On December 24th I paid my most recent bill with DirecTV. On December 26th, I set up a new Qwest telephone and internet account and was offered a "great" deal: if I allowed Qwest to bill me for my DirecTV account, since they are partnered somehow and would have my satellite TV, internet, and home telephone all on one bill, I would save $10.00 a month. With money being extremely tight these days, I thought that would not be a bad idea. My Qwest bills were running in the $145-$150 range for the next couple of months, so naturally I assumed that my satellite television expense was included in these bills, for one reason because it said so, and for another because my internet and telephone were to run around $65 per month. If I calculated the $10.00 savings plus the satellite TV charge and added in phone and internet, the bills should be right on. At this point I was satisfied.
One day during the first week of February my DirecTV service went out, and I received a message at the bottom of the television screen to call customer service because the channel I was watching was not in my plan, nor was it available. DirecTV cut off my service for non-payment. I called DirecTV promptly the next day and asked them why they cut off my service, and I was told that I had a $365.00 past due balance. I promptly explained to them that I had switched the billing over to Qwest and had clearly been paying them. The response was that I would have to take it up with Qwest to get the money transferred, which never happened. Keep in mind, I have been a DirecTV customer since 1998! I received no help from either party, nor does one hand know what the other is doing. I finally worked out an agreement with Qwest to have some credits applied to my account. However, the credits are not nearly what I was overcharged, nor did they fully compensate me for the difference between what the bill would have been without the DirecTV.
I then called DirecTV while I recorded the entire call, and was told that they made a mistake and they would split the $365 balance with me and work out payment arrangements. I was to pay them $100.00 by April 13th and $207.00 on my May 1st bill, and all would be taken care of. They even went as far as to reinstate my service immediately due to the error.
I thought all was under control, when at about 1 a.m. on April 5th my DirecTV went out again, displaying the same message as before. The following evening I called DirecTV and explained the agreement that was made the evening before, and was told that the person who made the agreement left no notes as to what he had done, so that voided our agreement and my service would remain off until I paid them the $365.00. I told them that I had recorded the entire conversation and that a person from Qwest was on the line with me when the agreement was made.
I asked for a supervisor, and Daniel, Employee Number 100204178, got on the phone and said that the agent who helped me the evening before had no authority to make such a payment arrangement with me and that he "lied" to me. I was also informed that my level of disconnection with DirecTV was increased to a level 2, whatever that means, and that I could not resume service until I paid the $365.00 I had already paid to Qwest.
I also informed Daniel the supervisor that I had been a customer with DirecTV for over 11 years and had paid them a total of $25,661.98 since I first started service with them, and I asked him if he could please help me by at least honoring the agreement made by the representative the previous evening. I was informed "that there was nothing they could do to restore my service," no matter how long I had been with them, and that what the person said the other evening did not matter. I then informed Daniel that I had recorded the entire call with the rep who made the deal with me and was recording the current conversation. At this point the communication became an exchange of unpleasantries, and I informed him that DirecTV's business practices were atrocious and that I would be appealing my story to anyone and everyone I could tell. All Supervisor Daniel #100204178 could tell me then was that I was going to be sent to collections for my unpaid balance.
11-year customer of DirecTV. I spent $25,661.98 during that period, and they could not care less about keeping me as their customer.
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