We purchased a new 52-inch HD plasma TV the day after Thanksgiving. I called DirecTV to upgrade our current service from the Tivo receiver to the HD Tivo receiver. Upon calling, we found out that DirecTV doesn't use Tivo receivers anymore and doesn't sell them anymore because they now produce their own. OK, not a problem. I specifically told the rep, when we were discussing the upgrade in the Retention Department, that we were calling to cancel our service and go to Dish Network because of Tivo was not available for HD through DirecTV.
We were told that their HD receiver worked the same as the Tivo. I specifically told the rep that with our Tivo we could watch two different programs and not record either one of them, or of course record one and watch another, or record two. Anyway, we said OK. We agreed to another 24-month contract and to get the new HD receiver, since it worked the same as the Tivo, just the "interface" was different, is what we were told.
The guy came and installed the receiver. Towards the end of the installation his mother called, so he was on the phone with her while finishing my installation. He handed me paperwork to sign that the install was complete. I was happy with it, and he stood over me rushing me because he was running late to his next stop. He showed up here 2 1/2 hours later than he was supposed to, but that's OK. I'm not worried about that. Anyway, back to the receiver.
After the installer left, I started to try to get the receiver set up to record the program we wanted. I stumbled upon the fact that the receiver does NOT allow you to watch two programs and record neither one of them. I immediately called customer service to request the return and refund of the receiver. I was told I was going to be sent a return box to send it back and credit would be applied after the receiver was received back. OK, no problem.
It was $149.99 charged to our bill, and they would get it back before the bill was due and adjusted off. December rolled by, and in January I got a bill with the receiver charge still on my account. We never received any contract information by mail or by email indicating that we would not get credit for the receiver if it was activated. So I emailed customer service. I was told by customer service in an email back that I would not be getting my refund because the receiver was installed.
WHAT??? I asked them if I would get credit for the receiver if I sent it back. I only had it activated for 4 hours. So I called a "special" 1-800 number to their behind-the-scenes customer service and was offered the movie channels for 3 months at no charge instead of crediting me for the receiver. I said no, I want my credit. I was placed on hold, the rep came back, and again I was told no credit because it was activated.
So I resorted to taking the movie channels. After talking to my husband, we decided the same day that we did not want the movie channels; we don't watch that much TV. So we called back to decline the movie channels and again requested the credit. Again we were denied. We were offered a regular DVR receiver to use in another room for the same price as the HD DVR, because we got a discount off the HD. So we agreed to that.
The next month we got a charge of $33.33 on our bill for a partial charge for the new receiver we had installed. On top of it all, we were not being billed for 4 receivers - one that was uninstalled when the new HD was installed, the HD services and service activation, the new DVR and our Tivo receiver. WHAT WHAT WHAT??? So I called customer service again, and they did credit off the charges for the new receiver along with the other invalid charges, so we only have 2 receivers.
But here we are stuck in a 2-year contract after being lied to initially about the receiver functions. Then when we complained about being lied to, we were told sorry, we still have to pay for the receiver and fulfill the contract. We will not be upgrading again with DirecTV, and at the end of our contract we will be changing to another satellite company.
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