If you can at all avoid it, don’t get DISH Network. I don’t know, maybe it’s just an indication of what happens when a company gets too big. They assume all their customers are morons and can’t add two and two together. Let me explain…
On April 1, DISH began a “promotion” to upgrade their current customers to the newest DISH Network HDTV receiver. I have a DISH model 942 already (the last model) and was thinking about upgrading my equipment anyway. So, I accepted the deal.
I was told that they would ship me out an empty box and a receiver, and I was to return the old receiver after I got the new one. Then I was asked when I would like to schedule my appointment. “Appointment? For what?” They wanted to send a technician to install this box. Stupid. They’ve already dumbed it down so much with everything color coded and everything. Blue goes to blue… green goes to green… yellow goes to yellow. Duh.
So, anyway, they want to send a tech out to work for five minutes and go home. Whatever. I told them I was more than comfortable with plugging the blue cable into the blue hole… no big deal. But the CSR insists on sending someone out. I should have just been adamant, but I acquiesced.
I was assured the receiver would arrive within five days, so my appointment was scheduled for April 10. Fine. April 10 came, no receiver had arrived. What a shocker. So the installer calls and I inform him of the situation. No receiver. He said that he had one on the truck and would see if he could just use it. That was the last I heard from him.
So today, the 11th, the receiver arrives. Not knowing if or when the installer was going to arrive, I decide to hook it up. Five excruciatingly-easy minutes later, I was on the phone with DISH, as I received a message that my receiver “has not yet been authorized.” This does not surprise me. In fact, I expected such a message. So, call DISH.
The DISH CSR asks me for R# and S# as expected, which I give her.
“Is this the receiver the installer is supposed to install on the 24th?”
“24th?”
“Yes, you have an appointment for the 24th.”
“I had an appointment for yesterday. But I had no receiver yesterday. The installer told me he would be over after 5:00pm, but I figured he got busy. I never heard more from him, and besides, this was so easy to do, I don’t need him here.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t activate this receiver until the installer installs it. It’s an open work order.”
How FREAKING stupid. I just hung up on her. Morons. Absolute morons.
So now I’m stuck with a receiver I can’t use until the 24th, or whenever the installer decides to show up. Last I heard he had a three-room install to do. Must be gonna take him three weeks. He never called to tell me otherwise. I guess I’ll be hooking up my old receiver while the new one gathers dust. The good news is: I’m getting so good at this that soon I will be a DISH Network qualified installer.
STAY AWAY FROM DISH NETWORK. Oh, how I long for the days of Time Warner Cable. If they were here, I’d jump in a heartbeat. I’d even pay the frickin’ fee for cancelling my DISH early just to get away from these morons.
Have a nice day.
–Jason
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