Dish/Sharp won't sell me a TV

[metaphor]

My first post. Be kind.

We've upgraded our Dish system to a 722 receiver and a dish pointing at the right satellite, worked all the bugs out, and now we need the HD TV. After lots of forum reading and looking at Circuit City, etc., we settled on a Sharp Aquos 37" LCD. So, we called Sharp Direct, who is managing the Dish Network discount offer for discounted Sharp tvs, and ordered up the set. Great price, free shipping.

But no! It turns out that because we live in a small rural town (a Dish on every roof) and get our mail via a PO box, Sharp can't ship to us. WTH? Well, as explained by Sharp CS, the order system checks addresses through the US Postal Service, and we show a PO box, not an actual street address. But, the actual delivery is done through UPS, who won't deliver to a PO box number. Deadlock. Sharp CS claims they can't override the address entry, like UPS can in their shipping centers or on line, and therefore we have an invalid address. No shipment can be scheduled.

Am I being BS'd here, or what? I think Sharp genuinely wants to sell me a tv, and UPS delivers to my door just about every week, so why the problem? More to the point, what do I do? I've kicked it upstairs at Sharp as far as I can on a weekend, but will have to wait until Monday to talk with a supervisor. Worse yet, the Dish/Sharp offer ends on the 31st of Jan, and worst of all, the Super Bowl is coming!

Anybody have anything to offer? We tried to come up with an alternative address in town, but no go. We have to solve this some other way. Help!

 

[tsduke]

How about work, friend or relative that has an actual street address.

Do you know have a street address?

 

[Fiveft20in]

I had a similar situation when I signed up for Dish service three years ago. We have a PO Box and not only does our street address not show up in the Postal Service system, it doesn't show up on any mapping programs or web-based mapping services. The street shows up on the map, but our address is always unknown.

The Dish rep actually aked me to call 911 and ask the operator what address their system showed my call coming from. The 911 operator had our correct street address. Dish finally got around it be formatting our address this way:

Customer Name
GENERAL DELIVERY
PO Box ###
My Town, USA #####
​

My billing statement is still addressed this way. Maybe they can get around it the same way for you.

 

[vegassatellite]

Find a local mailbox store other than the Post Office and get a PMB box. Change your billing address to that and have it sent there.

You might even be able to change your billing address to your physical address temporarily if DISH can do it.

 

[digiblur]

UPS doesn't ship to PO Boxes. Kinda hard to fit a TV into a little PO Box.

 

[vegassatellite]

Yeah, but a good PMB box company will sign for and hold the shipment. UPS even owns a chain of these after they bought up Mail Boxes Etc.

 

[wonko]

Do you have a 911 address? Most states are creating street addresses for rural customers for use in emergency services. You might also try calling UPS (800-PICK-UPS) and giving them your location. They may be able to give you an address they can deliver to.

 

[okiekevn]

well, seeing how UPS is a direct competitor of USPS, its not a shock that po box locations deny ups deliveries. its not that sharp chooses to not ship it to you or that UPS chooses to not deliver to you, its that your choice in mail receival location does not allow it. your blaming everyone but the responsible party, which is yourself as after all you chose to use a p.o. box. try using your 911 address or your rural route address for your physcial location and your p.o. box for your billing. i have lived way out in the sticks and UPS would deliver to me using my RR address.

 

[osu1991]

That is not always true my ranch house near Ada has been there since the 1900's and until they implemented new 911 addresses for Pontotoc County last year, my house was not in the Post offices systems.

Everyone in that area had a PO Box address at the Post Office 15 miles away. Then about 15 years ago you could request a rural route carrier to come out and survey the route to determine what your address could be and that is why you might have a rt2 box 2a1 thru 2h1 before box 3 because people would submit requests and be between boxes that had been established years earlier.

I met the UPS driver out at an intersection and he mapped a route into their system about 10 years ago and all I had to do afterwards was note to have it delivered to the Bar JN and they new where to take it. Now 2 years ago they implemented 911 addresses and UPS uses those now, but there are still people that have no mail boxes out there.