Dish Network - EchoStar
Monthly mystery charge and termination fee waived after legal action

We signed up for dish network last year and within 2 days realized that we had been scammed. A charge of 19.05 had been taken from our bank account to cover a mysterious charge for something called "the elephant group." This IS associated with Dish Network, and is automatically charged to each customer every month. It is supposedly an equipment monitoring fee or something, but in fact is a promotion company that rips you off for that amount each month.

We also found out that on the back of the contract we had that the fine print also gave the option to not accept the 18 month contract and avoid the cancellation fee. This was not pointed out during installation of the product by the installation rep that came to our home.

We called customer service to complain, and got nowhere. I even obtained the name of the person who is very high up in this company. He was unwilling to help us, so I changed my bank account debit card and got a new one so that the Dish Network could not automatically debit my bank account for the early termination fee, which they threatened to do.

We also began litigation to sue the company for false and misleading advertising and did a lot of digging into the company's history. Apparently this company has been sued before and lost in court for millions of dollars related to contracts that did not fully disclose or were misleading to the customer about the plan and their products.

After we had the company served with court papers, about 2 weeks later we received a letter and a phone call from the executive in charge of customer relations and he informed us that we would not be charged the early termination fee after all, and that we were released from our obligation to the company.

It took a couple of letters, a pending lawsuit and much time and effort, but this company did back down in the end. They know that they are wrong and it takes a little push from customers like us who have been ripped off to be accountable.

Sadly, I see that so many others are still being ripped off by this company... A word to the wise... This company does not fall under any FCC regulations like other cable companies, and therefore, get away with what they do most of the time... Until challenged by anyone with much patience and perseverance.

Company: Dish Network - EchoStar
Country: USA
Site: dishnetwork.com

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