Horrible installation experience - and it isn't even installed yet

[KenB123]

One thing I wont agrea on is telling the installer where " you think the dish should go and how to install the whole system " bluntly put its a fool that does this if they have never done this kind of work before and base the choices they make based solely on what they read on a website. To get an idea of what will work best you need to do alot of homework and not just on the web but by driving through diferent neighborhoods of diferent age to get an idea of where the dishes are mounted wether it be on a ranch or two story colonial or a Wright home.

When the installer gets there its time to talk to him and work with him or her on putting together and installation plan that works for you and him because you want the install to look good and most installers do to but you also dont want the guy to be there all day trying to jump through unrealistic hoops to satisfy dilusions of granduer and he doesnt want to be there either.

Your points are all valid. Yes, you should see where/how others in the neighborhood have their dishes setup. This gives some idea of workable locations. And of course, the owner has to be reasonable in their location requests.

Ultimately, you should expect a fair honest answer from a good installer regarding a requested location. If that location just won't work, they should tell you why.

In my case, the location I requested was close to where every install in my neighbowhood appears to be done. My neighbors have theirs attached to the chimney. My installer said they don't attach to chimneys. Okay. How about next to it then on the roof? That was okay, and a better location than the one they originally suggested which was on top of the garage. The garage location was easier to get to, but the roof location was really no more difficult by any stretch. I climb it myself in checking the roof and putting up Christmas lights.

 

[rugbyqueen]

Update.....

The guys turned up during the timeframe they said they would, albeit if they'd been about five minutes later they would have been late. They installed the dish where we hoped they would, set everything up, showed us how it all worked, and we've even got all the channels we're supposed to have.

The actual installer guy kind of rolled his eyes about the guy who didn't show up yesterday and said he (today's installer) was doing a lot of "clean up" (as he put it) for that guy.

He did bring us the 722 (as he was supposed to) and said they were hard to come by - had to go to a different warehouse than he usually uses to get one.

Spent a reasonable amount of time showing us how things work. Seemed knowledgeable and was generally a nice guy.

I'm still going to email the CEO to make sure we get our credit for this delay. But the actual service seemed okay.

We were amused that the two installers put Dish Network t-shirts over their other shirts when they arrived. I guess these guys work for all sorts of people.

 

[jhhenson]

And your saying that you dont have the ability to select a diferent day other than the first one that was shown in the pull down window? You didnt say to yourself " hey thats a holiday and I know I dont like to work on a holiday so how about I cut the guy some slack and lighten his load and pick tuesday the 4th".

Sorry no sympathy here when your putting the blame on the company is the same as people crying about whats on the radio or tv and blaming the media outlettes when all they have to do to really make an impact is turn the damn channel.

No, what I was actually saying was that I picked the pull down that said "first available". The email that I was sent had scheduled the appointment for Monday. I figured that since the first available slot happened to be a day I had off (how ignorant of me not wanting to take time off work) that was a win-win.

On your second point, I don't blame the media outlets. I blame the lowest common denominator for watching mindless drivel to begin with.

For an update, the installer is supposed to be here this evening. Promised to install it tonight. As of right now, that is all I can ask for and it is appreciated.

 

[hil98032]

With most items it doesn't really matter if you deal local but with TV it makes a huge difference if you talk to the right local store. Ask a friend for a referral.

 

[webbydude]

I'm still going to email the CEO to make sure we get our credit for this delay. But the actual service seemed okay.

Ok. Curious.

What sort of "credit" would you expect? It's not like you were signed up for service already and were experiencing an outage, right?

 

[rugbyqueen]

Ok. Curious.

What sort of "credit" would you expect? It's not like you were signed up for service already and were experiencing an outage, right?

When I called Dish Network to ask where the installer was on Monday, and then had to find out on my own that they weren't coming, I called back to ask for some compensation from Dish Network for the inconvenience. They offered my $20 off my installation. I will be making every attempt to be sure I get at least that, if not more.

