My horrible Dish Network experience

[fredinva]

MG,
I'm not Hostile, I'm just a p/t Installer. And I do a damn good job at it.
And I can work the Retail side as good as my friend the owner.
I don't even need to do it at all, I'm retired. I play golf four days a week. I just need to get outta dis here house cuz my wife does
D A Y C A R E here. (can you hear ten or eleven screaming/crying rugrats???)

Good luck with your Direct System, and enjoy MLB EI if you're incllined to subscribe.

fred

[patmurphey]

"the SD channels look 10 times better than Dish's" BS - ModemGhost, enjoy your flaming and move on, but cut out the BS exaggeration. D* and E* use similar technology and compression - there will never be a significant difference in PQ between them.

Pat

[ModemGhost]

Originally Posted by patmurphey

"the SD channels look 10 times better than Dish's" BS - ModemGhost, enjoy your flaming and move on, but cut out the BS exaggeration. D* and E* use similar technology and compression - there will never be a significant difference in PQ between them.

Honestly, why would I lie about this? What could I possibly have to gain by making up a bunch of BS? If you read this board and the DirecTV board, you will see a lot of people who have had similar experiences in both directions. Some people have great pictures on Dish, but not DTV, and vice-versa. I agree that it makes no sense, and I understand that both companies use similar technologies. But it's still true. The fact is, in my experience, the picture quality I've gotten with DTV is better than that I got with Dish. You can get as angry as you want about it, but it's just what happened with me.

I'm not flaming anyone. In fact, I've repeatedly said that I think people should go with whatever company gives them the best experience. I'm just relating my own experience. And I'm doing so 100% BS free.

[daleb]

Originally Posted by ModemGhost

You can get as angry as you want about it, but it's just what happened with me.

I would only get angry if I had the same experience as you! Hope things work out well for you! YMMV has never been more true.

[ModemGhost]

Final update: I love DirecTV. Everything has gone perfectly, from start to finish.

-Customer service was wonderful. I talked to a couple different people at DirecTV, and they were all very polite and helpful. I did, at one point, get a rep who was obviously clueless about the technical side of the service, but she immediately transferred me to someone who could answer my questions.

-Installation went flawlessly. The installer removed the old dish, set up all the equipment, showed me how everything worked, and cleaned up his mess. The Dish installer was a lying cheat (read my earlier posts), plus he left cable bits and other trash lying in my yard. According to the DirecTV installer, Dish didn't run a ground line, either. DirecTV also gave me the option of any cable I wanted to hook up the receiver (HDMI, component, or composite) despite some people here saying that, "no one does that."

-Picture quality is amazing. The HD channels are stunning, and the SD channels, while not quite as good as cable, are far better than Dish, despite some people telling me that that's impossible. Honestly, I don't know if the PQ difference is because of some sort of equipment incompatibility, some error during installation, or just sheer bad luck. But it's true.

-Also, I've found that DirecTV shows my local programming in the guide even though I'm using an OTA antenna. Dish either didn't do that, or I never had time to figure out how to do it myself.

-The only complaint I've had so far about DirecTV is that my phone number somehow got onto their cold-calling list. So, for several days, I got a couple calls a day asking if I was interested in signing up for DirecTV. I finally had some very strong words with them, and haven't gotten any of those calls since.

I'm interested in any questions or comments. Thanks for listening.

[edcokpareke]

Why are you guys attacking ModemGhost? He had a bad experience with Dish Network, and he came to a "Dish Network Forum" to discuss his experience...and all of a sudden, everyone wants to crucify him? What the hell?

I too had a horrible customer service experience when I first got Dish. I called them and set up an appointment for 2pm - 5pm on a saturday. Come installation day, I'm sitting on my couch twiddling my thumbs and waiting for the tech. 4pm.....5pm.....6pm.....no tech. I called their 800 number and (after being transferred between 3 departments, and after having my call disconencted twice) was told that "someone" cancelled my order.

Needless to say, I was FURIOUS!!! because I had cancelled all activities for that day so I could wait for the stupid tech, and noone showed up. I called again and again, but no one seemed to wanna help me. My anger grew with every word uttered by the (supposedly indian) customer service rep. I subsequently called an independent installer, and he was nice enough to show up that evening. We set everything up, but he did the same thing that ModemGhost spoke about.

He plugged in the ViP 211 via composite cables, switched on ESPNHD (while they were showing an SD show with the ESPNlogo bars on the side) and proudly proclaimed...."LOOK!!! CRYSTAL CLEAR HD PICTURE". I smiled and paid him his $50 so he could get the hell out. I subsequently switched to an HDMI cable and changed the resolution from 480i to 1080i. Stupid installer!!

