No good deed

My husband has a long fuse. Long. Near eternal. No one believes he actually gets angry, and the truth is, it takes a lot to push him over the edge. But over the edge he went this week, thanks to Dish Network and their inept, third-party representative.

Back in June, we switched from DirecTV to Dish. A young man from our neighborhood was working as a rep for Dish, and in an effort to buy local and support a DeWitt grad, we switched. In the words of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: Big mistake. Big. Huge.

He promised he’d cancel our contract with DirecTV, get us all set up with Dish and lower our monthly cost. He did get us set up with Dish. But cancelling our contract and lowering our monthly cost weren't on his to-do list, so we got stuck paying DirecTV for a month and a half. And thus began our quest to be reimbursed because he didn't cancel our service.

Sean has called and texted and texted and called the rep. The rep has promised the check’s in the mail so many times it’s laughable. Tuesday night he promised to put cash in our mailbox. When the latest promise went unfulfilled, Sean just lost it. You do not want to be on the receiving end of Sean losing it. He doesn't yell. He doesn't cuss. But you know you are in a heap of trouble.

In an attempt to help my husband control his blood pressure, I took over. I went to Twitter to see if Dish could help us out. A help desk person almost instantly tweeted back and asked me to DM him the issue. Progress at last!

After explaining the issue, the Dish guy kept asking for more info. Account number, PIN, address. And after gathering tons of info, he came back and said he couldn't help because a third party originated the sale.

Um, Dish? I told you that IN THE VERY FIRST MESSAGE!!

My homemade protest sign.

And this is where I lost it. Took Sean four months; took me four hours.

We've had nothing but problems with Dish – from this issue to the signal going out with great regularity. And we only turn our set on a few times a week. I can’t imagine how often we’d be greeted with the Signal Out screen if we were regular viewers.

Thankfully, Sean's BP is back in normal range. I've recovered from my Twitter message session. But I am now on the warpath to convince Dish to let us out of our contract. At this point they can keep the money they owe us. It would be worth it to be done with this company.