Long time lurker, first time post:

Had to add my $.02 about Star Choice's customer service. Overall, I rank it as top drawer, especially in the telecom industry. I have been a Star Choice customer for 5 years. Most recently, I approached them in Feb. to ask what they would do to keep me as a customer, in light of other promotions. Their response:
- free 530
- free install
- free dish upgrade
- 2 year contract
Everything but the 530 I can believe. However, I have never ever heard of anyone getting a 530 as an incentive to stay with Star Choice.

However, I have never ever heard of anyone getting a 530 as an incentive to stay with Star Choice.

Yes that wouldn't make any business sense. Getting a 530 for free would be incentive to find another supplier.

Maybe the model number is mixed up. Maybe they were giving away the plain vanilla SD receiver. That I would believe. A new DVR that just came on the market - no way.

Everything but the 530 I can believe. However, I have never ever heard of anyone getting a 530 as an incentive to stay with Star Choice.
I have....

i'm with starchoice since 1999 and don't have a bad word about them
my sister was with bell and gave up because someone insulted her on the phone
never got that with starchoice

To dks

There have been some requests to lock the thread and others have asked you to stop complaining on the subject of the 530.

The thread has gone way off topic and was not serving its purpose of allowing general good and bad comments about SC. It disintegrated into an attack on the DSR 530.

Locking the thread would be a disservice to those interested in the subject matter of the thread. I have simply moved the posts into the DSR 530 discussion thread and you can continue there if you wish. Please keep your comments constructive. Many have said you have made your point so if you have more things to say, please add to them and don't repeat. Thank you.

I must say that this seems fair. It's always the same few who jump down the throats of ANYONE who says ANYTHING about the 530 or StarChoice for that matter.

So I ordered Star Choice 2 weeks ago. They were really nice, said the unit should ship in the next week via courier and be there by last Friday at the latest. I checked my visa statement and sure enough they didn't waste any time taking my money the same day I placed the order. I called back when nothing has shown up on my door and the guy on the phone assured me it had shipped on the 17th. I asked for a tracking number and I got transferred. The next csr I got then gave me a completely different story and said that the unit didn't ship until today, just a couple hours ago. He was able to give me a tracking number, and I was able to verify his story (finally, an honest answer).

Of course, my cable service ended yesterday. I still don't have my receiver, and Star Choice told me the earliest install date would be a week from now, but they can't book it because i don't actually have the receiver yet. So I'm looking at more than a week of no TV at all. Now this might be the usual way of doing business at star Choice. No phone call to inform me that it would be delayed, a lack of honesty or perhaps a poorly educated sales force that misinformed me on timeframes just to get the sale in this month.

I called back again later because I was pretty pissed off and needed to yell at someone, after my wife stopped yelling at me. This time I got a lady who told me that I should have been told it takes at least 3 weeks to get service from the date the order is placed. Of course that doesn't do me alot of good. So my recommendation is... don't but the stuff direct or if you don't like being screwed over, subscribe to a competitor. Star Choice took my money 2 weeks before they shipped the product, they lied to me about the timeframe, failed to follow up and let me know there would be a delay (so I could've then held off cancelling my cable service), and now I'm left with a pissed off family, no TV and a complete feeling of helplessness. Thanks Star Choice!

If it makes you feel any better, most of us that did the "early signup" for the 530 in May and were screwed too. Like you, StarChoice took our money immediately, while people waited for a month (some had to wait even longer) before the 530 was shipped. Meanwhile, the stores received shipment of the 530s weeks ahead of the customers. The advertisements were saying, "Get your 530 first!" Their customer service as I recall was so non-caring. Two weeks is nothing compared to the 530 ordeal which took place 5 months ago.

I hope that you feel better now.

Which receiver did you order? The 505 or the 530?

Why would you just not buy your receiver at the store ????? Cancel the order, call Visa tell them you didnt authorize the transaction and go the store and get it. In my world I try to keep things simple, that would be what I would do.

a buddy of mine just got SC installed last Friday. It was a 3 week wait for him. When he was talking to the installer about it, the installer said that they are having a really hard time getting hardware from SC (dishes, etc).

Apparently, the install base is climbing rapidly and SC. Which seems reasonable given the promotions on the 505 and multi-room stuff at TheSource and general larger advertising presence.

The story my buddy got that he was booked for last Friday and the equipment arrived at the installer just the day before.

Of course this is all second and third hand, so who know how accurate this is.

From what I've heard, Ontario installs are currently about 3 weeks out. Everywhere else in the country is alot more reasonable, usually less than a week.
This is unfortunate as it used to be 3 days in Ontario and around 6 days everywhere else.

The only time I'd buy a receiver through the call center is if its a 315 or 205. Its far easier to pick up a 505 or 530 at retail than wait to have Star Choice ship it to you, then book an install.

Definately pick up the reciever. I was even told that by 2 different SC reps when I called with questions to do that because of the delay process. You could also circumvent the situation by telling them you have the reciever even though you don't since they didn't even ask for a serial number or anything. I picked up the reciever here in Alberta and it was a 1 week install wait. Not to mention I picked up the 505 which was on sale at BB for $129 which is a pretty damn good deal. Now to figure this thing out and conceal it from the condo board... ;)

Now to figure this thing out and conceal it from the condo board... ;)
Tell them it's a bird feeder.
Or show off your superior picture quality and programming options and talk them into turning the whole condo into a Star Choice building!

