I brought a SC receiver out of retirement to add it back to the fleet and they answered on the first ring, zapped the box and I was off and running.

Less than 2 minutes, start to finish and that even included a chat with the nice lady.

Boy, their new tag line should really be:

"Operators are standing by to take your call"

Hello,
I read the Bell and *C forums (plus some others) when ever I'm home and Sometimes I just get a little frustrated with some of the attitude.
I was a happy *C sub for close to seven years, when the 500 had been around for about a year I finally opted in, I spent one and a half months in total hell! Hours on the phone, hours watching horrible HD and SD, images that would stutter as a camera panned across the screen, channals that would change on their on and no one that would offer help.
When I had finally had enough, I called about warranty help and was told that there is nothing wrong with the 500 and these issues would be fixed, well they weren't. I called and told them to pull the plug, I got switched to another person and she gladly said bye bye.
I was always nice to the folks I talked to, never yelled or theatened them and had almost 7 years of loyalty and they just said bye.
I'm now stuck with all of their hardware and out a whole bunch of money, thats how I was treated.
I have moved to BEV, and I have had a number of issues but so far they were all dealt with in a fairly timely fashion and I have only once been in line for over ten minutes,(to be fair, after switching I was spending hours on the phone but that was talking to someone). There were many times I was on the phone, in line before talking to a person, for over 30 mins with *C.
I get so sick and tired of reading Digitaldude attacking BEV on so many of his posts, he sounds smart enough to be a little more diplimatic.
Just had to get that off my chest.

Hello,
I read the Bell and *C forums (plus some others) when ever I'm home and Sometimes I just get a little frustrated with some of the attitude.
I was a happy *C sub for close to seven years, when the 500 had been around for about a year I finally opted in, I spent one and a half months in total hell! Hours on the phone, hours watching horrible HD and SD, images that would stutter as a camera panned across the screen, channals that would change on their on and no one that would offer help.
When I had finally had enough, I called about warranty help and was told that there is nothing wrong with the 500 and these issues would be fixed, well they weren't. I called and told them to pull the plug, I got switched to another person and she gladly said bye bye.
I was always nice to the folks I talked to, never yelled or theatened them and had almost 7 years of loyalty and they just said bye.
I'm now stuck with all of their hardware and out a whole bunch of money, thats how I was treated.
I have moved to BEV, and I have had a number of issues but so far they were all dealt with in a fairly timely fashion and I have only once been in line for over ten minutes,(to be fair, after switching I was spending hours on the phone but that was talking to someone). There were many times I was on the phone, in line before talking to a person, for over 30 mins with *C.
I get so sick and tired of reading Digitaldude attacking BEV on so many of his posts, he sounds smart enough to be a little more diplimatic.
Just had to get that off my chest.

Your're absolutly right. I should have been a bit more diplomatic.
Maybe it was just the mood I was in after some BELL subs came trolling into the SC forums.
I don't have time to inflame the BELL subs in their own forum, So I do it here.
But mostly, my goal is to educate current and future SC subs on the new boxes.

W.R.T. your 500, Yes there are/were problems.
It was a difficult time for SC having to explain that the box was not broken and new software would fix many things.
It's really too bad you couldn't tolerate it any longer.
There is new software for the 500 arriving later this month that seems to make things a whole lot better.
But since it was not yet available for public release, what else could they really do for you.
Perhaps it was out of respect for your wishes that they said good-bye.

Maybe one day, you'll come back, if not, it was a pleasure having you here.

My mom called *choice regarding the "referral program" with my name and telephone number on Monday, April 27. She was informed that they would contact me within 72hrs. I waited for 4 days and still no call. I then called CS and explained the situation, they said they would forward this to the sales department. I then waited until Monday May 2, decided to try emailing them. I got a response back saying they would call me "today"! I am still waiting to hear from *choice CS or Sales department so that I can get this thing going, with whatever paper work they must submit. It is quite frustrating and wonder what the hech is going on.

