5 On Your Side

No simple fix after DirecTV dish wrongly installed on Raleigh home

A satellite dish installed on the wrong home seems like a simple fix. But that wasn't the case for a Raleigh woman who contacted 5 On Your Side after a dish she didn't order suddenly appeared on her roof.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — A satellite dish installed on the wrong home seems like a simple fix. But that wasn't the case for a Raleigh woman who contacted 5 On Your Side after a dish she didn't order suddenly appeared on her roof.

"I thought it was an optical illusion at first," said Susan Burcham of the unwanted piece of equipment on her home.

Burcham called DirecTV, expecting a quick removal of the dish.

"Everybody kept asking me, 'What's your account number?'" she said. "I don't have an account. I didn't want this."

Burcham said she was repeatedly told she couldn't be helped without an account number. She even called the president of DirecTV and was dumbfounded by her conversation with an assistant.

"(At first she) didn't believe me and then told me that this couldn't be true because they never put things on the wrong house," Burcham said. 

Burcham said the assistant told her that someone probably stole the dish and put it on her roof, so it wasn't DirecTV's responsibility.

"Then she said the only thing I could do was go to the Yellow Pages and find every installer in the area and start calling them directly," Burcham said. 

Instead, she called 5 On Your Side. 

While 5 On Your Side was at Burcham's house, a satellite contractor pulled up with information that probably solves the case. He didn't want to go on camera, but did say that he came out after the installer had a problem a few days before. The contractor said that installer was fired and then he called his supervisor about Burcham's issue.

While Burcham went round and round with the supervisor, 5 On Your Side went to straight to DirecTV.

The company admitted the technician was confused and installed the dish on the wrong house.

Then, Country Cable in Burlington – the company where the technician worked – emailed 5 On Your Side. They didn't admit it was their fault, but said they would pay for repairs as long as Burcham did two things: first, let us know that the company took care of the problem and then write a letter to the president of DirecTV detailing how they handled it.

Now that the unwanted dish is gone, Burcham can laugh about it.

"You couldn't write a comedy sketch that would be believable with what this has been," she said.

But she's glad she called for help. 

"That's great service," she said. "5 On Your Side works."

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