DirecTV
Eight Years of Rain Outages, Hidden Fees and Contract Lock-Ins

Are you considering DirecTV?

Please, save yourself from grief and read this before you sign on with this provider. I have been with them for 8, yes EIGHT painful years. Here's our experience. Sorry my story is so long, but I feel compelled to let it all out.

Bottom line: The pain is so great with DirecTV that I'm willing to pay the $300 cancellation fee to get out and move on. I will also forward my story to the State Attorney General and the BBB.

Before you assume I'm insane for staying with them this length of time, let me explain why I've been with them for so long. My hubby is an avid tech geek and loves the latest electronic gadgets. In the early years, DirecTV was the only choice for us to receive digital (versus analog) reception in our area, and was the first to start offering HDTV, and still offers the most HDTV for our area. Don't be seduced by this. Thank goodness we now have other providers in our area, so I can fire DirecTV and pay their cancellation fee even though I've been a customer for eight years and have spent well over $10,000 with them. Yeah, I wish I was kidding.

Problem 1: THE BAIT and SWITCH: Early on, we encountered the old bait and switch routine when it came time to add new equipment or services to our account. The process works like this: Consumer calls sales department... "We'll give you a free month of xyz just for subscribing", or "There's no charge for that", or "We'll credit the installation fee to you".

Fast forward a month: You flip out upon opening your statement and spend an hour on the phone with customer service trying to understand how that free month of HBO resulted in a $15 charge to your account. Now you will receive what I call the infamous DirecTV 30-Day Standard Reply... "The system will credit you by your next billing statement".

Fast forward another month (no credit shows up, of course), and two or three more frustrating calls to customer service. Be prepared to hear what I call the infamous 60-Day Standard Reply, which sounds pretty much like this: "Oh, I don't see any notes on your account about a free month." "Who told you it would be free?" or "We never credit those fees back." Yeah. What a bunch of nonsense. You'll need to keep calling back until you get a customer service rep who is tired of cranky customers and just credits your account. Of course you have nothing better to do than call customer service 10 times, right?

Notice the timeframe: You are now 60 days after the charge occurred, and if you didn't find that sympathetic rep before now, you are outside of the dispute time window, which is 60 days, per the wonderful DirecTV customer agreement. This tactic alone has probably made DirecTV millions, especially before the days of online account access.

Over time, we just gave up calling customer service over smaller amounts in dispute. Yes, the rep did promise us a month of free HBO or high definition if we subscribed, but who wants to go through the process of fighting a $10 or $20 charge when it always ends the same way: DirecTV completely denies the entire thing, and the consumer has nothing in writing at all for the sales promises (how convenient), and I am angry with my husband for signing up with this horrible provider.

Problem 2: The service doesn't work in moderate to heavy rain or snow. Actually, in the early years it didn't even work in light rain or snow, how insane is that? But lo and behold, after spending $140 in service calls (yes, $70 each) and an "upgrade," our service only stops now during moderate to heavy rain and snow. Nice. Kids home from school for a snow day? Sorry, no TV. Nothing but pixelation. Can't go outside because it's pouring rain? Whoops, sorry... No TV. Want to snuggle up with your family and watch a movie on a cold and snowy day? Whoops... Once again, no DirecTV for us. Of course if you call and complain, you'll be told you need to "upgrade".

Problem 3: Poor equipment. You have 2 choices with DirecTV. Buy the equipment yourself up front (a complete waste of money), or "lease" it from DirecTV, who will hold you captive for 18-24 months each time you get a different piece of equipment (even if the first one is broken/defective). Either way, you will be getting poor equipment. It has honestly gotten WORSE over the past few years. We've done both, so let me explain:

1) Buy: Buy it yourself and you own it (and also get to pay for repairs when it breaks (and it will), and replace it when it becomes obsolete due to DirecTV software/network upgrades, etc., which is fairly often.

We negotiated a "free" upgraded dish after we complained about pixelation. Somehow, this "free dish" ended up costing us about $90 because of the install fees, service call, and upgrade fees that we were NEVER told about. Free has a whole new meaning at DirecTV, doesn't it?

2) We switched to leasing the last few years since we are running 4 boxes and got tired of laying out the cash for new equipment. What a joke. What we didn't realize is that they automatically put you in a 2-year contract for each HD receiver you lease. As if my 8 years and $10,000 for poor service wasn't enough of a commitment on my end.

This is another great tactic for DirecTV. Here's how it works, and why you don't want to ever sign up!!! It's a never-ending, vicious cycle. About every 12-18 months, you can COUNT on a DirecTV system upgrade causing problems for your current equipment. This is most likely by design, folks. You'll notice your service becomes painfully slow, your TiVo takes forever to load up or delete movies, your channel guide takes about 10 seconds to move down a page, and your box will need to be reset often. Finally, even though you despise talking to customer service, you call in and go through their little dance: remove card, reset, reload. Same problem, new day? Call back and they will chalk your problem up to old obsolete/damaged equipment. They will offer you the magic recipe to get your system moving beyond a snail's pace: "Model abc123 will fix the glitch, and it's still only $5 a month per box, with free installation." Great. Of course they forget to mention that accepting this "fix" doesn't fix your problems at all; it only locks you in to another 24 months on your DirecTV contract.

Wash, rinse and repeat, people... Those necessary upgrades will keep you under contract until you choose to pay their bogus termination fee and get out!!!

It's a great business model... The system updates make your equipment obsolete and amazingly slow, you complain, they send out a tech for $80 who sets up the new stuff, and then you are automatically locked in for 24 months. If you think your cell phone company is hosing you with automatic contract extensions, wait till you deal with these people. I've been around long enough to finally see the cycle and can't wait to rid myself of it.

So I've come to the realization that the $300 left on my contract is a good investment in my mental health. Yeah, it's total nonsense, but if I don't bail out now the cycle just keeps repeating itself. I'm tired of not having TV during rain, tired of resetting at least one of my boxes every other day, tired of how slow it is just to change the channel and get the guide up!!! I'm guessing there's been some sort of system update again, and while I'm sure DirecTV could offer me another upgraded box to solve my issues, I am finally done with these people and wish I would have left years ago.

Other tactics I love about DirecTV: How about the "your system won't work if you don't hook in your phone line to your box" line??? I haven't had my phone line hooked up on a regular basis for about three years now, and guess what... It makes no difference. Again, this was a complete lie to enhance DirecTV's PPV revenue. I actually laugh every time my box comes on and it says "your satellite has not connected to your phone line in xxxx days." I don't owe them access to a phone line into my house. I should be charging them $19.95 a month to lease out my phone line.

My husband laughed in the technician's face when he tried to tell him the phone line was mandatory. Mandatory for what? Mandatory for DirecTV to make more money off of me via PPV. Shouldn't my $125 a month provide me with enough content that I don't need any PPV?

The channel lineup includes about 100 Pay Per View channels. Oh, and I love that the PPV channels are located low on the channel lineup, forcing everyone to scroll past these before they get to a "real" channel which actually broadcasts something that doesn't cost an extra fee besides the ridiculous amount I already pay each month.

What's up with the whole smartcard thing? No personal experience with it, but the stories I've read on the internet were shocking. Read up on it if you are even tempted to do business with DirecTV.

This is my own humble opinion based on the 8 years I have been with DirecTV, and should not be construed as legal or professional advice. My opinion is entirely subjective and may differ from others and is based on my own personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA
State: Colorado
City: Greenwood Village
Address: PO Box 6550
Phone: 8005315000

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