The City of Los Angeles has brought a lawsuit against Times-Warner for not providing services to subscribers.
I write to tell you of another 'bait-and-switch' that DirecTV is attempting to pull against my mother, a San Pedro elderly resident. She switched from Dish Network almost two months ago because DirecTV offered a few more high definition channels.
The original offer was for up to three TV connections at $29.00, I'm sure you've seen the many mail offers.
After a long discussion with the agent over the phone we agreed the monthly charge was to be $51.00. The charges were higher because my mother needed one high definition desk-top receiver and one regular receiver, plus the high definition service. We agreed to the higher $51.00 fee.
Dish Network would have charged is $49.95, but they offered a few high definition channels less. We all thought it was worth the extra $1.05 to switch.
Needless to say, my mother was very upset to receive her first bill at $73.38!
I called DirecTV on her behalf to straighten the bill out. I finally told the agent that we agreed to pay $51.00 and that we refused to pay the $73.38 they demanded. The agent finally said fine, send in the $51.00 payment.
This month we got another bill for $77.76! A second phone to complain got me nowhere and after a very long discussion with the agent I was finally connected with a supervisor.
I told the supervisor that we would not pay that kind of money because that was not the amount we agreed on. At this point the supervisor said no, we agreed to those higher charges and after all, DirecTV was giving us 'free' HBO for three months and that should help make-up for the higher cost!
I then told DirecTV to come and get their equipment because we were not going to be cheated or coerced into paying that kind of money for their service. We told her we would only pay the original $51 we agreed to.
At this point the supervisor said, "That's fine with us BUT, you will be charged $400 and more because you are ending service early". She also advised that DirecTV would be charging my mothers American Express card for all charges in mid-July no matter what we said.
Needless to say, we are extremely upset and feel almost robbed by this dishonest company. How many other Los Angeles residents have been cheated by this company? Please know that we will do everything possible to help see this bait-and-switch end. If it requires a lawsuit, we will cooperate with the city in every way.
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