"We bought television service with Direct TV at a COSTCO store. We signed a two-year contract with the understanding that the $67 per month fee was for the two years (the NFL package was included). But, we were wrong. After twelve months, the rate more than doubled. They had also charged us for the NFL ticket--even though football season hadn't even started! When I called, I was transferred three times and waited for over an hour to receive NO RESOLUTION.
The Direct TV sales rep at COSTCO explained the contract to me at length so, of course, I did not take the time to read it. When I called COSTCO and told them of my ordeal, they had a Direct TV customer representative call me. He, too, was unyielding, insisting that the introductory amount was only for one year. I tried negotiating with him, but he was unmoved and demanded that I produce the original contract. When I told him that I was canceling the service, he informed me of the $250 cancellation fee.
Don't fall for these scams; this was a clear case of "bait and switch." COSTCO no longer sells Direct TV in their stores."
"I cancelled my Directv service, as the cost was just getting out of control. I contacted the service dept and informed them I wanted to cancel. Finally got it cancelled and I confirmed with the person I spoke with to "please ensure the refund and boxes (for receiver cards) were sent to the billing address (the service was at my vacation home). They said yes it was documented in their notes. 7 days later no boxes, no refund.
I called again and they said, "oh we sent them to the other address, that why you have not seen them". 1st I already checked with my neighbor and nothing showed up in my mail box, 2nd I was told they wrote the correct address in the cancellation notes. OK, so this time they say they will correct wait 5-7 days. I wait... nothing at either address. I send an email stating the problem again. I get a response saying they will resolve in a few days. I wait a week, nothing... I call again and(speaking very slowly this time, so maybe they will understand). They need to send it to the billing address, which I again provide. I ask them to read the address back to me and they do. Should be there in 5-7 days... 10 days later nothing!!! Seriously!! We can put a man on the moon but Directv can't send a box to an address? Total incompetence...."
"I switched from Comcast to DirecTV strictly for cost savings. I saved approximately $100 a month for a similar package but you get what you pay for! I have had nothing but trouble with their on demand system. Some shows will not play at all and when you call the answer is "yeah sometimes that happens and we don't know why". They will have a season listed but halve the episodes will be missing. At least 50% of the time the system buffers so bad it is impossible to watch or it gives an error message and kicks you out of the show. When talking with their tech support they agree it is bad and the solution was to just record everything. So much for on demand. Usually once a week the system locks up and has to be rebooted. This usually takes 15-30 minutes to reboot. I thought I would eventually get use to the menu system and be comfortable with it. I was wrong. After 6 months I still hate it. I spend more time trying to find new shows that don't cost money then actually watching anything. The system is slow with pay and free stuff all lumped together. I truly hate this system and often wonder if the frustration is worth the $100 savings!"
"I tried to sign back up for DirectTV service. What a mistake. I was transfered 7 times and asked the same infomation time after time. Took 4 hours. (no kidding). Took the day off today to wait for the installer who was comming between 12-4. Got a call that they woudl be more like 4:00-5:00 at 1:00. At 6:30 called. Took 10 min to get someone. "They are still comming". At 7:30 repeated the process. No call back. At 9:00 called again as it is dark and they are not comming. "Sorry - we can reschedule you in a week"...get to take another day off. But they tried to make it better...gave me a whole $25 credit. Wow!!! taht really makes up for 8 hours of my time wasted.
Good technology, NFL sundy ticket is great, but their service is some of the worst I have ever experienced. Stay away."
"What quick, and courteous service, the tech came, solved problem, installed new box/dvr ran test programs. Phone call 24 hr advance to reconfirm, call morning of appointment, here on time, call 6 hours later to see if I am satisfied. Boy if only other companies would follow Directv,s customer service policies. "
"If DirecTV cannot teach their reps the difference between a "DVR" and a simple "receiver", they at least should teach them how to count. I spent the better part of a DAY on the phone yesterday with no less than FIVE customer "service" representatives, trying to order DirecTV's Whole-Home service with 2 HD DVRs and 3 HD receivers. Each time the order was confirmed with 3 DVRs and 3 receivers, and each time the CSRs were somehow profoundly confused when I told them I only wanted TWO DVRs. I literally did not know how to respond to that. Additionally, the first order was confirmed with STANDARD receivers, which kills the functionality of the Whole-Home service. When told that, the CSR's "explanation" was nonsensical (I am a veteran IT professional).
