I was employed by DirecTv for 9 months before I finally quit, because I could not stand the way customers were treated. The company policies were so unethical that I felt like an unethical person myself. Take one important policy change. Customers were supposedly sent notice of it, yet every single affected customer I talked to said they never got anything.
The new rule was this: when a customer closed an account, and we had a credit or debit card on file, and any balance was still owed, the company would instantly take the amount from that card. Lovely. Since customers did not know about it and were not told when closing their accounts, many ended up with unexpected charges on their cards or bank accounts. Under the same policy we were not allowed to refund any of it. Basically, those people were stuck.
About 50% of the calls I took were about trouble with the satellite system. These satellite systems do not work. If you order one, sooner or later you will have problems, and usually a big one that you must pay for yourself. The exception is the so-called Protection Plan at $5.99 per month, which is still money out of your pocket.
New customers are also often not told many things, such as that a "free" magazine starts being charged after 3 months, or that cancelling can cost hundreds of dollars. Others were promised a package at one monthly price, got billed for something entirely different, and could not switch back to the original offer. They had to take a package at the regular price.
One of DirecTv's current commercials promotes its HD service, saying a package with HD starts at $29.99 per month. That is a lie. Packages do start at $29.99, but that is the barest of the bare basics and has none of the real channels you would get with basic cable. HD can be added for $9.99 a month. For your information, most HD channels are sports channels that you can only get by ordering an absurdly expensive sports package, local channels many people cannot receive, or channels you will not watch. Also, with the cheapest package, the only HD channels available are the local ones.
Now the sports packages. They are a ripoff. The NFL package costs about 300 dollars. Other packages cost less, but DirecTv makes a huge profit on all of them. And if you want sports in HD, even with the HD package, you must order a separate HD sports package for 100 dollars.
Another ripoff came when DirecTv added new HD channels. Everybody has a receiver, which they need to get the service. DirecTv "upgraded the type of HD feed," so besides paying for poor HD channels, you also have to order a new receiver to get them. Those start at 99 dollars.
I would estimate that 85% of the roughly 200 calls I took per day came from people who not only had a complaint but were furious about one or another of DirecTv's mistakes or practices.
My advice: if you want more than basic cable, choose someone like Time Warner Cable.
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