Consumer complaint power and the Internet, or "Don't get mad, get even... and then some"

So it's probably obvious by now that I'm a little more than slightly pissed off at DishTV for delivering me a service some 3 weeks later than promised and then cutting me off from it less than 1 hour after finally getting it. Oh, yes, and for constantly promising to fix it without actually doing so. That too.

I can complain all I want to the care personnel, but those people are just earning a pittance listening to people yelling at them so I'm not too hard on them - I can't help but laugh when they again promise me what their workflow system tells them to promise - I'd bet knowing full well that the problem will still be there tomorrow.

Blogs like this are actually suprisingly effective for getting back at companies who treat their customers like crap. Consider this post of mine from 2008. Google Analytics tells me that 908 separate people have viewed the rant 1059 times since I posted it. If I managed to convince even 50% of those people to buy something else the companies I complained about lost over 25k€ / $35k in sales, some 150 times more than I lost buying their crappy products. And counting. People find the post through google searches and it still gets a steady 30-50 pageviews per month - I've cut my losses a long time ago, but they aren't done with theirs.

Cricket looks fantastic on DishTV TruHD - NOT...

So I have this problem with our bricked DishTV set-top-box. DishTV customer care has a standard promise of 24-hour service restoration, but it's based on, well, apparently nothing more than a hope and prayer. The care center personnel do a pretty good imitation of being surprised that no technician has showed up with a laptop to revive the bricked device, but I have a hard time believing I am the only one with this experience.

The funny part is, today is the quarter final match of the cricket world cup with India playing Australia. I had actually thought that I might watch this as the DishTV installation came with the cricket WC package included. I've never watched a game and thought this would be a good opportunity to start and maybe understand the rules even. For me the fact that I'll miss this is not really a biggie, but imagine if I was Indian and could not watch the big game in my spanking new HD super duper package? I'd be suicidal.

Well they told me, again, that with 100% certainty a technician will come within 24 hours. I'm not holding my breath...

Why not to become a DishTV subscriber in India

Many Indian companies feel that no punishment is severe enough for people who dare become their customers. Satellite firm DishTV seems to be one of these. After 3 weeks of patiently trying get the darn thing installed it finally came today in the form of and old guy and his rusty scooter. The joy of joys getting HD service again was short lived - after about an hour of use DishTV proceeded to brick our new HD set-top-box with an OTA firmware push.

They tell me that a technician will come in 24 hours but that's what they said about the installation too (which took 3+ weeks and required an interpreter because the technician was illiterate and spoke no English).

I think it's a very good thing that the Indian government restricts foreign companies from coming here to do business because most of the successful local firms wouldn't survive a day in open competition.