Several times I was shuttled back and forth between new accounts and existing accounts (I have been a customer for 8 years), I was cut off twice. One of the youngsters sounded like he was on drugs. Two of them didn't seem to know how to use the account software. And I won't even talk about the "order confirmation" step with a woman whom I barely understood because she could barely speak english.
People who cannot listen, cannot count, cannot use their computers, do not know the first thing about the equipment or services they are selling, and are completely befuddled when asked anything which is off their "script", have absolutely NO BUSINESS in a position of responsibility for a customer's money. I fully expect to spend the next two months trying to straighten out both my service and my bill. Small wonder DirecTV's BBB rating is "F".
This company is a monopoly. It is unfortunate that no other satellite provider can offer the equivalent in technology and services. If the cable service in my area were not so spotty, I would be a cable customer in a heartbeat."
"Pricing seems rather high for what you get. You do get lots of channels but 90% of them aren't worth watching in my own opinion. DirecTV seems to be always looking for any opportunity to extend your service agreement with them, or to sell you extra services, and those are sometimes hard to get stopped once they start.
It's rather hard to find a channels package that has the channels you really want because of the way they scatter them about in the different package groups. Overall, they probably aren't that much different from other satellite TV providers, but I've not enjoyed the experience very much since signing up with them, and now I watch less TV than ever before.
Some of their emails don't appear to have any way to unsubscribe, and they call (or try to call) you by phone too often. It's wise to keep good records with names and the details of any phone conversations, and of course you should keep copies of all correspondence with them.
I can't really recommend them, but again I'm not so sure the other providers are any better."
"My DVR I got from them was supposed to be free repelacement. 2 days ago it failed and thou they will replace for free are dinging me over $20 in freight and handling. In addition, I need to send my old broken box back or I will get billed for the list price of the receiver. Once they get it I get my new one I was told I have to install myself for schedule and pay a tech to come install it for additional fees. I think the fine print on these kind of promotions is deceiving and unethical. "
"OK, I place my order online for their best package where I got 1 free HD-DVR, paid $99 for an HD receiver, and my 3rd box was a standard no frills box.
When I placed my order I didn't see a place to put in my friends referral code to save $10/month for 10 months so I emailed customer service the very next day to have it applied. The response was I had to put it in when I placed my order on a page I didn't see--so I missed out. The same applies for the $10/month off for two years with my AAA discount--it had to be applied when I signed up. So in total I already lost $340 in savings because I didn't see a place to enter this information online.
I considered canceling since my install date was still a week away and just reordering to get the discount but they already charged my card $170 for the HD receiver and a phone connection kit so I didn't want the hassle of waiting for DirecTV to credit back my debit account and then replacing/rescheduling the install. It just left a horrible taste in my mouth losing out on $340 in savings.
So now the installer comes and theres trees in the way. I reschedule for a week later and had a few trees taken down. The next installer arrived and set everything up. Being its free installation everything is basic. For example instead of running the cable through my basement it was run outside under my deck. Everything worked so I was content.
A few minutes after he left I noticed my boxes were all silver while online they were black. I checked the model number and every box is 3 generations old. I had an HR20 installed when the current boxes are HR23's. All the boxes were also refurbished. So I paid upfront fee's on 3rd generation refurbished boxes. What gets me is if you don't sign up for their $7/month insurance plan you have to pay for any repairs/equipment/and just about anything else. Also, if I wanted to upgrade my box to a newer model DirecTV would extend my contract another 2 years.
