2 yr contract only on my side, not Dish?

[jdmacor]

To be honest, I thought when I signed up last fall that my price was good for two years. I guess I got that impression based on ads for satellite centered around how cable constantly and randomly increases their fees. I thought they were insinuating that as long as you are on a contract, your price was locked. In fact, even Time Warner cable has a locked price program. Basically, you sign up for 12 months (or maybe 14) and you can lock your price; or you can go month to month and pay the increases as they come along.

Nevertheless, I quickly learned from both this forum and reading the contract that your price is in fact not locked. But again, D* is offering a locked price for a full year, so it is not unreasonable to think that people may assume their price is temporarily locked.

 

[chainblu]

A 24 month price freeze WOULD be a cool promotion. The problem with that is once the customer was out of contract and their rates "snapped back" to the current pricing, I think a lot would suffer sticker shock and bail. The idea is to keep customers beyond the first 2 years.

 

[Totoro]

A 24 month price freeze WOULD be a cool promotion. The problem with that is once the customer was out of contract and their rates "snapped back" to the current pricing, I think a lot would suffer sticker shock and bail. The idea is to keep customers beyond the first 2 years.

In mobile phones, if the carrier increases the price, the consumer has the legal right to end the contract. I am not sure why satellite carriers are not bound by this.

 

[AdamGott]

read WHAT contract? I upgraded on the phone, all they said was I was committed to another 2 years. I didn't have anything to read and nothing to sign. Guy came and installed the new DVR and didn't give me anything to sign either. AND they are charging me 12.00 per month to lease the new machine. I'm sure if I bought one they would call it some other fee. They also didn't need to send out an installer, I've hooked them up before without any problem, they could have just mailed it. This wasn't a new install, just one upgraded box. Did anyone elses fees go up in February? They probably only raised my prices BECAUSE I had a new contract and they new I was stuck.

This seems to be a practice that is becoming more common as all of these 'service' companies try to lock us into longer and longer contracts. I had the same experience with Sprint a couple of years ago. My wife added a second phone to her service over the phone and she swears that they said nothing about extending her contract when she added the phone. They used this transaction to automatically extend our contract basically without our knowledge.

I can't say whether they told her this or not and my guess is that they probably did but this extending contracts by phone nonsense needs to stop.

 

[navychop]

Heh! not many people come and read these forums. You must be clueless to think that every potential dish customer comes and reads the forums before they sign. Even those who know about these forums dont read these forums.

It is just tiring to see the fanboy responses here. All I am saying is that if the price increase was 'discussed' in forums, why not dish just tell people who are signing in the month of dec and jan that price may go up in Feb. Is that too much to ask?

Personally I dont care for the price increase and I am with dish for many years and I know how they operate, I am talking about people coming in. Dont talk as if all the dish subscribers are the forum users and vice versa!

The point is, I was talking to someone who WAS and IS here, reading the forums. Not everyone.

FWIW, I think they should have warned people too. I also think I should win the lottery.

 

[navychop]

In mobile phones, if the carrier increases the price, the consumer has the legal right to end the contract. I am not sure why satellite carriers are not bound by this.

I don't think that is universal.

 

[Slamminc11]

In mobile phones, if the carrier increases the price, the consumer has the legal right to end the contract. I am not sure why satellite carriers are not bound by this.

Well, you could always hook your satellite dish to your cell phone and once your start receiving service on the phone, then maybe they would be bound by the same rules...