Scammed out of $781

I hope this helps to alert all Dish Network Satellite customers to be on the alert, because there is evidently a large, long-time, sophisticated network of scammers who pose as Dish Network employees or subcontractors who are stealing money from Dish network customers. In our case, a man in a fairly new gray sedan, with "Dish Network" written on the door came to our house near Monticello, FL, on October 11th 2012, and said he wanted to check our Satellite Dish to make sure it was receiving adequate signal strength from the satellite. He (Anthony, no last name on his badge No 8810) said Dish Network now had a second satellite that could provide sufficient strength. After visiting our dish satellite out in the yard with a meter, he then came in the house, asked permission to turn on our television and supposedly checked the signal strength and said it was more than adequate, so there was no need to point our dish at the new satellite. He then checked our TV,  satellite receiver, etc. and put "dish network" stickers on them to "show they'd been checked." At this point he asked how we paid our monthly bill, and we told him it was bundled with Centurylink. He said he could unbundle it from Centurylink and save us a great deal of money. All we had to do was pay him $781 upfront for a year's service in advance, which would save us over $100 a year. He said he could take the payment right then and save us any further trouble.  He was so smooth, personable, seemed so knowledgeable about Dish Network and their satellite equipment that it never occurred to us that he might be a scam artist (We afterwards guessed that given his knowledge, he must have been a former technician or subcontractor).  We tried to pay him with a check, but he insisted on a credit card. He had portable card-swiping equipment in his automobile and he had forms with "Dish Network (Dish Support)" red and black letterheads.  Our particular letterheads gave the phone number 1-800-774-3770 and had the address "400 Capital Circle SE, Suite 18200, Tallahassee, FL. After he left we began to think about certain inconsistencies in what he'd told us and the fact that he insisted on a credit card,  wouldn't give his last name, etc. I then called the actual Dish corporation, ultimately talked to the fraud department. The representative told us they she was afraid we'd been defrauded--that we should make a police report and should probably also call our credit card company and change cards, etc. We did all that. Later I called the above phone number on the phony paperwork and was told by a guy named "Scott" (no last name) that they were a legitimate subcontractor for Dish and If I waited, I would see that our bill would be paid in advance for the year. However, over the last three months warning letters from Dish showed that it wasn't paid, except for one small payment of $74.42 that evidently came from the scammers. If I called that 800 number today, "Scott," would again try to convince me that there had simply been a mix-up and that I should just ignore any bills Dish sends me, that it would all be cleared up on the 19th of the month. After hearing this a few times I realized that it was all part of the scam. Once they've got your money, you've been scammed and you might as well just consider that you've just learned an expensive lesson: Don't give anyone money who comes to your door, no matter how convincing their vehicles, their badges, and their knowledge of your satellite dish system, etc.

rongcro