DirecTV

DirecTV sucks and here’s why:
After increasing frustration with regional NFL coverage, no NFL Network, and a general inability to play well with others (no local NBC for nearly a month due to a contract dispute), I became fed up with Time Warner Cable and decided to switch to DirecTV. BIG mistake. I called on two separate occasions to get basic information about services, available packages, the current special offers, equipment options and pricing and contracts. I receive different information on several important points, and was treated to a decidedly hard sell on both occasions (why, exactly, do you need my last name to tell me about your channel lineup?). After making it clear to both customer disservice representatives that I wanted to switch because of the deal they were running on the NFL Sunday ticket and that I needed two HD DVR’s, here’s what these shysters put me through…
First, installation day arrives and I receive two non-HD DVR’s. I realize this fact, and place my first call to customer disservice. I tell the representative that I have been mistakenly given standard DVR’s when I asked for HD. I am told that HD DVR’s are TWICE the cost of standard DVR’s ($199.99, as opposed to $99.99) and that the special offer I’d received (one DVR free) did not apply to HD DVR’s. As this is completely unacceptable and represents a total failure by the DirecTV rep. to provide information that would obviously have affected my decision to sign a TWO YEAR contract, I ask for a supervisor. After pleading my case and putting up a stink for over an hour, the “resolution specialist” (must need quite a few of those on hand), Mitch, tells me that he can waive the cost of one of the fancy HD DVR’s as compensation for the omissions, disinformation and overall load of crap I’ve been handed to date. Gee thanks, Mitch. As I spoke to Mitch for over an hour, and as most of this time was spent waiting on this or that computer to “do something” I had ample time to express to my new friend Mitch that I wanted to watch NFL Sunday ticket games in HD…that’s why I called! Fast forward three weeks when I can finally get an installation date. New satellite, shiny new black HD DVR’s. We’re set! And it only cost me double what I signed up for and weeks of hassle!
As I settled in to watch my first Bears game, in high def, my television suddenly goes grey and announces to me that the channel I’m watching is not included in my package. WTF?! Back to the phone I go. I’ll skip ahead to the latest “supervisor” (the resolution specialists must have all been busy). The person tells me that NFL Sunday Ticket games in HD are not part of my current package. I need to buy the Super Fantastic Happy Fan package, to the tune of an additional $69.99!!! Now I begin to realize the sheer enormity of my error, and that DirecTV is nothing short of a criminal organization, hell bent on using every underhanded, dishonest mafia-style trick in the book with the express purpose of bilking its customers out of hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. I explain my utter frustration, outrage and general disgust with the treatment I’ve received, and the “supervisor” cuts me yet another “break” and tells me that she will credit me back $60 of the $69.99. Defeated, exasperated and really trying not to curse a blue streak, I take it, hang up and watch the damn game. And it is, at long last, in HD.
Then I checked my bill online. $80.84 first month. Okay. $107 initial install. Fine. $199.99x2 for the shiny new HD DRV’s, less $-199.99 credit for the first set of lies told to me. $237 and change, total, for the upgrade. Then there’s $9.99 a month for HD; $4.99x2 for the extra boxes. My head is already spinning but I think I’ve got it now. Then two utterly inexplicable charges of $216 a piece. Total billed: over $600.00 in addition to the $187+ I’d initially spent. I block out about two hours the following morning for the next “resolution supervisor specialist in charge of screwing me over”. But I’m sure they’ll cut me a break on the next hidden charge…you know, for my trouble.
Okay, now, I have to back track a little. During the nearly three week period that I had to wait for my HD swap-out, I received several automated phone calls telling me that I needed to return my DVR’s or face large “non return fees”. Dude, you haven’t given me new boxes yet!!! So I called them (again) and told them that I was getting these harassing calls about returning my old DVR’s a week in advance of those DVR’s being deactivated. The harassing phone calls stop. I get my new install and have the old DVR’s picked up the next day. Now, let’s get back to the extra $433 on my current bill. Yeah, you guessed it. They charged me for not returning the old DVR’s! Back to customer disservice I go. The latest dimwit tells me, “Well, those charges will be reversed when the DVR’s get here. Just don’t pay that portion of the bill.” Just don’t pay that portion of the bill?! Since when does that ever fly with the billing department? And by the way, there is that little issue of me being signed up for auto pay (hey, I said they were shysters, not that I was a genius). So customer disservice boy takes me off auto pay and I now get to explain to the billing department why I am sending them less than half of what they think I owe them, as I wait for the extra $433 charge to be credited back. And, I missed most of the freakin’ Denver-Cleveland game to boot! (Good game)