3 Important Things To Know About Dish Network Before Signing Up (That they might not tell you up front)
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After a few months of our internet working great, things started getting back to normal at our house (and if you recall, normal ain’t so good).
Anyway, our first step in getting rid of Cox was to switch to satellite TV and then we’d get DSL and be done with our “friend in the digital age” for good. After shopping around and getting some advice from friends, we decided to try Dish Network.
We discovered that there are three things you need to know if you’re considering Dish Network that we didn’t find out about until after we were signed up, installed and ready to go.
1. If you want a true HD DVR, you must demand model #622
When I called and asked for an HD DVR in the main room and a regular receiver for the bedroom, the woman happily set up my account and even repeated my order back to me. However, when the guy showed up to install our system, he had no HD DVR with him. Instead, he had an HD receiver and a non-HD DVR that he was going to put next to our TV (that’s TWO boxes) and when I asked him if I’d be able to record in HD, he said, “No, but you don’t want to do that anyway because HD takes up too much hard drive space.” Wrong answer, dude. If I’m gonna live with two boxes instead of one, I’d better be able to do MORE than I was with Cox, not LESS. So I called customer service and they said I’d have to pay a $199 non-refundable fee for model #622 if I wanted a true HD DVR. I argued for a while and got the fee credited to my account and scheduled a new installation date a few days later.
So far, so good okay.
2. Although Dish Network does provide your local channels for $5/month, they do not provide them in HD in all cities
I found this out the hard way after the guy left and nothing on ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX was in HD. This isn’t a terrible thing since not everything that comes on those channels is broadcasted in HD but there are a few things that are such as Lost and NFL Football. For us, those are pretty important pieces of programming that Cox already provides in HD so we weren’t willing to downgrade those channels.
At this point, we started to regret signing up.
3. You must have an active (land) phone line or you will be charged an extra $4.99/month
We woke up the morning after our install only to discover an error message stating that we needed to connect an active phone line to our satellite box in order to continue watching television. Well, that wouldn’t necessarily be such a problem if we had an active phone line but since we don’t, I figured I’d better call customer service again. Wanna guess what they told me? Sure enough, you must have a phone line connected to the boxes at all times or else you will be charged an extra $4.99/month and you won’t be able to order any of the tons upon tons of Pay-Per-View programs that Dish Network offers. Somehow, I had talked to 3 customer service representatives and two different installation technicians without any of them saying anything at all about a phone line. I even told the woman that I placed the order with that I only had a cell phone after she asked for my home phone number. That would’ve been the perfect time to tell me that I’d be facing extra charges, now wouldn’t it?
By now, we’d had enough so we cancelled our service completely…but not without Dish Network keeping our $199 non-refundable HD-DVR fee that they were going to credit to my account if we had stayed with them.
The moral of the story is this: Dish Network might not be right for you so you’d better make sure it is before you sign up for an 18-month contract. If recording shows in HD is important to you, it’s gonna cost you $199. If having ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX in HD is important to you, then you better make sure you ask if those channels are provided in HD in your city. And finally, if you don’t have a phone line, they’re gonna charge you a fee and you won’t be ordering any Pay-Per-View shows.
If none of those things are a problem for you, then go for it. They’ve got a ton of standard definition channels, a ton of HD channels (some really cool ones, too) and it’s way cheaper than Cox.
I’m sorry for such a long post but I feel like I owe it to everyone who I told Dish Network about. I know some of you were actually considering switching after I talked to you about our new setup. Choose wisely, ya’ll. Consider us your guinnea pigs.
UPDATE: A few weeks after posting this, I noticed a $199 refund credit to my bank account from Dish Network. Read more about it here.
January 11th, 2007 at 11:22 am
Sorry to hear about your satellite problems, and thank you for warning the rest of us.
Whenever those sales guys come around I’m very tempted to dump Cox’s ass but something in the back of my head is always telling me that I’d probably regret satellite service.
HD doesn’t mean jack to me, but I, too, don’t have a land-line phone service.
