I think this is where Dish went wrong years ago. Dish is only subsidizing equipment costs because cable gives their junk away. Everyone thinks they're entitled to a dvr or an HD dvr for free. If they really want it buy it outright. They might take better care of the equipment if they own it and are responsible for replacing it if they let their cat sleep on it and it overheats. I've never been a fan of leasing or commitments, that is why I buy all my equipment. If I want to paint my receiver orange and black with a lovely pistol pete logo :clap, I can.
Well, here's the thing, when you buy equipment outright, usually you expect that you can do something with it even if for whatever reason you aren't able to put any more money into it at some point. Buy a DVD player? If you can't afford to rent or buy any DVDs after a certain point, you can at least watch the DVDs you already have. Buy an MP3 player or a CD player? If you can't afford to buy more MP3s or CDs after a certain point, you can still listen to what you've got. Buy a laptop computer? If you can't afford home Internet service for a while, you can still use it to play music, watch videos, play games, do speedsheets/word processing, and so on and so forth at home and access the net periodically at the McDonalds, a friend's house, etc..
What can I do with a Dish Network receiver if I cancel the service down the line? Nothing? Then I don't want to buy one. To me, if the only thing it can do is utilize a service you have to pay a monthly fee for, then it's part of the service to me, especially when you can't even take it to another service like Directv or whatever (It only works with Dish). I'm not really interested in owning it unless they're giving it to me for free or I can buy it for a song.
And the thing is, if your credit score isn't as high as they like and
do pay the minimum they charge extra for the equipment, you still have to send it back, right? You only get to keep it if you pay a still higher cost is my impression. Not that keeping it does you any good if you don't have the service!
The cable companies equipment is so crappy an old they don't care if they get it back or not. It is also why the cable companies equipment is outdated compared to the sat companies. Why put out new equipment if they are going to give it away and half the time it doesn't come back or it comes back inoperable.
I'll admit the talk about who has the better technology, cable or satellite, is a little over my head. But the HD cable box I had a couple years ago seemed fine to me. If Dish wants to get the same type of box and will give them to people for no extra equipment fee, great! I don't know that whatever extra bells and whistles Dish's boxes might have are worth the difference between $0 and $150 (or whatever) to many people, if they're really any better in the first place.
Yes, for a reason. Give it a little thought. If you don't give back the (often crappy) Cable equipment after not paying your bills (often the reason for bad credit) the Cable company, who is based in your area, can come and ask for it back. Charter does exactly that. Dish and Direct can't do that.
Banks, Car companies (for loans) charge higher interest to people with bad credit, because they are more likely to not pay on time or at all. Some credit card companies won't give you a card with bad credit. It goes on and on. I think you are confusing someone with little money, with someone with bad credit. Dish will give someone the same deal no matter how much money you have, as long as your credit is good. Why should I pay more so someone who is known to not pay bills (bad credit) can get the same deal I do? Because that would be outcome, we would all pay more.
Well, one thing is, poor folks can't always get credit these days, so a lot of them are dealing with what technically isn't bad credit, but unestablished credit. They still deny you the same way, but you didn't necessarily fail to pay anything (or if you did, it's so long ago it's no longer on your credit report). And, my guess would be that a lot of people who truly do have bad credit may have it as a result of losing a job or crippling medical bills or some other circumstance beyond their control.
I don't know, to me a lot of this credit stuff seems more like an extra penalty for being poor than anything else. And, it can't be the only way to do things- I know because we didn't used to do things that way. It used to be they'd check your credit if you were buying a house or a car and that was pretty much it. Now they check it for everything under the sun.
It's usually the well off people who get the price break and the poor who pay through the nose when they use credit scores and stuff to make these kind of determination. I'm not a fan of the practice.
