I had Dish Network service for a little over a year and was happy with it. Unfortunately I had to move before my contract was up and the service would not work in my new apartment.
I paid the cancellation fee ($157) and was instructed to return the equipment in the boxes that would be arriving shortly. I waited for the boxes, they didn't come. So I called customer service again. They had "magically" gotten my address wrong, so the boxes had been delivered somewhere else. So they had UPS go retrieve the boxes and I packaged up the receivers the same day and called customer service so they could arrange for the boxes to be picked up.
The next day, no one came. I called again. They contacted UPS and found that UPS had tried to pick up the boxes in the apartment's office. We don't live in the office, so of course the boxes were not there. Another pickup was arranged. UPS didn't come. Back and forth. Finally we found a UPS drop off location and that was that.
The next day, Dish Network charged my account $500 for the used equipment. I called, spent hours on the phone, and was finally able to get the charge reversed. Three days later, they charged me again. This time, they refused to reverse the charges. They referenced the contract which has a clause in it saying that they can charge any account that you may have paid them with (bank account, debit/credit card, etc...) any amount that they feel the user owes them.
They already had the equipment at that point, but claimed that they had a processing time before they would refund the money. They refused to tell us how long this processing time would take. The customer service agent also implied that they may not refund the charge for the DVR. I received a $200 chargeback about a week and a half later. I notified them that I had taken photos and video of the equipment (in working order and being packaged) before I had shipped it, so they had better not claim that it was damaged.
Another week and a half went by and I finally received a refund of the final $300.
Yes, I should have realized what the statement in the contract meant, but the way it was worded didn't seem so threatening when I was actually signing the contract. I didn't realize that I was authorizing ANY charge, regardless of amount or actual legitimacy.
I had also tried contesting the charges with my credit card company. Apparently Dishnet has some sort of contract with Mastercard so that Mastercard will not recognize charges from Dish Network as "not authorized".
I will never do business with them again, which is too bad because I was fairly happy with the actual satellite service. I had recommended them to some family members and now feel guilty about it - especially after reading some of the other usacomplaints.com about Dishnet and what they do when you cancel your service.
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