Complaint Review: DISH Network - Englewood Colorado

Last month, I got a letter from a collection agency for a four and a half year old "debt" of $337.23 for terminating my agreement with DISH Network because the service didn't work in the upstairs bedroom as they said it would. We had the DISH contractor come back three times to try to fix the problem but he couldn't. I told him to take the box with him, which he did. 

It is important to note that I haven't lived in the residence where the attempted service from DISH was made in over a year and a few months.

30 days later, a collections agency called and offered me the "opportunity" to "make the debt go away" by paying half of the amount that was owed. I declined,saying that the service never worked, therefor the contract was void. I didn't hear a thing from DISH or any company representing them since then.

After calling DISH to challenge this semilegitimate looking thing, I got a second letter from the colledtion agency that said it was a "valid debt" and they would be "continuing the collection process." I ran this by a rep at my bank and he said to call DISH and ask them to send me a copy of the original agreement that I had signed.

I called DISH again on December 22nd and spent over two hours on the phone. I was disconnected twice but persevered. After being transferred three more times, I finally got a guy who said that his computer displayed the following message: "Customer has ben out of the system for over 36 months and records cannot be accessed." Then he said he would transfer me to the "Office of the president."

A man who identified himself as "Employee WD9" answered said that he would "work with me." Apparently he verified that they did not have a copy of my signed agreement. After another five minutes of hold time, he came back on the line and said "OK, you have a point. If we don't have your agreement, we can't prove that you ver had service with us. I will send you a letter with our letterhead that says you have a zero balance on this account. It should take about four days."

Today, after not receiving a letter from DISH, I called them again and this time they said they found a copy of my original agreement and sent it out yesterday.  They also said that they have "notes" on the account from 2011 in which I complained about their attempt to get money from me but they don't have the notes regarding the number of times I called to complain about the service not working. A man from the "Office of the president" told me that I would have to get an attorney to subpoena those notes if I wanted to use them as part of my arguement for not paying the debt.

This is a scam.  I believe the collection agency, which is called "afini," which is based in Bloomington, IL, is doing this to past DISH customers for pennies on the dollar. The tactics used by this agency and DISH are to intimidate people and wear them down.

This is a clear measure of what kind of company DISH is and people should read and consider this report before ever doing business with them.