I had a response to my posting about my dealings with Dish Network, and I replied with the following letter. I decided to post it here in case there was anybody else going crazy dealing with Dish Network/India.
Jessica,
Thanks for your comment. Sorry it took so long to get back to you.
I’ve had a few more dealings with Dish Network since my posting.
I called them to reactivate the receiver for the summer (the bill listed it in “pause” mode). I also changed the programming to Bronze 100 with locals.
I was lucky enough to reach someone in Texas, thank god. I told her that I would be using it at the weekend home, and didn’t have it hooked up yet. She told me that it was reactivated and the programming changed, and I would have everything going when I hooked it up and turned it on.
I went to the weekend home for a long memorial day weekend. I hooked up the receiver and turned it on, and nothing. All I got was a message saying that the smart cart was not authorized to receive any programming. I tried all Thursday night to get it going, but nothing worked. I did bring a bunch of DVD’s, so we started watching them.
The next day I drove 75 miles home and called Dish Network. I reached someone in India, and knew I was sunk. She told me that I would have to have the TV in front of me to read the error message to her. I told her that I was 75 miles away from it, and couldn’t see it; I did tell her what the error codes were, but she insisted that I had to have the TV in front of me, and wanted me to read off the error codes that were being displayed. I told her repeatedly that I was 75 miles away from the TV. but she couldn’t seem to understand me. I finally gave up, hung up, and drove back to the weekend home.
After the long weekend, I brought the receiver home, hooked it up to the old dish (we switched to ATT broadband for the house) and a TV, and called again. This time I was connected to a guy in Texas! I told him what was wrong, and he had me up and running in 5 minutes.
I talked to him a while, and he told me that when he runs into similar situations, he hangs up and keeps calling back until he reaches someone in the US. ( Nudge nudge wink wink).
I asked him about the bill, being charged for service that I didn’t get, and he said that he would take care of it and then some to make up for the hassle. THAT made my day! A little sunshine on an otherwise gloomy day.
Hope the info helps.
Kev
10/16/09
I got a note from a blogger stating that he wanted me to put a link in my post to his site. I checked out his site, and he is an independent dealer for Dish Network.
I don’t understand why he would want to link up, considering how critical I was about Dish Network, but I told him I would, so here is his link.
Hope you have better luck with Dish Network than I had.
10/24/09
It turns out that this guy was having me make all kinds of changes in links, but I wasn’t getting anything in return. I think he was just looking for free advertising. And by the way he used language in his e-mails to me, I don’t think he was from around these parts. I think that maybe he was from somewhere in the middle east.
Tags: Dish, Dish Network, India, television, television programming, Texas, TV
