Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

Update: I had also sent an email in to a bunch of corporate email addresses at Dish, and today (Aug. 18) somebody got back to me with an apology for my customer service experience and promise to make the appropriate “adjustment” to my account. Hopefully this is a long-term change in what they are charging me.

As I mentioned about six weeks ago, Dish Network killed off my 942 HD-DVR and other older models either as part of their TiVo mess or just as policy during their big HD expansion. Whatever the reason, Dish called me up, told me that my 942 wouldn’t work come August 1 and offered to send me a new 622 HD-DVR on a no-cost lease (the post I linked to above says just that). I specifically asked about being charged for leasing a unit after I had already purchased the 942 they were killing, and I was specifically told by the Dish person that I would not have to pay the lease fee on the new DVR because I owned my 942.

Pretty darn clear - they called and said I would no longer be able to use my 942 and they needed to set me up with a 622. And because I own my 942, I would not be charged a lease fee for the 622. Crystal clear, no confusion, no doubt.

Ha. Right.

Checking the activity on my Visa this morning, I noticed my Dish Network auto-pay charge, and it was way more than my normal monthly bill. I knew this season’s ESPN GamePlan charges would be kicking in this month, but this seemed above even that. So I logged in to my account and checked out the most recent bill. Problems abounded.

- The “DISH Network DVR Service Fee” was $17.94 for August, and there was a pro-rated $5.20 fee for July as well.

- An “Addl Receiver Access Fee” of $5.00 had appeared in August, along with a $4.35 pro-rated fee for July.

- A “Leased Receiver Fee” of $7.00 had appeared in August, along with a $6.09 pro-rated fee for July.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Poking around the Dish site, I saw that they think I have three active receivers - the 622, the new 722 (which they brought instead of the 622 they said), and my old 942. Awesome that they didn’t actually deactivate the 942 like my 722 installer asked them to. So that explains the too-high DVR fee and the additional receiver fee - Dish thought I had three DVRs, not two. A call to customer service (India) quickly resolved that issue. They deactivated the 942 and put in reversals for the charges associated with it.

But then I asked about the leased equipment fee. The Dish policy is this: the first receiver you lease is no charge. Each unit after that is charged a monthly lease fee. For an HD-DVR, that’s $7 a month. I explained to the nice Indian lady that Dish had called me last month to tell me that the equipment I purchased would no longer work on their network, but that they were happy to send me a new HD-DVR at no cost and with no monthly lease fee - because it was replacing equipment I purchased. I specifically asked about this at the time because I wasn’t very happy at the prospect of incurring a lease fee when I was being forced to get rid of purchased equipment. So I am very, very, very sure the Dish woman who called me told me I would not incur an equipment lease charge because of this change from my 942 to their 622.

The Indian lady could offer nothing but explanations about their policy on lease fees for multiple receivers. I asked to speak to someone with more authority than her, and was given to a nice Indian man, who told me the same thing.

Very little satisfaction on this issue came from my Indian conversations. They said nothing other than “this is the policy” and offered a temporary courtesy waiver, so just for giggles I asked if there was anybody in America I could speak to. Somewhat to my surprise, Mr. Indian transferred me over to “executive customer service”. And that’s where I encountered one Mark Rodriguez.

Mr. Rodriguez also offered little relief - just the same 6-month waiver “as a courtesy” - and just kept insisting this was a “valid charge”. Valid, I guess, because Dish Network doesn’t have a problem with its agents lying to customers.

And that’s what bothers me so much - that their agent would call me up, tell me I could no longer use the equipment I purchased, and flat-out lie to me about the fact that the company will charge me $84 a year for the use of this new receiver I didn’t ask for.

Mr. Rodriguez, however, is a real piece of work. I mentioned at one point that if the person who had called me hadn’t lied about the no-cost equipment lease, I would have considered canceling my service rather than being hit with that charge. At that point he jumped in with “I can help you out with that request if you like.” A total douchebag - working in their “executive” customer service, no less.

