Dish HD Platinum to Blockbuster Movie Pass mess.

[MIHotBear]

I am literally livid right now. I have been a loyal Dish customer since 2004. My account is still billed through AT&T as that was the way they did it then. Of course now AT&T has an agreement with DirecTV, but I digress. I have America's Everything, Dish HD Platinum, full HD and 4 Receivers (a 722 and a 612 (in my house) and a 311 and a 625 (at my cottage up north which I only use 4 or 5 times a year)). I usually shut off the 311 and 625 in the fall and reactivate them in the spring. I am digressing again.

Anyway, as you all know the HD Platinum package has been renamed Blockbuster Movie Pass. I recently told Netflix to shove it as they are completely inept and reactivated my old Blockbuster by mail account. They are giving me a month free and at the end of October will start charging me $9.99/month. Well, since I already have Blockbuster Movie Pass through Dish I would be stupid to pay Blockbuster an additional $9.95/month. Yesterday I attempted to activate the Blockbuster by Mail service on Dish.com and was unsuccessful. I called Dish customer support and was told that because I was being billed by AT&T that would not work, but if I unbundled my Dish account from AT&T and had Dish bill me separately he could make it work. The reality is that I plan on ditching AT&T anyway because I have 2 landlines that get minimal use and I am planning on switching them to VOIP. So I told him go ahead and do it. He even offered me a $10/month credit for a year because I would be losing the AT&T bundling discount.

Fast forward to today. None of the Platinum (Blockbuster Movie Pass) channels are working. I called Dish and received 2 different stories. One said I needed to cancel my AT&T/Dish account, return the equipment and setup a new account with Dish direct. I am not necessarily opposed to that as like I stated earlier I plan on giving AT&T the boot, but I will not tolerate any interruption in service. The last agent I spoke to in customer loyalty said she would try to fix the problem but it could take 3 to 5 business days. If that is the case I won't even watch TV as I refuse to accept sub-standard service.

Basically, if there is not a resolution to this in 24 hours, Comcast will be called and Dish loses an over 7 year customer (unfortunately if I do that I will lose my service at the cottage but I refuse to deal with ineptitude).

Perhaps one of the DIRT folks can look into this and let me know what my real options are.

Scott, you run a great website here. I truly enjoy all the threads. This may even get me to post more often.

Thank guys.

Rob

 

[RaymondG@Dish Network]

If you PM your phone or account number I will see what I can do to assist you with this issue. Thanks!

 

[MIHotBear]

Thanks Raymond,

I sent the info in a PM.

Rob

 

[rocket69]

Yes the bundle is a pain in the rear but it can save you major $$$.

#1 leave out that extra info about your summer/winter home ( Guest rooms with no guest)
#2 Dish can un bundle but its a real mess best is to call ATT and have them un bundle it and it will take time to fix 7-10 days last time we had a customer do 2 years ago
#3 Are you sure un bundling is best for your account . Some telco's had contracts in place that keep the fees frozen to the old way. First box free $5 for a Sd single/Dual with phone line pluged in. Dvr Dual sd dvr with phone $5 hd dvr dual with phone/net $7 . now the fee is $7 for sd/hd single $14 Dual sd/hd phone or not. now any dual dvr sd/hd is $17 phone/net or none.

 

[Young C]

Sorry to hijack your thread. I don't think we have an official "Rant about Dishnetwork here" thread.

My ViP622 HD-DVR just went out. I called customer service support and they transferred me over to advanced technical support.
I ended up receiving a free replacement, and shipping charges will be credited to my account.

I logged onto my email to check for any new emails, and I received this.

"Welcome to Blockbuster Movie Pass"

Thank you for subscribing to Blockbuster Movie Pass®, an exclusive service for DISH Network customers. Blockbuster Movie Pass includes:

What? Blockbuster Movie Pass? At what point in my ViP622 HD-DVR phone conversation turn into the Blockbuster Movie Pass?
I subscribed to something of this nature? Or did the CSR subscribe for me?

Oh, Dish. Your silly ways to get more money from your long-term customers.
I'm sure the CSR is being told by management to auto-subcribe customers. I doubt a CSR would have done this a lone.

That is all. Have a good night, satelliteguys.us

@ RaymondG@Dish Network:

Thank for you everything you do on this forum. You help out a lot.

Edit: I'm sure this "auto-subcribing to Blockbuster Movie Pass" rant has been happening a lot. Sorry for being late to the party :rant:

 

[RaymondG@Dish Network]

Sorry to hijack your thread. I don't think we have an official "Rant about Dishnetwork here" thread.

My ViP622 HD-DVR just went out. I called customer service support and they transferred me over to advanced technical support.
I ended up receiving a free replacement, and shipping charges will be credited to my account.

I logged onto my email to check for any new emails, and I received this.



What? Blockbuster Movie Pass? At what point in my ViP622 HD-DVR phone conversation turn into the Blockbuster Movie Pass?
I subscribed to something of this nature? Or did the CSR subscribe for me?

Oh, Dish. Your silly ways to get more money from your long-term customers.
I'm sure the CSR is being told by management to auto-subcribe customers. I doubt a CSR would have done this a lone.

