Dishnetwork - Anthony Rep ID#HAJ ("Lead Supervisor" Of Billing Dept. At Dishnetwork), Sherry ("Supervisor" Of Billing Dept. At Dish Network) Took $80 from me for my phone line not working AFTER telling me they would quit charging me 16 months ago. Littleton Colorado

And this DISH employee's rebuttal to this complaint is only one of the reasons so many customers absolutely despise DISH! It was both condesending and rude.  SHAME ON THEM!!  I used to teach classes in customer service to all the new employees at a family owned business and all I can say is that I have talked to very few DISH employees who I would have allowed to continue working for our company.  Unless you are the head of the department (and I don't mean one of the umpteen-million "supervisors") you should do everything that you can to assist the customer and NEVER treat them in a disrespectful manner - whether they are right or wrong!  If you can't satisfy them, then it admit it and pass them up the ladder.  Because, ultimately, they pay your salary!

DishNetwork is "taking advantage" of no one. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad receiver, but to claim the company is stealing due to a technical error (and an attention error to your bill on your part for 16 months!!! Two or three is understandable, even six, but 16?) is a little over the top.

As a company, it's hard to imagine what more DishNetwork could possibly do to make customers conscious of this charge.
(I'm aware some of these may not apply to you specifically, but for other customer reference:)

1. The charge is disclosed at the point of sale, along with all other disclosures.
2. The charge is stipulated in your contract, which you (supposedly read and) sign.
3. The charge is listed along with all other fees on the website.
4. At the point of installation, in order to even activate your receiver, the technician MUST either hook up the phone line and dial out, or else it will lock up on a phone test screen... OR... he must call customer service to request a "TV2 Connection Fee" code to be added to the account to bypass it, thereby providing another opportunity for customer service and/or technician to tell you about the fee, in case they slipped up the first time and forgot.
5. If at any point the phone line is disconnected or temporarily not working properly, the receiver's software automatically pops up a "nag" message saying you must connect the receiver to your phone line to avoid being charged. You must acknowledge this by selecting "ok" to continue to watch your programming.
6. Any charges incurred are listed on your bill each month, along with a full explanation of the fees on the side of your statement, in case there's any confusion of what they're for. Failing to glance at your bill even once for sixteen months does not give you the right to a "do over" and get a nice $80 credit/windfall. Is this how a full grown adult handles their bills?
7. We have just under 14 m-i-l-l-i-o-n customers. If you don't catch a problem, how can we? We can't hold the hand of 14 million customers to make sure everything's in tip-top shape 24-7. Not being able to do so does not make bad customer service. You have to let us know. If you let us know, we'll take care if it, right then.
8. We know when you call in and when you don't. A human being doesn't even have the option of being forgetful to mention it, because the computer notates it automatically. Thus, if there is no record whatsoever of you calling in with a problem, it's logical to assume it's not DishNetwork stealing from you month after month, but rather your own negligence. Hence why the agent offered to credit you from the date you called in the first time til now, because that WAS our mistake. The previous ten months was not.
9. "taking advantage of the little guy who just goes about his/her business because we shouldn't have to keep such close tabs on such a stupid service like television." --Are you implying that we should keep close tabs FOR you? One single individual person keeping tabs of one single individual bill is a lot more rational than a couple thousand employees keeping tabs of 14 million bills, or even a company reversing millions of dollars simply because you couldn't be bothered to glance at a bill, especially when we have no idea whether those reversals are even actually valid.
10. All major cable/satellite tv providers automatically charge a similar fee for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.. tvs that get independent programming. DishNetwork is doing you a favor by waiving the fee by hooking up a phone line as option in the first place. We don't have to. We could just charge it regardless of whether you have the phone line hooked up or not, like the majority of other providers do.

