Dish Network pay as you go

[jdefant]

I don't know if anyone will find this useful or not but I just spent a frustrating weekend trying to activate my new Dish Network receiver. I purchased the receiver from Amazon ($103) and did the installation. I have a dish that is easily set up on a tripod outside of the coach but I am planning on installing a rooftop unit in the next week or two.

Everything went well as the new receiever downloaded the program material and then came to the screen that said "This reviever has not been activated. Call 800 - to activate!" It then listed the Reveiver ID and the Smart Card ID. The phone number they give you on screen is useless. But if you go to DishForMyRV.com: Mobile Satellite Dish Systems, Guides, Antennas, Receivers, Packages, iPhone Finder App & More they list another number. When you call it, it asks you for the receiver ID that you are trying to activate. When I keyed in the number of my new receiver the recorded message told me that this receiver could not be activated and to call the store where I purchased the receiver! AND HANGS UP!

I sent an email to Dish Network and I got the following response today...

Hello,
Unfortunately the receiver must be purchased from us to activate on the pay-as-you-go program. They can be purchased on the website at dishformyrv.com, Camping World or Winegard dealers.

Thanks

Matt Throckmorton
Mobile Sales Support
Mattt@paceintl.com
Pace International / TradingPost
3582 Technology Drive
Rochester, MN 55901
800 444 PACE (7223) (toll Free)
507 424 5516 (direct)
www.paceintl.com


The exact same receiver from Dish Network is $149! Why can't they just charge me some sort of $50 fee and make it work???? This is the hardest company in the world to try and give money to!

So those of you who are thinking about doing the same thing as I did, save yourself the time and frustration and just buy the receiver from Dish Network!

I am off now to try and return the receiver to Amazon.

[num1dgh]

Be sure that you call DISH when you're well rested and in a good mood. Even if you purchase it from Camping World, you will go through a lot of frustration to get it activated! John spent 56 extremely frustrating minutes (the phone times phone calls!) on the phone going around in circles with DISH. We had cable TV at home but finally to make our lives simpler we switched home to DISH and have two receivers purchased from Camping World in the RV. When the tech came to the house to activate the home receivers, he told us he couldn't activate the 2 in the RV. Wrong answer. He finally understood from my Sergeant Major husband that he would indeed be activating the ones in the RV. Every time I see a pay as you go add in the Good Sam magazine it kind of tweaks me because it is so frustrating and difficult to do! Now that we have it at home we pay $15 per RV receiver each month and it's always on.

[bigdog]

It's interesting that some folks seem to have a lot of problems with Dish.We changed from cable to Dish as the installer,I call him sat guy and not cable guy,said we,d be happier with Dish that with Direct,so that's what we did.We got it at home and had to set it up quite a ways from the house so that it could clear some trees and had two DVR boxes installed,one of which we could move to the trailer and had a portable dish.We got the MH and replaced the old KVH dome with a traveler and got an HD box for it.We have had a couple of problems with it at set-up when we are way out of the area,but a simple phone call usually takes care of it.I find that if I open a beer and relax before the call,it helps it go much better.The best thing about the traveler set-up is that we can watchHD on the front TV and another channel on the back one and don't have to have two boxes.It costs me $15 extra for the box in the MH and since we use it at least several nites a month out,it's cheaper than the part-time charges.

[Texas TC]

We have had both Dish and Directv in home and three coaches. I must admit that Directv is much easier to work with than Dish from my experience. Directv does not offer the pay as you go program but I simply pay for two boxes for the house and install the permanently in the coach. We just changed from a Super C to the Winnebago 34Y. Both had in motion satellite systems. My last coach was Winegard and the new one has Kingdome. The change was seamless and we were enjoying satellite TV in no time.

[Chuck 1935]

Dish is HARD to deal with. First thing you Have to do is say you want to speak to someone from the US. The other thing you have to know is that the unused reciever will time out if unused for about a month. They will try and tell you it won't but it will. I bought a new roof reciever only to find out it was the box. Be persistant with them. It will work.

