DirecTV
Harassing Calls After Cancelling and Contract Wrongly Extended

I have been getting repeated, annoying calls from 678-228-3415. The Caller ID says "Focus Receivables" in the Atlanta area.

They are DirecTV's collectors, sent after customers who have cancelled their accounts with DirecTV, when DirecTV has no legitimate claim against those customers, or when DirecTV finds that it is more economical to have Focus Receivables harass a customer into paying dubious charges rather than have its own highly paid internal staff discuss matters that will not be resolved in DirecTV's favor because they know they have permanently lost the customer.

Focus Receivables harasses you several times a day until you give up and pay trumped-up charges from DirecTV. Their people are rude and don't want to listen to anything you say.

Here is my personal experience. DirecTV gave me lousy service (disconnects for days, "snowy screens," etc.). I told them I was going to cancel my service as soon as my "contract" was over. They sent an inexperienced contractor to "fix the problem" so that I would not cancel my service. The service did not improve.

I called them to cancel my service. My "contract" had already expired, but they had already automatically, and I may add conveniently, extended it. After that, they did not send me a bill or call me to discuss my account. They knew I was upset and that they had lost me for good.

I have been so disgusted that I have not contracted for cable or satellite service, from anyone, since June.

My prior experience was with Dish Network. I was satisfied with their service and their responsiveness if something went wrong. I switched to DirecTV only because Dish Network kept going up in price and I wanted to stimulate competition. Dish Network was very nice. They thanked me for being their customer and even left the account "open" in case I wanted to come back to do business with them. In retrospect, I should have stayed with them. I switched to DirecTV, and things went downhill from there.

After I cancelled the service with DirecTV, I began getting calls from Focus Receivables. That has been going on since August, and I am still getting their phone calls to this day. At one point I listened while I was on hold, and they were calling me names because on previous occasions I had hung up on them. They expect me to give in to their pressure tactics, but I just ignore them and tell everyone I know about what shabby deals you get from DirecTV and what happens when you get fed up and stop doing business with them.

They are getting a lot of negative publicity, and sooner or later their business is going to suffer in ways they did not imagine. I am going to contact our local Consumer Advocate, Clark Howard, and also the FTC, the Better Business Bureau and the Cobb County Police to stop the harassing calls. These are not debt collection calls. These are harassing calls with name-calling and bad language involved.

If someone from DirecTV wants to discuss this with me, I would be willing to, but DirecTV does not even acknowledge my repeated calls to recognize that they wrongfully extended my contract in the middle of a dispute, and therefore I do not owe them a termination fee.

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA
Site: directv.com

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