Dish Network Prepaid Question

[jeffmn]

I haven't read in a couple weeks, this is bad news they are canceling ppd.

I bought 2 ppd systems this year, one at cabin we turn it on when we are there, usually Gold 250 and a movie package with the gdmp.

The other I keep at home and tried using the $40 card for showtime for the whole summer, it's worked well and was hoping to continue maybe a couple movie packages for the whole winter.

The new flex program doesn't look like it'll work for us at all.
The cabin I have no reason to pay to leave on when I'm not there.
And at home I only want movies, I have planty of other channels already.

Hope they let us continue.
Otherwise I doubt I'll use DN for anything.

 

[jeffmn]

Not that this matters much if the are canceling prepay anyway...

But that anoying message that shows days left whenever you switch channels.
I just realized click "cancel" after you switch channels and it goes away.

 

[gillham]

But that anoying message that shows days left whenever you switch channels.
I just realized click "cancel" after you switch channels and it goes away.

Doesn't show up on my 508, the programming just goes away when the prepaid expires.

 

[STEELERSRULE]

DishNow Prepaid hardware will be sold through July 9th.

The prepaid cards can continue to be sold, there will be a transition plan to move prepaid customers to another system such as DHA TOO or Flex TV.

Delaers with Pre Paid equipment in stock should get rid of it now as it could be a doorstop on August 1st.

This comes from Scott via the RETAILER CHAT from July 9th,2009

I STRONGLY SUGGESST to prepaid customers that you go into your menu's and change the software update option to NOT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, as this is going to be the way they are going to turn these boxes into the new DHA TOO or FLEXTV boxes.

Take a wait and see approach, but it appears I will be out of the Dish service completely, unless there is something I am missing with the FLEXTV setup, which I do not think I am(no day to day prepay option using GDMP).

Not what I wanted from Dish, nor what I signed up for. So I guess mine becomes a doorstop as of 8/1/09 without the new software, and the relentless phone calls, and telling them to stop, will begin due to those damn "shell" accounts they created back when the G3 smartcard exchange was going on.

 

[Hermitman]

Thanks for the info STEELERSRULE. I went to my software update menu page and checked the "Ask Before Downloading" selection. Maybe yours is different. I think I'll use up most of my GDMP before the end of the month. Then on the 31st, I'll use the last amount and order a weeks worth of Starz just to see what will happen. If they cut off my services on Aug 1st, I'll have something to call and complain about. I sure it won't do any good but I'll feel better. Then I'll fill my pre-paid receiver with concrete and use it for an ugly boat anchor. After reading the details of the new programs, I have no interest in signing up. I understand they want higher profit margins but it'll have to be without my money. Good luck to all.

 

[Sadoun]

I signed up a DishNow prepaid customer on FlexTV yesterday. The process to sign up was smooth and straight forward.

I learned one of the differences between the FlexTV and the regular DHA-24 is that FlexTV customer will not get the promotions available at the time to DHA customers (i.e. $9.99 for 6 months, etc). That is understandable since there is no contract or commitment.

New FlexTV customer will have to pay an activation fee of $149, which includes the 1st receiver for FREE such as the 311, 381 or 322 receivers.

Some of the new optional features available with FlexTV that were not available with DishNow Prepaid offer:

• HDTV available: Now FlexTV customers will have the option to get HDTV (with an HD receiver upgrade) if they chose to.
• Multiple rooms available instead of only one room.
• DVR available
• Local channels available
• Cheaper overall

 

[jeffmn]

Do I understand correctly?

Even as a existing prepaid customer with all my equipment set-up and running.

I have to pay $149 to switch to the new program, if I decided too?

If that is the case I know I won't be doing anything other than unpluging them.

 

[r10fret]

"Cheaper overall" yeah right!

Why would anyone continue with this company after dishnow ends when they face the realization that the following channels have not been provided as part of the prepaid package levels for the last 3 years due to a technical oversight, lack of dealer involvement, lack of customer support, and so on and so forth. Dish top level executives have known about it and acknowledged it yet refuse to add the missing prepaid flags which prevent them from appearing in all channel guide lineup on dishnow receivers. Typical dishonest behavior! Pay for a package, dont get all the channels that are part of that package. 3 years and running a fraud. All this from the same company that to this day continues to promote prepaid dishnow via their website with no advisory to the customer about the future of the platform.