I was pretty disappointed with Dish's HD picture quality. At the time, I still had my Cable box from Knology, so I could do an apple to apple comparison on ESPNHD and DISCHD. Cable beat dish in PQ...both with HD and SD...not by much...but it was pretty obvious. And don't get me started on how bad the SD looks. It looks like video streamed on the internet...heavily compressed and smudgy.

Am I "high maintenance" because I expect Dish network to keep to an installation schedule? Am I "high maintenance" because I expect a tech to know what IS and what ISNT HD? Am I "high maintenance" because I expected good quality when Dish Net championed their HD quality as being "superior" while it's quite obviously not as good as what I'd seen on Comcast, Cox, AND Knology cable?

Now with Dish, it's not been all bad. They do have a lot of HD channels and I'm cool with that. While customer service was terrible initially, believe it or not, it was waaaaaaaay worse when I was with KNology Cable, and its been better since. Also, I'm paying about $30 less a month compared to cable...and I'm getting a lot more channels.

Anyways, please take what I and the OP have said. Honest opinions from reasonable people, thats all.

[Mrkazador]

My installation story:

04-01-07
Mexican and his son(13-5yrs??). Is this even allowed, to bring his son to the work site? He was yelling at his son to hurry and do this and that. Real sad.
He couldnt speak english all that well but I know some spanish. Sat box didnt come with component or hdmi cables and was telling me:
"you want best picture, you need hda1"
-I show him I have component cables I could use.
"No, those are *makes farting noise*, no good"
"you need usba1 for the BEST picture"
We get into a smal argument about component and hdmi. I tried telling him it will give you an HighDef picture just as good. Didnt care, kept insisting component is crap. Also, he said:
"I have HDTV too". *raises arms and smiles like he's the king*
-.......ok
"you have dsl"
-.....Huh? ( I dont know where that comes in but he just asked if I had dsl)
Maybe he was trying to impress me that he had dsl, I dont know.
He then proceeds to grab the box and shows me where the hdmi output is.
*points to usb input*
"Hd1 for the best picture"
HIS SON corrects him and points to the hdmi output.....lol
He then says to forget it and tells his son to let me and install it with my component cables.
He goes outside and starts smoking, the whole house smells like cigars. He walks in and out with mud on his feet. He didnt even try stomping outside or anything like that.
-----30 mins pass-----
Everything is working EXCEPT for the sat box that I hooked up with component cables. You cant change the channel, its stuck on 101. He starts going insane, calls someone and everything is working as it should.
He looks at me and says something like:
"you screwing"
-No *smirk on my face*
You can hear some music in the background and asks me:
"Tv a radio too"
-*lol*. No
He then stands up and grabs my center speaker:
"whats this"
Here I couldnt control my self and laugh again lol. For some reason he thinks I sabotaged his installation.

He forgets it and is about to leave without fixing it. He then tells me:
"if you have any problems to call this number."
By this time I dont even care, just get out.
I unplug the sat box to put in its proper place and what do you know. It works lol. Seems like it just needed to be unplugged and plugged back in.

Trash all over my yard, boxes, foam, wires.....everything.
Then today I noticed the dish is not grounded....OMFG!!!!!!!!
Where he installed the dish, where the roof and the outside wall meet. He cracked the wood in half.
True story......

[patmurphey]

We are not dissing ModemGhost because of his complaints about his installation with Dish experience but because of his gross exaggerations about picture quality coming from similar sources. If anything Dish is slightly better than Direct on use of compression and the use of MPEG4. The raving about Direct's "superb" quality in his most recent post makes me suspect that he is a troll.

Pat

[ModemGhost]

Originally Posted by patmurphey

We are not dissing ModemGhost because of his complaints about his installation with Dish experience but because of his gross exaggerations about picture quality coming from similar sources. If anything Dish is slightly better than Direct on use of compression and the use of MPEG4. The raving about Direct's "superb" quality in his most recent post makes me suspect that he is a troll.

Pat

I'm not a troll. I'm just explaining my experience. You, on the other hand, are a jerk who has made up his mind, and nothing will change it. Period. You're right, and I'm wrong, and that's just the way it is, eh? Well, despite the fact that you have arbitrarily decided that my description is a "gross exaggeration", it's the truth. I got better PQ from DTV than I did from Dish. Like I said, I agree that it shouldn't be that way, but it is. And, like I said before, I'm fully willing to accept that it was probably nothing to do with the signal quality, and was more likely a screwup of the installation, a hardware incompatibility issue, or something else I have no idea about. But, despite your amazing ability to fully judge a person and situation without having any possible basis, it's the truth.

