TomServo92

I've had Dish Network for about 7 or 8 years now. I recently scheduled a service call to have the dish re-aimed after having my house re-roofed. I took a 1/2 day off from work and waited over 4 hours and they never showed (I ended up aiming it myself).

Not being very pleased with this situation, I decided to check out Directv. Sure enough, they had a special offer for new customers for up four receivers professionally installed at no charge. I called them up and they explained what "professionally installed" meant (125 feet of cable run per receiver, mounting the dish, etc). Sounded good so I ordered the installation of 3 receivers.

The installer arrived (BTW, he doesn't work directly for Directv) and the installer took a look at my Dish system and then flatly stated "You realize there's a $55 installation charge, don't you?" WTF!!!!

I said "My understanding is this is a free installation" and he says "It is unless we do some [i]custom work[/]."

I asked "Please explain to me what you mean by custom work" and he says "If we have to go into the attic and run cable, that's custom work." My response to that was "I was not told when I signed up with Directv that there might be a charge and if that's case, cancel the install". In addition, since I already have a two room Dish system and the house was prewired with RG6 coax, there's very little custom work to be done other than splicing into the existing wiring. He said "Well, if it means losing your business then I'll drop the install charge." I'm still a little disturbed by the misleading "free installation" but since he's dropping the charge I go with it. In fact, after talking a little more, I decide to go with 4 receivers. Since he doesn't have 4 on his truck, we reschedule the installation for a later date.

The new installation date comes and the installer calls me about an hour before he's due to arrive and says "You do realize there's a $55 installation charge don't you?" I remind him of our previous discussion and he says "Yeah I know but I got in trouble for not charging a customer and I can't chance it again". OK, I can understand that but I still feel like the "free installation" was misleading. He says he'll have his supervisors call me. They finally call me later that day and surprise, surprise, the installer had never called them. They were under the impression the installation had occured and were just checking to see if I was happy with the installation.

I told them what happened (although I didn't mention his original agreement to drop the charge) and that I thought the so-called free installation was misleading and they said they said the problem is with Directv for not telling me that there might be additional charges. So I called Directv, outlined the whole situation, and they created an "installation issue" that'll be sent back to the installer. This thing is just going in circles.

At this point I'm ready to drop Directv and Dish and just go with Time Warner Digital Cable (I already have Roadrunner through them so why not?). I feel that the whole thing is just a "bait and switch" because there's no way that I can see getting a free installation through this installer unless your house is already completely wired for satellite. Directv doesn't seem to be willing to do anything about it so I'm not sure I want to be giving them any of my money anyway.

Sorry, but I just needed to vent a little....

EleanorsMine

Same thing happened to me when I moved here(Used movers connection). I told them TO F off, point dish only and get out of my house. We ran the cable downstairs ourselves- they wanted $55 for it also, its a freaking scam.

It also didn't help they didn't speak much english and wanted to argue with me for 30 minutes about a receiver I had 3 years ago that I threw out when I got TiVo(that they found when they called to confirm my install, even though it was listed as inactive). I told them they were welcome to go to the dump and root around for it, but I no longer had it and to PLEASE get out of my house.

I was ticked for 3 days, then I realized it wasn't worth it.

TomServo92

April, was the installer Directech?

Torrence

Same thing happened to me. They were at my home 3 times. I got fed up called them and canceled everything, and went with comcast cable. I hate directTV and am never going back to them.

TomServo92

I'm calling Time-Warner tomorrow. I'll either switch to them or stay with Dish (not likely) even if the resolution of the "installation issue" is to drop the custom install charge. The whole thing has left a very bad taste in my mouth. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/thumbsdown.gif[/img]

MY05GT

I have moved 3 times and installed and re aimed the dish twice myself. If you were careful when removing/moving the dish ( loosen ONLY the bracket that attaches the dish to the verticle pole ) all you need to do is reattach the dish to the vertical pole and slowly turn it till signal strength maxes out. If you had to remove the pole to re roof, make sure it is vertical upon re mounting using a level.