Just another note on customer service from *C.

I had to replace a 530 again. So I take tech. sup. advice, I go to the store I purchased it from got another one. No issues at all.

Get home friday night and call in to tech support to have the new unit activated and I am told that Tech Support can't actually activate my 530 as only a "special team" is authorized to do 530 activates due to the delicate nature of the device.

Great. I ask to be put through to this "special team" and promptly an told that they only work during normal business hours and I should call back tomorrow morning.

Here I am with a replacement unit and no TV. I ask what happened to the 7x24 tech support and I am told that activations is not tech support. I don't see the difference. I have to have a unit replaced. That is tech support according to the Rep, but the new unit activation is not tech support. Nice of them to tell me this earlier.

So I am a little PO'd but I wait until sat morning. Kids are up they want to watch their cartoons. I am on the phone with *C trying to get the 530 activated.

I get tech support. who has to take the old reciever off my account and enter all the serial # information, etc from the new box into my account. I ask why this couldn't be done last night and I am told "The night shift does not always handle things well" and left at that.

Once all the info is in I have to wait on hold for 5 minutes while I am transfered to the "special 530 activation department". The csr there asks for all the serial # infor again. I tell here the Tech sup. guy just put it all into the system. She tells me that the tech sup system is different from the activation system and she needs to renter it again. Great. So we go through it all a second time (mean while I have a pair of 2 year olds complaining about the lack of cartoons).

She activates the unit and I get channel 299 and 298. Nothing else. I ask her to fix it and load my channel map into the box and make sure IPPV is working. She pauses and tells me we have to wait for 5 minutes for the channel map to come in. Fine we wait.

15 minutes later I still have only channels 299 and 298. She is dumbfounded. I check the system status and notice that the reciever is still in MP authorization. I tell her that it will not work in MP and she tells me straight out "I don't know what you are talking about. My instructions tell me to hit the box with your programming and I did, I don't know anything else about these 530 I will have to have you call tech. support to solve the problem"

So I get transfered to tech support and wait on hold for another 20 minutes. Finally a tech support person get the box authorized and I get to watch tree house with my kids. Almost 1.5 hours to activate a 530.

What is the most irritating thing is the "experts" at activating the 530 are only following a script. A script that the night shift should be able to do with out issue, as proven by the complete lack of knowledge of the csr I had activate mine.

Way to go for *C 7x24 hour support :confused:

Wow, that is a horrendous ordeal Cory. Sorry you had to go through all of that. So much for training and quality customer service. The person you were speaking to did not seem to want to give you much help or investigate it further. She passed you off to another team of people. This means the next time that she gets a customer like you trying to get their 530 activated - she's going to do the same darn thing! This is what's so annoying. Clerks who don't have 2 clues about their job, and don't care about finding out either. If she was a smart person, she would have conferenced the other area and listened in to see what they did. Or at least call them and ask them to help HER, not transfer you to them and wipe her hands clean. Especially after you spent so much time on hold and giving out your serial number twice. It's totally unacceptable service.

Cory, Do you remember the name of that "special team" clerk. This should be reported to *C admin. They would surely change things right away. Send that story over. If you can't, then let me do it!

I aggree with tos.
Get the name (and hopefully rep #) of whoever you speak with when you get less than satisfactory service. Then either use the dialogue zone, or call back later and escalate it to a supervisor.

I aggree with tos.
Get the name (and hopefully rep #) of whoever you speak with when you get less than satisfactory service. Then either use the dialogue zone, or call back later and escalate it to a supervisor.

Thanks to being really pissed off with the 530 and the overall customer support being offered, I have a running log of the support technicians I talk to, when and for how long, how long I was on hold, etc. - all at home now of course :)


One of the issues I have with *C customer service is:

I have run into CSRs like this before. People who have not been trained or just don't like doing their jobs. So I have aksed to speak with supervisors and/or managers. Every time I ask to escalate the issue to someone higher up the ranks I get the exact same responce.

"*C management does not deal with 530 issues" I even had 2 Csrs tell me that there are no supervisors on the floor after regular business hours.

I have asked to have managers call me back and have been told that *C does not call back customers. And they are correct I never get a call back.

In fact, I had to take it as far as letting *C know (through the dialog zone) that I am about to file a writ in court for false advertising and fraud for them to even call me to discuss the issues.

So I have tried to contact the "customer resolution" department again to bring up these issues. I am still waiting to here back from them.

I find it odd that a company feels the need to have a special department that's whole purpose is dealing with customer issues like this. To me that the company is not really costomer driven and not geared to support the customers that ensure they survive. A customer driven company would have supervisors and managers that would deal directly with the customer to solve the issues imediately, not transfering the issues to a whole department of individuals that take days to get in contact with and can't really offer any real assistance when you do talk to them.

From my personal experiences with tech support, and *C in general, is that they are definetly profit driven and really don't care what kind of customer service reputation they recieve.

I have yet to have anyone even appologize for any of the customer service issues I have run across, or suggest process changes to ensure a better quality of service to their customers. The issues are all taken as if they are common place for *C.

From personal experience, if you want to sign up and pay them for service, or if you want to change your programming and upgrade to another level they are freindly and as helpful as they can be. But, if you are having any issues with that service they are providing all they want is to get you off the phone as fast as possible and make you someone elses problem.