I really have to say I’m shocked at Dish Network. In a day and age where customer service is so important to business they really dropped the ball. I really want to go off and write a long rant about how horrible my experience with their company was tonight. Really.

Tonight was just Dish Network fail. It seems like I’m not the only person who thinks Dish Network sucks. Someone even went so far as to register and write their story at Dish Network Sucks.com …However, I will try to remain objective.

The situation:

Last night our television service went out on most of the sets in the house. The tv in the guest room (where I am staying this week) was working fine, but the one in the living room and the tv in my Moms room went out.  Mom called Dish Network and was told that it was due to cloud cover (which makes no sense. One tv works on some channels but the rest don’t?) She says she felt like she was given the brush off, but I wasn’t there for the call so I can’t really comment on it.

When I came home tonight we tried again to get our Dish Network service up and running, there was no “cloud cover” as the small amount of rain we had received earlier had moved on. Still no luck…on two of the three tv sets we tried to get working.

So we called the technical support number as the error screen on the tv suggested.

To her credit the first tech we spoke with was at least polite, she didn’t try to do anything to fix the problem as I told her that the issue had been going on for over 24 hours and we had no cloud cover, she passed me along to “advanced technical support” (which seemed like a joke to me)

Advanced technical support had me check a few things in the system, disconnect two cables, reconnect them and then remove a smart card before eventually giving up and telling me that we would have to have them send someone out to our house to fix the equipment.

So far, no big issues. The first tech moving us along instead of trying to help wasn’t that big of a deal for me.  The only problem we did have is that Dish Network wants to charge us to send out a tech to fix their equipment even though the equipment is STILL under a warranty.  Regardless of who is at fault they can not waive the fee is what I am told.

If you sell a product and your product malfunctions and your phone support can’t fix the issue you do not charge people to come fix it.  ESPECIALLY if it is under a warranty.

Mom’s old fashioned in that she doesn’t let companies treat her like that, she’ll take her money elsewhere. So I tell the advanced support rep that we would like to cancel. We’re moved around twice to get to the right department where we are told the following:

1)It’s our fault they can’t fix it because we refuse to pay the $15 fee.
2)They can cancel our account but we have to pay them $15 per box to ship Dish Network back their crappy equipment.
3)There is no place for us to drop the boxes off or alternative way to ship them back the product
4)If we do not return Dish Network their crappy boxes within 30 days we will be charged the full price for the equipment.

To Dish Networks credit, the reps I spoke to earlier were polite though not helpful. The last person we spoke with was a complete waste of time and a bit of a bitch.

Why am I writing this?  After all, Mom has cancelled her service and is happy to take her money over to someone else, we get nothing out of this.
Because I don’t like being spoken to like we’ve done something wrong because Dish Network fails at customer service and makes a product that craps out randomly.

I’m fine with watching my tv on Hulu with Netflix on backup. I will be making the suggestion to my roommate that we leave Dish Network as well, there are other companies out there that while I am sure are not perfect, are at least…well not Dish Network.

As a side note…