That is all. Have a good night, satelliteguys.us

@ RaymondG@Dish Network:

Thank for you everything you do on this forum. You help out a lot.

Edit: I'm sure this "auto-subcribing to Blockbuster Movie Pass" rant has been happening a lot. Sorry for being late to the party :rant:

Please PM your phone or account number to me and I'll make sure the Blockbuster Movie Pass is removed.

 

[MIHotBear]

Yes the bundle is a pain in the rear but it can save you major $$$.

#1 leave out that extra info about your summer/winter home ( Guest rooms with no guest)
#2 Dish can un bundle but its a real mess best is to call ATT and have them un bundle it and it will take time to fix 7-10 days last time we had a customer do 2 years ago
#3 Are you sure un bundling is best for your account . Some telco's had contracts in place that keep the fees frozen to the old way. First box free $5 for a Sd single/Dual with phone line pluged in. Dvr Dual sd dvr with phone $5 hd dvr dual with phone/net $7 . now the fee is $7 for sd/hd single $14 Dual sd/hd phone or not. now any dual dvr sd/hd is $17 phone/net or none.

The reality is I am not getting any special deals by having it bundled. I take that back. I am geting a $4.00 discount on my AT&T bill. But as I stated earlier I plant to dump AT&T because they are truly the death star. Any company that is the largest campaign contributor is surely not doing it in my interest.

I have no problem if they want me to send back their equipment (everything is backed up on an EHD). But there will be no interruption of service and not a red cent increase in my costs.

I generally tend to be a pretty easy-going guy. I never make unreasonable requests, but if I make a reasonable request, I will not deal with ineptitude. I do not have the luxury of having that kind of time. I made my call to AT&T/Dish at about 6:00 pm my time today. At 6:00 pm tomorrow I will turn on the TV and hit 380. If I get EPIX, we are in good shape. If I do not, I am calling Comcast and calling Dish cancellations. I have a very busy life and do not have time to deal with this sh*t.

Cross your fingers it all works well.

 

[Tampa8]

Edit: I'm sure this "auto-subcribing to Blockbuster Movie Pass" rant has been happening a lot. Sorry for being late to the party :rant:

No, it does not happen, what DOES happen is people who had Platinum see it replaced with Blockbuster Movie Pass and think they are paying for an additional service.

 

[Tampa8]

Cross your fingers it all works well.

Being honest, I hope it doesn't work. Comcast is better suited to you.

 

[MIHotBear]

Being honest, I hope it doesn't work. Comcast is better suited to you.

And why do you say that? I can't wait for this one.

 

[Tampa8]

And why do you say that? I can't wait for this one.

I have a very busy life and do not have time to deal with this sh*t.

Comcast is vanilla compared to Dish. I mean that in both a good and bad way. You will spend less time figuring out and/or fixing things you don't understand with Comcast, they have less options and packages and in the time my Aunt has had it there have been very few changes other than some channels added/deleted or moved. Sounds like you will be happier with them.

The other side of the coin is Dish offers alot more options and is at this time possibly the leader in getting into new ways for entertainment of the TV providers. That does mean confusion sometimes as now with the new package. I would also say Dish does not always communicate well when there are changes.
You said you are unwilling to accept a 3 to 5 day wait to get what you want, with Comcast having a local office and their own repair crew, things might get done quicker. Satellite in general requires a little more user input to me than cable just in general.

Btw...I always thought bundling through another company was a risk, because you were not a customer of Dish, you were a customer of ATT, who offered you dish. Dish certainly will address service problems, but the subscription part not so much. I looked into it, read the contract and did not go through with it. Somewhat like a magazine subscription through a clearing house. If you have a subscription problem, the magazine in all likelihood will be unable to help. If there's a problem with magazine itself they could help. Even something simple as the ATT/Yahoo mail bundle became a problem, when Yahoo made me go through ATT when I was not getting email. (I had lowered my tier with ATT home phone, somehow that severed my tie to Yahoo through them)

Hope it was worth the wait.

 

[MIHotBear]

Tampa,

I am really hoping that you can tell me where I am confused. The short version is I called Dish on Sunday when I tried to activate the Blockbuster by mail option as I have had the Platinum package since its inception. He explained that because the account was bundled (which it had been with no issues since 2004) with AT&T the Blockbuster by mail option could not be activated. If I unbundled he could make it work. That is the short of it. As of yesterday I no longer have any of those channels and am getting excuses and the run-around when trying to figure out how to make it work. I own 3 businesses so I know customer service. The "3 to 5 business day" remark to me is saying that most likely nothing will be done. I would be ecstatic if I could just terminate the AT&T/Dish relationship and go with Dish directly. I have external HD's on my 2 DVR's so I would have no problem sending the 722 and 612 back as I could backup all my recordings.

This whole process seems extremely more complicated than it needs to be. But not anywhere am I confused. I have been doing satellite TV for over 30 years. Perhaps Raymond can figure it out.

Thanks for your input, even though it was a bit condescending.

Rob

 

[TheKrell]

Ah, EHDs... You want Dish to do this such that your account credentials do not change. Otherwise, all that archived material is going to become inaccessible. Good luck!