Audits

[MikeD-C05]

The other day I received a call on my cell phone while I was in the car. I use my cell phone as my official phone number for Dish. I have no landline. The lady told me that her name was Jennifer with Dish and that she needed some receiver numbers and location ids . I accidently hung up while trying to drive the car at the same time. When I got home all of my receivers where disconnected except the 510 I got free on a 2 year promotion which ends next summer.

I called Dish and they referred me to another number. When I called some guy named Havier said hold on and then came back and said " Did you hang up on Jennifer? She was quite mad about that." I informed him that this was a cellphone and the rest of my story about the drive. He acted like he didn't believe me and that he said that he would call me back in 30 minutes with another test. I waited for like 40 minutes and called back and Havier told me again he would call me back in like 2 minutes. He called back and told me that I couldn't put him on hold or pause while he was doing the test or he would terminate the test . I went through all the test hoops with him all over my house , reading off all my receiver numbers, smartcard numbers, software numbers, boot strap numbers, and the location id, and when I was through he said " Well I guess I will turn them back on now. " I then had to reboot my 2/721s and my 921 dvr to get back all my programming.

I asked him if I had had a land line connected to my receivers would I have to go through all this and he said no . I really don't want to have to hook up my landline again just to make Dish happy.

I think the whole thing was inconvient and stupid and I do understand why they do it, but to have a whole department that cuts off peoples receivers over an accidental phone hangup. How many times have you got a dish csr who puts you on hold and then hangs up on you? I have had this happen several times over the last 7and 1/2 years.

This is the second time I have been audited by Dish in those 7 + years . I felt like a criminal with the way they talked to me and feel like I was rudely treated considering how much money I spend monthly with Dish on my main account and on my second account for my Aunt. I spend about 160.00 a month between the two accounts.

If this is going to keep happening I might have to reconsider my decision of last year when I cut off Directv. I just might have to see what they will offer me to come back.

 

[HokieEngineer]

Why is Dish wasting time doing this? The location ID algo has been public for awhile. I would imagine the only people getting caught by this audit are legit people, or really dumb hackers. It also seems they have the mean of the meanest CSRs working this thing, maybe to intimidate?? Wierd that they disable the box first, then ask questions. What if turned it off during a football game or something, and you couldnt get back to them? Wasting time and money that could be useds for better things, like training CSRs about what current packages/deals are available

 

[rrolsbe]

Questions/Observations on Dish 811 HDTV Receiver

When my parents visit from out of state, my Father always complains because I do not get CNN etc. I am a long time BigDish lover and only purchase programing my family watches ie.. ala carte. Since I still have a Dish 500 dish mounted from when I tried Dish three or four years back ($25 for the system and a year of programming) , I suggested to my father that he could disconnect his Dishnet 811 HD receiver and bring it with him in the car. I know from reading this thread that using the 811 outside of his residence is not to letter of his agreement with Dish. My parents subscribe to there local channels via Dish and also purchase one of the national network channels not available as a local. The 811 worked fine but I have a few questions. It received all subscribed channels except for their local channels and the one national network channel. When one of their local channels were selected, the receiver indicated no signal. I assume the locals would be using a spot beam which would explain why no signal, correct? When the national network channel was selected, the receiver indicated outside of viewing area. This one is interesting, how does dish know the 811 is outside of the viewing area? Are they using the local channel spot beam signal, and not the normal national beam, to somehow update the location ID and therefore know the receiver is outside of my parents viewing area? If so, why did the 811 location ID number periodically update the entire time my parents were visiting? Was it possibly using my locations Dish spot beam to update the location ID? Does anyone know what dish uses to calculate the location ID? and if the local spot beam is used in the location ID calculation?

Just a curious longtime BigDish FTA user
Thanks Much In Advance for any answers.

PS, During my parents visit, I connected the 811 to my Infocus X1 projector and it looked good when viewing HD material and NOT so good on SD material.
If dish would let me subscribe to just the HD channels and not any other package, I would consider making the partial plunge to Dish.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Without knowing the details of which channels we're talking about, you sound liek you're on the right track. It's even possible the locals are on a wing or FSS bird - unless he's only got a Dish 500 like you.

The location ID is always changing. Whether E* has anything going regarding using spot beams to nail location is a good question. Technically, it's possible of course, but whether they actually do it is a different story. Ditto for plugging a receiver into a phone line - callerID could do the same thing, but no one has confirmed that they use the data when the box phones home.

