Dish Network Customer Service Hates Me

If Dish Network has a list of hated customers, I'm on it.  Over Thanksgiving break, I realized that I was going to be very unhappy without Bravo and FX, so I convinced my parents to upgrade.  I checked out DirecTv and they had some pretty nice specials (for six months...) so I called up DishNetwork and said that I was going to switch to DIrecTV.  This transferred me to an "Account Specialist", supposedly someone with power.  With this "Account Specialist," I got permission to change the account (they had to ask my Dad to approve me),cancelled the Dish Home Protection Plan (a $6 monthly charge), upgraded to a DVR (for free) and to the Top 200 (so I could have Bravo, FX, Speed, etc...) and got a $10 monthly discount on our account for a year.

These changes seemed simple, just remove one monthly fee, add another $10 credit, change from Top 100 to Top 200.  Sounds easy right?  Something that would happen often...

Well my parents got their bill, and instead of the expected $48, it was $86.  Now I know I'm not a mathematician, but $48 != $86.  When I had talked to my "Account Specialist" in November, I had confirmed that there would be no fees, no things that I wasn't aware of, everything was taken care of, etc etc.  They lied.

Our $86 bill had the Dish Home Protection Plan (that I had cancelled), fees that I wasn't aware of, and was missing our $10 monthly discount.  

So I call up Dish Network, talk to a robot for a bit, then isten to some music for 10 minutes or so, then finally talk to a real human being.  I go through my list of problems and we try to fix these one by one.

First problem, Dish Home Protection Plan is on our bill, even though I cancelled it in NOvember.  Dish Man reads the comments on the account, and cannot find where I ever cancelled it.  So I ask to re-cancel it.  Guess what, I now don't have the authority to do anything on the account, so I have to go find my parents, so they can say "OK" into the phone and I can now re-cancel the Dish Home Protection Plan.  We now have to pay a month of this pro-rated Dish Home Protection Plan because they didn't cancel it right the first time, so here's an extra $5.60 for something I canceled a month ago.

Second problem, DISH Network DVR Service Fee $5.98.  A fee?  I thought I asked about fees and there were none.  Well here's a fee.  They lied, again.  Dish Man has no authority to cancel or waive this fee.  Fine, whatever, he can win on this one, for now.

Third problem, Programming Access Fee $5.00.  A fee?  I thought I asked about fees and there were none.  Well here's a fee.  They lied, again.  This is because our DVR is supposedly not hooked up to a phone line (it is).  So I run all of the tests, and surprise! Its hooked up to a working phone line.  They screwed up.  We ran these tests when we first got the DVR on December 5, and pretty sure nothing has changed since then.  I win.  + $5 for me.

Fourth problem, 

Dec 05 - Dec 26 Digital Home Advantage with Top 200 $35.45

Nov 30 - Dec 26 DishDVR Advantage $9.54

So these two charges add up to $44.99, but they begin on different days.  I'm not sure why there is a six day difference in the beginning of fees, or why we had to pay the DishDVR Advantage Fee when we didn't even have the DVR from Nov 30 - Dec 05, but I'm tired of arguing with DishMan at this point.  We try to compare charges on the bill, and guess what, he has completely different

numbers.  Dish Network can't look at the same copy of the bill that the customer gets.  Does that make ANY sense at all?  If I call in about a $9.54 charge that I don't understand, it doesn't even show up on the customer service rep's copy.  

Fifth problem, our monthly $10 discount isn't anywhere on our bill.  It's on the Dish Man's copy.  He has our total as being $76, while ours says $86.  It got put on AFTER the bill was sent.  Now how did all these lovely fees get added on, but not our discount?  Sounds fishy.

These customer service people leave comments, so other operators can read back through and see what we've done to our account.  Dish Man read back through alot of them today, and I'm sure added alot of mean comments about me as well.  What can I say, I like to give them a challenge.  They're going to have to update those comments again, because I plan on having yet another long discussion with them soon about getting rid of these fees...