About to jump off the dish!!!!

[slick1sb]

/rant on

This has been the biggest pain I have ever had dealing with DTV. Long story short-er.

At my parents house,
July canceled service, mostly due to $$$$.
Switch to some service that's supposed to get you tv over a cable, but can't quite accomplish that, atleast not without it looking like 1990's era computer video.(twc)

Have had enough of the less then SD quality "HD" and want to switch back.

Can't seem to get this accomplished.

We had service here for 6 YEARS!!!!!!

I had my mother call to restore service and explain that we just need the boxes.
Sales said ok, equipment will be dropped off Monday.
Installer shows up, won't leave boxes. Has to put magic software that only installers have on the boxes(not dvr's btw)
He leaves.
I call CS. Seems you can't just get the boxes anymore. We could complain about the service and we'd have to pay to have a service call. I said it worked fine 3 months ago, will work fine now. I ended up getting so frustrated I hung up on her, especially when she started quoting FCC regs.

Told my mom to call back and reschedule and I would be here to talk with the installer. After 45mins and 4 people, no one could find the account number she had been given, she gave up. I had my dad call and try to get this taken care of since he hadn't been involved with the other 2 conversations, maybe cooler heads would prevail.

This brings us to today.
Installer to show up between 4-8. I arrive 3:45. My mom had been out of the house for a couple hours and got here 5 mins after me. 2 messages on the phone.
Installer, can't do it.
Some gibberish from india which we managed to decipher a phone number after several listens. (thanks for outsourcing DTV, really helps when you can't understand the message)

I call talk to CS about getting another installer out here. They fast track it.

Call from the installer about 10 mins later and I talk to him. Seems DTV's ridiculous new install rules are so tight that he can't re-hookup a house that had service, because the line of sight is tighter than DTV specs. And thank's to DTV adopting that wonderful D* standard of not paying the subs unless everything is perfect, he can't do it and I don't blame him. Both sat companies have made life a living hell for these guys.

Needless to say, I'm at my wit's end. A supervisor is supposed to be calling soon to hopefully straighten this out, I'm not holding my breath.

My wife and I switched to D* because DTV had gotten too expensive and lately I've thought about going back to DTV too, but this has left a bad taste in my mouth.

I loved DTV back in the 90's, you could self install, had a selection of devices from various manufactures to choose from. Was very geek friendly.

Now............I'm thinking TWC of the sky.

Is my frustration not warranted?

/rant off

 

[charper1]

Uhhhh, in a word. No.. It seems you really have bitten your own nose off in the story read above.

 

[jdspencer]

What dish and receivers were used a your parent's house?

You said that you switched to D* because DTV had gotten too expensive. I'll assume that by DTV you meant Dish Network.
DTV is the often misused abbreviation fo DirecTV along with D*.

I agree that getting help from the CSRs can be a challenge. And DirecTV has started to be a bit more strict with the installs.

 

[bbixler]

What is DTV?

D* is Direct TV
E* is Dish Network

Based on the above, I can't really follow your post to comment on it.

 

[Big]

the only answer you are going to get on a direct forum is that "It is all your fault" just like one of their cs agents!

 

[Jimbo]

the only answer you are going to get on a direct forum is that "It is all your fault" just like one of their cs agents!

Yet they will get NOTHING from you.

Great help there BIG.

 

[jcrandall]

If the dish is still there and working you could purchase receivers and call to activate them. You could just do one to get the account working then call DirecTV and ask them to ship new ones instead of send installer. You could also escalate the issue to their presidents office and see if they can get an exception made, given it worked 3 months ago.

 

[wildbill129]

I don't get it. What is the big deal? If you want to do it yourself, buy the boxes from a retailer. If you want DirecTV to supply the boxes, let them hook them up, so they can be sure it's functioning correctly. Otherwise you will be calling back in a few hours complaining it doesn't work. Dishes move, equipment changes. Let the professionals do their job.

 

[jcrandall]

let them hook them up, so they can be sure it's functioning correctly. Otherwise you will be calling back in a few hours complaining it doesn't work. Dishes move, equipment changes. Let the professionals do their job.

The way I read it the installer refused to do the hookup/reinstall because the line of sight was too narrow for "new requirements".

 

[wildbill129]

The way I read it the installer refused to do the hookup/reinstall because the line of sight was too narrow for "new requirements".

I didn't decipher that out of his post......it was more of we have to do it because LOS has gotten more narrow since you had it last, so we have to connect it. I read it again, but i am still unsure.

 

[charper1]

DirecTV = DirecTV and DishNetwork = DishNetwork

I wish folks would just type things out. Acronyms lead to confusion and misunderstanding; so all the time people think they are saving, ends up costing more time in the long run; so type it out.

 

[slick1sb]

Let me clear it up a bit....

It's been a while since I've been on this forum, so sorry I didn't remember the naming conventions.....

I had moved my D* HD equipment to my parents house. This included a HD DVR and a HD reciever. I had installed the first dish myself after watching the installer videos on you tube. The tech that had come out, because I had "moved", said it was spot on and it worked great. There was some small, I repeat small issues with occasional fade in the summer due to a tree branch, but it never bothered us much. Their neighbor had his dish close to the same spot, professionally installed. Yes he had the same issues. After spending $500 on some tree pruning and not fixing the problem, due to the tech telling him the wrong branches to cut,(tech told him to clear perpendicular to the dish and not at the angle the signal was coming in), he had switched too. Now this tree will be coming down soon because it has become diseased, so this will not be an issue, not that it really was before.

He is now back on D* and they had installed a new dish on his roof, to meet the new requirements. He has an 8 port switch on the outside of his house that we already have clearance to hook on to if needed and the wires are already run to it. All we want to do is get back to where we were 3 months ago. A tech had come out and the signal strength is fine but the clearance "cone" is too narrow now to meet the new specs. As far as ordering the equipment online, I hadn't looked into it, because D* had said it would be ok to just send out the boxes, so why I would I look into it? I have now and we might take that root.

Was it a good idea to try and switch? That's for us to decide not other people. They were paying over $90 a month for a total choice package that I had from the 90's. There were no pay channels or anything wacky to drive the price up. I had talked to D* a couple times to get the price down but they weren't helping so we tried something different. So sue us, geesh.

So now the update:

After talking to the "supervisor" of the installation company and explaining the situation for the upteenth time, he said he understood what we wanted and was going to try to go around the system to get us the equipment and he was going to have the regional super supervisor call. Never got a call.......

Another twist to this is D* sent a letter stating that if we hadn't requested an install, which we didn't, that they would just ship the equipment. Interestingly when my father had told the D* rep, when he tried to get this cleared up, this they said and I quote " we don't send out letters like that". Funny it has D* official letter head and everything else on it. I will try to scan it later and post the releavent portions.

All this is what's causing the frustration. I just want the 2 hd boxes so I can get them back on D* and they're acting like it's going to take an act of congress. We're all tired of constant conflicting answers and bs. Just get it done!

 

[joed32]

You lost me with the "gibberish from India", we all know there are no call centers in India.