Voom lies to their customers...I'm done

[Eric_C]

Voom lies to their customers...I might be done

As you all know my problems with Voom, today was the end.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=24077
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=24076
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=21417
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=28538
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=20858
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=14518
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=14042

Just some of my posts, sorry if they are not in chronological order.

Basically at the entire end of the saga I was told I would get a credit for rain fade when the new dish was put up.

The new dish was up, I get a bill for the full amount. I did get 2 phone calls, no call back number.

Today they turned it off, I could honestly care less but I call them to get it straightened out.

The guy, Paul, who originally worked all this out with me is mysteriously no where to be found. Voom says they do not have credits for Rain Fade, Lie #1, they never authorized a bigger dish for anyone prior to August 27th, Lie #2, and they do not keep track of who talks to customers, lie #3.

They say there are only notes for my calls, but no record of who actually I spoke with, which is total Bullsh!t, they track everything. Hell someone scheduled an appointment with me but they don't know who it is!

They sent me a bill for $467.87, which includes sales tax they are not supposed to charge anyways.

I think I'll pay it and immediatly dispute the charges with my CC. I've printed out all of my posts and will send them along to the CC company, they won't see a dime of my money at all now.

On top of that they want me to sign off on the box and be home when they come to take it away. I will make zero time for them and I want my roof fixed when they remove the dish.

The manager was a parrot, just repeated the company line over and over, the CSR was worse, everytime I said something she had to put me on hold.

I'll file with the FCC and the FTC too and some notes to some of the mags that recently reviewed Voom.

I cannot believe the string of lies that were put together. Especially the one about not issuing credits for Rain Fade, now that I remember they offered me one in May, time to call back...

I'm on the phone now...at least this CSR says they do allow credits for Rain Fade.

 

[Eric_C]

Spoke with a different manager...offered me a 2 month credit toward my balance...I want 3, I'll pay for the previous month since the service worked fine.

I told him I'd call him back...

 

[branchbouncer]

Like you said take the three months credit,make a payment for 1 month,when it posts at the CC site call the CC company tell them to suspend all new charges for a week.Call VOOM-cancel- and feel your blood pressure start to return to normal and happy feelings return

 

[Eric_C]

I just talked to Phillip, he said he can only authorize 2 months but will check into 3.

I figuire by the time I pay the current month, plus get credit for all of the sales tax they charged me I should owe them around 80 dollars this week, and then another 90 next week.

We shall see...the only thing I forgot to mention was the DTV triple dish is still on the roof and connected. Just a quick trip to Circuit City and I'll be done.

 

[branchbouncer]

If you are not currently running D*,when you sign up make sure that you ask for the 6 months free HD programming pak it will save you about 66 dollars the first year,I have had D* for 8-9 years and you can also get the free 6 months but you have to twist the screws to get,they say it is for new customers

 

[andrzej]

...
I'll file with the FCC and the FTC too and some notes to some of the mags that recently reviewed Voom.
...

I doubt that this course of action will help you or us or will speedup HD implementation generally. Although I agree that their billing system is horrendous and their customer service is lacking I wouldn't do it. Maybe it's just me.

 

[Eric_C]

Filing with the FTC and FCC does have an effect. The middle management you talk to could care less, but upper management things like that do have meaning.

I had problems with Nextel before, who hasn't right, and nothing got done until I emailed the manager a copy of a FTC complaint against Nextel, all it took was me hitting Submit...magically all the issues went away.

My favorite little story is...have you ever been in a meeting where someone is getting yelled at, or a huge problem has come up, one that could have been avoided if someone had done the right thing beforehand. Where a situation has blown out of porportion several times because someone didn't make a smart decision. This is one of those situations.

$94 in credits, or a whole world of problems. I will not stop at this manager, they can either solve this now or I will go right to the top. Forget the service, forget the lost time and all of that. What matters is them lying to me, every step of the way, bold faced lies in a world where it takes no time to verify what someone is saying.

I wish the market was open today, I'd pick up some Voom stock. That would give me another avenue at which to contact someone Voom via the IR firm they have.