And, just for argument's sake, let's take the picture quality issue completely out of this discussion. Let's pretend that the whole experience went down exactly as I described it, but the picture looked fine. It was still a pretty shitty experience. I would've been sorely tempted to drop Dish just because of the customer service and installation fiasco.

Listen, you naysayers can believe me or not, I really couldn't care less either way. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. But please don't call me a liar.

[patmurphey]

Jerk or not - my point is that if you have a story to tell, you don't have to exaggerate. You used the word liar, not me.

[wal-dog]

Originally Posted by ModemGhost

Of course, like any other company, I'm sure there are lots of people out there who had a great experience with Dish. Personally, my experience was terrible. I thought I'd share, to get opinions, and to give my two cents to anyone else who is thinking about getting Dish. My post is rather long, but I think it's worth hearing someone's full experience for people who are considering signing up.


Part One: The Signup

I originally decided to go with Dish over DirecTV because of Dish's larger HD lineup. I purchased a nice Samsung LN-S4095D 1080p LCD about a month ago, and was eager to see as much HD on it as possible. I was a little put off by Dish's higher price, but decided it was worth it.

So when I signed up, I tried to negotiate with them just a little bit. I was putting a pretty big investment in, and all I wanted was for them to waive the $50 activation fee without forcing me to sign a contract. The person on the phone was a real jerk about it. (I mean, if you don't want to negotiate, that's fine. But don't be a dick!) So I told him I would weigh my options, and get back to them. At this point, I was less than impressed, and had decided I was more likely to go with DirecTV. My parents have had DirecTV for about 15 years, and have never had a single problem.

Well, about 20 minutes after I got off the phone with the jerk from Dish, my phone rang. It was a "supervisor" from Dish's sign-up department. He said he saw that I started to go through the sign-up process, then changed my mind. He wanted to know if there was anything he could do to get me to sign up. So I explained the situation. He actually was a bigger jerk about it than the first guy! He explained in a very snotty voice about how they need to make money, and blah blah blah. So I told him that I was going to call DirecTV, and to have a nice night. At that point, he finally agreed to waive the sign-up fee. So I figured I didn't have much to lose with no sign-up fee and no commitment, so I signed up. America's top 250 package with HD, and a ViP 211 receiver.


Part Two: The Install

The day before they were coming to install the equipment, I realized that I didn't know whether they provided an HDMI cable or not. So I called Dish again, and asked them. The person I talked to said that they provdied a component cable, but not an HDMI. I decided that was acceptable, even though I would eventually buy an HDMI cable myself.

They installed my equipment on Thursday. The installer seemed like a nice enough guy, and did a good job with the dish and cabling. But when he hooked up the receiver, he did it with crappy RCA cables. I told him that I was told I would get component cables. He said that they never give anything but RCA cables. So someone in this situation was lying. But he told me it was ok, because the RCA cables would give me an HD signal anyway. ( ) I basically told him he was wrong, but he did the whole, "Whatever, I'm a tech guy and you're just a stupid customer," thing. So I just decided it wasn't worth the argument, and that I would go buy an HDMI cable after he left. The point is that I never got a chance to see a good quality signal before he left.

Part Three: Picture Quality

So I got my HDMI cable, and spent a few days watching TV. The HD channels look great. Not as good as OTA channels, of course, but pretty nice. However, the SD channels look like total garbage! The colors are washed out, the picture is all blotchy, and there is more motion blur than anyone could possibly stand. Now, I know SD signals don't always look great on a HD set, but I previously had SD cable, and it looked amazing. So this was obviously a problem with the Dish hardware.

I did some research, and from what I've read, it sounds like some of the Dish receivers do a god-awful job of upscaling SD signals. Previously, my cable was in SD, and my TV was doing the upscaling. Since I have a pretty nice TV, the SD looked nice. So don't try to tell me that the problem is with my TV, because I've seen SD signals look stunning on this very screen.

I called Dish to see if they had any suggestions for me. They completely blew off all of my questions, and said they would just send a tech to take a look. I figured if they wanted to put in that expense, it was fine with me.

Part Four: The Tech Guy

Tonight, out of the blue, I got a call from the tech who was supposed to come tomorrow. It happened to be the same guy who had done my installation. He called me on my cell phone at 9pm while I was at a restaurant. He wanted to discuss my problem, to see if he really needed to come to my house. I asked if he could just call me back tomorrow morning, as I was at dinner at the moment. He said he was really busy in the morning (like I'm not busy now?) and that ...sigh... he would just come to my house, and that ...sigh... if it turned out to be nothing, it wasn't ...sigh... that big of a deal. I said, fine, let's talk, but make it quick. I stepped out of the room so I could talk to him.

