Direct TV
Receiver Bought for Nearly $400 but $100 Termination Fee Taken

I live in rural Florida, where cable is not available, so DirecTV was my only option. About two and a half years ago I signed up with a one-year contract, which was fine. That year ended and my contract obligation was over, no problem. Then the new DirecTV receiver with a DVR was released. I badly wanted it but did not want to sign another service contract, so I went to my local Walmart and paid nearly 400 dollars for it, specifically to stay contract-free. I took it home and used it with the DirecTV service I already had, and everything was fine.

About a year and a half later I moved to a place with cable and decided to drop DirecTV. When I phoned, they said a 100 dollar contract termination fee would apply and I would need to send the receiver back. I told them I had no contract because I had bought the receiver outright. They insisted I had not. I no longer had the receipt from a year and a half earlier, so I said they could take the receiver back but I would not pay the penalty. They said I would. I said I would not and that they could send me a bill.

The next day I discovered that they had pulled the money straight from my bank account. I had only ever made one-time payments to them, using the Visa debit card attached to that account. I called and told them they had no authorization and must put the money back. Their answer was that a form letter had gone out in April with everyone's bill saying they would be authorized to access bank accounts for termination fees. I replied that those were one-time authorizations, not permission for recurring withdrawals, and that what they did is fraud. After that I spent 3 hours on hold with my bank, filing disputes and a fraud claim against DirecTV. Exactly the stress I needed.

Here is the lesson. If you pay DirecTV with a Visa or any other one-time online payment method, remove that information from their system right now. Pay only through your bank's bill pay, where the bank issues a check. Even that may not stop them from trying to grab your money. Ha!

Company: Direct TV
Country: USA

  <     >