Modern bandits

In our mercantile culture, it has become a standard procedure to ask for the “add-on sale;” so each time we want to purchase one particular item, the salesperson is trained to either ask us to “upgrade” it into a better one, to buy the “accessories” or “extra product” that somehow complement the object we need or sell us the too obvious "extended warranty." As a natural response, many of us have trained themselves to automatically say “no, thank you” to these systematic dives into our wallet. Sometimes though, the aggression goes a bit farther. You must be familiar with subscriptions that automatically “renew” because we paid them by credit card and since the publication still has the information on file, they simply sent us an ambiguously worded renewal card that set us up for another year. A few days ago, as we returned from our trip, we had a notice from Dish Network - our satellite TV provider – saying that we needed to upgrade our dish; in reality the device needed to be reset from West to South in order to aim at a new space satellite and by the same token they would place a more powerful receptor. We arranged for the (free) installation and two fellows from Orion Satellite, a subcontractor company came, did a marginal job with their installation, barely set it up and promptly left the job site just to call us a few moment later and advise us that, in the process, they had added some channels and our bill would reflect that change by going up “just a few more dollars” each month. I was furious; I said I never asked for any upgrade, to which the installer told me that it had been done by the provider, not him. Sensing some kind of obvious collusion between him and the company, I immediately called Dish Network, spoke to an agent and told her to take all that extra programming off, returning my account to its original configuration. She apologized and said she would, and any charge incurred would be credited. This happened because I had plenty of time to call the company and fix the problem, but most people who are too busy running a hectic life just shrug, maybe curse two minutes and find themselves saddled with a larger recurring bill for services they don’t need. Do these “modern bandit attacks" happen to you too?