Dish Network full of lies...weekend home

[meontheinternet]

It seems Dish Network is full of lies to us lately.

Background:
We have been subscribers for 2 years with 3 boxes at home and 1 box at our weekend home. When we started the service we asked if we could use the account at both places and they said, "sure!" Not only that, they gave us the second dish and even installed it at our weekend home for free. Not only that, they let us pick up the Atlanta stations there, even though the weekend home is closer to another large city.
A few days ago we decided to plug in the phone line to the PVR so that we could get Caller ID on the TV. The following day we got a call from Dish.

The Call:
My mom gets a call asking her to read off all the IDs of the boxes so that they can update their records. My mom doesn't want to because she knows that Dish gave us the boxes - so they should know exactly what we have. They finally convinced her that this is Dish and so she read off the numbers of the three boxes here. The lady then said, "Can you get to the 4th box?" Mom, "No." The lady says, "oh, is it locked up in a room that you can't get to?". My mom said, "No, it is at our weekend home."
"Oh, we are going to have to turn that off, you can have a box at both locations." So they tricked my mom into saying we have a box at the weekend home - after having to go all over the house to read off information. They could have just asked, since they installed the weekend home box, she would have said, "yes we have one there."
Mom gets mad and finally says we will just switch to Comcast. The lady says, "Oh, Comcast is the reason we are having to do this - they are mad we are letting our customers have a single account at both homes." Excuse me? Since when does a company care what a jealous competitor thinks? The story changed a few minutes later to, "oh, the FCC is not letting us do this anymore." Uh huh.

Conclusions:
So now the connection at our weekend home has been cut off. My dad called today to say that we have brought the forth box home, but Dish said, "oh, you are listed as having a weekend home. We are not able to activate any more boxes for you, and have disconnected one." Dad, "So we can't have more than three boxes at our main house?". Dish says, "No. We are limiting all people with a weekend home on file to just three boxes. What kind of service is that?

Questions:
1. Are any other Dish subscribers with a weekend/summer home having this problem? Based on the timing, we feel that plugging in the phone line is what caused all of this to happen.
2. With the lack of service at our weekend home, the trickery and lies, and the loss of Lifetime - we are done with Dish Network, although we had previously always liked them. Does anybody recommend (or not) DirectTV or Comcast or should we just go with our local cable company and TiVo?
3. For now, can we move the card in one of our boxes to the box that is at the weekend home? Does the card determine the active/inactive information - or does the box itself? We could go back and forth with the card, if that works.

Thanks!

 

[Drone35]

Don't know what to say really, but I feel ur pain! How about a big "DISH SUCKS"! Better tv for all, except those who have Dish!

 

[dragon002]

me,

started reading the post and when you said"plugged in the phone line" i KNEW you were screwed.

 

[dishrich]

1. Are any other Dish subscribers with a weekend/summer home having this problem? Based on the timing, we feel that plugging in the phone line is what caused all of this to happen.

Yep, you got it - live & learn...

2. With the lack of service at our weekend home, the trickery and lies, and the loss of Lifetime - we are done with Dish Network, although we had previously always liked them. Does anybody recommend (or not) DirectTV or Comcast or should we just go with our local cable company and TiVo?

If you go with D*, they are not nearly as stringent about the stupid phone line. If you do plan on getting an extra box for your weekend home, just keep your mouth shut about taking it to your weekend home & you'll be just fine. BTW, it's OK to plug in the phone line on all the receivers at your main house - just DON'T do it with the one at your weekend home.

Check out this site's sponsor Value Electronics for great deals on new D* hardware - they are very good to deal with.

3. For now, can we move the card in one of our boxes to the box that is at the weekend home? Does the card determine the active/inactive information - or does the box itself? We could go back and forth with the card, if that works.

Sorry, no can do - the cards are married to each receiver & the only way you can do card swaps is to call E* & have them remarry them; obviously won't work for your situation now...

 

[meontheinternet]

BTW, it's OK to plug in the phone line on all the receivers at your main house - just DON'T do it with the one at your weekend home.

Well, we had only plugged in one box at home, none at the weekend home. So maybe it was more than the phone line that set this off?