When I emailed asking why new customers who pay upfront fees on the sat. boxes are getting refurbished units they replied saying they have the same picture quality and are under the same warranty as the new boxes so theres no need for concern. Thats unacceptable. They should use refurb units for people who need a box replaced under warranty--not use them with new customers. I mean how many people paid the $200 upfront fee on that refurbished HR20?!
The final gripe was the $21/month rebate for 12 months that was advertised. I signed up when I placed my order and got an email saying I will see my savings on my first bill. My first bill came and of course no rebate. I called and they said due to a computer glitch it wasnt showing up. They said my next bill will have the rebate applied.
Other than all those SNAFU's the picture quality is great, better than my HD cable was. So while I enjoy the service the customer service and practice of using old refurbished equipment just isn't right. "
"DirectTV is full of shady operators. My original installation was cancelled because the install guy lied about needing 2 TVs to install 2 boxes. They also signed me up for auto bill without permission. Every couple months, I have to call them about some sort of billing issue.
After being overcharged for programming, I was told that my 29.99 monthly package never took effect because I didn't redeem my "rebate". In all my conversations with DirectTV, no one told me about this rebate requirement until it was too late. As soon as my 1 year contract expires, I am gone, and will never look back."
"I've been a Directv customer for a few years and never really had any issues with them besides the crappy no signal in rain issue. But since recently I've purchased a HDTV and felt the need to upgrade the dish/receiver to have HD access, so they sent someone in to change the dish and receiver. The appointment was from 12-4pm. I praised the technican on that part since he called me a little bit after 12pm, that saved me a lot of time waiting for him to show up. However, a few bad things I have to say about my experience on this job. First, he was on his cellphone for a long time while at the job and I'm positive that it wasn't about my installation. Second, he would not take the old dish away even when I asked him to do that. He just said the dish is too old and they have no use of it. Not a big deal since I can just dump it myself. After he had gone, I noticed he left the old dish on the side of my house which he told me about it. But what he didn't do was to take the old cable down(new dish was relocated to a different spot) so it was basically hanging off my house. I was able to pull the cable down myself but I felt that he left the job incompleted. He also told me that since the dish was relocated to a better location and that I would get a signal during rain which was not the case. My signal still crapped out in heavy rain for a few minutes. Sure this is not anything he can do about it, but don't tell the customers they won't get service interruption during bad weather when in fact it still does. Overall I'm somewhat satisfied with the job because I got my HD pictures fine but with a few little things that bothered me."
"We decided to try an alternative to cable and in the process selected Directv. The Good: Firstly, the picture quality is very good. Moreover, no more being ripped-off by your local city government for that franchise (monopoly)fee. The concern about satellite interference due to weather is only a minor problem.
THE BAD: Service become a problem right from the start. For unknown reasons we had a problems with a very unprofessional service representative. She was so bad that one of the Directv supervisors had to complete the order. It took a month to have the service installed because someone at Directv continued to cancel the order. After the third attempt, it was determined that the original female representative had been the one who was canceling the install order.
Shortly after the installation, I noticed the cables running from the front of the building to the back had not been buried. Again it took three calls to get someone out to put them underground.
See the pictures of this in the forum. The cables from front to back of the house, was maybe 120 feet long and only about ten feet was buried.
Later the dish came loose (thank you third world roofers) and we began to have reception problems. Because we were out of warranty period the service call was $70.oo. We made the repair ourselves. Unlike cable, it is only a matter of time before your dish will require to be serviced and if you own it you will pay to have it serviced.
You would think that this Robert Murdock company would try and distinguish itself from cable by providing better service. Ha! Ha! Directv is every bit as bad as your local monopolizers. In fact, when our contract expires we will more than likely leave, Directv.
Lastly, when calling their customer service line it not usually to wait ten to 15 minutes before you get a live operator.
Who should buy this service? I would only recommend
this product where cable is not available. I am extremely disappointed with their level of service.
Lastly, they cannot even calculate the correct state sales tax !!
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