This complaint is about DirecTV DirectTech for misleading sales tactics, poor quality installation, and shady business practices.
My complaint with DirecTV came on my very first contact with this company's sales department. I was lied to twice. The first time was when I was told that DirecTV had VOD (video on demand). I later found out this was not true. The other lie came when the salesperson told me I could order 4 boxes and give two back to the installation person if I decided to just keep two. The installation person told me I had to keep them all and order return boxes for the other two.
Immediately upon arrival, the installation tech started to try to get money out of me by suggesting paying him under the table. His first conversation with me was about how he had just left a house where he offered the guy to pay him under the table for work and that it would be less than what it said on the work order.
He then went into how my apartment was too high and there wasn't a cherry picker in the area to reach my apartment. He then said there wasn't a direct line of sight to the southwestern sky from my apartment, which was true. So we went to the roof, where he again said I could pay him under the table to install the dish on a pole that came up from the roof. When I didn't bite and it looked like he wouldn't install the dish, he suddenly came up with a place that would cost me anything.
At this point I felt like I had to pay him something and said I would give him twenty dollars. After he installed the dish, we went back to my apartment. He installed the two receivers and hooked everything up. He then asked me what I thought, and I said it was worse than my cable hook-up. He said I was only the second person to say this. I was surprised, as the picture was obviously bad and grainy. All he said was that I could cancel within 5 days with no charge. He then packed up and left.
Later, when my roommate got home from work, I asked him what he thought and he said it's terrible. We actually tried to watch it and our eyes hurt. It reminded me of cable from the eighties but harder on the eyes.
I switched back to our cable box and there was such a difference that I immediately called DirecTV and cancelled service. They said they could have a tech come out, but there were two problems with that. One, the five days to cancel would be up, which the person on the phone agreed with, and two, there was a tech just at my apartment who refused to do anything else.
I was very upset at this point because the reason for getting DirecTV was to have a picture as good in quality as cable at a cheaper price. Now I have to deal with returning four receivers and removing a satellite dish from the roof, which DirecTV refuses to do. And to top it off, DirecTV is trying to charge me for a full month of service for what I had for five hours.
By the way, if I don't return the boxes within seven days, they want to charge upwards of 400.00 per box, for boxes that could not be any cheaper. These boxes are worth maybe 50.00.
I request that DirecTV refund the monthly bill and send someone to remove the satellite dish, or remove my responsibility to them for it.
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