Also, when you say D*, are you meaning DirectTV?

Thanks!

 

[jerryez]

You can take one of your receivers back and forth between your main home and your weekend home. It is not a big deal to uplug the cables and hook them back up.

 

[bonkwonkie]

Also, when you say D*, are you meaning DirectTV?

Yes

 

[jeslevine]

It is really unfortunate, but you do have alternatives, direct TV and Comcast

In addition, a lot more competition will be coming on board in the next two years with tv over IP etc.

You have more power than you realize, that is what is great about competition

 

[boba]

With DISH offering the new FAMILY PAK Feb. 1st you could setup the vacation house as a separate account for $19.99 only $15/Mo. more than you were paying which is what DISH really wants. It will give you TV at that house. Take that turned off receiver and put it in one of the kids names at the address of the vacation house. After the fact but read posts on DISH Auditing team.

 

[digitaldogger]

After Reading What You Went Through, I Feel Really Bad For How Dishnetwork Treated You, We Sell Both Directv And Dishnetwork. There Are Only A Few Receiver Types Within Both Companies That Have To Be On Phone Lines To Work Or Ones That Will Be Charged A Fee If They Are Not; Dish; 322, 522/625, 942/622 And Directv; Any Dvr. Many People Take Receivers On The Road With Them (rv's) 0r Have Lake Cabins,what Everyone Is Saying About Staying Silent About The Location Is True. However, Directv Has A Traveling Rv Account Program, Dishnetwork Will Also Allow Two Places Legally, But You Will Be Set Up For Two Accounts, Can Be Sent To Same Place But It Won't Be Five Dollars Per Added Receiver, It Will Be Two Seperate Accounts For Each Place, That Is The By The Book Way. Cable Companies Seem To Raise Their Rates Once/twice Per Year, And Offer Promo's And Take Them Away With No Warning Or Explanation From What Our Local Customers Tell Us With Charter. Good Luck Though, And Hopefully Something Will Fit Your Needs.

 

[dishrich]

And Directv; Any Dvr.

Sorry dear, but this is NOT true at all...

The R15 DVR does NOT require a phone line, period! D* may tell you it does, but it works just fine w/out it.

The D-Tivo's ONLY require a phone line for 2 initial calls - after that, they will work just fine as well, except give a daily nag screen, which can be skipped over. I set them up in my shop first before going to a customer, so having a phone line is never an issue at their place.

In either event, D* does not charge a "penalty" for no phone line on ANY receivers, DVR or not.

I have many D* DVR customers w/out phone lines & they have NO problems with them at all

 

[Liquidforce88]

Well we seem to all miss the main thing here.

The poster was account sharing. That is not allowed. Nor has it ever been. I know the original poster is gonna come on here and say that Dish set it up so they should know. I will bet that a retailer is the one who set it up, and dish knew nothing about it. If they did they would have shut it off long ago.

Soory that you feel Dish was so mean to you, but they were doing their job.

 

[chaddux]

Well, it is against DISH's rules to have receivers on one account at different locations. The rule states that you must have an account for each separate location. A lot of people take their receivers with them to their second home but they don't LEAVE them there. It is generally accepted to TEMPORARILY take a receiver with you as long as you don't leave it there. If you take it with you, bring it back when you come back home.

I'm not sure how you can get mad at DISH when you weren't following the rules. Just because you got caught breaking the rules doesn't make it their fault. Whether you think the rule is good or bad is irrelevent. Those are the rules and if you want to be a DISH Network subscriber, you have to live with the rules. If you don't like the rules, you need to switch to another provider.

The next time a cop pulls you over for speeding, tell the cop it's HIS fault you were speeding and see what happens.

 

[meontheinternet]

Well we seem to all miss the main thing here.
The poster was account sharing. That is not allowed. Nor has it ever been. I know the original poster is gonna come on here and say that Dish set it up so they should know. I will bet that a retailer is the one who set it up, and dish knew nothing about it. If they did they would have shut it off long ago.
Soory that you feel Dish was so mean to you, but they were doing their job.

We have talked to Dish Network's 800 number people many times and they completely understood we had a summer home. We talked to them directly about getting Atlanta channels down there, and everything. They had zero problems with this for 2 years. Not the retailer, Dish themselves has records of us talking to them on this.

