DirecTV
Misled About Free Replacement Receiver, Then Billed $233 Fee

To everyone thinking of signing up with DIRECTV as a TV provider, I have one simple piece of advice: do not walk away from this company, RUN.

You may ask why. Let me explain.

I was a DIRECTV customer for almost seven years, starting in January. For the first six of those years the service was adequate, meaning I had no real wish to change providers.

Three or four months ago, though, the service got so bad that I was having long outages. At first I thought the weather might be to blame, but the outages became so frequent that I had to contact the DIRECTV "Service" department. I put "Service" in quotation marks with good reason, as I will explain.

I soon learned that the IVR (Interactive Voice Response) system DIRECTV uses exists to keep a customer from reaching a real person for as long as possible. Whatever the problem and however often it happens, you have to work through an absurdly long menu of choices. The system does not understand what you say, sends you to the wrong customer service scenario, or drops the call entirely. I cannot give an exact figure, but I would conservatively say that each of my calls to "service" ran longer than an hour. (As a Systems Engineer, I have programmed and maintained IVR systems myself, and I can say with confidence that DIRECTV's IVR system is a complete joke.)

After a number of calls I finally got a live human, who walked me through basically the same scenarios the IVR had. I followed each instruction carefully, yet nothing fixed the problem. At last the representative announced that a new receiver would be sent. I asked, VERY SPECIFICALLY, whether the new receiver would carry any charges. THE ANSWER WAS A CLEAR, EMPHATIC "NO" BECAUSE I WAS A "LOYAL CUSTOMER."

When the new receiver came, I saw that it was reconditioned, not new. I also checked the invoice and saw that I was not being charged. Then I turned the invoice over and found wording the customer "service" representative had NOT mentioned, including the supposed "obligation" that came with the "new" receiver. Honestly, if this "new" receiver had solved the problem, I would have had no objection to any of it.

But the "new" receiver was "DEAD OUT OF THE BOX." It would NOT power on, because the power cord was faulty and kept falling out of the back of the unit. Looking back, it is a little funny: every time I pushed the cord firmly into the back and stepped away, it dropped out again after a few seconds. I phoned DIRECTV once more and went through the same routine of trying to make the IVR system understand English, being sent to the wrong place, being cut off, and so on. After a couple more hours I reached a live person again. When I described the situation, I got a breezy "No problem. We'll just send you ANOTHER receiver."

A week later the next receiver arrived. This one powered on, and after yet another two-hour call to DIRECTV, I got a human being to activate the receiver in the system. For the next month or two I had no further trouble.

Then the problems returned. Once again I went through the effort of calling DIRECTV and trying to reach a live person. After the same routine, I spoke to a "representative" and tried to describe what had happened and the symptoms of the current problem. After a few suggestions that did nothing, the "representative" said (and I am quoting him directly), "You know, this is really above my level of expertise. I'm going to have to transfer you to someone else." When I finally reached this person of greater "expertise," I was so desperate that I nearly begged her to send someone to my home to settle the problem once and for all.

The "representative" said (again quoting directly), "Since you are a loyal customer, you are entitled to one free service call." I truly believed I was finally getting somewhere. Then she told me my "free" service call could not happen for over a week!

At that point it was obvious that DIRECTV did not care at all about a "LOYAL CUSTOMER." They had given me no reason to think they meant to fix the problem. I also could not be sure their "technician" would show up on the date given. With their poor record, I had no choice but to do what I had sworn I would not do, which was to go back to cable TV. (It was a little funny that when I returned the receiver(s) to FEDEX/Kinkos as DIRECTV had instructed, the shipping clerk took the package and said, "Well, you're the fourth one this morning." I looked behind the counter, and sure enough, three other boxes of DIRECTV equipment were being returned!)

Soon after I turned down DIRECTV's offer of two months of FREE service if I stayed, I received a bill for $233.00 as an "Early Cancellation Fee," which I have no intention of paying. In short, my situation with DIRECTV is as follows:

A) The DIRECTV "representative" deliberately gave me false information when I asked whether the "new" receiver carried any cost or obligation. This "policy" of obligating customers while giving them shoddy equipment and customer service guarantees the company a "captive audience" while it does as little as possible. (It is very interesting that when I asked the "representative" what to do with the old receiver, the answer was "throw it in the garbage." Yet when I cancelled my service, I was warned that failing to return the latest receiver would bring a charge possibly exceeding $700.00.) This clearly shows that the supposed value of their equipment means nothing to DIRECTV. The equipment is used only to tie customers further to DIRECTV's miserable service.

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA

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