New subscriber with a couple issues

[jackknife]

I was with DirecTV for over 20 years. After AT&T took over, the service went downhill and I decided that I would switch to Dish. However, it doesn't seem like the grass is any greener over here.

1. My first issue is with the Hopper. When looking at the Dish website, the only think mentioned was the Hopper 3. Considering that I only had two tuners with DirecTV, I thought having 16 tuners would be great for those times that 5 shows air at the same time and I needed to find a way to get the shows that I missed. This sounded like a great DVR and was the main selling point for your service. Naively, I assumed that the Hopper 3 was the DVR I was going to receive.

I will admit, that at no time was the Hopper 3 promised to me. However, if at any time, if someone had told me that I would get a used Hopper 2 that looked like it had been sitting on a thrift store shelf, and that it would lock up every few days and require a hard reset, I would not have signed up for this service.

2. At the time of signing up, I was made many promises. I was told I would get HBO free for a year. There was a list of premium channels that were supposed to be free for 3 months. And, I was supposed to get the protection plan free for 6 months. I didn't get any of these.

If this is typical for Dish, it is going to be a long two year agreement.

[ChrisS]

Please PM me with your account number and PIN so I can review your situation in full. Thank you.

[Mlovett3]

Did you get your packages? I too am a new subscriber and haven't recieved any of the promised packages.

[Rudy1]

Your story sounds so similar to mine. We also were with Direct TV for over 20 years, finally tired of them offering the world to new customers but nothing to loyal customers, and merging with AT&T, we decided to switch. The first two years with Dish will save us a lot of money and their snow bird plan is very good, although I have yet to use it to see if it really does what the sales rep said it will do since I was lied to about many other things. I was also shocked to see the tech install a Hopper with Sling when I was expecting a Hopper 3 due to the same reason that you state, all of the hype and advertising is for the Hopper 3. When comparing service to Direct TV etc, it is always the Hopper 3. We have been hit with the time old bait and switch sales technique. I am finding out quickly that you have to read all of the fine print and save all of the conversation information and chat sessions. I forgot to discuss a referral with the service rep when I signed up so I went to chat the next day and gave the referral code and was informed that it was entered into my account. I also forgot to ask about the free echo dot that was advertised along with the Hopper 3 and was told during a chat that the tech would bring it with installation. So the installation went well, but the tech did not know what I was talking about when I asked about the Echo Dot. So, again, I call and account specialist to discuss the Echo Dot and there was no record of it on my account. He did come through and I received an email to order it for free from Amazon. So fast forward to my first bill and you guessed it, there is no discount for the referral. So I call them again and I am informed that there is no recored of the referral. So this is the second time already that I was told something that was not true, and I have the documented chat transcripts with the rep I was talking with. Now I am told that you can't get both a referral and an Echo Dot, again not mentioned to me anywhere by anyone, so my brother-in-law and are apparently out the referral discount. God only knows what will happen in the future. We will see if all of the other things that I was told by the sales rep end up being true or not. If Dish expects me to be a customer after the two years, things better improve a great deal. I will be glad to PM any service rep with my account number and pin so you can validate what is going on. Thanks for listening.

[MattG]

Rudy1, please PM me with your phone number and 4 digit PIN

[Lowcarb]

@Rudy1 and @Jacknife

I've felt your same pain.
I may post my own recent story of my quest to become a customer and all the aggravation and wasted time (my time, installers time and DISH CRS's time)
These are my observations:

- DISH CSR's (even the Cust Loyalty ones) Have a very poor understanding of all the many, and constantly changing, promotion offers that are in effect. They don't know how to fulfill the offers. They don't know what the offers are. They offer incorrect and contradictory information about the offers.

- DISH's process of writing up a customer order takes WAY too long. The customer can't see what they are being asked to agree to (on the phone) and if anything in the order is noticed as incorrect when it is read back to teh costumer near the end of the process then often the entire order needs to be thrown away and started over from scratch. It literally seems as though the goal is to make it so difficult and complex that the customers resistance is worn down and eventually they say OK, Whatever! . Or in my case. "No. If you can't fix it then we are done. Good - Bye."

- Once an order is placed, either online or via phone the customer does not get any type of written confirmation of exactly what was ordered. You have to call (again) to get someone to read back to you what hardware you are getting and what package you are getting.

- CSR training is highly variable. I had one "Highly trained Senior Costumer loyalty Rep" insist that I if I ordered a 4K Joey that I would only be able connect it to a 4K TV. She insisted that it would not work with a 1080i HDTV. She said that if I persited in my demand to order 4K Joey's that she would make a note in my account that I was refusing to follow her recommendation and DISH would not be responsible when that configuration would not work. Of course, she was wrong and I knew that she was wrong. Some know the packages and hardware and some don't. Different CSR's call different pieces of hardware by different names. A new customer should not be expected to know all the different names the same piece of hardware might be called. Hopper = Hopper with sling = Hopper2 . Joey was originally the 1st gen Joey, now Joey = Joey 2.0. BTW, Hopper3 has Sling also so is it fair to call the Hopper3 Hopper w/ Sling ?
When I called to ask what hardware I was getting the CSR says Hopper and Joey. I said: "Can you be more specific please. Exactly which model? "

I agree with your sentiments about the advertising of the Hopper3 . You are presented with a web page all about the Hopper3. You click on order and you wind up getting signed up for an old Hopper w/ Sling. It doesn't even clearly say what model hardware you are getting, just Hopper (unless you hover over a very small low contrast grey (i) in a circle. It seems incredulous to me that a new customer would not get the latest new hardware. Can you imagine signing up for new cell phone service with Verizon or AT&T, clicking on a picture of an Apple iPhone 7 and what you get shipped to you is a used iPhone 5s !!

Enough for now.

[Dishless]

I'm sorry you folks have to deal with Dish's routine broken promises and deceptive advertising so soon into your 2-year (3-year now?) sentence. Not to heap more bad news, but it only gets worse. I'm almost free from my Dish incarceration, but looking back I should have simply paid the early release penalty and moved on to another provider.

For anyone NOT currently a Dish customer and considering Dish - RUN! Don't walk, don't look back, get away from this company before it's too late.