 

[don_riggins]

Echostar is very stringent on account packing as they see it. If your recievers are disabled then for whatever reason either the location IDs are different or when the security audit team tries to verify each recievers location via phone line. Its only if these tests fail do they think its a possible account sharing and your sharing a reciever with someone down the street. The reason they do that is how many people do you know that by themselves use 160$ between 2 accounts or have the need for 6 recievers legitimately? Of course there are but there have been issues with account packing with accounts like this.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I wonder how many high paying customers with multiple receivers they piss off with this auditing procedures? Is it worth the churn to do this? I am sure there are more people out there that have problems with going to every receiver and reading off all that crap back to them. IF I wasn't home or at work when they called , I guess all my receivers would have been turned off till I could call back. This is a major turn off in terms of customer satisfaction and I think that it is bullsh*t for me personaly.

I do understand that there are stackers out there but this is why they need to move to receivers like the 522 ( 2 tuners/2 tvs) or the mythological 544 ( 4 tuners/4 tvs) and they could eliminate this problem. OF course these receivers would have to work properly and it would have to be availble to all current customers, or it wouldn't work. We have all heard of how bad the 522 is doing presently.

 

[don_riggins]

Yeah the 522 is buggy at best but yeah there are high paying customers lost in the fray but what is good to think about is like myself I had this person call in, he was a person that apparently owned an rv park and had a residential account so already did something wrong there but on the 6 recievers he was selling dish net programming to the clientel of the rv park for 20$ more than what dish charges. True this doesn't normally happen but also for situations like having friends have an account and going through and splitting the bill. In Dish's defense it is a real problem but not much can be done in the way of enforcement elsewise.

 

[ProfStata]

Here is the Residential agreement for those people who think it is alright to use another receiver on the same account at the same residence

Additional Receivers. To independently tune additional televisions within your home, a separate DISH Network receiver is required for each television. DISH Network will allow you to place up to five additional receivers on your account. Each additional receiver would be authorized to receive the same Services as your initial receiver. DISH Network will charge you a reduced monthly fee (Additional Receiver Authorization Fee) for each additional receiver added to your account. This option is only available if your initial DISH Network receiver and all additional receiver(s) are located at the same residence and are continuously connected to the same telephone line. If you desire to receive Services at two different locations, you must open a separate account for each location. You agree that you will not directly or indirectly use a single account for the purpose of authorizing Services for multiple DISH Network receivers that are not all located in the same residence and connected to the same phone line. If we later determine that you did, we may terminate your Services and, in addition to all other applicable fees, you agree to pay us the difference between the amounts actually received by us and the full retail price for the Services authorized for each DISH Network DBS receiver on the account, whether owned by you or not. The payment of that amount and/or the termination of Services shall not prejudice our ability to exercise any other rights and remedies we may have under this Agreement, at law, in equity, or otherwise.

 

[James Long]

You agree that you will not directly or indirectly use a single account for the purpose of authorizing Services for multiple DISH Network receivers that are not all located in the same residence and connected to the same phone line. If we later determine that you did, we may terminate your Services and, in addition to all other applicable fees, you agree to pay us the difference between the amounts actually received by us and the full retail price for the Services authorized for each DISH Network DBS receiver on the account, whether owned by you or not.

Ah, nice to see the facts.

BTW: rrolsbe, is your dad connecting his 811 to a phone line? I've heard of that causing problems before (connecting to the wrong phone line). Spotbeam locals would go away anyways, but I can't think of anything else that would kill location specific channels.

JL

 

[NightRyder]

Here is the Residential agreement for those people who think it is alright to use another receiver on the same account at the same residence...............................
Corporate Legalese BS deleted .

I am assuming you mean a receiver on the same account at another residence?

In fact E* policy doesn't even adhere to their own contractual language. I just added a fourth receiver to my account for my RV. I called E* before I purchased the receiver and asked them if this was permissible. They said it would be no problem and that they had many customers with this type of setup. There wasn't even any attempt to verify proof of RV ownership. While I am no attorney, it would seem E* selective application of their own policy might render it null and void if it were to come up in a legal proceeding.



NightRyder

 

[SimpleSimon]

... it would seem E* selective application of their own policy might render it null and void if it were to come up in a legal proceeding.

While I'm not a lawyer either, the selective enforcement defense is generally only useful in criminal proceedings - and even then doesn't work.

The contract almost certainly has some rights waiver clause which says "just because we let you do it now doesn't mean we won't change our minds later".

Now, the reason I've got no real problem telling someone to add an extra box at their vacation home (provided it's NOT a rental unit) is that effectively, it's a stationary RV, right?

 

[Stargazer]

I even remember Charlie Ergen on a Charlie Chat say that there was no problem with a consumer having a second receiver at a second home that they may have, given that it is one household.

 

[don_riggins]

Yeah, Charlie can be very vague about those kinda things, RVs are ok simply because as CSRs are trained the people taking the recievers on the road aren't using them at home also.

 

[James Long]

There wasn't even any attempt to verify proof of RV ownership.