I personnally will NEVER do business with DirecTV. A friend of mine had taken several courses and one of them required him purchasing card burning equipment, the same type of equipment is used in programming the reciever cards. DirecTV acquired a customer list from the supplier / crossed it to subscribers and sued everyone in federal court. Apparently you can not represent yourself in federal court. He could not afford an attorney and settled out of court for a lesser sum. The sad part is, he was a sports fanatic, had an attrocious sattelite bill because he was subscribing to the season football package among other things. They lost his business and anyone I talk to on this topic gets to hear it. As part of his settlement, he can't talk about it, but all of my info was learned prior to settlement. They are lucky they did not try that garbage with me. My attorney said he would have loved to take that case. It would have cost them a whole lot more to shut me up because only the loser HAS to keep quiet.

Good luck with cable..if you decide on that route. I never considered cable as we are too far off the road (1200ft).

TomServo92

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MY05GT @ March 5, 2006, 5:52 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
I have moved 3 times and installed and re aimed the dish twice myself. If you were careful when removing/moving the dish ( loosen ONLY the bracket that attaches the dish to the verticle pole ) all you need to do is reattach the dish to the vertical pole and slowly turn it till signal strength maxes out. If you had to remove the pole to re roof, make sure it is vertical upon re mounting using a level.

I personnally will NEVER do business with DirecTV. A friend of mine had taken several courses and one of them required him purchasing card burning equipment, the same type of equipment is used in programming the reciever cards. DirecTV acquired a customer list from the supplier / crossed it to subscribers and sued everyone in federal court. Apparently you can not represent yourself in federal court. He could not afford an attorney and settled out of court for a lesser sum. The sad part is, he was a sports fanatic, had an attrocious sattelite bill because he was subscribing to the season football package among other things. They lost his business and anyone I talk to on this topic gets to hear it. As part of his settlement, he can't talk about it, but all of my info was learned prior to settlement. They are lucky they did not try that garbage with me. My attorney said he would have loved to take that case. It would have cost them a whole lot more to shut me up because only the loser HAS to keep quiet.

Good luck with cable..if you decide on that route. I never considered cable as we are too far off the road (1200ft).
[/b][/quote]

The roofers reattached the dish to the roof so I had no input on how it was remounted. I came home and there it was. Luckily for me it wasn't that far off but I didn't know that when I called Dish about re-aiming it for me. I assumed it was way off and didn't want to fart with it.

f1-cobra

Mark,
I don't know about Time Warner, but we (a local cable company) charge a $30 installation fee which includes up to 3 outlets. From what I understand, we don't fish walls, so if the line needs to be run to a certain room, we will either run it on the outside and drill through the wall to the outlet, or run it through the craul space and drill through the floor. Not the best looking, but that's for houses that are not pre-wired for cable. I don't know how much that will help you, but it might give you an idea of what some other cable complanies are doing. I'm not exactly sure how the install side works as I am in engineering and my part stops at the pole or pedestal.

Chuck,
Being that you are 1200 feet off the road, it would probably be a considerable cost to extend to your house. Coming from the tap, an RG6 drop cable can only go about 200 feet and keep the signal clear (we can extend it to 300 feet if we use an RG7 drop cable). We estimate a hard line extension at about $3/foot and need a route to get there. If there is an existing pole line or an open trench (normally we would follow electric) and enough signal to get there, it would probably be around $2700 (including a construction credit for 1 service). Depending on how many services you take, it could bring it down to $1800. That's how we estimate it here and most people wait for our budgeted extensions and hope that they are in an area that's on the list.

TomServo92

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(f1-cobra @ March 5, 2006, 7:36 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Mark,
I don't know about Time Warner, but we (a local cable company) charge a $30 installation fee which includes up to 3 outlets. From what I understand, we don't fish walls, so if the line needs to be run to a certain room, we will either run it on the outside and drill through the wall to the outlet, or run it through the craul space and drill through the floor. Not the best looking, but that's for houses that are not pre-wired for cable. I don't know how much that will help you, but it might give you an idea of what some other cable complanies are doing. I'm not exactly sure how the install side works as I am in engineering and my part stops at the pole or pedestal.