It's one thing for the installers to be late and let the customer know. It's another thing for the customer to have to dig up that information themselves, with no call from either the installers or Dish Network.

Even though yesterday was a holiday, I work for myself and it took four hours out of my time to stay home, and at least an hour on the phone to sort out the situation.

 

[navy8ball]

i had an installer come to my house one time and i could smell alcohol on his breath. my advice to all women is to never ever be alone in your house when meeting any type of repairman.i remember a few years ago in tulsa a couple put an ad in the newspaper to sell a pool table. her husband had to work so she stayed at home to meet this guy. he raped and killed her and then took off. the cops were tracking him and if i recall right he killed someone else up in missouri. before they caught him.

deja vu or premonition i dont know what it is but stuff like this story being brought up in the newspaper the day after i talk about here happens to me all the time. here is the news story about his recen appeal being denied if anyone is interested. Tulsa World

 

[Peter Parker]

Ok. Curious.

What sort of "credit" would you expect? It's not like you were signed up for service already and were experiencing an outage, right?

I had a pretty bad initial install experience as well. In the end E* credited me with my pr3emium movie pacjkage free for the first 60 days. Not a huge savings but something.

 

[Dodge Ram Nut]

I had a pretty bad initial install experience as well. In the end E* credited me with my pr3emium movie pacjkage free for the first 60 days. Not a huge savings but something.

Rugbyqueen -

There you go! You can demand some sort of compensation either in the way of monetary credits, or free premium shows like Skinmax..HBO..starz..etc etc. They SHOULD at least give you the premium shows just to show good faith. If nothing else, I guess you can be thankful its over and done with?

Like I said in my earlier posts - some folks..they have nothing but happy happy happy times..some folks..its like the whole world is against them. Just keep in mind, should the need arises to call Dish...go the tech support route. They're the best. If you happen to get an incompetent techie guy/girl...simply hang up...breath in..breath out..and call again and you will get a different tech. It works for me!

 

[jhhenson]

. . . For an update, the installer is supposed to be here this evening. Promised to install it tonight. As of right now, that is all I can ask for and it is appreciated.

The installers arrived on Tuesday night, and could not have been any nicer. They even took the time even though it was late in the evening to show me how to get the best picture and more pass the basic demonstration. It definitely left a good taste in my mouth.

 

[Aerochick]

Definitely email the ceo if this guy arrives with any questionable issues (ie drugs/alcohol). You can see my experience under the "Drunk Technicians" thread... heads seem to be rolling and things are moving ahead quite quickly since I wrote that email.
I hope you get things installed correctly and efficiently. Good thinking having your husband there.

 

[farmsatguy]

You know, I normally read through posts like these, chuckle a little, and move on... But like Van (I'm guessing), this one has really PISSED ME OFF! Y'all make it sound like we (installers) are nothing but a bunch of ignorant scum bag rapists and murderers who thrive on drugs and alcohol. Better hide the kiddies...no telling what we might do when the man of the house isn't around. What a bunch of crap. Hundreds of these things are installed daily all around the country (I usually do 4 or 5 a day myself with 10 years of experience) with a very large majority of everything going just fine (simple economics dictates that Dish would be out of business based on these posts if any of this was even close to the norm). Name me one industry that doesn't have a handful of untrustworthy souls...just one! Hell, even a handful of priests have their fetishes for little boys. This means stop going to church, right? Even better, don't believe in God, right? A cashier is rude to you at a restaurant. This means most of them are untrustworthy wenches, right? Watch them like a hawk (idiot) because they might over charge you and take advantage of you. One mechanic "takes you for a ride", so all of them are out to screw you over, right? Obviously, I could on and on with every industry (i.e. doctors, lawyers, bankers, stock brockers, etc...) Of course, ultimately, it all boils down to the same thing, doesn't it. Even with a good clean install, what can I get for free for my pain & suffering? Pah-lease! Maybe it's partly because people treat us like criminals who get out of bed only to screw over unsuspecting women alone in their homes with all intentions of filling some desire to do a crappy job that we sometimes "have a chip on our shoulders". The more I type, the madder I get! Why, because you folks (some of you anyway) have actually offended the hell out me with these absurd posts. I mean, damn! Watch us like hawks! Y'all have stereo-typed a bunch of hard working blue collar guys who generally WANT to do a good job (don't most people have this desire - why in the HELL wouldn't we?) into a bunch of sub-human criminal-like dirt bags bent on as much mischeif (sp?) as we can possible make. Most of us sub's carry insurance policies of a half million and more (most, like myself, carry a full million).

