Dish Network - Star Satellite Ripoff False Advertisement, Failure to Deliver Promised Services Pasadena, Rancho Cucamonga California

To Dish Network
Pasadena, CA

This letter is to inform you of how dissatisfied I am with my entire experience with Dish Network and more specifically your reseller Star Satellite LLC in Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730. Tel: (866) 504-3474. This letter may seem a bit long-winded, but that may give you an idea of what I have been going through these last few weeks.

It started when the sales rep, Brian Brown who came to my house on July 7th, 2005 offered to replace all the channels I was currently getting from DirecTV for a lower price. He offered me a free install for 4 TVs, 2 TiVos, over 50 channels in Spanish and all the English channels I was currently getting with my Total Choice and Starz packages with DirecTV for only $54.99 + 3 months free of HBO and Showtime.

I was scheduled for install on July 8th between 8 am and 11 am. At 12:50 in the afternoon, I finally received a call from the installer telling me he was 20 minutes away. Since I already had plans for the afternoon, we had to reschedule the install for July 12th.

After the installation, I was surprised to learn that I had been lied to and did not receive 2 TiVos, but rather a DishDVR, which to a complete novice may be the same thing, but they may as well just have given me a VCR! I've been using TiVo for years and it's NOT the same thing, DishDVR is just a cheap imitation.

After hours of flipping through hundred's of channels, I finally noticed I was also not receiving all the channels promised me. On July 13th at 12:03 pm, I called Dish Network to inquire about the missing channels (including but not limited to American Movie Classics, Fox News Channel, Independent Film Channel, Turner Classic Movies, WE: Women's Entertainment, 7 Encore Channels, as well as Oxygen and SurPeru which you don't even carry, and only 30 channels in Spanish, not the 50 I was promised) and spoke with Jessie, Lynn and finally John (Operator ID 207) who finally told me the only way to get all those channels would be to have both Top 120 and Dish Latino Max plans which would then bring up my bill to the ridiculous price of about $112 a month. That's over $40 MORE than what I was paying DirecTV. He also mentioned I should contact Star Satellite, since they had sold me the package; maybe they had some special deal.

I called Star Satellite and spoke with Anna Lee who notice on her computer, that YES it did show that I should be getting the Top 120 and DLM packages for the contract price of $54.99. She also mentioned I should call Dish Network back and tell them I was told I should be getting the Top 120 for the price of Top 60 and that way I would have what I was promised. I called Dish back at 12:57 and spoke with Jessica (Operator ID PTC) who once again told me she could not do anything and I would have to call Star Satellite again.

At 1:13 pm I spoke with Britney at Star Sat. who said the file did show me with both Top 120 and DLM packages but was unable to help me and transferred me to Anna Lee again who again was unable to help and forced me to ask them to cancel everything. She said someone from the cancellation department would call me back.

At 4:10 pm not having received a call back, I called Star Sat again spoke with Alison this time, who when I asked to cancel, arrogantly responded that I could not cancel since I had signed a contract and would have to pay them $300. I then explained my story once more and as she looked at my file and once again confirmed that YES I should be receiving all those channels as promised, she said that she personally would call Dish Network and try to get those channels set up for me, and that she would call me back the same night or the next day.

A week later I still had not received a call back from Star Satellite, so July 19th at 2:33 pm I called them once more and waited 20 minutes on hold until someone could finally tell me that the supervisor was on the phone trying to see why I was still missing the channels and that they would call me back.

As for the question to why the tuners would automatically shut off every night, they referred me back to tech support at Dish Network. It is very annoying when you set up a TiVo to record programs all weekend, and return to find that the Dish tuner has turned itself off and you have recorded over 15 hours of a black screens with a Dish Network logo asking you to press select to continue. I won't even go into how I spent a couple of hours figuring out why Sat 110 had crashed and I stopped receiving half the channels.

On July 26th at 9:30 am I receive a call from Ilean in customer service from Dish Network who called to ask if I was satisfied with the new service, I told her all the problems and she said she could not help with the programming, but would file my complaint about Star Satellite, call them and return my call later this afternoon. I'm still waiting for that call.

At 11:26 I called Star Satellite once more and spoke with Kim, she talked to Alison and said once again she was calling Dish Network. When I complained that they had told me the same thing the last 2 times I called, she said she was actually watching Alison dialing at that moment and she would call me right back. When I mentioned that I did not want the DishDVR and needed to have it exchanged for a regular tuner, she said that when she called back she would also change my order to replace the DVR with a regular tuner!

July 27th at 1:23 pm I called again and spoke with Rosaline who when I asked to speak with Alison's supervisor, replied that her supervisor was the CEO of the company and he did not accept any phone calls. After putting me on hold, she said she finally got an e-Mail from Allison who said she had adamantly stated the previous time that I would not get the missing channels. Since there is no way to give me what was promised to me, I said we needed to cancel, Rosaline responded that it would be resolved by the end of the week (someone would call to cancel).

The following week, still no call. Aug 1st at 4:14pm I called Dish Network to see if at least they could exchange the DishDVR tuner for me, but after getting transferred to Maria at customer support, one hour and 35 minutes later she told me the only way she could help me was to add CineMax for an extra $4. All I could do was try calling Star Satellite again, since they are the ones with whom I had signed the contract.

What I would like to know is if Dish Network encourages companies like Star Satellite to sell their product with misleading information and false promises? (Using name brands such as TiVo and supplying other products, which don't even compare. Offering over 50 channels in Spanish when you only have 30. Promising a lower price, then reducing the service.)

This is false advertisement. Does Dish Network make a habit of associating with companies who have such terrible customer support as that of Star Satellite? Does Dish Network and Star Satellite not care about its customers once they have hooked them in for a year contract? This is no way to do business! I'm sure not all of your clients are as dissatisfied as I am, but not one person at either company was able to help, always pointing blame on the other company.

Extremely annoyed

CC:
Star Satellite LLC
Chamber of Commerce Ontario
Chamber of Commerce Rancho Cucamonga
Chamber of Commerce Pasadena
Better Business Bureau
Ripoffreport.com
CBS2 / Consumer Paige
ABC7 / 7 On Your Side / Ric Romero
TiVo
DirecTV

Wilhelm
Ontario, California
U.S.A.

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