DirecTV
Log of Billing Errors, Blackouts and DVR Faults, 2007-2008

Log of complaints with DirecTV

This log is a record of the problems I have dealt with at DirecTV. It is intended to be used in case of litigation, or as testimony to either the cable company or DirecTV in the future.

Problem #1, 12/16/07

I was recording the Saturday night football game so that I could watch it later this evening. I selected the game from my list and began watching it. With the score 0-0 in the first quarter, the TV went blank and a message came on the screen saying that the receiver was resetting. It came back up in a setup program asking questions I could not answer, so I called your 1-800 number. First of all, your automated answering system is ridiculous. It took me several minutes to get to talk with someone who could help me.

When I got to customer service, they walked me through the setup and got my service back up, BUT the game I had recorded was no longer on my play list and I could not retrieve it, so I lost the game that I had been all set to watch. I was warned by others not to leave cable and go to satellite, but I didn't listen. Now I know what my friends were warning me about. If this is the kind of experience I can expect from you, then I will contact a lawyer to get out of my contract and go to the Internet and tell the truth about satellite service. I am very disappointed with your service, and I've only had it for a few months. I was a cable customer for 20 years and never had an experience like this. NOT HAPPY.

Resolution, 12/19/07 (positive): I called the complaint office and they apologized for the loss of my game and gave me a $10 discount for the next 12 months, for a total of $120 discount. Plus, if I take the NFL ticket next year, they will give me the additional super fan feature for free.

Problem #2, 01/05/08

After holding on the line for way too long, I sent a complaint through their web site. I wrote that I had been on hold all day trying to talk with an agent. I had just received my first bill since coming off the promotion package. They had charged me for two packages: Choice at $49.99 AND Plus DVR at $59.99. I should have been charged only for Plus DVR at $59.99. There were also some discrepancies with partial charges in adjustments and credits. I wrote that I was not off to a very good start with their company and that I had decided to start keeping a journal of all these problems, including the times I lose reception, in case I have to take action in the future.

A customer service representative responded on 01/06 that she had cancelled Choice and issued a total credit of $51.66, and that my account showed a remaining balance of $87.35.

I replied by email on 1/7 that by my calculation my bill should be $77.35 and not $87.35. I have a $10.00 monthly credit from an earlier agreement, which looked like it had been applied, but I saw a $10.00 charge for Protection Plan Cancel which I did not understand. I was on their 4-month promotion plan, which expired 12/30/07, so how could they charge me for a cancellation?

On 1/7/08 another representative responded that I had signed up for the special NFL Sunday Ticket offer that included four months of free Premier and DVR service. That offer did not include getting the Protection Plan free of charge. The representative also said I was supposed to keep the Protection Plan for one year, and since I cancelled it within my first year, I was charged a $10 Protection Plan cancellation fee.

Summary of problem #2: They did in fact overbill me and made the correction, but with the correction they charged me an additional $10 for canceling my protection plan. The protection plan was something that came with the original promotion and not something I asked for. The charge for the protection plan is $5.99 per month. When I switched over to the Plus package, cancelling the protection plan was already a default selection, so I left it that way. Now they tell me there is a $10 penalty for canceling the protection plan within a one-year time frame. So they sign you up for a 4-month promotion knowing full well that you will most likely change plans after the promotion period is up, and when you don't select the protection plan, they bill you $10, something they never explained in the first place. I could go back and complain some more, but it's just not worth the aggravation I have dealing with these people. I'll eat the $10 this time and hope my problems go away.

Problem #3, 02/01/08

Friday night about 11:45 PM the signal started getting patchy and breaking up. By midnight I had completely lost the signal, caused by ice and snow build-up on my dish. This kind of thing only rarely happened with cable.

Resolution, 02/02/08: By the next morning I had my signal back, but with cable I wouldn't have lost the signal.

Problem #4, 02/05/08

Tuesday night I tried to rewind the news on channel 10 and the DVR would not rewind. I called 1-800-531-5000 again. After getting through their automated messages and being put on hold, I got customer service. I explained the problem, and after taking my information and problem description she put me on hold for some time. She realized that she couldn't help me, so she transferred me to technical support. Again I was on hold, but in less than a minute I got hold of a technician. It took a half hour on the phone with the tech before he realized that there was nothing he could do on his end to fix the problem.

I found out that the DVR has never worked properly, because he explained that if I hit record in the middle of a program, it should go back to the beginning of the program. Mine never has. If I hit record in the middle of a program, it just records from the point where I hit record. So this has been faulty from the beginning. They charged me $19.95 for shipping to send me a new DVR and have me send the old one back. Since I was getting a new DVR, I would lose all the programs I had stored on the disc. To appease me, they gave me 3 months of free movie channels so that I could record new movies onto my disc. That's a $36 value, so it makes up for some of my misery. The tech's name was Mike, employee #410653. When I hook up the new DVR, I have to call 1-800-695-9251, pin #1439, which gets me right to tech support without the crazy automated messages. I need to tell them that I want to activate my new DVR and deactivate my old DVR.