Chuck,
Being that you are 1200 feet off the road, it would probably be a considerable cost to extend to your house. Coming from the tap, an RG6 drop cable can only go about 200 feet and keep the signal clear (we can extend it to 300 feet if we use an RG7 drop cable). We estimate a hard line extension at about $3/foot and need a route to get there. If there is an existing pole line or an open trench (normally we would follow electric) and enough signal to get there, it would probably be around $2700 (including a construction credit for 1 service). Depending on how many services you take, it could bring it down to $1800. That's how we estimate it here and most people wait for our budgeted extensions and hope that they are in an area that's on the list.
[/b][/quote]

My house is prewired. Every room has a cable outlet and it's wired with RG6 (satellite grade coax). No wire would need to be fished down the wall. That's why I balked so much as their "custom work" charge. It was [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/bs.gif[/img] pure and simple.

korinwoodo

I used to know the kid of the president of directtv (maybe only in canada). He was pretty rich. Not really related but hey.

Fordracing200

Directv has given us nothing but great service, though we will be dropping them to go with a complete time warner digital phone/roadrunner/cable set-up because of the price.

MY05GT

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(TomServo92 @ March 5, 2006, 8:40 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
My house is prewired. Every room has a cable outlet and it's wired with RG6 (satellite grade coax). No wire would need to be fished down the wall. That's why I balked so much as their "custom work" charge. It was [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/bs.gif[/img] pure and simple.
[/b][/quote]


My house was not prewired, I did it all RG6, Cat5e, and phone to each room going to a central hub that distributes phone, computer network, and free TV to the whole house. We then put modulators on each of the receivers, TIVO, and the DVD changer. So from any TV room in the house, you can watch and control all of the above. If that isn't enough, our router is wireless also so you do not have to hardwire connect to surf.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fordracing200 @ March 5, 2006, 9:22 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Directv has given us nothing but great service, though we will be dropping them to go with a complete time warner digital phone/roadrunner/cable set-up because of the price.
[/b][/quote]

My friend loved his also until the lawsuit, now, not so much. But, legal issues aside, he never had complaints.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(f1-cobra @ March 5, 2006, 8:36 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Chuck,
Being that you are 1200 feet off the road, it would probably be a considerable cost to extend to your house. Coming from the tap, an RG6 drop cable can only go about 200 feet and keep the signal clear (we can extend it to 300 feet if we use an RG7 drop cable). We estimate a hard line extension at about $3/foot and need a route to get there. If there is an existing pole line or an open trench (normally we would follow electric) and enough signal to get there, it would probably be around $2700 (including a construction credit for 1 service). Depending on how many services you take, it could bring it down to $1800. That's how we estimate it here and most people wait for our budgeted extensions and hope that they are in an area that's on the list.
[/b][/quote]

They told us $7/ft which is why we did not look into it any further. Our main reason for asking was for internet ( had dial up, whel cable was too expensive, got sattelite ) which our area now has DSL anyhow.

TomServo92

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MY05GT @ March 5, 2006, 9:31 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
My house was not prewired, I did it all RG6, Cat5e, and phone to each room going to a central hub that distributes phone, computer network, and free TV to the whole house. We then put modulators on each of the receivers, TIVO, and the DVD changer. So from any TV room in the house, you can watch and control all of the above. If that isn't enough, our router is wireless also so you do not have to hardwire connect to surf.
[/b][/quote]

I had some friends that built a house a few years ago and they did the same thing. It's very cool.

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Fordracing200 @ March 5, 2006, 8:22 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Directv has given us nothing but great service, though we will be dropping them to go with a complete time warner digital phone/roadrunner/cable set-up because of the price.
[/b][/quote]

I have several friends that have Directv and they say the same thing. But even they are a little disturbed by my experience trying to get it installed.

