# Dish refuses to give me a Hopper only (no Joey)



## aaron_huber (Jun 4, 2010)

I've been a paying Dish customer for longer than I can remember and just called to upgrade to a Hopper from my 622. I only have 1 TV in the house and have no need for a Joey, but I do want the 3 tuners, Sling adapter, PTAT, and the larger hard drive.

I spoke to three separate people (first rep, "account specialist", and supervisor) who all told me that I had to have a Hopper and a Joey or they wouldn't upgrade me. I told them I was willing to pay the $4/month for the whole home fee, I was willing to pay the $100 upgrade fee. I have money in my hand and they won't take it. I even said I wanted to cancel my account and I'll go get a DirecTV Tivo and all I got was "I'll be happy to cancel your account for you".

What in the hell kind of business decision or customer service is that? I see other people say they got only a Hopper with no Joey's - how did you do it?

A very unhappy customer.


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## [email protected] Network (Jul 21, 2011)

Please send me a PM with your phone or account number so I may review your account. Thank you!


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## MDavidM (Feb 19, 2007)

They installed a Hopper with no Joeys for me this afternoon.


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## rlyeager (Mar 31, 2012)

I'm new, today! What the hell is a Joey?


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## P Smith (Jul 25, 2002)

rlyeager said:


> I'm new, today! What the hell is a Joey?


:eek2:
Good Lord !

http://www.dishuser.org/joey.php

and hopper 2000 http://www.dishuser.org/hopper.php


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## teacher1066 (Mar 27, 2007)

aaron_huber said:


> I've been a paying Dish customer for longer than I can remember and just called to upgrade to a Hopper from my 622. I only have 1 TV in the house and have no need for a Joey, but I do want the 3 tuners, Sling adapter, PTAT, and the larger hard drive.
> 
> What in the hell kind of business decision or customer service is that? I see other people say they got only a Hopper with no Joey's - how did you do it?


I was told the same thing. I had planned to run a component cable to the bedroom TV while using the HDMI output for the screening room projector. Since there is only one person here any longer, I thought that this was a great way to save seven bucks a month. This arrangement had worked flawlessly on my 722. There will be a problem, of course, with the remote in the bedroom but I figured that Dish would sell me one that would do RF. 
As you, I also felt that their refusal to do this was a bit myopic as I have been a loyal customer for more than a decade.


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## domingos35 (Jan 12, 2006)

dish needs to get their act together and stop alienating some customers with things like refusing hoppers etc etc
if a customer wants to upgrade(and sign a new contract) why should dish refuse?


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## Inkosaurus (Jul 29, 2011)

domingos35 said:


> dish needs to get their act together and stop alienating some customers with things like refusing hoppers etc etc
> if a customer wants to upgrade(and sign a new contract) why should dish refuse?


The length of time a customer stays with a company doesnt really mean much.
Some customers get better deals because there better customers.
Others dont because they arent so great.

Theres plenty of reasons why Dish should refuse, the first that comes to mind is that more often then not the 2 year contract isnt long enough to pay a SAC or upgrade cost off and Dish doesnt trust the customer due to there shoddy billing history 
This post isnt in reference to the OP, im just answering a question. Dish doesnt need to get there "act together" theres a reason why certain customers get refused certain things.


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## aaron_huber (Jun 4, 2010)

Inkosaurus said:


> Dish doesnt need to get there "act together" theres a reason why certain customers get refused certain things.


If I had a shoddy billing history and Dish had cited that as a reason, I would have been less frustrated. I would think that my many years of on time payments would be enough. I'm just glad that the DIRT members here don't agree with you and were able to step in and correct the problem. I'm now happily Hopping along on my one TV.


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## teacher1066 (Mar 27, 2007)

Inkosaurus said:


> The length of time a customer stays with a company doesnt really mean much.
> Some customers get better deals because there better customers.
> Others dont because they arent so great.
> 
> ...


I've been with them for over a decade...I've never missed a payment (auto pay) and I have a top of the line programming package including all of the movie channels. Indeed, when I call CS, I am greeted with the message that I am "one of our best customers." 
I am beginning to think that the associate who told me I couldn't do this was an undereducated representative of the company.


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## Inkosaurus (Jul 29, 2011)

aaron_huber said:


> If I had a shoddy billing history and Dish had cited that as a reason, I would have been less frustrated. I would think that my many years of on time payments would be enough. I'm just glad that the DIRT members here don't agree with you and were able to step in and correct the problem. I'm now happily Hopping along on my one TV.


