Bad experience with a certain *satellite* company

I've tried satellite several times in the past with pretty much the same experience, ringram.

For a real good time, get sat. tv. and sat. broadband internet, then move to a state where it storms a lot. TV and internet goes out at the same time, LOL. I'll never forget that situation... pretty much a bad idea from the start.

I've had my share of problems with cable companies as well, so I can't totally trash satellite. I've been in this town 5 years, two different places, two different cable companies ( one took over the area from the original one), and I still can't get any better than intermittent quality service.

I could construct the tech. support handbook they use from memory.

1) Unplug router and modem power for 45 seconds.

2) Plug modem back in. Tell me which lights are blinking.

3) Plug router in. Internet still not working?

4) Run internet straight to computer from modem. Restart computer. Still don't work?

5) Type CMD and choose " Run as administrator". Type in netsh space int space ip space reset. Still don't work?

6) Repeat step 1-3.

7) Tell customer that it's their router, even though their cable tv is not working either. They should get a new router. Tech support does not cover routers.

8) Promise that someone will be out to check into it tomorrow, sometime between the hours of 8 am and 7 pm anyway, cause this person just won't get off the phone.

9) Have someone call customers at 10 minutes till 7 p.m. the next day to see if their stuff is still messed up, after they've been waiting all day for someone to come out. It's still messed up? Ohh... it's too late to come out today, we'll be there tomorrow between 8 a.m and midnight. Don't send anyone out for this call either.

10) After a weeks worth of phone calls from this person just tell them ' We are aware of the problem in your area and are doing what we can to rectify the problem. Sorry for any inconvenience. "

11) A week after that, send someone to the house to let them know that it was a loose screw 3 miles from them that was causing all the problems. Yes, that's right... a loose screw stumped our entire tech support team, technician team, and pretty much our whole corporation. You believe us, right?

12) If those people call again, don't tighten that screw again. Have them go through steps 1-10 just in case. Throw in a few extra steps that won't do anything as well, just to discourage them from calling so often.

We had Dish Network for less than 4 months.

When it was installed, they said they had trouble getting a good signal and had to install it on our roof (2 story house) but we did have enough of a signal for it to work.

For three days, then we'd lose service every time a cloud got to big apparently. I logged at least one call every week for support, finally they said they'd have to send a tech out at my expense to correct the problem, which was ridiculous since the installer noted it was not ideal when they left. They also tried to blame it on weather on sunny days; they once told me to clear the snow from the dish (no snow on the dish) etc etc blah blah.

Finally I contacted the AGs office (they said they had 100s of complaints against this company) and they referred me to a form letter to send the company giving them 30 days to fix the problem at their expense, At the end of 30 days, their only solution was to have the dish relocated at my expense, so I cancelled my service with them citing the AGs opinion.

About two weeks after canceling, I went to use my check card and had it declined. I called my bank to see what was going on, should have had around $40.00 in the account, Dish Network had tried to charge a $160 "early cancellation fee" to my account, when that was declined they went back and charged $0.99 in consecutive individual transactions until they had emptied my account.

The bank took one look and immediately rescinded the transactions as fraudulent and gave me the money back. Two days later they did the same thing (I was watching my account like a hawk at that point) only this time I had a substantial amount of cash. I literally ran to the ATM a few blocks away and drew out every dime I could, but they still ended up with about $50.00, when the bank opened Monday, I canceled the card and was issued a new one and once again they refunded my money under fraud.

For two weeks after they tried to debit the canceled card, even after they were notified the account had been closed. I filed a formal complaint with the AGs office, but Dish didn't respond and that's where that ended.

Then they turned the account over to a succession of collection agencies, each time I sent them a copy of the letter from the AGs office and they'd delete it from my credit reports and Dish would just turn it over to a new one.
This continues to this day.

My wife and I are now in the process of retiring our debt thanks to the sale of the families company, unfortunately this "account" is now held by an agency that has been playing games left and right. I'll get it removed, they put it back in. They have been sent three letters now, registered mail, informing that I dispute the debt and will not pay it. They persist in calling me even though such calls are in violation of the consumer credit act, and refuse to sue me (apparently they think I'll cave), we got a statement placed in our files regarding the account being fraudulent and it hasn't affected our credit rating, it's just a constant annoyance.

I even have a set script for when they call; basically it involves a constant string of profanity adjusted for the gender of the caller. Once they even told me that they were going to file charges against me for harassment (they're calling me) at which point I invented some new words for them and laughed.

If my wife answers, she's too nice to swear at them, her favorite tactic is to ask them to hold while she brings our attorney in for a conference call (they once told her that would be illegal).

We figure we'll let it slide for awhile, let them rack up a few more violations and then we're going to file suit, Dish obviously thinks we won't.

Their mistake.

Good grief glass-gardens, that's quite a story. Sounds like they try to use their trickery more often than not. I'm looking into deals with cable or the other satellite company in town (Directv). We didn't cancel Dish yet, as my wife called them after my episode last night and got it working, as I was too mad to even talk. If I talk to them again, it's over. We're out of contract anyway (it was only 1 yr, we've had for ~2), so the early cancellation fees won't apply. If they try anything funny, we know quite a few lawyer friends and I have a family member who's an ex-Congressman and lawyer by trade. I hope it doesn't even get to that though.
AlGee - the reason we went with Dish was the free 4-room installation and the DVR upgrade for $5/mo. We initially paid $19.99 for 12 months (+$5 for extra reciever + $5 for DVR + taxes and stuff). Even still, it's cheaper than the cable around here and cheaper than Directv from what I've seen. Comcast cable (at least in my town) seems to be about $15-20 more per month for equivalent services (DVR, 2nd reciever, 60+ channels). We'll see. I'm looking around now.
I sure liked the old days when satellite was a new product. My parents had their gargantuan dish in the backyard that we had to manually rotate (took two people). If we saw something on a channel that we didn't get (movie, sporting event, etc), we could just call them up and exchange that channel for one of the ones we have. They allowed several switches per month I believe. There was no such thing as all these packages you have to buy with 80+ channels you don't watch to get 10-15 channels you do watch. lol