Extra Receiver from Ebay?

[Shel]

We don't even even have my Dish installed yet, and here I am speculating for future projects.

So, is it a good idea, if at some point we wanted Dish in another room to buy a receiver off Ebay for $30-$50 and activate it?

I understand it will cost about $5 a month to use it,

how much is activation? do you end up having to spend a lot of $$$ for a new card or something?
or
are these ebay receivers just a good way to lose some money?

[AllieVi]

I had excellent results buying two receivers on eBay. I would offer a couple suggestions:

Make sure the seller has lots of good "feedback" (dealing with people who have satisfied others is a good start). If there are problems, you're more likely to obtain satisfaction since people who have achieved a good feedback rating tend to want to protect it.

Deal only with people who are (were) the owners/users of the equipment. Many receivers end up being sold at yard sales and the like and then listed on eBay. I wouldn't buy one of those - the seller may not be aware of the condition of the equipment or any fees due.

Make sure the seller is willing to claim that there are no past programming fees due. This information is available from the receiver even if it's not connected to an antenna.

Learn the receiver and smart card numbers and call DISH to verify that they have been "released" by DISH from the current owner.

You should expect the smart card to accompany the receiver.

Activation won't cost anything, but you'll pay about $5/mo to use it (as you noted).

Another possibility is to deal with people who have items for sale here. Those who have been posting here for a good while may be reliable sellers, too.

[Shel]

Thanks for the reply there... This is something that I may be interested in doing, once we get everything up and running. Also thanks for the info about making sure there isnt any money owed too, good heads up on that!

[Davey]

"..if at some point.."? Why would you wait to get another receiver? When you're a new customer, DISH practically gives you a bunch of freebies. You can get the receiver for free and installation for free also. If you decide to get another receiver afterwards... then you'll have to do the installation yourself or pay someone and buy an old receiver that was probably pirated and holds a huge balance.

We don't even even have my Dish installed yet, and here I am speculating for future projects.

So, is it a good idea, if at some point we wanted Dish in another room to buy a receiver off Ebay for $30-$50 and activate it?

I understand it will cost about $5 a month to use it,

how much is activation? do you end up having to spend a lot of $$$ for a new card or something?
or
are these ebay receivers just a good way to lose some money?

[Mike Richardson]

"..if at some point.."? Why would you wait to get another receiver? When you're a new customer, DISH practically gives you a bunch of freebies. You can get the receiver for free and installation for free also. If you decide to get another receiver afterwards... then you'll have to do the installation yourself or pay someone and buy an old receiver that was probably pirated and holds a huge balance.

Maybe they plan to get another TV down the road.

[dtcarson]

That's what we're doing--we currently only have one tv, but are moving soon and will get a digital HDTV monitor for the main room and dvd/ht setup, and move our current one into the bonus room, in addition to the little 15 inch in the kitchen. So we're keeping an eye out for a deal. We actually signed up under the DHP, the wisdom of which I am currently debating, but I won a receiver from DBStalk.com so we have two hooked up and one in the closet awaiting a tv [two leased thru DHP, one owned.] Depending on how we feel about Dish/DHP, and what happens in the HD realm with Dish, we may need to find another reciever.