My fiance and I have had enough from DirecTV, and having dealt with the hefty penalties of cancelling, we won't be customers ever again. We suggest everyone else do the same and jump ship when your contract is over.
We had two boxes initially, one DVR and one regular. We carried out the contract and moved. We stupidly decided to transfer service to our new apartment. For some reason, a box we had just been watching (our DVR, the most expensive box with the heftiest cancellation fee) suddenly "died" the very next day. The technician just couldn't seem to figure out why it wasn't working (yeah right!).
So we owned the dead box but didn't own the second box they replaced the dead box with. Of course we had no clue about this. We were both under the impression that when you pay the sum of $200 per box, you're paying to own the darn thing. Well, apparently not. These boxes are worth $400, and you pay off the rest with a 2-year contract. But wait, it gets better.
We decided to get another DVR to replace our regular box. They took over a month and a half to come and "install" the new DVR, even though DirecTV technicians visited our complex twice during that time. I guess they were helping new customers, and since we were existing, they didn't really care to accommodate us.
Again, we paid another $200 thinking we were buying the darned thing. My fiance signed the paper for delivery of the box, and he skimmed over it. But he missed the part where it says that if you get a new box and your contract has expired, you start up yet another 2-year contract with DirecTV. It was what they called an "addendum." So when we moved to yet another apartment, we realized that getting DirecTV would be a hassle. We no longer had a balcony, and we would have to set it up on the neighbor's balcony. We were only going to be at the new apartment for about 6 months, after which we were going to go back to DirecTV.
To make this story a little shorter, let's just say we were slapped with a $395 cancellation fee, and we also found out that our two boxes, for which we paid a total of $400, were not our own and that they would be sending boxes out to retrieve them.
Why does a company feel like it needs to be conniving and rude in order to make money? If you provide a good service, customers will come. This inability to just rent the boxes instead of "fake purchasing" them would be a welcome addition (like Dish utilizes), or how about spelling out that you're signing a new contract just for replacing an old box with a new one? How about that, DirecTV?
Needless to say, we are now with cable, and we won't be dealing with DirecTV ever again. Neither do any of our family members. DirecTV has swindled the last bit of money from us. DirecTV service is OK, and you can get comparable or better with cable or DISH. Case in point: we now have free HD service and cable for less than our satellite service fee that didn't even include HD!
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