My Typical Sort of Timing

[mrsl]

Yesterday I had U-Verse installed to save a little money by combining my phone, TV, and internet all together under AT&T. Today, early in the a.m. I called to cancel my Dish network, and when they asked why I was canceling, I told them it was a money issue. All of a sudden the girl said, "as I look over your account, Mrs. L, there are a couple of ways we can lower your monthly bill without losing any of your benefits". I said No, No thanks - I've been calling for months trying to get something done because I truly do like Dish network, but now suddenly since I'm canceling, you can find ways to help. Talk about wanting to spit in someone's eye :!: :!: :!:

Well, here's the kicker :!: Later today I got my regular bill and because of my 4 years as a prime customer, Dish network had awarded me a free movie from Pay Per View :!: Well, just for the heck of it, I looked at the PPV offerings and for the 38 movies showing, I found only one that I might have used. It got bad reviews, and I can imagine with Nicole Kidman starring, but I think I could handle nearly 2 hours of Hugh Jackman with very little trouble. Everything is either teenage stuff or Shrek style.

Anne

[Ollie]

I've always had bad AT&T Internet experience - when I had outages, they'd last for days and when service was finally returned, I'd call back and hear, "You had a problem? Even that ticket number doesn't exist in our system. Are you sure you spent 8 calls lasting 19 fruitless hours trying to fix anything, Sir? We love to blame customers as if all they do is fiddle around with THEIR cabling when obviously WE change cabling and systems all the time - but we really NEED to blame you customers as much as we can!"

When it worked, it was great. When it didn't, the liars came out in "customer service levels". I'll be interested to hear your experiences IF there's ever an outage. U-Verse DSL is the only semi-competitive option to our local Time-Warner service and with TW's recent Yes-We-Cap-Service and then flip-flopping to No-We-Will-Delay-That-Decision, TW will remain. But when they go into Cap-Service-Levels, we'll drop 'em. They have routinely cut TV channels over the past 4 years from their packages, never replacing them, just leaving vacant 'holes' but charging us all the same price.

Did you hook up a battery backup for the phone system? Did they recommend that to you, or did you have an existing battery system that you could use?

Dish gave you TV, and I'll be interested to read your observation of the amount of 'blotchies' that you suffer on U-Verse vs. Dish.

But Dish's sudden 'salvation last-gasp-of-dying-vendor' behavior probably doesn't endear them to you should you want to return. This is SUCH a foolish behavior of vendors. Boy, they should make you WANT to return because there are always change-over problems.

[Birdy]

Anne,
I just read this thread - on the same line, in the fall I called and threatened to cancel or reduce my package with Dish. It's the only thing available to me, but I'm sick of the outrageous price. Until I moved to a rural area, I never had cable or anything. I just watched a lot of PBS. Of course, now, I'm addicted to TCM. When I called, they offered to reduce my price by $5.00 for 6 months. I've yet to see it on my bill.

B
PS I agree about HJ, although Wolverine just looks stupid. Sorry, Hugh.

[mrsl]

This sounds really funny, but I have high praise for Dish Network. I never had any problems with them that really caused anxiety. When it went out, it was because the electricity went out. The one time Dish went out, it was back on again within 2 hours. I'm not crazy about U-Verse at all. I can't believe the telephone company doesn't know how to have the phone number and caller appear on the TV like all the other systems do. The recording timer setting is nuts and why do they bother letting you set up a favorites list when it disappears as soon as you change the number for a different station. Also, I'm used to recording on all TV's, with this there is only one, so if you're in the bedroom and want to record, you have to run into the living room to push the button - how stupid. And you can't just remind yourself about a certain program, it has to be recorded. Sometimes I just forget, but with the other systems you can set for a reminder. I don't think I'm long for U=Verse, but I am committed for a year, phooey.

Anne

[Ollie]

We need to find a forum for U-Verse, to see if their customers have banded together and can answer problems. There might be an official one but finding the unofficial one might have better solutions, not just complaints.

I really want these companies to give us a great product.