Dish Network Customer Service Salvation (At Long Last)

Written by Nickel - 10 Comments

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Phew! After three and a half long months we finally have closure… Dish Network has finally relented and credited us back for the supposedly “free” installation. In case you haven’t been following along, we’ve been in a long and drawn out fight with both Dish Network and the local reseller over a $49.99 bill credit that we should have received but didn’t. We also weren’t receiving the Digital Home Protection Plan, which was supposed to be free After repeated attempts to fix the problem, both with the reseller as well as by going through regular customer service reps at Dish, we finally took our fight to the corporate level.

At this point, it was no longer about the money. Rather, I wanted nothing more than to make them bend to my will no matter what it took. After spending a bit over half an hour on the phone with a “Corporate Customer Service” rep, I was hopeful that things had been straightened out. She said all the right things, claimed to have called the reseller and checked with the “Promotions Manager,” and even provided me with her direct line in case things didn’t work out.

Being the anal-retentive guy that I am, I check our account daily to see if the credit would show up. After a week, there was still no credit, but they had added on the Digital Home Protection Plan, but THEY WERE CHARGING US FOR IT. So all that time on the phone with a supposedly higher level CSR had actually made the situation worse!

I promptly picked up the phone and got the CSR’s voice mail. In her message, she promised that she would return my call within 24-72 hours. When she didn’t, I called again. Same result. So I called everyday for the rest of the week. With the same result each and every day.

At this point, I was about to drive out to Englewood, Colorado and punch someone in the face. But instead of doing that, I called EchoStar headquarters again (their number is 303-723-1000, by the way). I re-explained the situation, and asked if they had an even higher level of customer service. This time I got transferred to “Executive Escalations.” As it turns out, these are the people that you want to be talking to when you have a problem with Dish Network.

To make an extremely long story a tiny bit shorter, the Executive Escalations rep manually credited our account for the $49.99 and then promised to send an e-mail to another department to get the credits for our Digital Home Protection Plan. I balked and told her that I’d heard that same thing far too many times already with no results. She then offered to manually process the credits for the Home Protection plan, as well. The only hangup was that the credits wouldn’t show up on our account until the next day. The next morning, I held my breath while I loaded our account page online, and… Voíla! The credits were there and our long journey toward salvation is now (seemingly) complete.

While I’m still pissed at the amount of time that I burned on this, I’m totally relieved to not have to think about this anymore. And I’m sure that it’s a relief for you regular readers knowing that you won’t have to read about it anymore!

To read my thoughts on getting customer service satisfaction (in general), read this:
Solving Customer Service Problems

And if you’re interested in the full backstory (in order), check out these links:
Our Dish Network TV Experience (So Far)
Our Dish Network Experience (Continued)
The Dish Network Runaround
Dish Network Customer Service SUCKS
Dish Network Customer Service STILL Sucks
Solving Dish Network Customer Service Problems

Published on September 21st, 2006 - 10 Comments
Filed under: Moving
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About the author: Nickel is the founder and editor-in-chief of this site. He's a thirty-something family man who has been writing about personal finance since 2005, and guess what? He's on Twitter!

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Comments (scroll down to add your own):

  1. Good for you. I hope my battle with Sears ends as well. ;-)

    Comment by FMF — Sep 21st 2006 @ 8:24 am

  2. Whoo hoo, closure!

    Comment by Blaine Moore — Sep 21st 2006 @ 9:42 am

  3. As a former employee of Dish, please allow me to offer my condolences. I used to handle all escalated customers who showed up in the lobby of our corporate offices and I can tell you that really, your best bet would have been to drive to Englewood. The “Executive Escalations” person you spoke with was a glorified CSR in yes, gasp, a call center. I am glad that your problem is fixed.

    Comment by Ex DN Employee — Oct 10th 2006 @ 2:01 am

  4. thank you thank you!!!! i just spent over a hour trying to get a$10 charge reversed (hard to believe a dish mistake) so called customer service wouldnt give me the corp.# so once again thank you. p.s. that was not my first time dealling with the same problem.

    Comment by catherine rosenberger — Oct 17th 2006 @ 9:09 pm

  5. some one still needs to go punch the greedy assholes in the face!

    Comment by catherine rosenberger — Oct 17th 2006 @ 9:14 pm

  6. Thank you, Thank you for posting your nightmare!

    After 2 weeks of fighting with Dish Network’s USELESS Customer “service” I finally found your blog and called the Headquarters number (303-723-1000). One of the Executive Escalations reps fixed the problem in 30 seconds.

    Everyone – if you have any problems, just call 303-723-1000!

    Comment by Amy — Oct 1st 2007 @ 4:02 pm

  7. We are going to try the number you’ve listed now after one of the worst experiences dealing with their so-called “Customer Service” after they installed dish for our tenants, without permission from the building owners (us), without the tenants (or ourselves being home), after they drilled holes in our walls and ceilings and cut OUR antenna cable to our own apartment next to the tenant apartment, not to mention several other installation flubs. We are interested in filing a police report for trespassing and vandalism, and we are notifying as many people/organizations as possible after being hung up on, transferred multiple times, talked over, and basically being treated like crap for an illegal installation that was not okayed. AND, they can’t even tell us who the local contractors were simply because the account is not in OUR name, and yet their policy is not to do any installations without prior consent from the owners, which they did NOT have. Their CSR’s and Supervisors are rude, and they lie. Any further coporate information anyone has would be appreciated. What a headache after returning from being out of town for Thanksgiving.

    Comment by Kelly — Nov 25th 2007 @ 7:30 pm

  8. i had a problem–got through to corprate customer service rep at echo hq–gentleman that i talked to solved my problen in two minutes–professional, courteous, and a breath of fresh air for his quick common sense.

    Comment by matt pacheco — Jan 18th 2008 @ 1:14 pm

  9. I just do not belive you guys exist, wow been having a problem with Dish Network for months. They promised 6 months of hd free if let them take the monthly payments out of my banking account, i agreed my payments wre so suppussed to be about 80 dllrs amonth. The first month they tok out 129.00 2nd 129.00 3rd 110.00. I called about four over a span of 3months asking them to give the deal first promised. They refused to let me talk to a supervisor and that was that, untill i read your article. Anal retentive you are the BomB. Called the Excutive Escalation at the number given for the corperate Offices and talk to Mr.Bill Watson, Problem solved. He honored my original agreement. Thank you so much for careing and shareing. godbless Elton

    Comment by Elton R.Bohanon — Apr 25th 2008 @ 3:59 pm

  10. I wish I had found this site prior to signing up for Dish Network. What a nightmare. The installation guy came at 1:00 PM and did not leave intil after 11:00PM, he drilled a hole through the fireplace when installing the cable in an upstairs bedroom. Another guy came the next day to finish the installation as there were cables just hanging all over the house. The billing has been a nightmare. I did not sign the contract I was presented with on the first night of installation so am looking into getting rid of this whole thing. Have been told they would credit back a $79.99 charge that was made to my CC. Never told about the charge, supposedly this is paid to the retailer for setting up the account. If you’re thinking of getting Dish Network, think twice!

    Comment by F. Campbell — Aug 17th 2009 @ 12:13 pm

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