OT Dish Network

Prolly spiked the receiver. Do you have surge clamps on the system? I know it's the principle with you, but you're investing considerable negative energy in a nickel and dime problem. Is it really worth it? JR Dweller in the cellar

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I have one of the surge protection multiple outlet things that is supposed to protect electronics, cable, and phone lines from surges.

I know it's not that big of a deal but if a company wants to keep customers they should not keep charging you after you asked for them to close your account. It isn't enough $$$ to be worth going to court over but it isn't right that I asked for the service to be stopped and they don't do it and charge me for it. I'm not sure what they could do if I didn't pay, I don't have anything to prove I did call them though they probably have it on their records. What possible excuse could they have to keep charging me for service after I told them my receiver wasn't working?

During the chat the rep asked me when I would like the service stopped, I told him I wanted it stopped a month ago when I called and asked for it to be stopped.

RogerN

(...)

Choose a different vendor would be my advice. They all understand that language, eventually.

For example:

My friends at Rockauto.com forgot to cancel an order for one of two parts that I asked them to cancel. I pointed the error out to them.

They apologized immediately, refunded the money for the part and told me to keep the part when it arrived.

Clearly they want my money, unlike many of the local auto stores. They moved to the top of my list of people with which to do business. I have no business involvement with them other than that of 'Ecstatic Customer'.

--Winston

Send them a nice letter, CC'd to your state's attorney general's office (or consumer affairs div., if there is one), asking if you _really_ need to pay all this money that you never contracted for?

Here in the PDX area our local paper has a consumer affairs column that likes to tell stories about getting positive results just by asking -- they never publish the times that they piss a company off, of course.

At any rate, I'd review my paperwork from when I bought the receiver, then if it doesn't say anything about a lease I'd send them a nice friendly letter explaining how you don't owe them a plugged nickel, you're not going to pay them one thin dime, and anything that shows up on your credit report from them will be libelous. I would _seriously_ consider CC'ing it to your states AG office, if you live in a state that hasn't been bought by big business yet.

(Note that the CC to the state AG isn't so the AG will help you -- it's to put your friends at Dish Network on notice that you know that they're out of line).

I've replaced for free three Direct TV receivers - all made in China. The US made ones last and last. The tech said he only saw the Chinese made units fail. The card that is put in with the ID code that IC melts. I think it was a cooling design or power supply design that did it. The bad ones were scrapped by myself. An old version that I had in the shop went back. It could be rebuilt.

Dish was here when we bought the house, the seller thought it was about to go under. Maybe the local company - which did. I had an offer from a newspaper add and called that number - they dispatched a person from

120 miles away at the time. Now service people come 20 or so miles here. Their area is decreasing as more people switch.

Mart> When I started my Dish Network service a couple years ago, I paid the extra

I have one of the surge protection multiple outlet things that is supposed to protect electronics, cable, and phone lines from surges.

I know it's not that big of a deal but if a company wants to keep customers they should not keep charging you after you asked for them to close your account. It isn't enough $$$ to be worth going to court over but it isn't right that I asked for the service to be stopped and they don't do it and charge me for it. I'm not sure what they could do if I didn't pay, I don't have anything to prove I did call them though they probably have it on their records. What possible excuse could they have to keep charging me for service after I told them my receiver wasn't working?

During the chat the rep asked me when I would like the service stopped, I told him I wanted it stopped a month ago when I called and asked for it to be stopped.

RogerN

Just tell them you are not paying, tell the Credit Card company that you cancelled and they still kept charging you. Dish will not do anything as they would most likely be liable for damages and punitive damages if it ever went to court.

As far as I know they don't have any credit card of mine on file. Fortunately I didn't set up for them to charge it to my credit card, so when I told them to discontinue my service and my balance was $0, I discontinued my payments to them. They evidently didn't discontinue my service and I didn't know until I got a bill for 2 months service, last month and next month.

If I don't pay the balance due that I dispute, will it damage my credit rating? I willingly paid one month of no service because I didn't get around to calling them.

RogerN

I did a search on "dish network sucks" and found a lot of people that were happy with dish network until they needed customer service, that's my situation. I wasn't interested in increasing my monthly payment of changing to a different plan, I just wanted to replace my receiver for a reasonable charge. I would have liked it replaced for free with commitment but a $25 or $50 one time fee and no commitment would have been OK.

RogerN

I live in Du Quoin, IL and with a tower and good antenna I can get broadcast channels from St Louis and should be able to reach Paducah. I was just wondering with the Digital TV would it be worth putting up an antenna tower and point one antenna toward St Louis, another toward Paducah, 2 antennas I could switch between instead of a rotor. At least it would seem I could get a good selection of local channels. It's been a long time since I used TV antennas and not sure if there is much broadcasting going on or if they shut transmitters down and work through cable and satellite. For what they want for a monthly payment for TV these days it seems a new tower and antennas are a reasonable option.

3 months without TV and I'm still alive!!! The Internet seems to have all the local and worldwide news and I can access it anytime of day.

RogerN

It's probably like any other agreement - before you sign a contract, be sure that you know what the contract says!

Good Luck! Rich

I dunno - what does your contract say?

Good Luck! Rich

Over The Air TV works fine for me. I receive Boston clearly from southern NH on an old patched-up antenna from the 1980's, with a home- made UHF dipole element replacing the storm-damaged original. It's two

6" long aluminum rods stuck into the ends of a plastic tubing insulator. Most of the patching was replacing rusty rivets with stainless steel screws.

I put a USB tuner on a $100 surplus PC running Media Center to make a Digital Video Recorder.

jsw

\ \Over The Air TV works fine for me. I receive Boston clearly from \southern NH on an old patched-up antenna from the 1980's, with a home- \made UHF dipole element replacing the storm-damaged original. It's two \6" long aluminum rods stuck into the ends of a plastic tubing \insulator. Most of the patching was replacing rusty rivets with \stainless steel screws. \ \I put a USB tuner on a $100 surplus PC running Media Center to make a \Digital Video Recorder. \ \jsw

I bought one of those Hauppauge TV tuner boards for my PC and it makes a neat DVR. I don't have media center edition so most of the neat features like auto channel changing and the remote control doesn't work but it's still nice for a DVR. Also nice for taking old video tapes and making DVD's.

I'm interested in getting an economical surplus PC and dedicating it as a media center though. I think I could buy some good antennas and have good enough TV instead of the hassle with DN or DTV. I'm kind of interested in trying to set it up where I have a small tower with multiple antennas aimed at different stations and have the signals all on one cable. I'm guessing I need notch channel filters and signal combiners, but then no rotors to fiddle with to see what's on.

RogerN

Where I am the stations are in four directions and some are very sensitive to precise aim. I bought a bucket of dead 1950's rotators for $5 and fixed the most promising one by replacing the motor capacitor and generally cleaning and oiling everything.

The rotator is at the bottom end of a long mast tube that slides up or down a wooden post attached to the side of the house. When it's down I can reach the antennas from the roof, full height when up is about 50 feet, braced at the top by guy lines. I couldn't aim fixed antennas at the top unless the mast was strong enough to climb, and don't receive many of the stations when it's lowered to within reach.

The guy lines go over pulleys on a ring hanging from a foot of cord, to allow free rotation, and down the mast to rope cleats. It's nearly impossible to adjust their tension properly from the outer ends, but very easy when looking straight up the mast.

The biggest disadvantage is not being able to move the antenna automatically for timed recordings. During the NTSC/ATSC transition period I also had to manually patch the separate feeds from the UHF and VHF antennas for some weaker stations that dropped out unless connected directly to the tuner.

jsw