@119:

101 DNFYI
117 TVGN
134 SHNBC
216 ION
230 ICTV
829 DNFYI

@110:
155 FUEL
181 N
212 EARTH
217 IONW
259 INSP
264 KTV
266 ANGL2
826 ACDEM
850 HISTE
872 TR3S


@118:
704 KBS
9850 KBS
9903 D118

@61.5:


580 INFO
652 KBS
9402 HHS
9405 PNTGN
9406 ARTS
9408 STARF
9413 ALMA
9418 PAEC
9710 3ABN

@129:


269 STARF
9408 STARF
9413 ALMA
9710 3ABN
9901 D129

@148:


652 KBS
9402 HHS
9405 PNTGN
9406 ARTS
9418 PAEC

 

[mikil321]

Good Point but will Dish need your receiver to be hooked up to phoneline?

I know I like the prepaid system for the cabin.

If and when pre-paid goes away I'll just take a receiver from home to the cabin when I go up.

The pre-paid system is great for me. I really don't like the hassle of having to being a receiver from home. But That is what Dish is going to force me to do.

I am not going to get a sub for the cabin when I only spend 2 weeks there and every other weekend.

You would think that they would want more of my money...I guess not.

Good point Bro! But will Dishnetwork need your receiver to be hooked upto a phonline? Do you have one in your cabin???
I see it like this! PrePaid is a GREAT system for many people so WHY the heck are they screwing around with a good thing??? Engineers I tell yah!!!!

 

[gillham]

Personally I think prepaid people should boycott these new packages. There is nothing good about them when compared to the Dish Now! system. Especially the system you already own! In my opinion Dish is just throwing revenue away by canceling the program. I think they hope to convert prepaid customers to a steady month revenue stream, but I would expect conversion rates to be fairly low. I know I won't be changing my monthly programming from the Welcome Pack. I use Dish Now! to add things I don't get with my cheap package and I just get a day here and there, not a month at a time.

Overall I think this is a dumb move on the part of Dish, but it is their business to lose.

 

[mikil321]

Talk about gouging everyone in tough times. $149 sign up fee? BS? Buy new equipment? BS? The whole idea of DishNow is to ensure those with not so good credit could become a Dishnetwork customer and Dish also can reep the profits. They also have the market cornered in this respect seeing Direct TV have nothing like it! The Hispanic community also love DishNow Im sure seeing they also can watch Dish down in Mexico !
DishNetwork should re think letting DishNow go down seeing many including myself may never get back on board. Im giving the competiton a call to see what they are offering Thanks for reading Mike

 

[latin-dss]

shoot if they make me pay $149 for a new receiver when i already owned a prepaid receiver, i would just straight up quit them on the spot...how can you start a service to discontinued as soon as you please and make everyone buy new staff? are prepaid customers any less important to them? i guess we are

 

[Ozzy33]

Personally I think prepaid people should boycott these new packages. There is nothing good about them when compared to the Dish Now! system. Especially the system you already own! In my opinion Dish is just throwing revenue away by canceling the program. I think they hope to convert prepaid customers to a steady month revenue stream, but I would expect conversion rates to be fairly low. I know I won't be changing my monthly programming from the Welcome Pack. I use Dish Now! to add things I don't get with my cheap package and I just get a day here and there, not a month at a time.

Overall I think this is a dumb move on the part of Dish, but it is their business to lose.

I agree 100 percent. Hopefully Dish gets minimum takers and realizes this was a stupid move.

I currently subscribe to Dish's main competitor for full time service. When I learned about this service a few months back I decided to buy with the intention of only using for premium channels when I wanted to watch something. In light of what pre-paid offered, I couldn't justify paying $8-15 per month for a group of channels I only watched a few hours per week. So instead of paying one provider over $50 per month for all the premiums to be on all the time, I'm now paying Dish about $15-20 per month. If they do not care about the incremental revenue then I will just reactive my premiums w/ the competition. One thing that absolutely baffles me is why they are still actively promoting the current pre-paid system on their website "when you're ready, make the call, you won't believe the experience". Well for anyone who does this now, they are definitely right about that. I guarantee I will not be signing up for this new BS!

 

[mikil321]

How can you sign up ?

I signed up a DishNow prepaid customer on FlexTV yesterday. The process to sign up was smooth and straight forward.

I learned one of the differences between the FlexTV and the regular DHA-24 is that FlexTV customer will not get the promotions available at the time to DHA customers (i.e. $9.99 for 6 months, etc). That is understandable since there is no contract or commitment.

New FlexTV customer will have to pay an activation fee of $149, which includes the 1st receiver for FREE such as the 311, 381 or 322 receivers.

Some of the new optional features available with FlexTV that were not available with DishNow Prepaid offer:

• HDTV available: Now FlexTV customers will have the option to get HDTV (with an HD receiver upgrade) if they chose to.
• Multiple rooms available instead of only one room.
• DVR available
• Local channels available
• Cheaper overall

Sadoun

Not to start an argument but how did you sign up so smoothly and with ease like you mentioned above before everyone else??? I have gone to the dishnetwork website and they are NOT saying anything about Flex yet nor how to join???
Maybe Dish will drop it all like a bomb on us on a specific date or maybe they are hoping all of us are still running out and purchasing Dishnow cards and GreenDot moneypaks that will not be any good in the near future?
Anyway! Sadoun? What was necessary for you to sign up to the flex system?