"This post isnt in reference to the OP"
Like i said the statement was not in reference to you nor your situation. Bear in mind what i said is basically a very short and to the point break down of a "Dish Economics" training course i had when i worked for the company 

@Teacher, i would have to agree. What i posted earlier definitely would not apply to the OP's situation. Once you qualify for getting multiple receivers its not like you dont qualify for getting less. What i had mentioned in my first post was in reference to Domingos assumption that Dish is for some reason randomly alienating certain customers without purpose. I merely intended to point out that its not random and some customers just dont qualify due to there history with the company among other criteria.


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## domingos35 (Jan 12, 2006)

aaron_huber said:


> If I had a shoddy billing history and Dish had cited that as a reason, I would have been less frustrated. I would think that my many years of on time payments would be enough. I'm just glad that the DIRT members here don't agree with you and were able to step in and correct the problem. I'm now happily Hopping along on my one TV.


glad it worked out


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## lparsons21 (Mar 4, 2006)

Inkosaurus said:


> @Teacher, i would have to agree. What i posted earlier definitely would not apply to the OP's situation. Once you qualify for getting multiple receivers its not like you dont qualify for getting less. What i had mentioned in my first post was in reference to Domingos assumption that Dish is for some reason randomly alienating certain customers without purpose. I merely intended to point out that its not random and some customers just dont qualify due to there history with the company among other criteria.


I'm sure that for many decisions, there are good reasons for them. But reading here and at other sites, from posts by people that I actually know, the Magic 8 Ball has to be part and parcel of upgrade decisions by both Dish and Direct. Way too many instances of people with good credit scores, on time payments with their SAT provider and fairly high level of subscriptions and then not getting anything that is even close to a 'deal'.


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## ronton3 (Mar 15, 2006)

I am thinking about the same thing, do you notice any difference in PQ over the 722, does it handle as well in general. Thanks ron


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## aaron_huber (Jun 4, 2010)

ronton3 said:


> I am thinking about the same thing, do you notice any difference in PQ over the 722, does it handle as well in general. Thanks ron


Moving from the 622 to the Hopper has been overall very good. We've had a few issues which have been reported by others that they are hopefully working on, but nothing that prevents us from watching TV and recording our shows. My biggest issue so far is with the Sling. This is my first experience with it and it seems a bit sluggish to select shows to watch and hit or miss right now. Others are saying that the adpater works fine on the 722 so I assume it's the Hopper that needs to be fixed and I assume that new software will improve things.

Image quality is so hard to judge - I'd say it looks the same or better, but I suspect that there is always a subconscious desire to convince yourself that whatever you just spent a lot of money on is better than what you had before. 

I am very much enjoying the new UI - it takes a few more button presses to do some stuff, but it's prettier to look at and a lot faster than the old receivers to move through the guide and list of shows, etc.

Overall, no regrets whatsoever moving to the new receiver, as long as your happy being a beta tester right now. If not, wait a bit for the software to mature and let the early adopters deal with the bugs.


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## Inkosaurus (Jul 29, 2011)

lparsons21 said:


> I'm sure that for many decisions, there are good reasons for them. But reading here and at other sites, from posts by people that I actually know, the Magic 8 Ball has to be part and parcel of upgrade decisions by both Dish and Direct. Way too many instances of people with good credit scores, on time payments with their SAT provider and fairly high level of subscriptions and then not getting anything that is even close to a 'deal'.


The customer only knows so much and they usually tend to say less online to make the company look like the bad guy 

Like i said theres other criteria as well that can prevent a customer from getting a upgrade.
The most relevant being billing history but others can be as simple as.

1: Recent upgrade within a rolling year.

2: To many credits on an account, E* star caps the customers at a certain point and puts the customer under adjustment alert. At this point say good bye to getting anything for a long time. It doesnt matter if you have spot on billing and perfect credit if your adj. alert you will get jack squat from front line CSR's, supervisors, loyalty(retention) ERT, or DIRT. Even something as simple as a free remote without the protection plan is out of the question.

3: Trouble customer, if you called in and have been an ass to many times you could be flagged as a "vip:red" customer. They can still get stuff but good luck, these are the guys who eventually get canceled by dish involuntarily.

And many more.

Customers like to believe in things like "CSR roulette" and the "Magic 8ball" ideas and think that maybe they ran into a pissed off CSR or supp. Do you know how incredibly unlikely and rare that is? Do you know how often employees who act like that get fired and how many refrain from acting like that to stop being fired?
Customers believe in these things because they cant sit there and think that for once they may not be entitled to something.
There is a rhyme to the reason and a method to the madness for these companies and the only reason the CSR roulette routine even works is because the people calling in repeatedly more often then not get put on LAR (last agent return) and get sent to a supervisor whos tired of hearing it not because the customer deserves what ever there given.

Again, this is not in relation to you nor your situation aaron.


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