I'm ready to break something right now. When I cancelled my DishNetwork service the nice lady told me that I had no contract and so there would be no penalty for cancelling, except that I wouldn't receive any more credits on my bill for the equipment that I paid for. Great, I said, so I cancelled it and had my wonderful new DirectTV with Tivo installed. I listed the DN equipment on eBay and it's currently at $31, easy money. But then I get the worst call today. Don's Satellite (not to be confused with Don Arndt local DirectTV deale, but some outfit from Kansas) calls and says that when I ordered the DN from them I signed a contract for a year of service, with penalties for early withdrawal. Crap. I forgot about that. Why didn't DN tell me that when I called? Ok, what will the penalty be? $220!!! Oh, and by the way, we'll be picking up the equipment, too. Gaaaah! I paid for that equipment with my own stinking money! I don't know who to be mad at or what to break. DN should have told me that I did in fact have a contract, and Don's Satellite is the one breathing down my neck for this money. The worst part is that if I had just kept my DN service until the end of the contract (I think about 6 months) it would have only been around $100, and the equipment would have been mine.

Update: I was able to sign back up with Dish Network until my contract expires in August. I'll be paying them $24.99 for service that I don't use, but it will be cheaper than what the retailer wanted to charge me for dropping out. And I can go ahead and sell the equipment. I wish DN could have told me that I was under a contract . . . Bottom line: it's all worth it to have Tivo.