It started with my husband wanting Direct TV. He called them to ask a couple of questions because they said they offer internet with Wild Blue Connect as a bundle deal. He talked to them about setting it up, and when he was asked for a credit card number, he specifically asked them if the card would be charged for any reason. They said no, they just needed it for a credit check. My husband said okay, but do not charge anything to it. All they said was that the internet equipment was going to be sent to our house.
About a month after the service was installed, I got my bank statement and noticed a charge for $339 from a company named Buytelco. I called my husband and asked him if he had made any charges for that amount, and he said no. I immediately called my bank because I thought it was a fraudulent charge, and my bank canceled my card and sent me a new one. We had to go online to find out who Buytelco was, and it turned out it was Direct TV that gave Buytelco my credit card information so they could bill me for equipment that nobody had mentioned. When we set up the internet, there was no mention of any installation or equipment fee.
It is their responsibility to tell you about any fees. When I called to talk to a manager at Direct TV, they said they could not do anything about it because they did not make the charge, that Wild Blue did. I called Wild Blue and talked to a Wild Blue manager, and they said they did not do it, that Direct TV did. After a full day of the runaround, I called Buytelco, and they told me that DirecTV did it and that they were going to try to work something out.
A lady named Kristen Kaiser talked to me and said they could not give me my money back because it was already installed. I told her that it would never have been installed had they mentioned it was going to cost me that much money. I would have found something in my price range. She said, "Well, we can compensate you with some movies." I said no, I wanted my money back so I could pay my bills, which were showing me a month late because of overdrafts that they caused.
I told her that if I could hear the recording of the conversation where they told my husband about the $339 and him agreeing to it, I would apologize and let it go. She said she could not provide that, because they never said anything about a $339 charge and did not have a recording of it. I was not going to let it go even if I had to let my bank dispute the charge. Then she said, "Well, I am sorry, but we cannot give you your money back, thank you, bye," and hung up on me.
I let it go for 2 weeks and called back to talk to her, and not one person there knew who she was or what department she was from. So I asked to talk to a manager. My husband talked to the manager to see if we could get compensated for something we did want. All we were asking for was HBO, Cinemax and the NFL package for the remainder of our contract.
We were even willing to settle with just HBO and Cinemax, and they said they could not do that. All they could offer was $10 off for 12 months and 6 months of Showtime, which does not even add up to $339. So we left the conversation as no deal, and we are letting our bank dispute it. We did not want to do that, but they do not care about their customers and they have lousy customer service. They always want to blame you; it is never their fault for the screw-up.
After my contract is over I will find something new, and I will never recommend that anyone use Direct TV!
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