Deceptive Advertisement / Lack of honesty during sale
Complaint
Robert Carbery
Country: United States
They advertise the 'Hopper' and 'Joey' System on Televisions commercials..
They claim that you can watch television in 'up to 4 rooms' but what they do NOT tell you is that one of the four televisions will be 'required' to 'mirror' one of the other televisions since the system does NOT have the capability of watching 4 televisions 'independent' of each other.
Also they claim you can record up to 6 shows/programs at one time. Again what they do not tell you is the 4 of the recordings are ONLY what they call 'prime time anytime' which means that it is recording 4 channels from 8pm to 11pm Monday - Friday ONLY! It is not possible to actually record 6 shows at one time other wise.
Also if you are recording 1 show you are limited to 2 televisions to 'live' 'independent' programming - if you are recording 2 and are limited to ONE television with live programming. This again was never disclosed until AFTER the install! They also tell you that there is NO cancellation period - once your installed and you realize you have been deceived they charge you $420 to cancel the service even on the SAME EXACT day of the install!!
The picture quality is also half of that of Direct TV! Its really 'fuzzy' on any of the SD channels - which i understand are not supposed to be HD, However they are even hardly SD - its really grainy and that is from someone that has really bad eyesight being able to see that!
I have wrong the Michigan AG and BBB about this practice.
They claim that you can watch television in 'up to 4 rooms' but what they do NOT tell you is that one of the four televisions will be 'required' to 'mirror' one of the other televisions since the system does NOT have the capability of watching 4 televisions 'independent' of each other.
Also they claim you can record up to 6 shows/programs at one time. Again what they do not tell you is the 4 of the recordings are ONLY what they call 'prime time anytime' which means that it is recording 4 channels from 8pm to 11pm Monday - Friday ONLY! It is not possible to actually record 6 shows at one time other wise.
Also if you are recording 1 show you are limited to 2 televisions to 'live' 'independent' programming - if you are recording 2 and are limited to ONE television with live programming. This again was never disclosed until AFTER the install! They also tell you that there is NO cancellation period - once your installed and you realize you have been deceived they charge you $420 to cancel the service even on the SAME EXACT day of the install!!
The picture quality is also half of that of Direct TV! Its really 'fuzzy' on any of the SD channels - which i understand are not supposed to be HD, However they are even hardly SD - its really grainy and that is from someone that has really bad eyesight being able to see that!
I have wrong the Michigan AG and BBB about this practice.
Comments
I switched from Direct TV and wish I had not. They sold me on all the different shows you could record at once. Then I found out about the 3 tuners. My wife was downstairs watching a show and recording a movie while PrimeTime Anytime was running. My two other TV's were rendered unusable (unless I wanted to watch my wife's show which I did not.
I have never seen it where you can't watch what you want to watch in a separate room's TV.
Why don't you just watch your recorded programs on the dvr? If you are so excited about something on tv that you HAVE TO WATCH IT LIVE, well then my friend I'm afraid tv is far more important than it should be to you. Consider getting a hobby to fill up all those empty gaps of time while your damn show records.
Personally I hardly ever watch live TV, but some people do. Defending a misleading advertisement by slamming the people who use it, is pathetic. You tell the person who posted the complaint to do something else, please.
The Dish advertising campaign for the hopper is misleading at best. Sure the information is there, but they're more than willing to gloss over it to get you into a contract.