Dish Network denies the problem
Complaint
Allan Levy
Country: United States
St. Louis, Mo. -- Several months ago I purchased by first HDTV. I immediately upgraded my Dish service to include a new High Definition Dish and Receiver. The customer service department at Dish Network advised me that I would be receiving approximately 29 High Def stations and all the local St. Louis stations that broadcast in High Definition.
Two months after the installation and having enjoyed good reception by ability to received Channels 2 (Fox) and 5 (NBC) was marred by the fact that they began displaying an error code and I was not able to receive either of these two stations. I called Dish who set up an appointment for a technician to visit my home. Shortly after making the appointment someone from Dish Network (I believe from HQ) called and said that they were doing a survey on my problem and that Dish had been experiencing a high level of calls from St. Louis about the same problem. In fact, there were hundreds of calls. They thought it had to do with the Satellite and not the Dish on my home and the compatibility of the receiver they furnished me with. A week or so later I was visited by their local technician who told me that he could not do anything to fix my problem because it was a Dish Network problem and that they knew about it and it affected hundreds of people in the St. Louis area.
I called Dish Network Customer Service and they denied that such a problem existed and told me that the technician did not know what he was talking about. They set up another appointment for a technician to visit my home and that technician again reiterated what the first tech had said that it was a Dish problem having to do with their Satellite and equipment. He too agreed that there were at least several hundred people that his firm had visited and were not able to fix the problem.
I called Customer Service while he was there and the Rep. kept denying that there was any problem. I asked that Dish then give me an over-the-air antenna at no charge since they were not able to fix the problem. They refused. I asked that they allow me to cancel my contract with Dish without penalty. They refused. I asked to speak to a supervisor who after twenty minutes begrudgingly told me that Dish might have a problem. She would not give me an over-the-air antenna or allow me to cancel my contract because she said that Dish advertised that they would get me High Definition TV but not necessarily "all" stations.
I have contacted both Channels 2 and 5 and told the engineering departments that there were hundreds of listeners unable to get their programs in High Def. which they did not know about. I have contacted the FCC and the local TV Critic of the Post-Dispatch, the major newspaper in St. Louis. Perhaps posting this complaint will get some acknowledgment and resolution of this problem.
Two months after the installation and having enjoyed good reception by ability to received Channels 2 (Fox) and 5 (NBC) was marred by the fact that they began displaying an error code and I was not able to receive either of these two stations. I called Dish who set up an appointment for a technician to visit my home. Shortly after making the appointment someone from Dish Network (I believe from HQ) called and said that they were doing a survey on my problem and that Dish had been experiencing a high level of calls from St. Louis about the same problem. In fact, there were hundreds of calls. They thought it had to do with the Satellite and not the Dish on my home and the compatibility of the receiver they furnished me with. A week or so later I was visited by their local technician who told me that he could not do anything to fix my problem because it was a Dish Network problem and that they knew about it and it affected hundreds of people in the St. Louis area.
I called Dish Network Customer Service and they denied that such a problem existed and told me that the technician did not know what he was talking about. They set up another appointment for a technician to visit my home and that technician again reiterated what the first tech had said that it was a Dish problem having to do with their Satellite and equipment. He too agreed that there were at least several hundred people that his firm had visited and were not able to fix the problem.
I called Customer Service while he was there and the Rep. kept denying that there was any problem. I asked that Dish then give me an over-the-air antenna at no charge since they were not able to fix the problem. They refused. I asked that they allow me to cancel my contract with Dish without penalty. They refused. I asked to speak to a supervisor who after twenty minutes begrudgingly told me that Dish might have a problem. She would not give me an over-the-air antenna or allow me to cancel my contract because she said that Dish advertised that they would get me High Definition TV but not necessarily "all" stations.
I have contacted both Channels 2 and 5 and told the engineering departments that there were hundreds of listeners unable to get their programs in High Def. which they did not know about. I have contacted the FCC and the local TV Critic of the Post-Dispatch, the major newspaper in St. Louis. Perhaps posting this complaint will get some acknowledgment and resolution of this problem.
Comments
Note this thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-hd-discussio ... rror-002-a.html
I got your phone message early this morning (I am currently in Bangkok on business). Thank you for replying to my email so quickly. I Googled you and was pleased to find not only your email address but also positive references to your assistance to other subscribers with problems like mine.
However I'm sure I don’t need to tell you that your interventions, no matter how kind and successful, should not be necessary in a sound business model. It is clear from my own experience since I joined Dish in March – powerfully reinforced by literally hundreds of complaints about Dish I found on various internet sites – that your company has a some serious problems:
1. Your call centre staff are appallingly trained. They go through the motions (“I apologise for that sir, I can help you with that today, etc.”), but they seem to have little or no inclination, incentive, or information needed actually to help a customer. The attitude seems to be that any problem is the customer’s problem. In my case, as in others I found on the ‘net, the gist of Dish’s reply was: “you, the customer, are guilty unless you can prove you are innocent”. In my case, I was told several times that if I could not locate a tracking number on a UPS return label issued by Dish, I was out of luck, even though both the tracking number and the serial number of the receiver in question must be on your system under my account.
2. Either your internal IT systems are incredibly dysfunctional or your staff routinely lie to your customers. In my case, your call centre staff has told me that an (unsolicited) receiver sent by UPS on May 5, on a shipping label emailed to me by Dish, had not arrived nearly three weeks later, and that unless I could find the tracking number, they could not help me. That the unit had arrived but this fact had not been entered into records accessible to your call centre staff hardly seems likely given the IT available today – unless this is a deliberate strategy.
3. This leads to a third and potentially more sinister point. After having read a number of complaints from other Dish customers, I am inclined to speculate that Dish engages in a deliberate business strategy of negative option marketing, which is illegal in the United States as far as I know. As I explained in my original email, I did not solicit the replacement receiver for which you have charged me $300. It just arrived on my front porch. This is a pattern repeated over and over by Dish: having the customer’s credit card details on file, and thus able to raid their accounts at will on terms dictated by yourselves, Dish makes unilateral changes to the products you supply to customers, and then charge them for it without warning. Of course these product changes usually turn out to be the result of some “mistake” and are often eventually rectified, but it is not unreasonable to see a financial logic in this: even if the customer eventually receives a refund, their money is in Dish’s accounts, earning interest for you, whilst they wait for a refund. It’s a handy cash flow strategy, reinforced by Dish’s apparent philosophy of making the customer financially responsible for everything no matter who made the decision to create the alleged liability.
I'm sure you would not see any of these issues in these ways, but consider the impact on your reputation when reasonably intelligent and educated customers come to such conclusions based on the character of the service provided by Dish, and then share these speculations on the Internet and with friends and family.
It would seem to me that you have either a business model problem or a PR problem or both, and that a good company should want to repair them systemically, not piecemeal, customer by customer, at executive level, as in my case. As a reasonable person, I accept the apology you proffered in your phone message, and would be happy to accept some programming credit (although to be honest, I only subscribe to Dish for cricket and rugby, since I'm South African; I have DirecTV as well). What would make me very happy, however, would be an indication from you that Dish is aware of its systemic customer service problems, and is committed to resolving them. By contrast, a response that suggests that my problem is an isolated one – which, on the basis of my internet research, is clearly not the case – would disappoint me.
P.S. My credit rating continues to be excellent!
e-mail me at ilbeeks@yahoo.com
for to send it out. I had cable where I use to live if my product broke or needed a upgrade it was free of charge
Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get screwed by going with dish. I have talked to everyone I know who is considering dish service to stay with cable !!!
Any help out there??????