[Sidney Lanier]

We are not particularly television watchers and so have been here on and off as snowbirds for the past year with no television subscription. With the coming of the digital revolution in February, we thought it would be wise to pack up the rabbit ears to have access at least to local news and the like.

There appeared on Monday, December 15 (and perhaps on other days too) a full-page ad in the Daily Sun (page A-23 on that date) headed "Villages and Summerfield Residents Confused About Comcast and Cablevision!" It was basically a long explanation that the cable companies are not truly prepared for the digital changes coming in February, that customers subscribing to HD are not necessarily getting it, and that residents need to consider DISH Network to allay all these problems. The ad erroneously gave the impression that we were dealing directly with DISH (which we didn't realize then that we weren't).

Since we had no television service at all (we love our DVDs!), we called the 800 number, left a message, and got a call back from apparently a representative of a retailer, that is, a company that contracts with DISH to sell its services, presumably for a commission. Looking at the full page ad, at that point we even didn't realize that there isn't a name of their company given.... We thought we were knowledgeable consumers, asked what we thought were all the right questions, got what we thought were all the right answers, and agreed to the installation and a relatively basic package for $24.99 + tax = $28.23/month. Two men showed up to do the installation, did a fine job, gave some basic instruction, had us sign a contract, and left.

Today we went to look for some of the channels we were 'promised' and couldn't find them. Thinking we are technologically Luddites, I phoned the 800 number given on the DISH website and learned three things: (1) We had NOT dealt with DISH but rather with a retailer, (2) we were given false information in terms of the channels we were interested in, and (3) our monthly bill was in fact $46, not $25! At that point I immediately canceled the contract, which law allows anyone to do with any contract within the first 72 hours.

When I called back to DISH just to verify that the account was closed, we were fortunate to reach an extraordinarily knowledgeable representative who was able to answer questions relating to customer service, billing, and technical support. He told us about an even more basic package called the WELCOME PACKAGE that includes a couple dozen channels plus all the Orlando offerings, including the major networks and THREE PBS stations that we'd be interested in. This is all that we would want, it's not commonly advertised, and the cost is $14.99 + tax = $16.53/month. So we are back on with DISH but without a retailer. Gratefully....

We are posting this to alert Villagers about the unethical nature of the retailer running the ad in the Daily Sun and to be very leery of doing business with them. We spoke with a Resolution Team at DISH and reported our experiences, asking them to follow up as well as to notify us when they learn what was going on, and we will contact the Daily Sun, since they are carrying the ad, to see if the money they are making on the ad is more important to them than the lack of ethics on the part of the advertiser. This is all we can do. Meantime: BUYER BEWARE!!!