Potential Energy

July 31, 2007

EchoStar Satellite LLC
Dispute Resolution
PO Box 9040
Littleton, CO 80120

Dear Sir or Madam:

I am writing this letter first and foremost to demand that my phone number, XXX-XXX-XXXX, be placed on the do-not-call list of Dish Network and all other EchoStar Satellite business units and affiliates. I have made this request three times over the past three months to agents calling from Dish Network (telephone 866-668-8047) but continue to receive as many as 8 calls a day from this Dish number.

DO NOT CALL XXX-XXX-XXXX AGAIN. FOR ANY REASON. EVER.

Pursuant to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (47 CFR 64.1200), any further calls to this number can and will result in legal action. The penalty for willful or knowing violations of this act is $1500 per incident.

Now with that bit of business out of the way, let me address the question that your persistent telephone agents ask me every time I answer your harassing phone calls. They want to know, they say, why I left Dish Network. Mind you, I patiently answer this question for the hapless agents week after week, month after month, whenever the ceaseless ringing from your auto dialer finally breaks my will and causes me to answer in the hopes that this time-- against all accumulated experience dealing with your bungling, incompetent network—maybe this time, someone will actually write down the answer and also maybe heed my pleas to be left alone.

Why did I leave Dish Network? Because I was told to. By Dish Network. When I moved into my new house last October, I called to order Dish service, primarily because that was the provider that the previous owners had used. The installer came out and did a fine job of installing. And we were watching TV. Well, some of the time. Right from the start we had brief interruptions in service. Then frequent interruptions. Eventually we came to find the constant “No signal” message to be soothing. The black background behind the message blended in well with the black TV case, and the lack of any noise really improved our quality of life. It was almost like having the TV off completely, but without the anxiety of not having the TV on. When occasionally the “No signal” message was interrupted by actual content, we were slightly nervous and grew restless and irritable wondering when the strange moving lights would go away.

From time to time, I’d call Dish Network to ask about the moving-pictures vs. soothing-black-screen conundrum. There a computerized “helper” would make suggestions (“Make sure your cable connections are tight!”) until a real live person finally came on the line. If we’d had any “weather” recently, this person would tell me, it likely moved the dish. Moving the dish, even the tiniest fraction of an inch, was a sure recipe for disaster. Had we had any weather? No, I’d say, we’d had no snow, nor sleet, nor dark of night-- not since we made that sacrifice to the Egyptian scarab god Khepri. Weather was not the issue. “Oh. Well then, maybe you should try moving the dish.” I was still new to the Dish Network at the time, and assumed the whole “friendly but useless” shtick was a local phenomenon. I’m sure even NASA hires the occasional dull knife.

Eventually Dish Network sent out The Guy In The Truck. The local Dish franchise always sends guys who don’t wear a Dish uniform or drive a Dish truck or in any way appear to be professional installers. I like this, because it throws the neighbors off. We’re a down-to-earth community (notwithstanding the occasional sacrifices to Egyptian dung-beetle deities), and having some fancy-schmancy uniformed repair guy showing up would come off as pretentious. Anyway, The Guy wasn’t even in the front door when he said, “Oh man, I’ve been to this house before!” The previous owners threw a lot of parties. “No,” he said, “I’ve been to this house a LOT. Almost every week.” They didn’t throw that many parties. Turns out, The Guy In The Truck had been tweaking and re-aiming and re-mounting and generally trying to coax a signal out of our very dish for years, and for some reason the previous owners didn’t listen to his simple advice: “You need to get rid of this thing and get cable.” (Maybe if he’d been wearing a uniform…) He called his manager and the manager came out and they both told me to get cable. They pointed up into the south-west skies and explained that you couldn’t see the satellite from here, even if you squinted really hard. There was always a tree or a house or a bunch of hydrogen molecules blocking the view. I’m not sure why the installer guy didn’t notice this when he installed the dish. Maybe he had super X-ray-vision or something.

So we ditched the Dish and got cable. Your company even let me climb up a big ladder and take the dish down myself! Most other companies would have taken it down themselves, what with the risk of falling and the fact that they never should have installed the thing in the first place since everyone knew you couldn’t see the satellite from our backyard, even if you squinted. I pretended to be The Guy In The Truck and took the dish down with my own ladder and an old work shirt I got at the thrift store with the name “Ernie” stitched right on the breast pocket. Pretty cool!

Ever since then, your auto-dialer calls my cell phone constantly, and your dim-witted (but friendly!) agents listen to my story about how I left Dish Network because Dish Network told me to leave Dish Network, and occasionally say things like “Well, if you ever, uh, don’t have giant trees, give us a call!” Then they tell me that there’s no record of my ever requesting to not be called, and promise to add me to the do-not-call list, post-haste. Well, give or take 31 days. Lather, rinse, repeat.

To summarize, here’s my experience with Dish Network:

1) You installed a dish at a location that your own installers knew was a very bad place to install a dish.

2) Your workmen show up in outfits that I use as an example to my grandmother about who not to let in the house and when to call the police.

3) You make your customers do the work of uninstalling the equipment that you should never have installed in the first place

4) You harass ex-customers by constantly calling their phones despite being asked not to.

Short of physically abusing your customers, I’m not sure I can think of any way that you can make the “customer experience” any more annoying, infuriating, and downright unpleasant. Maybe you could make that “No signal” screen flash red and make loud screeching noises. That would really suck.

Sincerely,

SmoothP

Ps: DO NOT CALL XXX-XXX-XXXX AGAIN. FOR ANY REASON. EVER.

Edit: If you like this, please visit my current blog: All Of This Is Wrong