We'll see what they do...at least I still have OTA.

 

[Neutron]

I had Voom while we had Directv. Voom stinks in my opinion. Their box was a piece of junk, even the slightest bit of rain would kill the signal. Billing was horrible. Fortunately after I cancelled in July I didn't have any of the horrible after cancellation billing that people here normally talk about.

I have HD with D* now and I couldn't be happier. The box actually works, service is nice, no billing nightmares.

Good luck!

 

[Eric_C]

If things don't work out I'll be at CC getting a SD DTV box then call DTV and get the 99 dollar upgrade offer to their HD box.

 

[zubinh]

If things don't work out I'll be at CC getting a SD DTV box then call DTV and get the 99 dollar upgrade offer to their HD box.

Eric:

Can you tell me where I can find more info about this upgrade offer? I have an SD Tivo I want to upgrade to a HD box.

 

[Ilya]

Eric_C,

What are your typical satellite quality readings?

 

[branchbouncer]

I don't think that he needs to worry about the VOOM readings,he just wants them gone

 

[Ilya]

I don't think that he needs to worry about the VOOM readings,he just wants them gone

That's fine. But for those of us who don't want them gone, it would still be interesting to know what kind of signal quality was associated with his constant rain-fade problems.

 

[Eric_C]

Ilya,

With the old dish I was at about 90 clear day, 65 on rainy days.

With the new dish I'm near 97 and on rainy days not much below that. The larger dish without question fixed the problem completely.

It was the ordeal we went through to get there.

I'm going to RS today, someone on the HT forum mentioned something about Dish at RS having a HD PVR for $5 extra per month lease fee. Find it a little hard to believe but you never know, most cable companies charge a very small fee for their HD DVR's.

 

[Eric_C]

Zhubinh,

On the HD upgrade, over at AVS in the DTV forum there is a post about it. You can call DTV customer retention and upgrade to a HD unit, non DVR, for 99 dollars and get the 6 months of programming for free.

 

[Ilya]

With the old dish I was at about 90 clear day...

That's what I thought! I guess it was not properly peaked. You should've been getting above 95 in Michigan with the 18" dish.

Sorry to hear about all your problems. I guess, you should've accepted your initial installer's offer to put the 30" dish... thinks would've been different then. Oh well...

 

[Eric_C]

Ilya,

It would have been different if the first time I called they had just said OK, we'll install that larger dish...

Dish network offered a killer deal for me, pretty much free everything and $61 a month for basic, HD package, Showtime, HD reciever, and a SD DVR, 51 for the first 6 months, then upto 61 after that.

They did re-peak the dish in the middle of all of this, same resuts.

 

[Ilya]

Good luck with E*!

 

[Neutron]

The grass isn't always greener on the other side. E* has been known to have equipment problems as much as Voom has.

 

[Eric_C]

Neutron,

I know...and I think D* is probably the safer bet as far as the future of HD unless E* does pick up Voom. In fact I would say E* has more equipment problems than V*, I never really had any problems at all with the box itself.

However I'll try E* for the same reason I went with Voom, free install, no money down, no commitement. D*'s offer really wasn't that bad because they offered me a free DVR, not a lease, but were going to give me one outright. The problem with that is, I need to buy their current HD box and what happens if and when they go MPEG4, gotta buy another box? In those cases I prefer to lease.

The biggest downfall for Voom, regardless of all that has happened is the lack of support for a second TV without an insanely outrageous charge for the box. I can put a DVR in the bedroom now at least.

I cannot see Voom going on like this from a financial standpoint, sooner or later the backer is going get fed up.

Plus this is all up in the air until V* calls me back and lets me know whats up. Forgetting the money the way they treated the customer was uncalled for, instead of trying to retain the customer they took me for granted. The worst thing is, the supervisor never even apologized for me being lied to.

I plan on picking up some stock on Monday, then deppending on how they handle this I'll get ahold of someone through the Investors Relations firm, its a good easy way to get your voice heard and I will get some resolution out of this one way or another.