I want to share an important lesson I learned from my bad experience with Direct TV. First off, I have the same story as others: my Directv box quit working, my screen told me to call Directv, a lady on the phone sent someone out to fix the box, and all was good until I went to cancel and they charged me an early cancellation fee because they said I had renewed my contract when they replaced my box. Of course, this was the first time I had heard of this.
Here is the important lesson. If you have ever given Directv or any company a credit card number, they can and will charge anything they want to that card at any time, and you can NOT stop them. Beware: this is true of your credit cards too. I told Directv they were no longer allowed to charge my card. I told them I was not authorizing them to charge my credit card ever. They said they were going to charge the credit card on file and I could not stop them.
I called Visa and said don't let Directv do this. Visa said, we can NOT stop them. Visa told me the only way to stop them is to cancel the card. Remember this story when any company asks you for a credit card. Once that company has that card on file, they can charge you anytime. This information was told to me by a Visa representative. The rest of my Directv story is that I disputed the charges.
Visa proved that Directv had no proof of an oral agreement or otherwise, and the charge was credited back to my account. Three weeks later, Directv again charged my Visa a $200 cancellation fee, and I am again having to dispute the charges because I still have no way of stopping Directv from charging my Visa. Please, if you don't believe me, research this for yourself, because it is true.
Anytime you have ever given any company a credit card and they have it "on file," in most cases there is no way of ever getting that card "off file." A Directv representative told me that due to an agreement I have with them, they must always have a credit card on file, so they will not remove my credit card that is currently on file. Furthermore, if I cancel my business relationship with Directv (which I told them I have), they will not remove my Visa information from their files ever, and they keep those files indefinitely.
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