While they SHOULD have asked for the proper forms (available on E*'s web site) at least RV usage is a permitted use. "Vacation Home" use is not.

I'd like to see E* make it easier on subscribers to have a second home setup without paying full price or bending the rules. Perhaps $10 for each additional location? If they gave a more legal method of splitting an account between two homes in the same household their customers would not be so encouraged to lie to skirt the rules.

JL

 

[don_riggins]

That would be nice but there will be those few people that decide they will all split the cost and get like 130$ between 6 people. If E* was to say its ok but now you have to pay this fee it may discourage some but still leave the problem it had earlier.

 

[NightRyder]

While they SHOULD have asked for the proper forms (available on E*'s web site) at least RV usage is a permitted use. "Vacation Home" use is not.

I'd like to see E* make it easier on subscribers to have a second home setup without paying full price or bending the rules. Perhaps $10 for each additional location? If they gave a more legal method of splitting an account between two homes in the same household their customers would not be so encouraged to lie to skirt the rules.

JL

JL, I may be mistaken but aren't those "RV waiver forms" only applicable to receiving out of area programming, IE distant networks? I live in a genuine white area and already receive NY distants so I have no need for a programming waiver. I couldn't find anything related to having a receiver in a RV or truck.


NightRyder

 

[marathon_1]

What a bunch of crap

This afternoon Dish decided to perform an audit on my receivers. No phone call informing me about wants going on. Anyway I come home from work looking forward to watching the world series and guess want my local Fox channel is no longer available. I call dish and after spending 20 minutes on hold a get somebody who tells me I should be receiving all of my channels. After arguing with the guy for 5 minutes he final tells me they are auditing my receivers and to call some 800 number.

I call the number and guess what the number is only available until 7:30 CST. Everybody has gone home

I call customer service back and after waiting another 15 minutes I finally get somebody that tells me there is nothing he can do. He does not know why they turned off my receivers, I ask to talk to his supervisor who also does not know what is going on and has no power to do anything, the only thing I can do is call the audit 800 number tomorrow. As far as watching tonights world series game, I am out of luck.

What a bunch of crap, they can turn off my receivers anytime, but they can't turn then back on. Secondly nobody is home during the time the audit center is available. Now I am forced to take time off work in order to take care of this issues, maybe I should send Dish Network a bill?

What is the consensus of the community if this happened to you would you leave Dish Network?

 

[Stargazer]

What if someone has a contract with a retailer or with Dish Network themselves and you do not call them back within a certain amount of time?

 

[larrystotler]

It is listed in both E* and D* end user licence agreements or whatever you want to call it that all receivers MUST be continuously connected to the same land based telephone at all times to verify that they are all in the same household. The issue I have always had with this is that they tell you on their ads and stuff that you need it plugged into the phone line for PPV or sports events, and a lot of people could care less about that. I always tell customers the real reaon for the phone line - they don't trust people, and they have good reason for this mistrust. 5% of people make it bad for the other 95% of us. Myself, I haven't had a home phone since 1997, and I told E* I would hook 1 up if they would pay the bill. They didn't seem very interested in that.

Just because it is not done doesn't mean they can't enforce it at anytime they want to. If the average bill is $60/month, and you have 10 million subs, that's a good chunk of change. if 500,000 subs are sharing, that's a lot of lost revenue.

 

[ShadowEKU]

This afternoon Dish decided to perform an audit on my receivers. No phone call informing me about wants going on. Anyway I come home from work looking forward to watching the world series and guess want my local Fox channel is no longer available. I call dish and after spending 20 minutes on hold a get somebody who tells me I should be receiving all of my channels. After arguing with the guy for 5 minutes he final tells me they are auditing my receivers and to call some 800 number.

I call the number and guess what the number is only available until 7:30 CST. Everybody has gone home

I call customer service back and after waiting another 15 minutes I finally get somebody that tells me there is nothing he can do. He does not know why they turned off my receivers, I ask to talk to his supervisor who also does not know what is going on and has no power to do anything, the only thing I can do is call the audit 800 number tomorrow. As far as watching tonights world series game, I am out of luck.

What a bunch of crap, they can turn off my receivers anytime, but they can't turn then back on. Secondly nobody is home during the time the audit center is available. Now I am forced to take time off work in order to take care of this issues, maybe I should send Dish Network a bill?

What is the consensus of the community if this happened to you would you leave Dish Network?

What i really dont understand is this... if all your receivers are turned off because of this yeah it kidna makes sense. but when the customer calls in and asks why his recievers are off then that csr should be able to activate 1 specified receiver instead of leaving them off all night thats retarded. i would write ceo@dishnetwork.com for that inconvenience and probably send them a bill