Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around. Dish has a lot of CSRs, some that know their stuff, and some that must just be there for the paycheck. There's a reason we've all heard the term "CSR roulette".
I was once told by a CSR that my 211k wasn't capable of receiving OTA signals without an HD dish that could see 129° (I had a D500 at the time). His reasoning was that some OTA channels are in HD and the receiver needed a signal that was present only on 129 to activate the HD capabilities. I could almost hear his jaw hit the floor when I told him I was already watching an HD channel on it right now. What's the channel number... 5710... long silence... I'll be right back... LOL.
Recently, I received one of those "urgent, call us now" letters. It was because something in their system wanted to make sure I had the proper dish to receive the channels I wanted. I knew I was OK because I currently have a 1000.2, which is what you see on just about every other house in my area. I knew they didn't know what dish I had because I bought & self installed all the equipment. I figured I'd call so that they could put in their records what dish I have & prevent future flags from going up. It should just take a few minutes to set the record straight... right?
The first thing she wanted to do was send out a Tech. I told her that wasn't going to happen. My home is kept behind a locked gate & as a business owner, I wasn't gonna take a day from work to wait on a Tech. So I asked what satellites my dish needed to see according to her records. After several more minutes of holding, she came back and said 110/119/129. I told her that's what I had already.
After more holding, she comes back and says "OK Mr. XXX, we're going to go ahead and send a Tech out. The only thing you'll have to pay for is..." I cut her off at that point and asked why was she going to send a Tech when we already had established that I had what I needed. She put me on hold again. Believe it or not, this is the shortened version of the story. This actually went on for more than 35 minutes. All she wanted to do was send a Tech... no matter what I did or didn't need.
Here's how the call should have went. Hello, I got this notice in the mail. We need to confirm what satellites your receiver can see. 110, 119, and 129. OK, thank you Mr. XXX. I'll make a note of that in your account. It should've taken 3 minutes... tops.
So when I hear that a CSR confuses tuners with TVs, or blames the FCC for an internal company rule... it doesn't surprise me at all.
Some Dish CSRs are really good, but sometimes it takes more than one call to find one of those. I'm just really glad for the Dish team here at Sat Guys, and the ability to maintain your account online.
Cheers