On 02/09/08 at 11:56 am I wrote that I had received my new DVR the previous afternoon, but it was too late in the day to install it as we had company coming over for dinner. I installed the new DVR on Saturday morning. The old DVR was a model R15-100 and the new DVR is a model R15-300. The new DVR is much smaller than the old one, so I had to use the older DVR's box that I had kept from the original installation to ship the DVR back to DirecTV. The return went by FedEx, shipped 06FEB08.

After installing the DVR, I called tech support and spoke with Lawrence, who helped me through the guided installation and then deactivated the old card and activated the new access card. I told Lawrence that I had spoken with other DirecTV customers and they said that I shouldn't have to pay the $19.95 shipping because this DVR was defective from the start. Lawrence didn't argue. He explained that it was a FedEx charge and not a DirecTV charge, but because of the circumstances he would credit my account the $19.95. I thanked him, and soon after I got an email from DirecTV showing the transaction. I also explained that the new DVR was much smaller physically and that I couldn't use the same shipping box. He said it was OK to use the other box I had in my possession. The call ended at 12:20 PM. I am keeping a hard copy of this transaction in my February billing folder.

Problem #5, 2/26/08, 8:30 PM

Connecticut at Rutgers basketball was supposed to be shown on channel 621 MSG, but when I went to watch it I got a message "721 not available in this area." I called customer service at 1-800-531-5000 and spoke with Sarah, who tried to troubleshoot the problem by having me reset my receiver, then ran me through setup and had me verify satellite data info. None of this worked. She transferred me to the technical department and I spoke with Jeremiah, employee #W2393. I had to run through my problem again with him, and he put me on hold for several minutes. He got back to me and said I should not be blacked out, there must be a problem on their end, and that he was going to have to escalate the problem. He sent an email to engineering letting them know about the problem, but that doesn't help me one bit on watching this game. He asked me if he had answered all my questions, and I said no, he hadn't answered me on when I could see the game. He answered that it would be resolved when engineering fixed the problem and there was nothing he could do on his end other than apologize. I told him that I was building a case by documenting all these incidents, as I never had these problems while I was a cable customer, and that I was going to try to get out of my contract. He apologized once again but said there was nothing more he could do. I told him that I was an unhappy customer. No basketball game that night. It was 9:20 PM and I had been almost an hour on the phone.

I logged on to DirecTV and sent a message to customer service at 9:39 PM with the above comments, and asked them how I could get out of my contract without paying a penalty. By then channel 621 had come back on, as the basketball game was over. There is no way I should have missed this game. I asked what I have to do to legally get out of my contract without paying a penalty.

Customer service replied that they had forwarded my email to a sports specialist. Another representative then wrote that it is challenging to describe the blackout rules for many different locations and sports briefly, and pointed me to the blackout FAQ on their web site. He also reminded me that when I started my account I was given specific information regarding cancellation of services before the agreed programming commitment, which is in return for discounted equipment, for a period ranging from 18-24 months.

I answered on 2/27/08 that I had read their blackout rules but they are very ambiguous, especially the statement "If a local off-air broadcast channel (not ABC, NBC, CBS or FOX) or local cable system has rights to broadcast a game in a certain region, customers in that area will be unable to receive that game through their DIRECTV subscription(s)." Does that mean that if Time Warner cable is showing something, DirecTV can't show it? If so, then they couldn't show anything, because Time Warner shows everything they have and more. That can't be correct. This particular game was broadcast on channel 621 Madison Square Garden, which is available on my account, Plus DVR with Sports Pack. It was not being shown locally on any channel. Their customer service representative (Sarah) verified that I should not be blacked out and tried to fix the problem. She escalated the call to tech support, and their tech support representative Jeremiah also verified that I should not be blacked out. He was able to see the game in HD but not on 621. So either their own representatives don't understand the blackout rules or they are incorrect. Since I didn't feel that their correspondence had sufficiently addressed the problem, I asked for this to be elevated to a supervisor for further investigation.

Another representative wrote that my email had been forwarded to a specialist who would follow up within the next 48 hours.

Resolution #5, 02/05/08: Negative. On 03/01 a representative wrote that the reason the Rutgers and Connecticut game was incorrectly blacked out in my area is not known. He said they were able to open an escalation to their broadcast department to try to resolve the problem that night as quickly as possible, but as I had stated, they were unable to resolve it before the end of the game. He apologized and said that they cannot guarantee it will not happen again.

Problem #6, 3/14/08, 7:50 PM

It's happening again. Back on February 26 I called customer service because I could not see the Rutgers vs. Connecticut basketball game on channel 621 MSG. Customer service saw that I should have been able to view that game but was unable to resolve the problem. They escalated the problem to tech support, who acknowledged that I should be able to receive that channel and supposedly escalated the problem to engineering. I started a string of emails with them which ended with an email from a representative on 02/28 who wrote that the MSG network is one of my local regional sports networks, that I am authorized to view the pro and college games shown on that channel, and that I should have been able to watch the Connecticut versus Rutgers game.

