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casawatson

Apr 3, 2007, 9:29 AM

Post #1 of 8 (3987 views)

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Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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We recently had two of our three receivers turned off by Dish Network. We, like many other people at Lakeside, use MBE with a Laredo address for mail and credit card billing adresses. When we called to correct the situation, we were grilled with questions about our "apartment" in NYC, which is our service address. We were informed that all receivers would be turned off unless we sent Dish a utility bill in our name, or a certified copy of the lease for our "apartment". Of course will we not be able to produce either of these items.

The "gentlemen" on the phone from Dish explained to me that many of their customers had the same billing address and they were auditing all those accounts.

Has anyone else had this same experience? Is switching to Star Choice an option?

Curious.

johanson / Moderator

Apr 3, 2007, 6:17 PM

Post #2 of 8 (3962 views)

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Re: [casawatson] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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I'm sorry to hear this. I would hope that your satellite dealer would have a solution for you. Maybe it is time to start using an address of a child or grandchild in the States or Canada. I'm a snowbird, so I am lucky to have a real address up North.

Star Choice is also a great alternative, but you need a Canadian site address. There are many satellite dealers in the greater Guadalajara area (to include lakeside) who can help you with service to include a legal site address. Some have much better reputations and lower prices than others. So comparative shop; Buyer beware.

Brian

Apr 3, 2007, 6:32 PM

Post #3 of 8 (3959 views)

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Re: [johanson] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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If the Laredo billing address is being questioned, you should select some other place in the US. When I subscribed to Dish, I selected the billing option to not receive a paper statement. Instead, I had them bill the monthly fee to my credit card automatically each month. Thus, it didn't matter where my billing address was located since they didn't send anything there including junk mail.

PS I suspect that the reason the OP was audited was because he/she had more than one receiver which was not attached to a phoneline and wasn't "calling home". During the audit, the subscriber is asked to read information off the screen of each additional receiver. If they can't do so because they are located at different addresses, the additional receivers are cutoff from service but the main receiver stays intact. Frankly, I think that the Laredo address issue is a bunch of baloney. If they really wanted to to enforce legitimate billing addresses, they would have cutoff all three receivers.

Brian

(This post was edited by Brian on Apr 3, 2007, 6:39 PM)

casawatson

Apr 4, 2007, 6:59 AM

Post #4 of 8 (3934 views)

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Re: [johanson] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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Guys, Thanks for your replies. I am happy to report that we are well on our way to a solution. We have learned that quite a few people at Lakeside are in fact having the same problem. Our satellite provider has been very responsive.

Brian, the billing address does matter. If you sign up for auto pay on your credit card, and your credit card address is Laredo, you must enter your billing address. That becomes another search option for the Dish audit team. I agree that most of the issue is multiple receivers not attached to phone lines, but in our case, all three receivers are in our house but not attached to a phone line (we use vonage with wireless extension phones around the house, so it was not convenient to attach a phone to the receivers). I was unable to answer questions about our "stateside" service address (supplied by our satellite provider), like "is that a high rise or low rise apartment building", since I have never been there, which raised concerns for the auditor.

Thanks
Tom

grm

Apr 7, 2007, 6:34 PM

Post #5 of 8 (3887 views)

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Re: [casawatson] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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what would happen if you use it for your rv and are traveling all the time with no local address? how is that handled, i have read that directtv allows it to be done that way.

taltman711

Apr 8, 2007, 8:02 AM

Post #6 of 8 (3860 views)

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Re: [casawatson] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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"If you sign up for auto pay on your credit card, and your credit card address is Laredo, you must enter your billing address. That becomes another search option for the Dish audit team."

Every Dish account has 2 addresses. A billing address and a service address. I have never heard of a Dish audit that searched billing addresses. The entire purpose of an audit is to prevent account stacking, as Brian mentioned. Three or more receivers on any account can trigger the audit. As I think about it, I have never heard of any audit based on service addresses, either. You can go online into your account and change your billing address. If you have autopay and paperless billing, that address becomes moot. Change it to whatever you like. As for the service address, you can call and have that changed as well. About 2 minutes with Google will yield a good address in a residential neighborhood anywhere in the US. Your Satellite dealer should do this for you as well.
If, in fact, they are auditing based on addresses, perhaps you could give us more detail. You said that the audit was based on the billing address and then that they asked questions about your service address. I am not sure I understand exactly which it was. Why would they care about the billing address?? I would think that all you had to say is that it is a mail forwarding service as you are in Mexico a lot. The audit team is usually interested in your answer to the location ID on each receiver; end of story. Do you know what prompted the questions about the physical description of your service address?? Is your satellite dealer using the same service address for all of their customers??
Lastly, like Brian, I am really confused as to why they didn't terminate your account if the audit was address based. Typically, the only time they deactivate a receiver is when you can't give its' location ID. I assume that you gave all the proper location IDs. Did they give you a reason why they turned off 2 of your 3 receivers??
Your replies would be helpful to others as it would seem to indicate a real shift in audit policy.

Tim

johanson / Moderator

Apr 8, 2007, 10:13 AM

Post #7 of 8 (3849 views)

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Re: [taltman711] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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I got a chance to meet Tim and his wife when they came down to Ajijic for a visit several weeks ago. It was a pleasure meeting them and I greatly appreciate the excellent and informative posts Tim makes here and on other forums. He really knows his stuff.

Thank you Tim.

sfmacaws

Apr 8, 2007, 12:03 PM

Post #8 of 8 (3836 views)

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Re: [grm] Dish Network auditing accounts with MBE Laredo billing address

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Quote

what would happen if you use it for your rv and are traveling all the time with no local address? how is that handled, i have read that directtv allows it to be done that way.

If the Dish or Direct receiver is in your RV, you fill out a special form that includes the license number and registration of the RV. They will then give you a waiver that allows you to pick up the network feeds.

That used to be true of both companies but Dish has now been stomped on by the greedy local channels and can no longer allow anyone to have network feeds. They now use a separate company that will sell you the networks on a Dish receiver.

The above is a very biased version of the lawsuit that resulted in Dish losing the right to unrestricted network access for clients. It's the way I see it though and I hate that the local providers can restrict what you and I can buy in TV feeds. The US govt has knuckled under to them and it's easy to see why, if you were running for a local office and pissed off the local TV station what do you think your chances of election would be? So, once again the consumer gets screwed and Dish may well go out of business which would leave Direct as a monopoly which as we all know is never good for the consumer. Bah! A pox on them all. I now have StarChoice from Canada and it is great. Those Canucks have some odd sports choices (Curling?) but once I added the NFL feed all is well.

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán