DISH Network Reviews

The alternative was to continue to pay for a service I was no longer receiving. Use HULU or NETFLIX, or any service that is internet based instead. No hidden equipment rental fees or fake extension of any contract. DISH is simply fundamentally dishonest. They will steal your money and they have interruptions in service very frequently. They offer minimal assistance when this happens.

After about three months the satellite box was barely able to provide an hour of programming without audio and video cutouts. I called DISH again....and they sent the same imbecile out again. He said he could swap the box out, but that I would lose all of the premium programming I had recorded (3 months free pay channels). So I kept the box in order to keep the programming I had recorded.

After about a year the box had become so unstable that pixelization and audio/video cutouts were like part of every tv show. I had enough. I called DISH and demanded a new box. I asked them if they were able to transfer programs saved on DVR and they said they now could. Great!! The same knuckle dragging technician showed up with a new box, connected it to my old box, and quickly deleted every single recording. Ooooops. And to add insult to injury the box that they replaced the old box with was nearly as bad as the original. Now that box has failed completely (with a full DVR), and with 4 months left on the contract. They are sending out a new box (and TRIED to charge me to replace their defective equipment), but I know again everything on the DVR will be lost again.

There's a few things people should know about DISH. They do not honor the promotions offered when you sign up. I signed up for the 55+ plan, which offered a free movie every month. They have refused to honor that. They provide substandard equipment. The boxes I have received have great difficulty streaming, are not capable of recording one show and watching another, have a nasty habit of shutting down and rebooting while I am watching television, and lack the basic tool of a screensaver to prevent burn in on flat screen tv's when programming is paused.

If you call their "customer service" you will spend hours on hold and usually be connected to the Third World. Once reaching someone they will blame everything but their own equipment for problems. It's the weather (cloudy)....your internet isn't working (it's working fine)....the box needs to be reset(I've done that while suffering through waiting for a customer service non professional), etc, etc.

Once the problem isn't resolved you will be transferred to a different customer service non professional and the process repeats itself. And expect calls to be frequently disconnected, allowing you the pleasure of wading through their hellish automated answering system. Expect to listen to a noxious diatribe of DISH propaganda while waiting for an indifferent customer service non professional, most of that propaganda centered around how to pay your bill and how to buy additional services (even though they aren't providing the ones you've paid for).

Unless you rent their more expensive box many of the services they claim to provide don't work. You cannot remotely access programming on your DVR, the DISH anywhere app is limited to a small amount of programming, and Android devices cannot be used as a remote. That last thing is a real problem, because if your remote doesn't work the entire system is essentially useless. That happened once with me. My response was to get a new remote and then claim it doesn't work, prompting them to send you another. They will try and charge you for this, but if you refuse to pay they'll send it anyway.

Having DISH has been the most unpleasant video provider i have ever had. They are a dishonest business that tries to bleed the customer for every dollar possible once you are locked into a contract with them. I will be done with these dregs this May, and I am already sharpening up my streaming skills. Streaming does have a few disadvantages to satellite to be sure, but at a little over half the cost, no garbage equipment to fail (a backup FireStick is cheap) and far less time spent on the phone with the Third World. I'm sure those disadvantages will be more than outweighed by the wonderful feeling of being liberated from DISH network.

Oh, and one more thing. I haven't had my local Fox affiliate for months. When asked about this DISH tells me the only option is to get a streaming service or a roof antenna. I'm too far away for a roof antenna, but the streaming suggestion was very helpful. DISH pointed the way to their own replacement. DISH has been an excursion in hell for this customer.

I did request an additional Joey box for the Den and Maria stated when doing so it automatically renewed our 24-month contract. I never agreed to a 24-month contract extension, I was never informed of an extension and would have NEVER agreed to an extension for just adding another receiver? Contract extensions generally occur when the customer is getting a special rate or something similar and NOT because the customer is paying more a month for an extra receiver.

I found it EXTREMELY suspicious that on (2) occasions Maria stated the reason our monthly bill went up was because our contract ended cancelling our "special rate." I stopped Maria twice and questioned why the cancellation fee if our contracted ended as she mentioned TWICE. Maria quickly corrected herself and said the contract was renewed when we requested an extra box, if we use the renewed scenario, we should still be receiving our special contract rate, correct?? I got no response...

We NEVER agreed to a contract extension and Maria stated TWICE our monthly bill went up because our contract ended? There are WAY too many customer complaints on BBB that revolve around a shady business practice severely lacking in ANY sort of transparency! There are too many alternatives to be treating customers in this manner. Based on other reviews from this site and many other sites, Dish has a reputation for being dishonest with their customers, this isn't just a one-off from a lone disgruntled customer...

When we called back several months later to say we were not interested in the service and wanted to cancel, they told us that the two-year term would start when we started paying for the service again (e.g., two more years) or we could pay a $500 termination fee. Nobody mentioned this in any of our other calls. Tricking customers into delaying their ability to exit and announcing fees when they actually want to cancel is a very poor customer experience. We recommend that you select another cable or satellite service that is more forthright in its dealings with customers and provides a higher-quality product.