On or about July 29, I was contacted by a sales rep for DirecTV notifying me that my present equipment was out of date and would soon be unusable. I agreed to their suggested upgrade of HD receivers. Their first technical rep, from a contract firm from San Antonio, Mastec, arrived Aug 6, for which I took a day off from work. He installed two HD receivers and said that the satellite would have to download the software before I would receive the new HD channels for which I was paying. The tech realized I had the wrong satellite dish, but could not install the correct one because DirecTV didn't have the correct work order.
After several days, DirecTV scheduled another tech from the same company. On his service date, he installed a new dish, but informed me that I had the wrong transmission cables for HD service from the dish to the receivers. The original tech should have installed new cables. The problem is that the original TV cables were RG59, which were not thick enough to carry the HD signal spectrum. RG6 was the required cable. This was another day off work for me.
When the third technician arrived Aug 26, he marveled that I was getting any signal at all. The original cables from the satellite were RG59 and were spliced into a previously existing TV cable installed by the previous home owner at least eight years before. There were no RG6 cables in the home.
I had already been paying for HD service from DirecTV for two years at $9.99 per month with a physical system incapable of carrying it. Because of their initially shoddy technical workmanship when the dish was first installed, which distorted the services DirecTV was claiming to supply me, I have invested about $11,000 in television and audio equipment trying to compensate for it, thinking it was my equipment and not theirs.
The gist is that DirecTV knew what equipment was installed in my home when they sold services to me. They had poor if any quality control over their technical installation and service contractors and took no action to correct any systemic problems with them. They therefore knowingly billed me for services which they knew they were not supplying, all the while advertising a higher quality service which they were incapable of delivering to me, intentionally defrauding me.
My losses cover the HD fees I have been paying and, considering the poorly installed original equipment, the entire fees billed over the history of my account, and the TV and audio equipment I purchased over the years trying to improve the reception.
If they knowingly sold me an HD signal to be transmitted from the satellite to my TV over inferior cables, without making the technological changes or before the changes were available, then they may have been, and possibly still are, defrauding millions of customers.
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