Cramer is always ranting about watching a company's
financials and I've found him to be right about that
discipline. Right now I'm watching something
developing that could really rock their boat hard. I
just can't see how it's happening and how a publicly
traded company could be sitting on its hands instead
of fixing a very fixable problem.
A neighbor foolishly gave them his credit card
number to pay his bill online. DUMB!! He started
having DISH charges show up on his credit card bill,
one for almost 1200 dollars for one month's service,
instead of the 120 bucks for his monthlyservice and
pay per views. This was in early May and he's sent
them all the documentation they requested but they
still haven't returned his money. He finally got
tired of the stall tactics and called his bank, who
investigated and reversed the charge. DISH promptly
turned off his service.
I started thinking and decided that if they did this
online to even a small percentage of customers,
their balance sheet would show tons more cash than
they actually have. Make the refund process tedious
enough and a certain percentage of customers (
lemmings??) would give up trying and drop the issue.
On a hunch,I checked with the manager at my bank who
told me that they are seeing this go on with DISH
customers on an almost daily basis. Off the record,
the manager told me there are rumors of computer
hacking there and unexplainable patterns in the
accountings. Rumors? Innuendo? Sure it could be
rumors or innuendo. But if it's not, you do the
math.
financials and I've found him to be right about that
discipline. Right now I'm watching something
developing that could really rock their boat hard. I
just can't see how it's happening and how a publicly
traded company could be sitting on its hands instead
of fixing a very fixable problem.
A neighbor foolishly gave them his credit card
number to pay his bill online. DUMB!! He started
having DISH charges show up on his credit card bill,
one for almost 1200 dollars for one month's service,
instead of the 120 bucks for his monthlyservice and
pay per views. This was in early May and he's sent
them all the documentation they requested but they
still haven't returned his money. He finally got
tired of the stall tactics and called his bank, who
investigated and reversed the charge. DISH promptly
turned off his service.
I started thinking and decided that if they did this
online to even a small percentage of customers,
their balance sheet would show tons more cash than
they actually have. Make the refund process tedious
enough and a certain percentage of customers (
lemmings??) would give up trying and drop the issue.
On a hunch,I checked with the manager at my bank who
told me that they are seeing this go on with DISH
customers on an almost daily basis. Off the record,
the manager told me there are rumors of computer
hacking there and unexplainable patterns in the
accountings. Rumors? Innuendo? Sure it could be
rumors or innuendo. But if it's not, you do the
math.