I just got off the phone with Elan from customer service and Ryan, employee #100240863, from tech support. Both agreed that I should not be blocked out. Ryan stated that sometimes their engineering department blocks out people who should not be blacked out. I told Ryan that this was supposed to be escalated to engineering on February 26, but he showed no escalation in his records. So here we are again. I'm missing a very good hockey game (Rangers vs. Panthers) broadcast on channel 621 from 7:30 to 10 PM, and they still have not resolved the problem. They are not living up to their end of the contractual agreement and they need to fix this problem. Signed, a customer that is not happy.

A representative responded on 03/14 that she had forwarded my follow-up email to a specialist who would contact me within 24-48 hours. Another responded on 03/15 that the issue was escalated to broadcasting on March 14 for further review and asked me to allow additional time.

Resolution #6: Negative. It is now 3/25/08 and they never got back to me as they had asked for additional time to resolve the problem.

Problem #7, 3/25/08, 7:00 AM

I got a "searching for signal" message on several channels, but the one I wanted to watch was ESPN2, the opening baseball game of the 2008 season, Red Sox and Oakland A's from Japan. I called customer service and heard a message that they were aware of the problem and that the signal should return soon.

Resolution #7, 03/25/08: Negative. I was put on hold for 11 minutes, and when I finally got through, I asked what they were going to do for customers to make up for this. I spoke with Axel from tech support, who acknowledged the problem was quite extensive and said that they needed 24 hours to resolve it. 24 HOURS! That does a lot of good, as the game was in the third inning right then and I don't think they will wait for DirecTV to catch up. I asked what they were doing for customers, and they said that they could offer one month of Showtime. I asked if there was something else other than Showtime and they said they had nothing else to offer. I told them that I didn't like Showtime but if that was all they could offer, I would take it. The signal came back about 90 minutes later.

Problem #8, 3/25/08, 8:15 PM

I went channel surfing through my sports package and on 8 channels that I should be receiving, I got a message that stated "Channel not purchased (721)," followed by the receiver number and card number. I went online and looked at the channel lineup for the sports package, and according to the web site I should be getting those channels because I purchased the sports package. I called customer service at 1-800-531-5000 and spoke with John, who verified that I should be getting those channels. He tried some troubleshooting, like unplugging the receiver from the wall and then seeing if the situation changed. It did not.

Resolution #8, 03/25/08: Negative. He searched his logs and said he found a note that they were having problems with certain sports package channels and that they were working on the problem at that time, but he had no estimate on when it would be fixed. He apologized and said that he had put in his notes that the next time I called in to customer service I would receive some sort of compensation for this inconvenience.

Problem #9, 3/27/08, 9:30 PM

I went channel surfing again through my sports package. The day before I had been getting the stations I had problems with in problem #8, but today I was back to having 6 channels that gave me the message "Channel not purchased (721)." I spoke with Amy and related the problem. She saw that she could not resolve it, so she transferred me to tech support. Stephen explained that I was being blocked from seeing the game because of contractual agreements with professional sports, and that to see the hockey game I was trying to watch I would have to purchase the Center Ice package. Since it was being shown on Center Ice, it could not be shown on the sports package, and that would be the case with all professional sports.

I explained to him that I was told when I purchased the sports package that I needed it to see MSG, YES, SNY, the channels I always watch to see the Mets and Yankees. Now I find out that this was not the case, since I subscribe to Choice Extra and am entitled to those channels even without the sports package. So I was lied to seven months ago and have been paying $12 a month for something that I'm not interested in. I was so angry with DirecTV that I demanded to be reimbursed, but they refused. I cancelled the sports package immediately and hung up on Stephen.

Resolution #9, 3/27/08, 10:00 PM: Negative. A three-Advil moment.

Problem #10, 11/24/08, 9:30 PM

This is not really problem #10, it's probably more like #20. I just got tired of writing complaints. The above complaints mostly involved me calling them and using this as a log to keep track of what goes on. I have had so many complaints about missing Syracuse basketball games and missing Mets and Yankees baseball games because, for one reason or another, they blocked the signal, that I just gave up logging them.

I am writing this the morning after (11/25) I lost the satellite hookup to ESPN on a Monday night. I was recording Syracuse basketball on ESPN2 and watching Monday night football on ESPN. It was a great game for SU against Florida, a 2-point game, and I lost the feed at halftime so I don't know what happened. Of course, I lost the football game in the second quarter too and don't know what happened there either.

It's 7 am now on 11/25 and I am going to call 1-800-531-5000. The office was closed for general support, so they directed me to try online support. It is now 20 minutes later. It took that long to get through the screens and submit my complaint/question, and they forced me to choose categories for my email that didn't fit the profile of my complaint. More later.

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA

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