Try re-reading these posts...from the first to the last...and wonder, for just a moment why it would offend pretty much ALL OF US out here to be lumped into this sh!tty category based on a few bad experiences, heresay, and A LOT ignorant speculation!!! Grrr...ooo, it was so good that a MAN was around - how offensive would it be for me to lump all women as weak-minded based on such statements? Fortunately, I DON'T feel (or think) that way as I am smart enough to know that most women (at least the ones I deal with - including my wife of 15 years) are far from weak and would be ticked at just the implications of some of these posts...these stereo-types. It's a good thing your husbands have more faith in you than you do (as they were comfortable enough to go off to work & let you handle this mind-boggling situation). I'm sure I'll get some flaming posts but thats fine...as YOU pissed ME off!

It's one thing to post about a bad experience here so we can offer help & advice (many of us with that advice are the same "scum bag" installers y'all "fear") but this has gone too far on the offensive side.

 

[Dodge Ram Nut]

You know, I normally read through posts like these, chuckle a little, and move on... But like Van (I'm guessing), this one has really PISSED ME OFF! Y'all make it sound like we (installers) are nothing but a bunch of ignorant scum bag rapists and murderers who thrive on drugs and alcohol.

Geez - Take a Chill Pill dude. Every one is helping every one out here in this forum. Granted, there ARE installers who do EXCEPTIONAL QUALITY work and they should be given whatever they ask. Then there are installers who are the kind to where "I just drive a van..shoot a few bolts..hook up cables..bam..next job" and just don't give a rats azz about their quality, or what they NEED to do to TRY to please the customer as reasonably as they can. How do you think the BIG 3 automakers got this far in business? Through people pissing them off about their quality of work, criticism and the big 3 try to come out with a nicer model next year.

Take this with a grain of salt and move on!

 

[turbosat]

Hey farmsat guy , I hear ya. But you've been in it long enough to know you don't take this stuff seriously. Everybody can pass horror stories around. I think the biggest problem is this high-speed, "I WANT WHAT I WANT WHEN I WANT IT" world. People think all installers have huge warehouses full of everything they want, and can gather it all up, defeat any/all traffic delays, obstacles, then magically appear on the precise minute they are demanded to be there.This thread was actually representative of all that. She HAD to have installed by blah blah blah because 'she was going out of town'? What was the big rush then? I mean, jeez its just tv, installers are human too. What would've happened had her 4hour window been violated? It's almost funny. God I'm glad I don't do this stuff for a living because I would starve to death.

 

[rvdishman]

Well, I had trouble with installers once. I had made arrangements to have my dish moved from a ground install to a roof install. The fellow showed up pretty much on time and began work. He called for help which arrived in about 5 minutes. Another call, another installer. I ended up with 6 installers that pretty much stayed and 3 more that came by and then went home as it was the end of the day. I had no idea there could be that many in the area. Only thing that bothered me was them not roping themselves on the roof. They were 25-30 feet up on a steep shake roof. I got dizzy watching them which made it hard for me to supervise their work. They finally dropped about a dozen strips of cable down the side of the house and came down themselves. Drilled through the foundation and hooked up to a big switch with a bunch of outlets on it. I had four receivers, 2 upstairs and 2 on the main floor above the basement they were working in. Anyway, they got it all set up and everything worked. The problem then occurred. Grandma took all her fresh, hot sticky buns outside to them with a bowl of melted butter. Those suckers ate all of them, including the 2 I was saving for myself for breakfast. They washed them all down with the provided soft drinks, thanked me for a rather oversized tip(I had money in those days), and went home to their families with “my” breakfast in their bellies.

