A sneaky DirecTV marketer has bought up toll-free numbers that end in “DISH.” When DISH Network customers call up, the operators make it sound like they’re from Dish and offering them a free service upgrade, but in reality, they’re switching the service and slamming the Dish Network customer into a DirecTV service contract.

The real number for DISH is 800-333-3474, but this company has bought 888-333-3474, and according to reports on 800 notes, several other 800, 888, 866 numbers that end with “DISH.”

We first heard about it in a message left on our Consumerist hotline:

TRANSCRIPT: “I had to authorize a new Dish receiver. The number on the screen said 1-800-333-DISH. I dialed 1-888-333-DISH. I got a guy that immediately asked for my name, phone number, address, email address, and talked about the new specials that he could give me for being such a loyal customer. I kind of just wanted my receiver authorized.

And he says, these are some great deals, and you should get rewarded for being such a loyal customer since you’ve been with Dish Network so long.

Then he says, “if I send you these new boxes out, keep in mind that these are direct Tv boxes…”

It turns out that it was a DirecTV franchise that was capitalizing on people mistaking 1-800-333-DISH for 1-888-333-DISH. They’re not telling people who they are upfront and they’re getting a bunch of information when you’re thinking that you’re talking to a company that you already trust and have an account with. So it really ticked me off. It’s totally uncool. Hopefully you can print this and people won’t get confused anymore.” :END TRANSCRIPT

Very clever. If you accidentally sign up for this, best thing to do is a charegback. Unsurprisingly, the folks on 800 notes say the sleazy DirecTV marketers are not that nice about giving refunds.

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(Photo: TenSafeFrogs)

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