Don is a relatively new Dish Network customer, and he’s annoyed. Not because he’s lost his favorite channels in a carriage fee dispute, or his rates are higher than indicated. No, his problem is a little stranger than that. Pausing or fast-forwarding any programming would make his TV’s audio go out. He describes “dozens” of calls to Dish and quite a few service calls, replacing the DVR, the Dish-supplied cables…everything. The issue went all the way up to Executive Escalations. After all of this effort and nonsense explanations that solved nothing, one tech happened to hook up component cables instead of HDMI. Hey, look at that–the audio didn’t drop out anymore! The tradeoff for this, however, is no more high-definition programming.

For months after starting with Dish, pause or fast-forward for recorded or live TV caused a loss of audio, restorable only be turning the TV off and on (literally thousands of times). Various false fixes from dozens of calls to Dish included changing DVRs twice and the HD cable (for another of their garbage standard cables) and their second tier techs saying it was a software issue they were working on to be available in another month or two.

Finally another tech came out, identified the problem as their garbage HD cable; hooked up composite cables to solve loss of sound issue but deprive me of HD picture quality which I pay extra for. Their Executive Resolutions member [W] said she would locate the Tech who knew the issue and reimburse me $15 to buy the HD cable to give me HD picture without loss of audio. Then she failed to call me back in spite of several voice messages. Another Executive Resolutions member, [H], told me he personally gets HD quality picture with composite cables (something their tech and my eyes tell me is impossible) and Dish would do nothing further to resolve the issue.

So I pay for HD but don’t get HD. Do not believe their recent ads about superior customer service; it is no service, just aggravation and no help.

If that “garbage HD cable” is just a basic HDMI cable, that’s nothing proprietary, and you can find decent-quality cables online even cheaper than $15. If a better cable is all that’s needed, Don could be awash in pixels after a quick trip to Walmart or a cheap Monoprice order.

That’s not the point, though, is it? Look at how many people involved in this incident just made stuff up when they couldn’t solve Don’s problem. Phantom software upgrades? High-definition composite cables? All nonsense told to Don out of desperation to tell him something, anything, and make him go away without necessarily solving the problem.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.