We became aware of our problem with this company on July 16 when we received a letter from a collection agency regarding a past due amount. Knowing we had not had DirecTV since Nov. and knowing we had paid our bill, I called to see what was going on. They asked for the account number on the notice and I read it off. Our nightmare begins here. They proceed to tell me that we had not one, but 2 accounts. WHAT??? They claim we never cancelled our account when we moved from CA in August. Yes we did. We told them to cancel our account, we were moving out of state. Funny, every other utility understood the meaning of cancel.
We were told to take the boxes and leave the satellite and to call DirecTV when we were ready to get service again. We had a 6 month lease on an apartment that only allowed cable, moving in Sept 1. We looked for a house to buy and moved in in February and again got DirecTV, continuing that service until Nov. Every month my creditcard was charged and every month I paid it, all the while believing the charge was for service in our new home, there is no DirecTV account number listed on the statement. What we didn't realize all this time was that my husband had actually given them a debitcard and they were getting paid out of our checking account for the new house.
We feel violated, our money taken under false pretenses for an account that should never have been charged to begin with. Service had been canceled. Trying to deal with these thieves is an exercise in futility, they just robotically repeat the same line over and over and blame you for their failure to do what they should have done.
After spending hours on the phone, I was told to send a letter to Office of the President at the billing disputes address. I did. I got a callback telling me I had 2 accounts, but since I paid the bill all along and never notified them of a problem, they could not help me. Why would I call them if I never KNEW there was a problem??? In all this time, we never received a statement, got a letter saying they were activating the old account or any other information. I tried to call that girl back at the number shown on my caller ID. You guessed it, it was not any number to the office of the president, just the same nightmare they call customer service. First I got Mexico, then cut off, then the Phillipines. End result: I had to send another letter, no way to contact the office of the president.
I want to know where they get off activating service at a property we sold in 2006 and who authorized them to charge me for service just because they have my creditcard number in their files? Because we were unaware of what they were doing does not give them the right to steal from us. Of course, this is all MY problem. I should have KNOWN. They are trying to tell me that they send the signal, whether I access it or not is not their problem. They insist we never cancelled our CA account, we agreed to something they call "suspension". BS, show me where we agreed to that when we, in fact, told them CANCEL.
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