EleanorsMine

It was two men in a van with a DirecTv sticker slapped on the side. I have moved 3x since I got direcTv, and the first two times were EXCELLENT! . At the same time, everyone else was moving onto this street too and they got excellent service. I guess its all in who you draw.

I never had to have a wall fished before though- My switch is in the attic, and my Tivo is downstairs, NOT in the "trendy" Tv Box that comes above fireplaces now-which WAS prewired. The house I built here had voice and data and coax on every wall- We Prewired the crap out of it. This one did not come the way we wanted-it came with a jack in each bedroom, one in the living room and one in the kitchen.


I have absolutely no problem with DirecTv all in all though- my Tivo is like Air, I got it and can't live without it now. I think I pay $60 for a buncha channels, the service and a second box.

TomServo92

I talked to Time Warner cable this morning and they're installing digital cable this coming Saturday. The deal is better than the Directv deal. I'm getting 2 regular receivers, 1 DVR, and 1 High Def DVR, and HBO for only $25 more per month than I was paying for my 2 Dish system with HBO & Cinemax (I don't really watch Cinemax so I dropped it). I'm looking forward to the HD channels. We only have 1 station in the area that broadcasts HD that I can get. Plus I'll get Fox which I couldn't get even with a 20 foot antenna.

05GT-O.C.D.

Didn't read all the posts, but the whole situation sucks. I've heard nothing good w/ Direct TV, I've had DishNetwork and they suck beyond all belief... I hate that company and wish Bin Laden would go visit their customer service workers that are somewhere overseas, prolly India. They really pissed me off. So, now I'm stuck w/ Time Warner, who raises their rates 3 times a year, and then you call and can't get an answer as to why. My dad has a local cable company, Massillon Cable, has more channels, better service, and cheaper rates.
How's come everything our government regulates ends up costing us more money and we get less service?

TomServo92

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(05GT-O.C.D. @ March 7, 2006, 9:41 PM) Quoted post</div><div class='quotemain'>
Didn't read all the posts, but the whole situation sucks. I've heard nothing good w/ Direct TV, I've had DishNetwork and they suck beyond all belief... I hate that company and wish Bin Laden would go visit their customer service workers that are somewhere overseas, prolly India. They really pissed me off. So, now I'm stuck w/ Time Warner, who raises their rates 3 times a year, and then you call and can't get an answer as to why. My dad has a local cable company, Massillon Cable, has more channels, better service, and cheaper rates.
How's come everything our government regulates ends up costing us more money and we get less service?
[/b][/quote]

Our local Time Warner branch has a very good rep. I've had high-speed internet through them for several years and have never had to call them about a problem. Also, they worked their butts off after Hurricane Rita to get service restored. I'm not concerned at all about switching to them.

EleanorsMine

Speaking of Direc Tv.....
My two year old TiVo through them is screwed. It has an issue with channels ending or with the #6 in it. Makes it lock up and have to be reset.
I need to replace it, but DirecTv only offers DirecTv DVRs now. I don't want a DVR I want TiVo.

I heard good things about Time Warner too.

BUT Charter is the Debbil!

Ranger

I think one of the biggest problems with them is their contract service companies. These folks are from all over the place. We use a local guy when problems come up and if it wasn't for that we would be in deep doodoo. When my brother-in-law first got Direct, they put the dish on the roof by drilling directly into the roof but did not caulk. A few years later the disk came down in a high wind with a part of the wood roofing which had rotted. When he called Direct they were not going to fix it without him paying until he said either fix it or he would cancel - they had a change of heart.

TomServo92

I just got the TW digital cable installed and so far it's great. I LOVE the Hi-Def channels. THe only problem was that one of the digital boxes didn't work. The installer called up another installer who was working nearby and got another but it was DOA as well. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/banghead.gif[/img] They're going to replace it next week. I can still get standard cable on the TV so I'm OK with it for now.