DirecTV
Terrible experience

I had been using DIRECTV for a few years and I thought everything was fine. Admittedly, there were times when I was late making a payment, but they were always congenial. Then, (last year), we left on an extended vacation to South America and I asked DIRECTV to put our service 'on hold' until we came back.

When we came back we found out that DIRECTV had disconnected our service for non-payment and we had to pay over $100.00 to re-connect. To make matters worse, one month before I left, I called them and asked what the best procedure would be to temporarily interrupt service until our return.

I followed exactly what they told me. Just to make sure, two weeks before leaving, I emailed them twice and called them twice.'No problem Mr. Hasty'.'Everything will be taken care of with out any interruption'.'Have a nice vacation'.

In October of this year, unfortunately, we had an emergency in the family and had to leave the U.S. (again) for South America. I called DIRECTV and told them of this emergency. They said they understood. I paid them what I could and apologized for any late payments that would follow. I tried to tell them we had to use all the funds we could just to get there at this time of family crisis. Again, they said they understood.

No, this time I did not ask for any kind of 'extension'. My mind was on my family.

Which brings us up to now. I have been emailing back and forth to DIRECTV about my latest bill. I told them to please hold off for just a few days, that I was in the middle of changing banks and would send a payment in full on the 10th of December. Their customer service rep, one 'Allain L'. Id# 100164310 emailed back saying they would not 'automatically' deduct any payment from my Visa card.

However, I only had a few days to make a payment or, it would be sent to a collection agency (collection agency my a_) and I could deal with them. I also told them that there would not be enough funds in my old bank account to take care of a payment and (again) to please wait for just 3 more days.

I emailed back saying that I would pay when I said I would pay and that would be on the 10th of December. 3 days from today. I also told this person that it would be a hardship if they took out funds which were not there at my old bank. I did leave enough funds in there to cover some small auto draft bills, but not enough to cover what I owed DIRECTV.

As soon as I finished with that, I went on-line and checked my (old) bank account. Sure enough, they took out $267.00 which threw this account into the red and they took out that amount on December 6th. The entire time I was emailing this person.

I realize that DIRECTV is not responsible for me not having enough funds to cover payments to them, but as a moral issue, there was nothing stopping them for showing a little courtesy instead of the way they handled this situation. They gave their word and did not keep it. Nor, did they care if it caused any hardship or not.

I would love to know if I can sue these idiots. I have it in writing that they would NOT automatically take any funds out of my account. They did and I am mad as hell about that. I did not want to leave my old bank with this hanging over our heads. Now, I have to re-pay that which causes us more hardship financially. What can I do?

We all have to pay our bills, that's a given if we want to maintain any kind of good credit. The way they treated us was not only unfair, it was 'dirty tactics'. Never again will we use DIRECTV.

As mentioned earlier, is it possible to sue them? THis might be a minor issue to some but not to us. Thanks.

Company: DirecTV
Country: USA
Site: directv.com

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