February 6th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
[...] A few weeks ago, I wrote about our 2-day affair with Dish Network and how it left us a) a lot more educated about Dish Network and b) $199 poorer. [...]
March 15th, 2007 at 4:14 pm
DISH Network is the worst, hands down, when it comes to automated phone service. I’ve gone through the phone system instruction seven times in an attempt to resolve my technical problem. This annoying automated male voice asks me, after pressing the correct number for technical support, to “check the batteries on your remote.” I do so, because I don’t want to appear scatterbrained in the opinion of the automated voice. God forbid. Batteries good.
The voice begins each sentence or question with ‘Okay…’ or “Let’s see…” in an apparent attempt to ingratiate me. I did a reboot. I reset the remote. I went through this each of the seven times I’ve called. I even had a new receiver sent to replace what I assumed was a broken receiver. Not the problem.
For my last foray into the beloved world of customer service, the human person (for whom I waited an astounding 46 minutes) told me I must go through the steps by phone before a technician is sent, or pay the price out-of-pocket for the call, which is $29.95 per hour, including drive time. I refused to go through the steps yet again. I asked to have a technician sent and reminded them of my warranty. I overheard this actual human person, Tiffany, speaking to another actual human person about how she finally “did” her brother’s friend, and hopes no one finds out. I was almost so bored with the aforementioned 46 minutes of mind-numbing phone hell to actually care about her sex life. Really. She returns to the line to tell me that I will have to speak to a supervisor. This sounds like a fabulous idea to me. Then, dead line. Ooops, we were cut off. Damn, I won’t find out who was on top and if they cuddled afterwards. I call back. This time, after chatting with automated Dish Man, a conversation sprinkled with my, “Sure thing, co*ksu*ker!” to his cheerful requests, I get a human in 22 minutes. I note that this is less than half of my original wait. I count my blessings. I tell this new human, who has just completed a weeklong community course in English as a Second Language, that for two months I’ve been experiencing the same problem, and I need help. I want a human to come to my home. I remind her that I’m still under warranty and throw in that DishMan has called me a valued customer at least twenty times. She is unimpressed, but schedules the human technician after two jaunts of “Um, hold on a minute…I need to,… um,…just hold on, okay?” She schedules the service call. I rejoice in that fact that although I’ve used foul language with automated DishMan, I’ve kept my actual conversations with the humans quite professional; cordial even. “Thanks for your help, honey-dumplin, I’ll be home on Thursday awaiting my technician!†(No, I didn’t SAY ‘honey-dumplin,’ I only thought it.)
I’m supposed to have a technician here between 8 am and noon today. I mean “was supposed to have…” I called in at 12:30pm to the automated system only to be told by DishMan, “Okay, I see that you have a service call scheduled for (second automated voice; this time female) Thursday, March 15th, 8 am to 12 pm. (now back to male voice) Please continue to wait for the allotted time.” Then I’m rerouted to the main menu. Okay, I think, perhaps they meant Eastern time. Cool. I think I’m being quite reasonable, considering that I’m a bit limited to television programming because I live in a remotely rural area. I am also not afforded the luxury of finding and killing DishMan with my bare hands, but I digress. Now, it’s 2:40. I’ve called back, spoken to a human (31 minutes this time) and, while I didn’t use an epithet, I did become belligerent. They tell me the technician is “en route.†He must be flying right behind the monkeys that are exiting my a$$.
March 15th, 2007 at 4:27 pm
Wow. That is terrible. My experience wasn’t nearly as bad, however, I am so glad we cancelled when we did. Just the other day, a guy stopped by the house to try and get us to switch to Dish Network (obviously with no idea that we’d just cancelled) and he tried to tell us that we COULD get our local channels in HD. He even provided a brochure to prove it, but I checked and we definitely do not get our local channels in HD here in Fayetteville. So sketchy…
December 27th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
[...] switching to Dish Network which has over 70 HD channels (rule!). However, some folks have had some bad experiences in making the switch to Dish Network and that’s seriously made us question that [...]