 

[Roadwarrior]

Well, I had trouble with installers once. I had made arrangements to have my dish moved from a ground install to a roof install. The fellow showed up pretty much on time and began work. He called for help which arrived in about 5 minutes. Another call, another installer. I ended up with 6 installers that pretty much stayed and 3 more that came by and then went home as it was the end of the day. I had no idea there could be that many in the area. Only thing that bothered me was them not roping themselves on the roof. They were 25-30 feet up on a steep shake roof. I got dizzy watching them which made it hard for me to supervise their work. They finally dropped about a dozen strips of cable down the side of the house and came down themselves. Drilled through the foundation and hooked up to a big switch with a bunch of outlets on it. I had four receivers, 2 upstairs and 2 on the main floor above the basement they were working in. Anyway, they got it all set up and everything worked. The problem then occurred. Grandma took all her fresh, hot sticky buns outside to them with a bowl of melted butter. Those suckers ate all of them, including the 2 I was saving for myself for breakfast. They washed them all down with the provided soft drinks, thanked me for a rather oversized tip(I had money in those days), and went home to their families with “my” breakfast in their bellies.

Not sure why it took so many, but then, I've never seen your house.

Sounds like they earned the tip.

You should have stashed the two sticky buns you were saving for youself before they ever made it ouside.

That doesn't sound like a bad install experience to me. It's alot better than doing it yourself. You said it. Everything worked. I'm assuming they put the dish where ya wanted it? Alot of the posters on here don't know what a bad install experience is. I wonder what they are expecting? If I had to scale somebody's 35 foot roof for the price of a measly service call, somebody had better be waiting on the ground with some damned sticky buns!!!

Then again, I usually don't have 5 other guys helping me.

 

[dishcomm]

i had an installer come to my house one time and i could smell alcohol on his breath. my advice to all women is to never ever be alone in your house when meeting any type of repairman.i remember a few years ago in tulsa a couple put an ad in the newspaper to sell a pool table. her husband had to work so she stayed at home to meet this guy. he raped and killed her and then took off. the cops were tracking him and if i recall right he killed someone else up in missouri. before they caught him.

...
That's tragic..But is atypical of people in this business. Most of us take our integrity very seriously..And to be frank, we fear customers more than they fear us...I have heard horror stories of male installers being accused of all kinds of crap by female customers..Also, we have a hard and fast rule about minor children. We NEVER enter the home of a customer when there is not an adult present..Esepecially a female minor. The issue is if one does not feel comfortable in a situation they should reschedule their appointment.

 

[dishcomm]

I am a firm believer that you SHOULD at LEAST give the guy a chance since he apologized all over the place towards your husband. Again..to each their own. I would give the installer a chance to show up WITH all the RIGHT equipment and make a clean, good install right the first time.
I've seen too many stories of installers showing up and TELLING YOU where he is going to put the DISH just because it will make his job so MUCH easier. Have your husband be reasonable and have HIM tell the installer where a good place is to put the dish. Don't make an argument about it, but come to a happy medium. Put the dish where it is aesthetically pleasing and has a good solid connection to the bird in the sky.

DON'T SIGN ANY PAPERWORK until your husband and/or you are happy with the install, everything works, good picture..good everything. If you sign, installer gets paid and his job is done. If the installer comes to your house all attitudey, TELLS YOU where he's gonna install it ...etc etc etc then I would email the CEO since you gave him a chance to rectify and make you a happy new customer. Lots of luck!! Let us know how it turns out!

