texas. Texas then sends a “coupon to me, that I can send to Dish, to apply to FUTURE payments.

    So the first month I also had to pay two months subscription in advance. All said and done, by the first month of Dish, I had already spent like $240 , by comparison, that’s what I was paying for six months of cable. With the equipment breakdowns and everything else, after the year was over, I was done with these clowns.
    And by the way, make sure they are not configured for ” auto pay billing”. I had to block them from my bank, they will continue charging you.

    These were the most DISHonest people I have probably dealt with , from a service provider prospective.

  12. 2 weeks ago a fellow came to the door selling Dish.
    I by chance had gone on line to view my Comcast bill.I printed it out.I showed the bill to the sales guy.He looked genuinely concerned. He says something like “We can do much better than that”.So I say something like ‘let’s go for it’.”So for $120 I get all the channels I had with Comcast,on demand,phone and internet”. He says “Yup,that’s right”.”And you get free HBO and Showtime free for 3 months”.Among some other questions I had I wanted to make sure I would have the Science channel.He assures me I will have the Science channel.
    I’ll jump a few days to the installer.Wife writes him a check for $50.Oh,wait a minute.He has to run another cable under the house to keep the internet/phone on.What? “We don’t do internet or phone”.
    So what am I paying $120 for?
    I call someone at Dish I thought but get a retailer,whatever.They say something “What”? “You shouldn’t have paid the installer $50 and we don’t do internet or phone”.
    Whaaa?
    Now watching for 3 days or so.
    No free HBO or Showtime.No Science channel.
    On demand is more or less pay per view.
    And the picture is fuzzy.
    Never mind that the DVR is,lets say,not user friendly.
    So I disconnect everything.Re-connect my Comcast boxes.
    A few calls later to Dish to disconnect…
    I owe them $420.I’m not working.My wife wants to shoot me.Thinking that would be the easy way out.
    Comcast my be expensive.But you get what you pay for.
    Have pity on me.I’m out of work and was just trying to save a few bucks.

  13. I like the idea of keeping this site active, with current experiences to warn people about constant abuses and spotty service. I am a 20-yr customer of the Dish, and finally fed up at the games they play; particularly “reprogramming” receivers without notifying customers, and without a clue about what new problems the change will create.
    Then there’s the percentage of monthly charges when things aren’t working properly. There is never a credit when the service is TOTALLY unavailable. I have had that happen for up to 5 days. That’s 1/6 of the monthly bill!
    How about HD programming. We are warned that heavy rain or snow will disable HD reception. Last time it happened (yesterday) I went outside and it was mostly blue skies with a few isolated small clouds. It used to be when I tuned to an HD channel, I got a screenful message telling me that they are aware of the problem, and I should watch non-HD channels. UNFORTUNATELY THE TUNING BOX DOES NOT ALLOW ME TO LEAVE THE MESSAGE SCREEN TO TRY SOMTHING ELSE NO MATTER WHAT BUTTONS i PRES. iS THAT STUPID OE WHAT?
    I am near the end of my rope and am about to look into Comcast cable. Out of the frying pan into the fire? I plan to do my homework before I change. One critical question. Is cable as sensitive to a small shower while recording an HD program? Do I get credit for days of non-service? Will they change the programming on my box without explaining the changes to me AHEAD OF TIME? All providers may suck, but I am finally ready to try a different service. Oh yes, The Dish makes it impossible to disable PPV or VOD channels and it is easy to accidentally end up on one WITHOUT AN EASY WAY TO GET THE *&%$()!!! WAY TO GET OUT OF IT. Give me a way to lock out all PPV and VOD channels! I don’t want to see any at any time on any “favorites” list!

  14. DISH SUCKS:
    My remote “Sat” button breaks,

    I call, they want to charge me WAY too much for another remote…. so for a few months, I just walk up to the receiver & push the buttons. But… Dish starts putting on this dancing blue box, that won’t go away unless the “Sat” button is pushed… which is broke. So, I watched a few programs with the blue box (you must push sat button box). Finally quit watching altogether… call to cancel service… they offer me a free remote!!

    So, now I’m pissed, tell them too late… They offer me everything else.. nope. They close the account & tell me I have to pay to cancel service!!! (via $15 shipping charge). I tell them to take a flying hike… We go round & round. I call back & say:

    “I’ve been around the world, in all my years, I’ve NEVER paid to cancel service & I NEVER will. You want me to pay $15 bucks, no way. There better be somewhere I can drop off in the metro area, or one of your installation guys pick up, or you’ll never get your equipment back.”

    He says, “there isn’t any, you signed the contract, you have to pay or we’ll add the price of the equipment to your bill, right now you have a $8 credit. It’ll be $150 for that old receiver.”

    Me: “Not a chance, it’ll not only never be paid, I’m calling the better business bureau, the state attorney general & will NEVER have Dish Network in my house EVER for life… is that worth $15 to you?”

    Dish: “bla bla bla bla bla”

    Me: ” you could have said in fine print on the back page you’ll charge me $100,000 to cancel. I wouldn’t pay that either. The install guy who was 2 hours late to my house (hours I should bill them for), was very impatient & late for his next apt, sign here, sign right there, just sign…

    DO NOT EVER GET DISHNETWORK!!!!!!!!!

  15. My 2 year contract is up and I call to cancel Dishnetwork and after being a very loyal customer for 2 years they want to tell me to pay for the shipping of their equipment…$15.00 like thats a good deal…I have never had to pay for the return of equipment and this is just a sneaky way of punishing customers that leave them. It’s not the money…it’s that it is just wrong…that is a cost of doing business and I have made every payment for 2 years and this is the thanks I get. They tell me that the contract says they can do this…way to cover your butt Dish…BUYER BEWARE…I will never consider Dish again and hope that people will not support this kind of activity by using Dish Network. They only do this because the customer allows them to push us around. STAND UP FOR WHAT IS RIGHT…Dont use Dish and tell them why

  16. Do not get Dish Network!! They will screw you over like Obama forcing you to pay for his Chinese loans. My friend recently bought into the Dish Network 2 year scam contract and is now moving. Dish Network told her that she has to pay a fee of $100 dollars to transfer the crappy pathetic ghetto subscription to her new crib. She tried to suspend her scam dish account but was told by the money harlot greedy ghetto dictator customer service reps that you can only do that after your first 2 year crap infested contract is up. My advice to Dish Network is to relocate to China and screw the economic booming Chinese over instead of “poor” Americans who have to pay back the Chinese for all of the political loans.

  17. Yes DO NOT get DISH they are too cheap to get a deal with the NFL for NFL Game Ticket. They choose to bait and switch by advertising Seasnon Ticket which is a joke and does not provide ALL NFL games like DIRECT TV’s NFL Ticket. They do have REDZONE but I want to see MY Team, I don’t even play fanstsy football. I’m stuck going to a sports bar EVERY FRGN Sunday to watch My team of choice. I would be willing to pay a premium package price to get all NFL games but DISH is too GD Cheap to pull a deal with the NFL.. I’m stuck with this inferior product for two YEARS.

  18. Contact your state attorney general and file a complaint.

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