# Dish 411 authorization issues



## rob_1 (May 25, 2007)

Hello All, I'm a newbie at this, so here goes, I recently acquired a opened, but never activated Dish 411 receiver for $50 . I had no problems getting the receiver installed and hooked up to the television. when I went to activate the receiver however, Dish told me that the smart card ID was showing up as invalid, I was on the phone for about an hour, and they claimed that their system would not authorize the receiver no matter what they tried. I've never heard of such a thing happening before, and their only suggestion was to return the box to the retailer that it came from, which I can't do because. I have no idea where it was bought to start with. the odd thing is that one would think that if the smart card slot in the front worked, a new external smart card would override the existing one, thus eliminating the problem. does anyone have any ideas?  






Thanks, Robert


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

The 411 has an internal smart card. The slot is there in case Dish Network upgrades their smart card technology and needs to "replace" the card - not as a customer option to replace the card.

Most likely what is triggering that "invalid smart card" is the receiver being stolen or leased and not returned to Dish. Their advice to return it to where you got it seems to fit that scenario even though their words are not saying "stolen".

You might want to check with whomever you got the 411 from and make sure that they bought it and didn't lease it. They can't sell you what they didn't own. The source of the receiver is important.


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## rob_1 (May 25, 2007)

James Long said:


> The 411 has an internal smart card. The slot is there in case Dish Network upgrades their smart card technology and needs to "replace" the card - not as a customer option to replace the card.
> 
> Most likely what is triggering that "invalid smart card" is the receiver being stolen or leased and not returned to Dish. Their advice to return it to where you got it seems to fit that scenario even though their words are not saying "stolen".
> 
> You might want to check with whomever you got the 411 from and make sure that they bought it and didn't lease it. They can't sell you what they didn't own. The source of the receiver is important.


Thanks for the info. the person that I bought the receiver from, said that he bought it online a month ago, and he had just had the receiver in his closet for a month before getting an upgraded receiver . he said he no longer had the original paperwork, and had forgotten the name of the company he bought it from. I had seen a partial sticker on the outside of the receiver's box , but the perforated part containing the serial number was torn off at some point. there were no other markings to show where it had come from (Store logo, etc) Dish first said that the receiver wasn't in inventory, which I thought made sense because it had never been activated, but that should have never prevented them from authorizing it. all of the problems stemmed from the smart card number. after failed attempts to authorize, it the tech just stated to me that the box was defective, so I was told to return the box to the retailer for a replacement, I guess I'm screwed at this point.


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## bobed2121 (Apr 5, 2007)

So tell the guy *you* bought it from that it won't work and you want your money back. If he gives you back your money then he has done right if not he is a crook and new it would not work in the first place.


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## rob_1 (May 25, 2007)

bobed2121 said:


> So tell the guy *you* bought it from that it won't work and you want your money back. If he gives you back your money then he has done right if not he is a crook and new it would not work in the first place.


I have already told him that it wasn't working. he doesn't sound like he was willing to give the money back. (He was mentioning selling the thing on ebay.)I was hoping to find an alternate method of getting the receiver to work, before going that route. I guess I'm probably going to have to anyway.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Please don't sell a non-working receiver on ebay.
There are already enough scummy sales on ebay ... they don't need another one.


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## rob_1 (May 25, 2007)

James Long said:


> Please don't sell a non-working receiver on ebay.
> There are already enough scummy sales on ebay ... they don't need another one.


I meant in reference to getting my money back, I know the thing can't be sold on ebay if it's no good


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## rob_1 (May 25, 2007)

Well the troubles with the receiver did result in one good thing, apparently the Dish 1000 dish was out of alignment so the tech had to fix that we tried for an hour and a half to see once more if the receiver could be activated, but had no luck. asides from the smart card number being invalid, dish couldn't locate the receiver's ID in their system, so we figured that since the receiver was a remanufactured unit, there might have been a possibility that the receiver was removed from dish's inventory when it was initially defective, but was never reentered into the system, when the box was put back into circulation. they had stopped distributing the Dish 411 receiver also, so any that weren't registered in an account might have been removed. I have contacted the guy who sold me the system, and of course, he doesn't have the money to pay me back. go figure.


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