Dish repair policy is nuts!

[FlyingDiver]

I got a PVR 721 about three weeks ago. It arrived with a broken card slot door. It was obviously dropped on that corner at some point during shipping. Other than that, it's fine. Not problems at all.

So I call the retailer (Allsat) to ask for a replacement door . They send me to Dish. Well, Dish doesn't have that part available as a service part. So they're shipping me a "replacement" receiver (refurb unit). I'm going to take the door off it, but it on my unit, then send the refurb back to them.

All that because they can't find one of those doors somewhere to send me. Sigh.

joe

[normang]

I can understand perfectly why some components are not readily replaceable. They make cabinet's as single components more than likely, So when some part of the cabinet fails (ie the door) and you just cannot live with a slightly dinged unit, you get a replacement..

Is this really something to complain about? I don't think so myself...

[FlyingDiver]

Well, it bothers me that they're going to end up paying $25 or more in shipping fees, plus the cost of refurbishing the returned unit, when they could be doing this for $1 for the part and about the same for mailing it to me.

I work for a major computer manufacturer, in the customer service and support division. These are the kinds of costs that can kill a company, when there's easy fixes to the problem. Companies should have their service part situation under control before they ship a product. Or at least soon after. The 721 has been available for how long? The CSR said that doors are available for other receivers. But not the 721. Why not?

joe

[Lee L]

Not to mention the fact that to Dish, it is perfectly acceptable to give you a refurbished unit as replacement for a brand new unit that arrived damaged.

[Bob Haller]

Yes thats what bugs me the most about my flakey 721. At least the last 2 refub receivers I have got were DOA or poor.

I buy a nice new spiffy EXPENSIVE 721. They replace it with someone elses cast offs...

Likely still not fixed.

[normang]

If refurbs are not being properly repaired and sent as replacements, thats bad.. However If I had a perfectly functioning unit and the only thing wrong with it was a cosmetic flaw, I would live with the flaw.

Does that $1.99 mo warranty fee cover the shipping when you replace a unit?

[Claude Greiner]

Originally posted by normang
If refurbs are not being properly repaired and sent as replacements, thats bad.. However If I had a perfectly functioning unit and the only thing wrong with it was a cosmetic flaw, I would live with the flaw.

Does that $1.99 mo warranty fee cover the shipping when you replace a unit?

I totally Disagree, If I paid $500 for a reciever, I would expect that reciever I just bought to be brand new free from all mechanical and cosmetic defects.

If I was the retailer who sold this unit, I think the right thing to do would have shipped out a new one to the customer and pay the return shipping costs. From there, the retailer should be the one getting a replacement door from Echostar. A matter of fact, I had the same thing happen to a face plate on a 501 I sent out to a customer. I have no idea how it happened, but the customer claimed the faceplate would not properly hold onto the unit. Why refer him back to Dish to get a replacement part? I simply shipped him another faceplate with a Pre-paid UPS shipping label for him to return the old one :)

Now as for Echostar the the RA Department, first of all the department is mismanged and half the employees don't have a clue on what they are doing. Heres some classic examples.....

I used to send all my replacement parts back Via Post reciept. Which ment I sent them the bad part, and they send me a new one. I stopped doing that after I realized they kept on loosing my returns and would 25% of the time would not send out replacement recievers. Tracking numbers mean nouthing to them, if they say they didn't get it they could care less if you have proof they signed for it.

So I started doing advanced exchanges and paying $14.95 per item I was sending back. This worked out pretty good and I got my replacement parts, but again they are so mis managed they still screw this up. Last week I requested a replacement Quad LNBF. I guess they where out of quads, so some genius decided that if they send me (2) Legacy Twin LNBF's it would be the same thing as a Quad. I kid you not, they sent them to me in (2) seperate boxes with the same RA number and then only gave me (1) return shipping label to send back the quad. The CSR was clueless when I called in to ask why the wrong part was sent out.

Heres the best one, the reason why half the referbs you get don't work is because they don't properly bench test them! They would actually send me bills for $30 per reciever, everytime they had one they couldn't find anything wrong with. So I send them a bad unit, they claim its still good and give it to another customer as a referb, and then try to charge me $30. Unbelievable!

So I started filling out the Problem description forms and attatched them to all the recievers before sending them back. This way they said if I fill out the form, they won't charge me a $30 No problem found Fee. Luckily the NPF fees stopped! Now they simply claim something is wrong with the reciever caused bu the customer and then charge me a $69 Out of warrenty Replacement Fee.

WTF, a brand new 301 costs $99, and $75 if I take out the remote control.

$69 Out of warrenty Replacement Fee
$15 Advanced Exhchange Fee

$84 Total

Its costing me more money to send back a unit that they claim is bad then if I was to go buy a new one. But do you think they can send me back the unit and not charge me? N0000000

They charge me, and I have absolutly no proof that the unit was ever bad!

[Jacob S]

And Dish wonders why the merger failed. I hope they get with the program and get their act straightened up. Ever since they told a customer I should not have charged a service fee for a service call and that I was not a retailer to the customer and that I had to go through some pretty bad talk from a customer that said I had no right to charge the fees after I said I go along with what Dish charges because I was not a retailer when I am, (what am I supposed to tell someone that was told something like this?) and so I just quit trying to sell Dish for a while after that. I just lost a good bit of interest in the hobby and selling Dish even for a profit after going through things as this, and I have had my fair share of problems with 501 going bad 3 times and now a 721 going bad.

If someone had to replace a receiver or part too many times the advanced exchange shipping would cost more than the receiver or part itself.

[normang]

Claude, if there are merely components available to replace parts that have cosmetic issues, then that should be done.

It sounds like the department that manages returns and replacements is due for some new management, perhaps it should be brought up in a chat and see if Charlie can hem and haw about getting that fixed..