... but in regards to the original complaint, the issue boils down to being reasonable. I'm assuming you down own your own business, but if you did, would it be a sound business decision to take your customers' word for it for such a long time span with no previous complaints? Just because a business is big, doesn't make it impossible for customers to take advantage of the business. In fact, it seem the bigger the business, the more customers feel they can get away with, because it impact the employees very little. Money is just numbers and pixels on a screen to customer service agents, why should we care?

The reason we care is because we have to deal with complaints no matter what. We could pay to have someone sky-write your bill in front of your house, and it still would not matter, there'd still be boatloads of people claiming "I had no idea! This isn't fair! Give me money back now!". That's just the way it is. And if we did give in to every 'giving you the benefit of the doubt', we'd still be handling complaints... complaints that your monthly rates went up because too many people like you are being unreasonable and ruining it for everyone.

DishNetwork is "taking advantage" of no one. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad receiver, but to claim the company is stealing due to a technical error (and an attention error to your bill on your part for 16 months!!! Two or three is understandable, even six, but 16?) is a little over the top.

As a company, it's hard to imagine what more DishNetwork could possibly do to make customers conscious of this charge.
(I'm aware some of these may not apply to you specifically, but for other customer reference:)

1. The charge is disclosed at the point of sale, along with all other disclosures.
2. The charge is stipulated in your contract, which you (supposedly read and) sign.
3. The charge is listed along with all other fees on the website.
4. At the point of installation, in order to even activate your receiver, the technician MUST either hook up the phone line and dial out, or else it will lock up on a phone test screen... OR... he must call customer service to request a "TV2 Connection Fee" code to be added to the account to bypass it, thereby providing another opportunity for customer service and/or technician to tell you about the fee, in case they slipped up the first time and forgot.
5. If at any point the phone line is disconnected or temporarily not working properly, the receiver's software automatically pops up a "nag" message saying you must connect the receiver to your phone line to avoid being charged. You must acknowledge this by selecting "ok" to continue to watch your programming.
6. Any charges incurred are listed on your bill each month, along with a full explanation of the fees on the side of your statement, in case there's any confusion of what they're for. Failing to glance at your bill even once for sixteen months does not give you the right to a "do over" and get a nice $80 credit/windfall. Is this how a full grown adult handles their bills?
7. We have just under 14 m-i-l-l-i-o-n customers. If you don't catch a problem, how can we? We can't hold the hand of 14 million customers to make sure everything's in tip-top shape 24-7. Not being able to do so does not make bad customer service. You have to let us know. If you let us know, we'll take care if it, right then.
8. We know when you call in and when you don't. A human being doesn't even have the option of being forgetful to mention it, because the computer notates it automatically. Thus, if there is no record whatsoever of you calling in with a problem, it's logical to assume it's not DishNetwork stealing from you month after month, but rather your own negligence. Hence why the agent offered to credit you from the date you called in the first time til now, because that WAS our mistake. The previous ten months was not.
9. "taking advantage of the little guy who just goes about his/her business because we shouldn't have to keep such close tabs on such a stupid service like television." --Are you implying that we should keep close tabs FOR you? One single individual person keeping tabs of one single individual bill is a lot more rational than a couple thousand employees keeping tabs of 14 million bills, or even a company reversing millions of dollars simply because you couldn't be bothered to glance at a bill, especially when we have no idea whether those reversals are even actually valid.
10. All major cable/satellite tv providers automatically charge a similar fee for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.. tvs that get independent programming. DishNetwork is doing you a favor by waiving the fee by hooking up a phone line as option in the first place. We don't have to. We could just charge it regardless of whether you have the phone line hooked up or not, like the majority of other providers do.

... but in regards to the original complaint, the issue boils down to being reasonable. I'm assuming you down own your own business, but if you did, would it be a sound business decision to take your customers' word for it for such a long time span with no previous complaints? Just because a business is big, doesn't make it impossible for customers to take advantage of the business. In fact, it seem the bigger the business, the more customers feel they can get away with, because it impact the employees very little. Money is just numbers and pixels on a screen to customer service agents, why should we care?