When I finally got sick of him, I asked for the name of his supervisor so I could file a complaint about him. I’d resigned myself to the idea that six months without the fee is the best I could hope for after being lied to, so I wasn’t looking to continue that discussion - I just wanted to complain about the douchebag I had to deal with.

His response was that his supervisor is “Melissa”. I asked for a last name and he said he does not have to tell me her last name. I asked him for her phone number, and he said he does not have to provide that, either. So I asked him for the main number of his office and he says it’s the number he gave me at the start of the call as his contact number. Asked if that wasn’t his direct line, he said it was - and that he didn’t have to give me the main switchboard number.

Boy do I feel special. I then ask if I can speak to “Melissa”, and he says she is not available. I asked if he can transfer me to her line anyway so I can leave a message, and he said yes. And he transferred me … to the number one would call in to fetch voice mail messages. An immediate call back to Mr. Rodriguez got no answer, went to a voice mail box identified as being his, but one which is full and I could not leave a message in.

That, friends, is awesome customer service. You can, by the way, try to reach Mark Rodriguez yourself if you’re having a problem with your Dish service. I can’t promise he’ll answer or you can leave a message, but he’s at 915-298-5706.

And my takeaway from this experience? I doubt I’ll leave Dish over it (I’ve been a customer of theirs for eight years now … not that they seem to care about that) because I hate Comcast and like the Dish DVRs quite a bit. Though I do hear AT&T is expanding their video service … But it greatly lowered my opinion of Dish and pushes me away from the “satisfied customer” column. Oh, and I switched back to paper billing so I can see what charges they might try to slip by me now. That’ll eat in to the profit they’ll be making on my leased equipment fee, I suppose.

Google has released Street View for New Orleans and Baton Rouge (including a really wide swath of southeast Louisiana - I wouldn’t have thought my sister’s place or my ex-inlaws’ place would be there), and the company and the state are touting this release as a positive infotool in post-Katrina Louisiana.

OK, fair enough. And Street View in New Orleans does offer up a lot of exploration opportunities. I couldn’t help but notice, though, that among the routes documented for posterity is the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway. Yep, all 24 miles of the trip across the lake are documented in full 360-degree wonderfulness. In fact, Google shot the Causeway in both directions - meaning there’s about 47 miles of panoramic wonderfulness to enjoy.

A typical Causeway view (feel free to pan & zoom, or click the arrows to continue the journey!)

View Larger Map

I know I don’t have the patience to click my way across the Causeway (and certainly not across and back), so if there are Street View gems to be found there, somebody else will have to discover them.

Wordpress App looks fairly cool. Let’s add a photo …

Camera crashed the phone on the first try; OK after that. They probably have some bugs to work out yet. But a game-changer for sure.

A couple of months ago, Dish Network flipped the switch and turned on a bunch more HD channels, including CNN HD. And I’m guessing Dish is one of the few TV providers carrying CNN HD, because the network is totally half-assing their HD broadcasting.

The only things actually broadcast in HD are the CNN programs that originate in their New York studio and some things coming out of Washington. Programming originating in Atlanta is not broadcast in HD. I think the folks working on the television side of CNN here in Atlanta ought to take note of that - the lack of HD investment here is another sign that network power and image is shifting rapidly to New York.

So the bulk of CNN HD’s programming comes out of Atlanta and, therefore, isn’t actually in HD. Kind of lame if you ask me. But today I saw that CNN has rolled out a much lamer element of their “HD” broadcast:

Yep, instead of the standard yet ironic “HD” graphic that CNN places in the dead-bar area of their 16×9 image when they’re not actually broadcasting in HD, the network is now placing advertisements for their shows in this area. That is tremendously not cool.