Second, so what if the rule changed - fine, rules changed. Or, even further, so what if they made a mistake and let us do it and then realized they were not supposed to. That is not the problem here.

The problem is that they went through so much trickery and lies to get us to say we had a weekend home - all they had to do was ask. Then the furthered the lies with why they are making us stop.

Lies, lies, lies...
"I know you are busy, but go around the house and read off all your box IDs, we need to upgrade our records."
"Comcast is making us do this."
"The FCC is making us do this."

 

[meontheinternet]

I'm not sure how you can get mad at DISH when you weren't following the rules.

The rules, as explained to us by Dish Network - not retailers - was that this was no problem. They even helped us get Atlanta channels down there and everything.

Maybe in the print rules somewhere it says this isn't allowed - but when you talk to multiple representative on the phone, if they are not following their own rules - the customer cannot be blamed for what they are being told.

Still beside the point, the fact was they called and fed us lies for an hour over the phone. Sorry I don't deal with companies like that.

 

[bestboff]

You know they make a gizmo that you can clip on to the phone line that lets caller ID in but blocks outgoing calls. It works. I had BEV here in the US and used the caller ID function with this device.

 

[dragon002]

After Reading What You Went Through, I Feel Really Bad For How Dishnetwork Treated You, We Sell Both Directv And Dishnetwork. There Are Only A Few Receiver Types Within Both Companies That Have To Be On Phone Lines To Work Or Ones That Will Be Charged A Fee If They Are Not; Dish; 322, 522/625, 942/622 And Directv; Any Dvr. Many People Take Receivers On The Road With Them (rv's) 0r Have Lake Cabins,what Everyone Is Saying About Staying Silent About The Location Is True. However, Directv Has A Traveling Rv Account Program, Dishnetwork Will Also Allow Two Places Legally, But You Will Be Set Up For Two Accounts, Can Be Sent To Same Place But It Won't Be Five Dollars Per Added Receiver, It Will Be Two Seperate Accounts For Each Place, That Is The By The Book Way. Cable Companies Seem To Raise Their Rates Once/twice Per Year, And Offer Promo's And Take Them Away With No Warning Or Explanation From What Our Local Customers Tell Us With Charter. Good Luck Though, And Hopefully Something Will Fit Your Needs.

the R-15 dvr by directv does not need the phone line.

 

[M Sparks]

Reading this is like hitting a mental speedbump at the start of each word.

Sorry, I'm off topic, and I'm not trying to be mean...I've just never seen anyone that types this way.

After Reading What You Went Through, I Feel Really Bad For How Dishnetwork Treated You, We Sell Both Directv And Dishnetwork. There Are Only A Few Receiver Types Within Both Companies That Have To Be On Phone Lines To Work Or Ones That Will Be Charged A Fee If They Are Not; Dish; 322, 522/625, 942/622 And Directv; Any Dvr. Many People Take Receivers On The Road With Them (rv's) 0r Have Lake Cabins,what Everyone Is Saying About Staying Silent About The Location Is True. However, Directv Has A Traveling Rv Account Program, Dishnetwork Will Also Allow Two Places Legally, But You Will Be Set Up For Two Accounts, Can Be Sent To Same Place But It Won't Be Five Dollars Per Added Receiver, It Will Be Two Seperate Accounts For Each Place, That Is The By The Book Way. Cable Companies Seem To Raise Their Rates Once/twice Per Year, And Offer Promo's And Take Them Away With No Warning Or Explanation From What Our Local Customers Tell Us With Charter. Good Luck Though, And Hopefully Something Will Fit Your Needs.

 

[jkinser]

Reading this is like hitting a mental speedbump at the start of each word.
Sorry, I'm off topic, and I'm not trying to be mean...I've just never seen anyone that types this way.

Ditto.

 

[chaddux]

Reading this is like hitting a mental speedbump at the start of each word.
Sorry, I'm off topic, and I'm not trying to be mean...I've just never seen anyone that types this way.

Agreed. Digitaldogger needs to learn to type like a normal person. It's very difficult to read.