I subscribed with DishTV under Welcome Package around first week of April 2007. Initially it’s a 3 months free package. After the Set top box and antenna installation is complete, they told me to wait for couple of days before it gets activated.
Today is May 12th, and I am still waiting.
Whenever I call their one-and-only "customer care" number, 18601803474, it’s a dreadful experience.
Firstly almost all the time, the line remains busy. Somehow after hours of trial you can finally connect. Then the automated voice response software always malfunctions. At one stage, it will ask your Viewing Card No (VC No). Even if you put a proper one, it will ask this three times (consuming a lot of time), and then will put me to a Customer Care operator.
Customer care operator, will ask me a lot of question, confirming whether I am a genuine person etc. Then they will ask everything again and again. Here’s in a nutshell what I say to them every time:
I got this connection about 45 days back. Till date it’s not showing any of the channels (leaving only Free-to-air channel). It’s giving Error 101 (conditional access – No Access error).
After this they will say:
Please do the following:
Keep this TV and Set top box (STB) up for 24 hours, with Zee News (Channel no 550) on it. You will receive your channels after that.
Now, when I say I have done that many times, but nothing happened, they will say, this package looks fine from our side, so we can’t do anything on this. You put it up for 24 hours. We have reactivated your account. This time it will work. If not then call us back.
This is going on for the last one month. It’s like an infinite loop. Next day you call to get the same result.
The amazing part is, though I have not received any channels, my package is running as per DishTV’s record. As it started around first week of Apr, three months offer will end around end of June. Doesn’t matter whether you get the channels or not.
At the end of the day, I only blame myself for choosing DishTV. I should have done more research before opting for this.
I’ll update my status after sometime.