You see, I’m paying extra for HD programming, including CNN HD. But instead of actually broadcasting the majority of your programming in HD, you’re going to put promotional ads in the space that should be this HD image I’m paying extra for? That is just a huge, huge swing from the investment I’m making as your customer and the action you are taking as my supplier. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

If CNN isn’t going to invest in HD broadcasting equipment for Atlanta, that’s one thing. But to actually take advantage of their lack of HD investment to shove more house ads on the air - no.

So back in April Dish Network was slapped with an injunction against selling certain DVRs in the wake of the TiVo patent infringement case. The models affected included the HD 942 DVR that I have as my upstairs unit, but Dish’s announcement of the injunction specifically said units already in use were not subject to the the injunction and may continue to be used by customers.





Or not.

This afternoon I got a call from Dish customer service saying that my 942 DVR will no longer receive Dish programming after August 1 and must be replaced. That’s very different from what was said before and has apparently been reported to this point. Dish, as usual, is cool about the whole thing - they’re setting me up with a no-cost lease of another HD 622 DVR (because I own my 942) and hustling a technician out here on Monday at no cost to set it up.

I’ll have to endure the usual pain of either losing recorded programs or moving them off the 942 to something else (I don’t remember if the 942 supports USB transfer or not), but the 942 doesn’t get the expanded set of HD channels I get on my 622, so all in all I call this good for me.

It’s not so good, however, for the unaware folks who are about to close a deal on eBay for a receiver with a useful life of 28 days from today.

I can’t stay I still quite understand what makes the newer DVRs not infringe upon the TiVo patent, but Dish has filed suit to get that judgment made official by a Delaware court. So given that they are taking a solid move to rid the world of the offending DVRs, filing suit against TiVo’s statements about their new one and heavily promoting their new DVRs, they must feel pretty strongly that they’re in the clear now.

Let’s hope so. New DVR will be something like my 10th one in about seven years.

Going out to my car the other day, I noticed this coffee mug hanging out on the garage floor. It had fallen off the shelf where I put empty Coke Zero cans and travel mugs when I have fresh beverages to take with me somewhere.

Yep, there it is. One of the more practical bits of corporate schwag I received from Google during the three years I worked with them as the search guy for EarthLink - lying there collecting dust. And I gotta say, that’s how I’ve been feeling about my “career” of late.

I was happy to get laid off last fall - as strange as it sounds, having it happen about a month after my first child was born was great timing. Severance came in handy and things are shaky enough at my former company that I would have been nervous having the wife quit her job to stay at home with the baby.

After the layoff, our plan became for me to stay home with the kid until my wife was done with some major projects at work. Then we would switch roles and I would go back to work. My window to go back opened about June 1, so I’ve been actively looking around for not quite two months now. I don’t like what I’m finding.

As my buddy Dave and I were discussing the other day, it’s not that there aren’t jobs available in Atlanta - just not interesting ones. Actually, I imagine there are some interesting jobs out there, but I’m not in a position to find them right now. I can manage to do interviews during the day, but networking and the like is really difficult to do with a 10-month-old tagging along.

In the best of times, Atlanta isn’t a bad market for interesting new media things. In not-so-great times, it’s not so great. The best leads and casual but serious offers from former colleagues have all come from the west coast. But as much as I enjoyed spending time in L.A. and the Valley at my old job, moving there just isn’t going to happen now. It was highly unlikely before I had a child - and just isn’t going to happen now. As I told one recruiter from the Valley; I like being married, and my wife and kid wouldn’t come with me to California even if I wanted to move.

Something will come along, I’m sure. But it’s different now that I’m actively looking - I’ve started to feel like that coffee mug collecting dust. I thrive on the challenge of new things. I get that with my little sideline bits like EAV Buzz, but in the best weeks I might get 20 hours to devote to the “professional” projects I do for fun and to stay sharp. And I ramble on about Yahoo and things to just keep my product brain healthy.

Keeping perspective is the hardest thing - what I’ve done is best for my daughter and it shows in her development. She is the “product” I’m “managing” right now, and we’ve had a successful launch. Maybe if I put together a PowerPoint showing her progress I’ve feel more “in the game”.