The reason we care is because we have to deal with complaints no matter what. We could pay to have someone sky-write your bill in front of your house, and it still would not matter, there'd still be boatloads of people claiming "I had no idea! This isn't fair! Give me money back now!". That's just the way it is. And if we did give in to every 'giving you the benefit of the doubt', we'd still be handling complaints... complaints that your monthly rates went up because too many people like you are being unreasonable and ruining it for everyone.

DishNetwork is "taking advantage" of no one. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad receiver, but to claim the company is stealing due to a technical error (and an attention error to your bill on your part for 16 months!!! Two or three is understandable, even six, but 16?) is a little over the top.

As a company, it's hard to imagine what more DishNetwork could possibly do to make customers conscious of this charge.
(I'm aware some of these may not apply to you specifically, but for other customer reference:)

1. The charge is disclosed at the point of sale, along with all other disclosures.
2. The charge is stipulated in your contract, which you (supposedly read and) sign.
3. The charge is listed along with all other fees on the website.
4. At the point of installation, in order to even activate your receiver, the technician MUST either hook up the phone line and dial out, or else it will lock up on a phone test screen... OR... he must call customer service to request a "TV2 Connection Fee" code to be added to the account to bypass it, thereby providing another opportunity for customer service and/or technician to tell you about the fee, in case they slipped up the first time and forgot.
5. If at any point the phone line is disconnected or temporarily not working properly, the receiver's software automatically pops up a "nag" message saying you must connect the receiver to your phone line to avoid being charged. You must acknowledge this by selecting "ok" to continue to watch your programming.
6. Any charges incurred are listed on your bill each month, along with a full explanation of the fees on the side of your statement, in case there's any confusion of what they're for. Failing to glance at your bill even once for sixteen months does not give you the right to a "do over" and get a nice $80 credit/windfall. Is this how a full grown adult handles their bills?
7. We have just under 14 m-i-l-l-i-o-n customers. If you don't catch a problem, how can we? We can't hold the hand of 14 million customers to make sure everything's in tip-top shape 24-7. Not being able to do so does not make bad customer service. You have to let us know. If you let us know, we'll take care if it, right then.
8. We know when you call in and when you don't. A human being doesn't even have the option of being forgetful to mention it, because the computer notates it automatically. Thus, if there is no record whatsoever of you calling in with a problem, it's logical to assume it's not DishNetwork stealing from you month after month, but rather your own negligence. Hence why the agent offered to credit you from the date you called in the first time til now, because that WAS our mistake. The previous ten months was not.
9. "taking advantage of the little guy who just goes about his/her business because we shouldn't have to keep such close tabs on such a stupid service like television." --Are you implying that we should keep close tabs FOR you? One single individual person keeping tabs of one single individual bill is a lot more rational than a couple thousand employees keeping tabs of 14 million bills, or even a company reversing millions of dollars simply because you couldn't be bothered to glance at a bill, especially when we have no idea whether those reversals are even actually valid.
10. All major cable/satellite tv providers automatically charge a similar fee for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.. tvs that get independent programming. DishNetwork is doing you a favor by waiving the fee by hooking up a phone line as option in the first place. We don't have to. We could just charge it regardless of whether you have the phone line hooked up or not, like the majority of other providers do.

... but in regards to the original complaint, the issue boils down to being reasonable. I'm assuming you down own your own business, but if you did, would it be a sound business decision to take your customers' word for it for such a long time span with no previous complaints? Just because a business is big, doesn't make it impossible for customers to take advantage of the business. In fact, it seem the bigger the business, the more customers feel they can get away with, because it impact the employees very little. Money is just numbers and pixels on a screen to customer service agents, why should we care?

The reason we care is because we have to deal with complaints no matter what. We could pay to have someone sky-write your bill in front of your house, and it still would not matter, there'd still be boatloads of people claiming "I had no idea! This isn't fair! Give me money back now!". That's just the way it is. And if we did give in to every 'giving you the benefit of the doubt', we'd still be handling complaints... complaints that your monthly rates went up because too many people like you are being unreasonable and ruining it for everyone.

