After 16 years of being a loyal customer of Dish, I pains me to have to use the word fraud, but I believe this is what has happened to me. I will try to keep this as brief as possible, but there's a lot of back story...my apologies.
About a week & a half ago, I decided it was time to upgrade from our 722's that we had for more than 3 years. I called in and requested to be upgraded to the Hopper/Joey. While initially they wanted to charge me to upgrade, the representative got approval from her manager to upgrade me to 2 H's / 3 J's at no charge. Great. I had 2 H's / 2 J's installed the next day (didn't need one of the J's due to our setup).
The following morning, I ended up on this forum because I had some initial questions about the system and I starting reading posts. To my disappointment, it became clear that before I upgraded, Dish had released the HwS. Unfortunately, this was not mentioned during the upgrade process. After researching the HwS, I felt this was a significant upgrade over the H1 and that I certainly would prefer to have it over the H1. I called CS to find out about getting the HwS, and was told that I already had HwS and that that's was just installed per the upgrade order. After some back and forth and the rep being adamant that I had HwS, he transferred me to the Broadband Dept. That rep confirmed that I actually had the H1 and not the HwS. She said that if I wanted the HwS, it would cost me $200/HwS to upgrade. In disappointment, I decided to keep the H1's.
Over the next few days, this continued to bother me and as I read more posts here, it became apparent that some existing customers were paying $100/HwS and some were getting them for free (along with new customers). I decided to call back CS and inquire about this issue and why if my original upgrade order showed HwS, why did I get H1's installed. The rep was sweet as pie and worked diligently to resolve my issue which took over an hour and her contacting the Executive Resolutions Dept via Chat to resolve. In the end, she confirmed that the H1's would be swapped out for HwS's at no charge. I had an appointment for the next day and was very happy with how the issue was resolved.
The next day, the units were installed by a great and friendly tech. When he was done, he asked me what do I want to do with the H1's since I owned them. I had noticed on my account on dish.com that the 2H's/2J's showed "Purchased" under "Ownership". I told him that they were supposed to be swapped out, so it would be best if he just takes them.
When I pulled up my account today online, it showed that I owed $627 of which $400 was for 2 HwS's and that my equipment was now “Leased” instead of “Owned”. I immediately called CS and started the long drawn out process of resolving the issue. Each person I spoke to said "I apologize, but nowhere in the notes does it say that you were to get this upgrade at no charge." I spent well over 2 hours dealing with multiple reps and in the end the only options they were willing to offer was to return that HwS's and have them swapped out for the H1's or a $200 charge ($100/HwS). While $200 isn't a huge sum of money, this is about principal. I chose to have the inconvenience of another install, timer setup, show transfer to the HwS because it wasn't going to cost me anything. Otherwise, I would have just kept the H1's. Now my choice is downgrade or pay $200 for something I was told would be no charge. Magically now too, I am being told that my original order was for H1’s despite the fact that 3 separate reps confirmed my original order was for HwS.
I'm not looking for sympathy because there are plenty of customers who paid to have their H1’s and those who are paying to upgrade to the HwS. The issue is that I explicitly confirmed that there would be no charge whatsoever and then after the equipment was installed, I was charged for it. What I don't know yet is if this was done intentionally or not. I sure hope it wasn’t
And yes, my lesson learned is to never communicate with Dish in any way other than chat. Otherwise a rep can say anything they want and if they don’t type it into the notes, you’re screwed!!! This has left such a bitter taste in my mouth and I haven’t decided if I should cancel Dish altogether and/or file a complaint with the BBB, etc. At the very least, I am venting about it. I hope nobody else gets put through this mess.
About a week & a half ago, I decided it was time to upgrade from our 722's that we had for more than 3 years. I called in and requested to be upgraded to the Hopper/Joey. While initially they wanted to charge me to upgrade, the representative got approval from her manager to upgrade me to 2 H's / 3 J's at no charge. Great. I had 2 H's / 2 J's installed the next day (didn't need one of the J's due to our setup).
The following morning, I ended up on this forum because I had some initial questions about the system and I starting reading posts. To my disappointment, it became clear that before I upgraded, Dish had released the HwS. Unfortunately, this was not mentioned during the upgrade process. After researching the HwS, I felt this was a significant upgrade over the H1 and that I certainly would prefer to have it over the H1. I called CS to find out about getting the HwS, and was told that I already had HwS and that that's was just installed per the upgrade order. After some back and forth and the rep being adamant that I had HwS, he transferred me to the Broadband Dept. That rep confirmed that I actually had the H1 and not the HwS. She said that if I wanted the HwS, it would cost me $200/HwS to upgrade. In disappointment, I decided to keep the H1's.
Over the next few days, this continued to bother me and as I read more posts here, it became apparent that some existing customers were paying $100/HwS and some were getting them for free (along with new customers). I decided to call back CS and inquire about this issue and why if my original upgrade order showed HwS, why did I get H1's installed. The rep was sweet as pie and worked diligently to resolve my issue which took over an hour and her contacting the Executive Resolutions Dept via Chat to resolve. In the end, she confirmed that the H1's would be swapped out for HwS's at no charge. I had an appointment for the next day and was very happy with how the issue was resolved.
The next day, the units were installed by a great and friendly tech. When he was done, he asked me what do I want to do with the H1's since I owned them. I had noticed on my account on dish.com that the 2H's/2J's showed "Purchased" under "Ownership". I told him that they were supposed to be swapped out, so it would be best if he just takes them.
When I pulled up my account today online, it showed that I owed $627 of which $400 was for 2 HwS's and that my equipment was now “Leased” instead of “Owned”. I immediately called CS and started the long drawn out process of resolving the issue. Each person I spoke to said "I apologize, but nowhere in the notes does it say that you were to get this upgrade at no charge." I spent well over 2 hours dealing with multiple reps and in the end the only options they were willing to offer was to return that HwS's and have them swapped out for the H1's or a $200 charge ($100/HwS). While $200 isn't a huge sum of money, this is about principal. I chose to have the inconvenience of another install, timer setup, show transfer to the HwS because it wasn't going to cost me anything. Otherwise, I would have just kept the H1's. Now my choice is downgrade or pay $200 for something I was told would be no charge. Magically now too, I am being told that my original order was for H1’s despite the fact that 3 separate reps confirmed my original order was for HwS.
I'm not looking for sympathy because there are plenty of customers who paid to have their H1’s and those who are paying to upgrade to the HwS. The issue is that I explicitly confirmed that there would be no charge whatsoever and then after the equipment was installed, I was charged for it. What I don't know yet is if this was done intentionally or not. I sure hope it wasn’t
And yes, my lesson learned is to never communicate with Dish in any way other than chat. Otherwise a rep can say anything they want and if they don’t type it into the notes, you’re screwed!!! This has left such a bitter taste in my mouth and I haven’t decided if I should cancel Dish altogether and/or file a complaint with the BBB, etc. At the very least, I am venting about it. I hope nobody else gets put through this mess.