"Have your husband be reasonable and have HIM tell the installer where a good place is to put the dish. "....
Just a minute.....The customer is NOT the professional...I have run into this type of customer before. The ones that jump to conclusions that we are all screw up's....Here's a bit of advice..DO NOT TELL the installer what to do..That's a sure fire way of getting your install delayed by a bunch of time.
Allow the man to do his job..Most of us will try to find a good sopt for the disgh with aesthetcics in mind. I do this...Upon arrival I immediately go to the rear of the house and look for line of sight there...If it works , that's where it goes...The tech should not do any work before the discussing with the customer how the job will go. Once that uis in hand it is time to start work...Leave the installer to his job..Your input is no longer needed.
Our job is to install the system in a quality manner, communicate with the customer if they have concerns. And perform good customer service..Our job does not include moving your dirty clothes out of the way, jerry jacking heavy furniture all over the room, lifitng 200lb tv's into fire place niches, stacking your CD's from the 300 disc tower you have along side you entertainment center or dodging you antique family heirloom hummels.
Bottom line is this. If you want good customer service, be a good customer.
It cuts both ways.

 

[dishcomm]

You know, I normally read through posts like these, chuckle a little, and move on... But like Van (I'm guessing), this one has really PISSED ME OFF! Y'all make it sound like we (installers) are nothing but a bunch of ignorant scum bag rapists and murderers who thrive on drugs and alcohol. Better hide the kiddies...no telling what we might do when the man of the house isn't around. What a bunch of crap. Hundreds of these things are installed daily all around the country (I usually do 4 or 5 a day myself with 10 years of experience) with a very large majority of everything going just fine (simple economics dictates that Dish would be out of business based on these posts if any of this was even close to the norm). Name me one industry that doesn't have a handful of untrustworthy souls...just one! Hell, even a handful of priests have their fetishes for little boys. This means stop going to church, right? Even better, don't believe in God, right? A cashier is rude to you at a restaurant. This means most of them are untrustworthy wenches, right? Watch them like a hawk (idiot) because they might over charge you and take advantage of you. One mechanic "takes you for a ride", so all of them are out to screw you over, right? Obviously, I could on and on with every industry (i.e. doctors, lawyers, bankers, stock brockers, etc...) Of course, ultimately, it all boils down to the same thing, doesn't it. Even with a good clean install, what can I get for free for my pain & suffering? Pah-lease! Maybe it's partly because people treat us like criminals who get out of bed only to screw over unsuspecting women alone in their homes with all intentions of filling some desire to do a crappy job that we sometimes "have a chip on our shoulders". The more I type, the madder I get! Why, because you folks (some of you anyway) have actually offended the hell out me with these absurd posts. I mean, damn! Watch us like hawks! Y'all have stereo-typed a bunch of hard working blue collar guys who generally WANT to do a good job (don't most people have this desire - why in the HELL wouldn't we?) into a bunch of sub-human criminal-like dirt bags bent on as much mischeif (sp?) as we can possible make. Most of us sub's carry insurance policies of a half million and more (most, like myself, carry a full million).

Try re-reading these posts...from the first to the last...and wonder, for just a moment why it would offend pretty much ALL OF US out here to be lumped into this sh!tty category based on a few bad experiences, heresay, and A LOT ignorant speculation!!! Grrr...ooo, it was so good that a MAN was around - how offensive would it be for me to lump all women as weak-minded based on such statements? Fortunately, I DON'T feel (or think) that way as I am smart enough to know that most women (at least the ones I deal with - including my wife of 15 years) are far from weak and would be ticked at just the implications of some of these posts...these stereo-types. It's a good thing your husbands have more faith in you than you do (as they were comfortable enough to go off to work & let you handle this mind-boggling situation). I'm sure I'll get some flaming posts but thats fine...as YOU pissed ME off!

It's one thing to post about a bad experience here so we can offer help & advice (many of us with that advice are the same "scum bag" installers y'all "fear") but this has gone too far on the offensive side.

Great post.. I concur....I go out and do the best job I can for these people. Then I have to read this crap.
I wonder of some of these customers posting this garbage on here have ever stopped to think that THEY are the cause of some of the bad attitudes and other stuff?
I have a solution to these people's problem.. If they are not happy or they assume we will do a poor job, they should subscribe to another service.. Quite frankly I don't want to deal with them either.