The conversation went for about 10 minutes, but it can be summed up in one sentence. Tech: "I don't want to have to drive all the way back to your house, and there's nothing I'm going to be able to do about your problem anyway, and that basically your choices are to either live with it or cancel your service."

At this point, I was rather stunned. This was the fourth Dish representative I had dealt with who was very rude. This is not the way to treat a brand-new customer! So at this point, I had had enough. I figure I'm not hooked with a commitment period, so I will just give it a few weeks, maybe a couple of months, and see how things go. Maybe I can handle the lower quality signal. Or maybe they'll push a software update for this receiver. Who knows?

So I ask the tech what I need to do to cancel the service call (because I honestly don't want this guy working on my stuff anymore, since he's proven himself to be less than knowledgeable, and rude as well). He said, "No, don't do anything. If you cancel the call, I won't get paid for it. We'll just pretend that I came to your house, so I can get paid. It can be our little way of 'sticking it' to Dish."

If you aren't at least a little bit shocked, please go back and read that paragraph again. This sort of crap is one of the reasons why your satellite bill is so high.

That was the last straw for me. I've had it. This company has spent a full week pissing me off, and I'm done. So I decide to cancel my service.

Part Five: The Cancellation

I called Dish Network again. After bouncing around voice prompt hell for a while, I just pick a random option, since cancellation isn't one of the options they give. That operator transferred me to the correct department. Unbelievably, the cancellation was the only part of my whole experience that went well:

Me: "I'd like to cancel my service."
Op: "I'm sorry to hear that, may I ask why?"
Me: brief version of the story
Op: expresses shock at the tech guy story, offers 3 free months
Me: "No thanks, I'd just like to cancel, please."
Op: "No problem. I understand. I see you're not on a contract, so this shouldn't be a problem. And since you've had our service for less than a week, you shouldn't get billed at all. If you do receive a bill, here is my operator ID. Call back, and we'll make sure you don't get charged anything. You'll also receive a box with prepaid postage to send back the receiver, remote, and LNBs from the dish. Is there anything else I can do for you today?"
Me, in amazement: "Yeah, you can find a way to make all the other people and departments in your company as polite and helpful as you!"

(To Dan, operator ID U1L at Dish - you're awesome.)

Conclusion

You can take from my story what you will. Honestly, in the end, I didn't lose anything but time and a little sanity, so it's probably just not a big deal.

And there are lots of different ways this whole thing could have gone if I had stuck with it. Maybe the poor SD picture quality could've been fixed. Maybe it's just something I will have to deal with no matter what provider I choose. But the experience as a whole was more than enough to make me happy I decided to cancel.

I'm sure some of you have had Dish for years, and have been extremely happy. I could've been one of those people, too. Hey, Dish Network, I could've paid you $80 per month for years to come! But I had nothing but problems, and no one in your organization was willing to help me out. (Until I was ready to cancel!)

Yes, I realize my experience with Dish was limited, being only about a week and a half from start to finish. But I feel that if a company is willing to treat a brand-new customer this poorly, I would be frightened to see how they treat someone who's already tied to them.

"Hello, DirecTV? I'm interested in signing up for your service..."

Thanks for listening, everyone.

The whole thing doesn't seem that horrible at all:

Part one: The signup
Managed to "haggle" a good deal($50 dollars off and no commitment). Nothing horrible about that.

Part two: The install
Install done correctly. Dish said you get components, installer said RCA will do HD. Big deal. You can get HDMI at Monoprice or E-bay for $8 bucks. Nothing horrible about that.

Part three: Picture Quality
This is the part I just don't believe. Direct TV, Dish, and digital cable will all have very similar PQ with regards to SD programing.

Part four: The Tech Guy:
Every company has a few knuckleheads working for them. You got a knucklehead. He did install you correctly however and he did not want to come back because there is nothing he can do about poor SD on an HD TV. Him wanting "stick it to Dish" is unacceptable but he wouldn't have been put in that position if he had not been called out to a pointless service call that he can do nothing about. I don't feel sorry for you on this one.

Part Five:The Cancellation
Was able to cancel without any problems. Nothing horrible about that.

[edcokpareke]

I too think that Dish net's SD channels look like horse piss.



It is absolutely horrible compared to my former analog cable picture. I've never had DTV, so I can't compare. I stream "The Daily Show" clips from comedycentral.com every evening, and I watch it on my HDTV. Dish network's SD looks almost as bad...and this is no exhaggeration.

[grizzhcky]

ModemGhost. I don't disagree with you for anything that you have said. I am a loyal dish customer, but I have too had a customer service issue with them. Bottom line, thanks for the info, and I am glad you are happy with your direct TV. That is the most important thing in the entire 5 page thread. Best of Luck!