Dealing with Dish

The story of moving goes on. We are at 8 days and counting from closing both houses and moving. We've been packing and planning and praying (that something won't go wrong - and that if it does that it's God protecting us in some way).

One of the things I was responsible for in this process was getting utilities and services switched over. After talking to Dish Network and DirectTV I was planning to switch us from Dish to Direct. We were going to save $300 over the next 12 months - well worth it to me - particularly with the same programming and an upgrade in equipment.

So I called Dish on Wednesday evening to schedule our service to be shut off on the 11th - then I was going to call Direct to have them install on the 11th. When I finally got to the guy that could actually cancel my service - after asking at least 3 other CSRs if they could match what Direct was offering and repeatedly being told no - he asked me why I was dropping them. I told him that Direct was offering more for less. Suddenly this guy had the power to give me everything I wanted for $15/month less than I'm currently paying. And he could give me free equipment (part of the $300 cost listed above). It was amazing. I wasn't pushy, didn't demand anything and he just starting hooking us up.

Now there I am a little bit of a skeptic when it comes to things like this, the proof will most certainly be in the envelope. But my advice would be to look and see what the competing service is offering and then talk to people at your provider until one of them has the ability to do something for you.