Actually for some folks its triple dipping, because Dish charged them a fee of $99, $199 or in some cases $299 to lease a HD DVR. That money was not a deposit on the hardward. WHAT WAS THAT MONEY USED FOR AND WHERE DID IT GO TO?
The same for people who purchased their receivers. They paid for them, so why are they now paying more for hardware that they already OWN.
In those cases I feel Dish is triple dipping.
That's something that I forgot in my comments, and you are 100% correct. The fact that Dish and Directv charge a initial lease fee for their top-of-line receivers. To charge a fee for a receiver one owns, that's something else that, it's my belief, could be further discussed with Dish, but one would need to read the contract that s/he signed originally at the time of the purchase. Either case, it appears to me, it's the price some people are willing to pay to have the latest/greatest technology, similar to those that paid over 100k for Plasma Tvs something like 10 year back or so - I still recall a Pioneer Plasma TV being offered at J&R for like 120K or so....
Then again, it's a free country, so you made a decision of putting up the monies to lease the receiver from Dish. You could easily have stayed with cable instead. Or, if it's available to you, you could have subscribed to the teleco tv. You just thought that the, say, 299 lease fee was worth it.
fyi>> In my case, I got one 722k and one 211k without having to pay an initial lease fee. Then I paid the 39.95 to add a HD to the 211k and have my 211k behave as a single HD DVR. Again, advantage Dish when I compare to my other available option, Comcrap. I used to have 2 HD duo DVRs with Comcrap, now I have a single one and a duo one and i'm still saving, even considering new fees, +- 20 dollars, maybe 19.
Now one thing that I am not understanding on various comments here: Is Dish increasing their contract breakup fee for their
existing customers? It's one thing to start charging, whatever, 1000, for their future customers, but increase that fee for
existing ones, that's something that, it's my belief, can be easily legally challenged(although it's probably one of those that would have to be dealt on a state-by-state basis).