DishNetwork is "taking advantage" of no one. I'm sorry to hear that you had a bad receiver, but to claim the company is stealing due to a technical error (and an attention error to your bill on your part for 16 months!!! Two or three is understandable, even six, but 16?) is a little over the top.

As a company, it's hard to imagine what more DishNetwork could possibly do to make customers conscious of this charge.
(I'm aware some of these may not apply to you specifically, but for other customer reference:)

1. The charge is disclosed at the point of sale, along with all other disclosures.
2. The charge is stipulated in your contract, which you (supposedly read and) sign.
3. The charge is listed along with all other fees on the website.
4. At the point of installation, in order to even activate your receiver, the technician MUST either hook up the phone line and dial out, or else it will lock up on a phone test screen... OR... he must call customer service to request a "TV2 Connection Fee" code to be added to the account to bypass it, thereby providing another opportunity for customer service and/or technician to tell you about the fee, in case they slipped up the first time and forgot.
5. If at any point the phone line is disconnected or temporarily not working properly, the receiver's software automatically pops up a "nag" message saying you must connect the receiver to your phone line to avoid being charged. You must acknowledge this by selecting "ok" to continue to watch your programming.
6. Any charges incurred are listed on your bill each month, along with a full explanation of the fees on the side of your statement, in case there's any confusion of what they're for. Failing to glance at your bill even once for sixteen months does not give you the right to a "do over" and get a nice $80 credit/windfall. Is this how a full grown adult handles their bills?
7. We have just under 14 m-i-l-l-i-o-n customers. If you don't catch a problem, how can we? We can't hold the hand of 14 million customers to make sure everything's in tip-top shape 24-7. Not being able to do so does not make bad customer service. You have to let us know. If you let us know, we'll take care if it, right then.
8. We know when you call in and when you don't. A human being doesn't even have the option of being forgetful to mention it, because the computer notates it automatically. Thus, if there is no record whatsoever of you calling in with a problem, it's logical to assume it's not DishNetwork stealing from you month after month, but rather your own negligence. Hence why the agent offered to credit you from the date you called in the first time til now, because that WAS our mistake. The previous ten months was not.
9. "taking advantage of the little guy who just goes about his/her business because we shouldn't have to keep such close tabs on such a stupid service like television." --Are you implying that we should keep close tabs FOR you? One single individual person keeping tabs of one single individual bill is a lot more rational than a couple thousand employees keeping tabs of 14 million bills, or even a company reversing millions of dollars simply because you couldn't be bothered to glance at a bill, especially when we have no idea whether those reversals are even actually valid.
10. All major cable/satellite tv providers automatically charge a similar fee for 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc.. tvs that get independent programming. DishNetwork is doing you a favor by waiving the fee by hooking up a phone line as option in the first place. We don't have to. We could just charge it regardless of whether you have the phone line hooked up or not, like the majority of other providers do.

... but in regards to the original complaint, the issue boils down to being reasonable. I'm assuming you down own your own business, but if you did, would it be a sound business decision to take your customers' word for it for such a long time span with no previous complaints? Just because a business is big, doesn't make it impossible for customers to take advantage of the business. In fact, it seem the bigger the business, the more customers feel they can get away with, because it impact the employees very little. Money is just numbers and pixels on a screen to customer service agents, why should we care?

The reason we care is because we have to deal with complaints no matter what. We could pay to have someone sky-write your bill in front of your house, and it still would not matter, there'd still be boatloads of people claiming "I had no idea! This isn't fair! Give me money back now!". That's just the way it is. And if we did give in to every 'giving you the benefit of the doubt', we'd still be handling complaints... complaints that your monthly rates went up because too many people like you are being unreasonable and ruining it for everyone.