1) Was the shell account information established with the prepaid account enough for Dish or did they need your Social Security Number, CreditCard information etc????
2) Where do you buy the equipment? OR can we use the prepaid receiver (s)we already have and they will just update the firmware to make them run with the new flex system???
3) Whom do we buy programming from and how? creditcard,moneyorder ,paypal etc????


All of us on the board would appreciate it if you could help and answer these questions to put our minds at ease Thanks much Mikil

 

[mikil321]

Dude? How did you get a 508 working on a prepaid Sub???

Doesn't show up on my 508, the programming just goes away when the prepaid expires.

Dude! Want to share with us how you got a prepaid Subscription to work on a 508?Hmmmmm! A little jtagging the old 301 action huh??? Thanks Mikil

 

[STEELERSRULE]

I signed up a DishNow prepaid customer on FlexTV yesterday. The process to sign up was smooth and straight forward.

I learned one of the differences between the FlexTV and the regular DHA-24 is that FlexTV customer will not get the promotions available at the time to DHA customers (i.e. $9.99 for 6 months, etc). That is understandable since there is no contract or commitment.

New FlexTV customer will have to pay an activation fee of $149, which includes the 1st receiver for FREE such as the 311, 381 or 322 receivers.

Some of the new optional features available with FlexTV that were not available with DishNow Prepaid offer:

• HDTV available: Now FlexTV customers will have the option to get HDTV (with an HD receiver upgrade) if they chose to.
• Multiple rooms available instead of only one room.
• DVR available
• Local channels available
• Cheaper overall

I have to agree with R10fret Sadoun. That "cheaper overall" comment is like a slap in the face to us who know, and understand the current prepaid setup.

Not looking for a battle, as you(Sadoun) have always been straight forward and forthright here about setup's/systems/product/etc... for Dish and other systems.

But we all know that FlexTV and DHATOO is no where near the cost of the current system. Not even close. Dish added all their ridiculous fees, activation costs, plus other crap($5.00 each time you start and stop. Come on) which makes either rpomotion useless to current prepaid customers.

Might as well just become a regular Dish customer if that is the case. This will never, ever be me though.

 

[Zero327]

DishNow Prepaid hardware will be sold through July 9th.

The prepaid cards can continue to be sold, there will be a transition plan to move prepaid customers to another system such as DHA TOO or Flex TV.

Delaers with Pre Paid equipment in stock should get rid of it now as it could be a doorstop on August 1st.

This comes from Scott via the RETAILER CHAT from July 9th,2009

I STRONGLY SUGGESST to prepaid customers that you go into your menu's and change the software update option to NOT WITHOUT MY PERMISSION, as this is going to be the way they are going to turn these boxes into the new DHA TOO or FLEXTV boxes.

Take a wait and see approach, but it appears I will be out of the Dish service completely, unless there is something I am missing with the FLEXTV setup, which I do not think I am(no day to day prepay option using GDMP).

Not what I wanted from Dish, nor what I signed up for. So I guess mine becomes a doorstop as of 8/1/09 without the new software, and the relentless phone calls, and telling them to stop, will begin due to those damn "shell" accounts they created back when the G3 smartcard exchange was going on.

And you really think when the time comes that each and every single prepaid receiver isn't programmed to take the update regardless of the customer's download settings? Do you really?

 

[gillham]

Dude! Want to share with us how you got a prepaid Subscription to work on a 508?Hmmmmm! A little jtagging the old 301 action huh??? Thanks Mikil

Here's my post: http://www.satelliteguys.us/dish-ne...pvr-508-dp301-dish-now-prepaid-pvr-809-a.html

 

[gillham]

And you really think when the time comes that each and every single prepaid receiver isn't programmed to take the update regardless of the customer's download settings? Do you really?

Right, it makes sense that Dish could just override the receiver owner's preference and force the update to the units. But... There isn't much point to Dish sending new firmware to the prepaid 301 receiver unless it can be used with regular programming after that. So I don't see how they would be charging $149 equipment fee for a new receiver AND reprogramming your old receiver anyway. So I would assume existing prepaid customers would be able to re-use all the old equipment once the receiver had new firmware.

 

[STEELERSRULE]

And you really think when the time comes that each and every single prepaid receiver isn't programmed to take the update regardless of the customer's download settings? Do you really?

I don't know. Do you?

I mean, if you really do know, please inform all of us here.