[mrschwarz]

$15 per receiver seems like an awful lot. I have a 211k and it costs $7 per month. You need to learn to play customer service roulette. If you don't hear the correct answer, hang and call back. Eventually you will get someone who know what they are talking about.

[Stevegd007]

I am using a Dish 311 receiver in the RV, I have a Dish account for my stick house and so I just added this to my account total. My cost for this "extra" receiver on my total account is just an extra $7/month. I am able to receive all my channels that I get at home, unless I am out of my local "spot" beam (locals go away then). I purchased my 311 at Radio Shack and I had NO problems setting it up and activating it. I am not using "Dish for my RV".

I have looked at the "Dish for my RV" from Dish and I could maybe save some money. This type of deal starts at like $35/month and goes higher if you add more programing. With my current plan I am paying for the above receiver a total
$84/year. So if were to use the "Dish for my RV" for over 2 months this would cost more than my current deal. Kind of a toss up. Use "Dish for my RV" more than 2 months and the cost to me would be higher. Then I do not have to call to turn it on and off again, my 311 it is always ready to use, for the weekend or for a month on the road. I am staying with my current deal and staying away from the "Dish for my RV" deal. Just me.

[Journey39n]

I must be very fortunate, as my experience with Dish has been great. A few weeks before we started full-timing last year, I got Dish service at our rental condo.

They set up a portable dish in the back yard, gave me lots of extra cable coiled and run in through the wall to my two receivers, a 211 and a 612 DVR. All worked well at the condo.

Two weeks later, I moved the receivers into the RV, hooked all up, and everything was working. I used the 'KingDome' dish when on short trips, and use the ground mounted 3-element dish when parked for long periods. (that extra cable came in real handy for locating the tripod)

The ground mounted dish is best, we get all three satellites at once, the DVR can function to its full capacity of viewing and recording at the same time. With the KingDome, we get one satellite at a time, but it only takes a couple of seconds to switch between them. (including HD).

After about 10 months, we decided we really didn't need the bedroom receiver, and returned it. A phone call (went through fast, yes, probably an India tech, but he deactivated the 211 receiver as we spoke) I received a UPS pre-paid mailer in a few days, and returned the receiver. The credit showed up on my next statement, all went as it should.

Service is good, I would like more channels, but just get the 120HD plan, just don't have time to watch all that is available anyway. When traveling out of home area, I could call to get local channels, but I can get those over-the-air, or the campground cable, so haven't tried that yet.

The pay as you go plan sounds interesting for those who might travel only a few months of the year, but not really for full-timers.

[swyates]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrschwarz $15 per receiver seems like an awful lot. I have a 211k and it costs $7 per month. You need to learn to play customer service roulette. If you don't hear the correct answer, hang and call back. Eventually you will get someone who know what they are talking about.

I agree with mrschwarz, keep calling until you get someone who knows something. We have had Dish for 5 years and have almost canceled our service several times because of poor phone customer service. We even had one rep that told us it was illegal to carry a satellite receiver in an RV and was going to report us! Then we've had a few very helpful people that have given us the straight scoop, even one who told us that we would probably not be able to get service while here in Alaska while others told us it doesn't matter where we are. Of course we found out that we can't get service in AK because the elevation angle is too low (blocked by mountains) and our dish is too small.
On a positive note, Dish is very reliable once you get it activated. Our receiver/DVR has never given us any problems and it rarely drops signal, even when our dish is covered in snow.

[Texas TC]

Technical support personnel is one of the things I like the best about Dirctv. Getting to the "live" person is a bit of a hassle. I don't particularly like the automated system at the beginning of the call but when I get to a representative, they are from the US, speak English, and will spend as much time as necessary to answer my questions and take care of any issue. I have dealt with them many times over the 11 years I have had Dirctv and always come away with a good feeling.