DirecTV
Erroneous Early Cancellation Fee

I am battling DirecTV over an "erroneous early cancellation fee."

Here's my story, which is pretty incredible.

I had Directv for 7 years. I called up to order their DVR service and was not told in any way shape or form of a renewed contract or pointed to an agreement, or early termination fee (nor was one emailed to me).

I received the DVR and attempted to make it work: I was on the phone with their tech support for quite a while. They attempted to get it to work, tried to "activate" it or whatever, but it never took and I never was able to download from the satellite or get a screen.

They offered to send someone out, but I then decided not try to obtain the service any more (I foresaw nothing but problems ahead with them if I accepted service).

I then cancelled the original service and said I was not going to try to obtain the DVR service, and they floored me with their "$460 early cancellation fee." I told them I'm not cancelling as I never had it, and they said they had activated it on their end, therefore I was under contract. The rep was extremely aggressive and rude.

After about 3 more calls I ascertained that the "agreement" there were referring to was their "Customer Agreement."

As I suspected, the terms and conditions of the Customer Agreement, were for "receipt and payment" of service (1st paragraph), not for their unilateral activation.

DVR Service is also defined as "television and programming service" rather explicitly. (I know enough of cell phone history and class actions to be suspicious of them binding people based on unilateral "activation" on their end).

What has been really incredible was the 4 phone calls I've had with their CSRs, where I read to them the agreement, refer them to the tech support calls (I have a record of them) and they still say something like "we find it to be valid, " like they didn't hear a word I said. I asked them why its valid, given their Customer Agreement and they say "I'm just here to tell you its valid."...

I've concluded they are just reading some kind of script.
In any case, I disputed this with my credit card company as they automatically charged it. The credit card company investigated the dispute and found in my favor, of course (they thought it was pretty outrageous also).
But now DirecTV is sending a bill through the mail.

Not quite sure how to proceed from here, I've never had anything this outrageous happen to me and never been so much as late on any payment to anything ever in my life.
I've filed a complaint with Dept. Of Consumer affairs and the Attorney General's office and BBB.

Any suggestions? Of course I'll small claims it if I have to, just on principle alone, but wondering if anyone had any other suggestions.

Oh, and if you're thinking of getting DirecTV, don't.
Their business practices shocked me, and they are a big organization and can bully you (and they seem to disregard their contracts if they want to).

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA
State: California
City: El Segundo
Site: www.directv.com

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