What I am tempted to do is just go ahead with the receiver, call them for installation and then get my programming. As it seems they aren't that interested in my business I guess. :eek:

I heard so many good things about CS, although admittedly I got through on the phone pretty quickly anytime I have called.

Thanks for reading.

I just got off the phone with CS and was passed onto Customer Relations person and wooooow! Incredible service! I can't even put into words. We chatted for nearly an hour about *choice.

:p :p

I have been a *C customer since 2000 and have never had any major problems…. Until now (otherwise I wouldn’t be here). Two yrs ago my b-friend and I decided to buy a place together – he has Express Vu – so we’d both been at the controls of each dish. We decided to go with *C, my b-friend bought the system and because he was a new customer the install was free, I signed my dish over to his name. I guess the first bad experience was when they guy came to install the dish…we told him we didn’t want it put on the roof but on the chimney of the house – as we were in the process of moving in we didn’t watch his every move as he installed the dish. You guessed it – he put it right on our roof. We called *C to let them know – they did nothing. Last summer we re-shingled the roof and moved the dish onto the chimney, no real issues. Although it took forever to get a signal, there was a lot of cursing and the real pisser was that if the guy had of just put the dish were we asked him to in the first place we wouldn’t be going through all this frustration anyway the dish has been working fine, until approx 2 weeks ago (April 24th). I tried to watch some TV and noticed that we were missing some channels; because we had a big storm moving in I blew it off until the next day. The same result, missing quite a few channels in the 300 zone, so I gave them a call. Of course they couldn’t send any out the next day, which would have been best because I happened to be off work that day it they required someone to be there for the service call. I was never informed they mine or any household members presents was not necessary. So Tuesday they were to send a guy, I left them my work number but told them that no one would be home until after 3:30pm. My mid-day Tues I still hadn’t received a phone call so I called to check messages at home, the guy had called and said he’d be there around 1pm. I called *C to let them know (Yet again) that there would be no one home. When my b-friend got home there was a card left and a message from *C saying the guy had been there, replaced the cracked eye and readjusted the dish. WOW that’s great we though, until we turned the dish on, our signal strength was at about 30! We called *C to let them know and going on principal (and the curing experience of less than a year ago) asked that they sent a tech to adjust the dish. They couldn’t send someone until the end of the week, this meant we’d been without service since Sunday – 6days! Plus, we had my b-friends boys coming for the weekend and the oldest is a TV freak! The weekend would be hell!! But thankfully a different guy came, was very pleasant and understanding – he had us up and running in no time. Life was good again! Our little ‘blip’ was over…. Or so we thought…now, don’t hate me, but I started watching American Idol. Now if that isn’t bad enough I’ve also gotten my b-friend addicted to it. So on the 10th of May we both get home and turn the dish on, to kill time I thought I’d watch something else and set the timer for Idol. The one channel I select states that ‘they are processing my request…I try and few of the channels above and below this one and find that we don’t get that one either. I called the *C number to see if there is a satellite down, nope! As I’m talking to a customer service person out channels are dropping like flies until we are not getting any! As of May13th we still have not gotten this issue resolved and guess what? It’s a kids weekend again. *C customer service sucks!

kas,

Wow. Paragraphs are a good thing. Very difficult to read a big block of text like that.

No kidding... i gave up after about the 10th line.

It wouldn't be the kids I would be worried about. What about the money you are spending for service that you are not getting?

It seems strange though. Common sense tells me that if this was a common occurance, StarChoice would have went out of business a long time ago. Perhaps you have something wrong with your tuner. You might need to get it replaced.

Re: Kas.
1) It sounds like an installer issue, not a Customer Service issue. They're doing their best to get someone out there, but you appear not to be home alot.
2) They tried to fix the situation by sending out someone new. That seems to be a step in the right direction.
3) Its not uncommon to have issues that take awhile to get resolved - it may appear to be the LNBF, then turn out to be the reciever, or the cabling, or allignment, or worst of all, a combination of all of those. It happens. It seems to me that steps HAVE been taken to get this resolved. Give it some time, I think Star Choice will end up comming through for you.

