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Complaint 221627 Details

We hired Link Point to set us up with Dish Network & Century Link at our new home. We have had the service for approx. 2 months & it has never worked properly.

Internet Issues:
Our Wi-fi (through Century Link) is very spotty, only works about 1/3 of the time, we lose connections constantly when online. Link Point had the router sent directly to our home. Once it arrived we let them know it was there. Link Point owner told us an installer from Century Link would be there the following day to set it up. No one ever showed. Called Link Point again & he said he would set it up again for the following day. Again, no show. So Link Point had one of their guys hook it up when he was there fixing some of the problems with the Dish service. It continued to be very spotty service, hardly ever getting an internet connection without losing it a few minutes later. We called Century Lin directly, they said it would be an $85 technician charge. We told them the story of the installers no show & they sent someone one out at no charge. They said they fixed it & it should be a better connection. It in fact was not & has never improved the entire time we had it. We called Century Link to cancel on Monday, 3/18/13. They were apologetic & cancelled the service at no charge.

TV Issues:
We had 2 TV's connected to the Dish service. Through Link Point. The HDMI cable that the Link Point installed in our living room was such a poor quality that both ends of the cable broke within the first 2 weeks. They left a big mess after installing the cable & box, we had to clean up. When we unplugged the box to clean up the area, the other end of the cable broke, simply by unplugging it just once. We had to replace this cable ourselves & have not had a problem with the new cord at all since installing it.

The signal on TV 2 remote does not operate the box unless you point the remote in the exact right spot (which changes every time you try to work the TV). For every 10-15 times you click a button on the remote it will actually work.

When you are watching one TV you cannot control the other TV. Only one remote will register at a time.

When something is recording you have to watch that channel on that TV. When we asked Link Point how to fix this they said to simply go to another room & watch the other TV.

Link Point was out to our home at least 3 times trying to resolve these issues (though they would work for about a day) they always revert back to the same issues soon after. We also tried calling Dish directly, who ended up sending us a new remote for TV 2 & another antenna for the box but neither of these resolved any of the issues. For the 2 months we have had these services NONE of it has EVER worked properly. We went back into Link Point on 3/18/13 & they wanted to come out to the house yet again to try to fix the issues they have not been able to fix to date. We explained we were not happy with the incomplete & improper service and just wanted it out of our house. They said we needed to call Dish directly to cancel, which we did on that day. Dish cancelled us at that time, said we would incur a cancellation fee of $380 even though the service has never worked right. They explained we needed to take all equipment back to Link Point since they were the ones who installed it within 30 days or we would incur more charges for the cost of the equipment, which we tried to do. After trying to return it 3 times during normal business hours over the course of the next 2 days & no one being there, finally on the 4th time they were open. I typed up an itemized list with serial numbers of all of the equipment we were returning for them to sign for receipt. The guy at the counter called the owner before he would sign the receipt of what we were bringing back. He got on the phone with the owner who wanted to talk to us. We got on the phone with him & he proceeded to tell us that our install was very complicated, he did a lot of work for free & that we should have never gotten in the first place & that we should not have called Dish directly because he knows what is wrong with our system. I asked if he knew what was wrong with our system why didn't he fix it in one of the multiple times he was at our house? He then blamed it on our home being an older home & there needed to be more work done to it & kept saying he did lots of work for free. Again I asked if he knew there was more wrong with the system why he never told us before now, if more work needed done why he has never said anything until now & how dare he blame us like we were expecting & demanding work for free since we paid for everything we were told we needed to pay for. He interrupted me & said there would be a cancellation fee for terminating the contract early & that we needed to send the equipment back to Dish. I told him that Dish said to bring the equipment back to him & that we are not paying a cancellation fee for something that has not worked right EVER. The conversation was heated by this point & we hung up abruptly. I explained to the guy behind the counter that we would be dealing directly with Dish corporate, filing a formal complaint & would make sure that our experience was known to all of our clientele. I amended the receipt of the equipment by crossing out the return portion & wrote along the bottom "refused to take back" & he signed it.

After refusing to accept the equipment back I called Dish yet again. They said since they refused the equipment they would send us a box to return it to Dish directly. They needed everything from inside the house & a flashlight shaped receiver from the satellite. The rest of the satellite can be discarded. I asked him to clarify what that meant, that we did not want the satellite left on our home. He said to throw it away. I clarified again, if he meant we could throw it in the garbage, he said yes.

The monetary damages listed are for the termination fee we are being charged by Dish, the extra expenses we paid to have Link Point install cables/equipment that has was cheap & broke, 2 months of bills from Dish since our equipment has never worked properly, plus what Dish says our current bill is.

On that note we found out on our last call into Dish that our monthly bill more than double because of some "promo" that we were getting had expired. We were told by Link Point that the monthly charges would remain at approximately $42 & the only promo we were receiving was a 3 month free trial of Showtime, HBO & Cinemax. This is the whole reason why we signed up with the in the first place - because it was so much cheaper than our old cable provider. So beyond all of the equipment problems, we were also flat out lied to by Link Point about the charges we would be incurring each month. We tried to discuss this with Dish but they said since Link Point signed us up they would not help us or work with us any further, that they were an outside provider & had no affiliation with Dish. We tried to explain that they DO fully represent themselves as a Dish installer & representative, they have Dish signage & logos all over their office, as well as on their business cards. That we signed up with them because we thought they were a Dish retailer! They just kept saying they are a Dish retailer but they have no affiliation with Dish. But since we signed up with them we are required to work with them for 90 days before Dish will help us any further.