They may even give a reimbursement of money for the time you lost your signal and for your frustration.

Sorry about the long winded 1st post...
Well a guy came on Sat morning and of course when we turned the system on it was working - so it was hard to troubleshoot. He did replace the line at the back of both receivers (One straight to the dish and the other to the TV) and everything was fine....Up until this moring!!! Urgh

This is were we start to get frustrated..how could it be working fine all weekend through rain and wind and pertty much being on 12 hrs a day Sat and Sun, then this morning after turning it on for a few mins it goes down. I believe they've narrowed it down to an outside issue as both recievers are doing the same thing. I happen to be home today but the norm is we are at work all day and it's when we come home and turn it on that it is out or goes out. So far *C has given us a $10.50 credit for t he first week it was out....

Intermittent problems are a PAIN to find and fix - you have the proof.

Sounds like a flaky LNB to me.

I had a similar problem in february. When the guy came to install the 2nd line for the 530, the next day, the screen goes blank. Goes on and off every few hours. Called back *C and they sent someone 4 days later. When he came in, the receiver was working perfectly. He made a quick check outside and he found out the 4X4 multi-switch was broken. He changed it and everything got settled ever since. That's like when you go at the dentist, your teeth hurts until you get there.

Sounds like a flaky LNB to me.

Yes it does. They should at least replace it. Instead of giving credits for loss of service, it would likely save them money to replace all of your outside parts, including the dish. A happier customer and no credits is surely the way to go.

Well once again, The system came on suddenly at 1pm so when the repair guy came he had nothing to troubleshoot! He did replace the LNB and we'll go from there....A new dish after the 3rd repair visit would have made more sense! So far so good, when I left for work this morning everything was working - I was afraid to turn the darn thing off......Fingers are crossed.

Best of luck, I suspect things are good now.

Even when it's off, it's actually ON, just no video to the TV.

I'll tell you....this company makes no sense at all. The other day when I had my new DSR 530 authorized, the CSR told me that I could have my old round dish upgraded to the new eliptical with quad lnb for $49. He said they just lowered it from $99. I should have jumped at it right then, but I was in a hurry to get off the phone as some company had arrived at the door. So, I call back today...guess what....now I'm told that it's $99. So I explained that just the other day I was told that it had been lowered to $49. He said no, because you own a 530 now, it's $99. So I said, what if I hadn't of bought the 530 unit, and I still just had my two old units? He said "then it would be $49". I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I said because I went out and bought your brand new DVR for $700 +, now I get penalized on a dish upgrade?? He said yup....that's the way it works. I said their marketing department and sales department is totally SCREWED up! I told him what I would do, is sell the 530 to a relative for $1 so he could take it out of my account...then since I still have my two old receivers, I'll upgrade my dish to eliptical, which includes the running of one line for $49, and when that's done, I'll buy the 530 back from my relative for a dollar, and have it reauthorized in my account. He just groaned and said "ok, I'll give it to you for $49". What a complete JOKE!! Someone better give their head a shake out there in Calgary. Their "pre-order" has been nothing short of a disaster in marketing and customer service, and to top it off, they want to double the charge on upgrading your dish because you spent $700 + for a new receiver... DUH!!!!

My upgrade was $49 when I had my DSR 500 installed.

Perhaps you weren't clear to the CSR or didn't understand the website.......any install for the 530 is $99, regardless of what is required. Multiswitch, 2 cable runs, dish, activation, labour.

The upgrade is a simple dish swap and allignment. On the 530 2 cable runs aren't to the cable box outside......it has to be run inside, to the unit directly....more work for an installer, and if from what I understand, those switches aren't cheap if you need one.