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Personal DirectTv Nightmare: Our Contracted Experience and Regrets

In summary, after 9 hr of instillation and lots of Crud, we now have DirectTv. IT SUCKS!! Sometimes saving a few bucks is not worth it AT ALL!
naekelsey
Gold Member
727
After 9 hr of instillation and lots of Crud, we now have DirectTv. IT SUCKS!! Sometimes saving a few bucks is not worth it AT ALL!

Does anyone know if there is a "cooling off period" or a loop hole so we don't have to pay the cancellation fee? We honestly didn't think it would so stressful & thank gorsh we only changed the TV!!

Had a heck of a time with them yesterday with them screwing up the order & waiting for it to get fixed.......

You can't tell which shows are the new episodes by just glancing.. with Cox or Time Warner it says NEW when its a new episode. With Direct you have to go into each episode & seen when it when it first aired, if you are lucky.

With Cox you don't have to wait until a new episode starts in order to have a series record.

You can only look ahead 12 hrs instead of a week & there isn't a clock on the boxes

The last straw, 25 channels have been pulled, as of tonight and no one informed us that this was going to happen. It's the channels my kids and granddaughter watch the most.

We signed a contract. Does anyone have any suggestions or help for this??

We did do lots of research before changing. Next time, if it isn't broken don't fix it!
 
Hey, did you also hear DTV got rid of Comedy Central, Nick, MTV and 14 others channels last night? We got ours in April and I am hopping mad right now. I'm sure my bill won't be lowered either.
 
and I BELIEVE you do have a "grace period" that you can disconnect DTV, but I'd call them and find out.
 
We have DTv and have been very happy with it. My son was worried all day yesterday about the Viacom issue. He will not be happy today that his shows are gone :( I hope they get this dispte fixed quickly. Sounds to me like it's Viacom that's the greedy one. We really want Uverse, but it's not available at my end of the neighborhood just yet.
 
Check your contract's fine print. We signed up with Comcast and hated their cable. It had a 30 day money back satisfaction promise, so we ended up cancelling it. We kept their phone and internet, but went back to Dish Network for the tv. Dish is wayyyy better. I'm not familiar with Direct TV, so I don't know what they are like w/ customer service, but I'd get right on the phone and find out if you can get out of it. But check the fine print, maybe you'll be okay.
 
We have had Direct TV for about 15 yrs and have always been happy with it.

We have cable, too (Comcast). Direct TV has been better all the way around.

As far as channels in the lineup...ALL companies are go through this. You constantly hear about certain cable operators, etc in a dispute with various channels. I think DISH lost FX awhile ago and is in a dispute with AMC now(?). Time Warner has constant issues (or so I hear).

I feel pretty confident that Direct TV will resolve the issue with Viacom. In the past 15 years I can remember one dispute where we lost channels for just a few days (Fox this past year). But I cannot ever remember them dropping channels. They may have dropped very small channels - but not major ones like the ones in the dispute now.

I don't worry about "New" in the guide since I have DVRs and the Season pass picks it up if it is new.

I WILL say that my TiVo's are 100% better than the Direct TV DVR. I do get frustrated with some things about the DVR, but overall I am OK with it.

I will caution you, when the weather is poor (HEAVY rain/snow) you may loose satellite. Think about it...it has to aim into the sky. You won't have the same issue with cable and the weather. But, of course, my cable goes out periodically for no reason at all.

Good luck with whatever you decide.
 
Funny. We are going the opposite route. We rarely watch live TV...usually watch the stuff on-demand later, or I watch most of my shows online or with my ipad apps. We are ditching cable altogether to save $60 a month, and just using our Netflix, streaming online, and the for the basics,...using the airwave (which last night, worked better than the cable). My DH upgraded out internet to handle better streaming speeds...otherwise it would hhave saved us $90 a mnth. I just hate paying $100 a month for TV!

It is nice because we can watch our shows when WE want, and then everyone gets to bed earlier, we play games together, etc.
 
esavvymom said:
Funny. We are going the opposite route. We rarely watch live TV...usually watch the stuff on-demand later, or I watch most of my shows online or with my ipad apps. We are ditching cable altogether to save $60 a month, and just using our Netflix, streaming online, and the for the basics,...using the airwave (which last night, worked better than the cable). My DH upgraded out internet to handle better streaming speeds...otherwise it would hhave saved us $90 a mnth. I just hate paying $100 a month for TV!

It is nice because we can watch our shows when WE want, and then everyone gets to bed earlier, we play games together, etc.

That's the direction I'm going, too. The most annoying part is that the cable company charges $15/month more if you don't have any other service except the internet. So when I got a deal to get the basic TV channels along with the internet, I signed up for that, and I'm actually saving money! Once that promo expires, I'll call for a new one, and if they don't have it I'll drop the TV.
 
We were so tired of paying over $100 to the phone company for phone and internet (DSL) and another $100 for cell phone so we dropped the land line down to just the basic phone (and my personal ringer number) and added internet to our basic, basic cable (we had a plan that is just $12 per month and just gives us the basic channels - I think it's called lifeline). So now our phone is $29 and our cable is $35. Our cell phone bill will go up when we upgrade our phones in the fall but we'll still be paying less than we were before we made these changes. ...and we are thinking of eventually dropping the land line altogether once we change the cell phones.

Both cable and phone are with $10 off deals for a year and we can continue that price if we call them the month before it changes and ask to keep it. So, why can't they just leave it! ...I know the answer. They want people to forget and just pay the higher price...
 
  • #10
We were going to bundle when we moved here, but the tech could only do it if he made our internet service the Roadrunner LITE.....we had premium. We kicked him out and said no thanks. So we had Business class for a corp discount rate of $65 mo, and digital cable (no premium channels) for the $108, gone up almost $20 in the last 5 yrs....little by little.

I considered satellites, but didnt want the weather interference, and being able to watch in multiple rooms. We use Vonage for phone at $30 unlimited. Funny thing was whenever TWC called to offer bundled service, I just had to say I had vnage and they would say, "oh, ok. Thanks." and then hang up. We now have a bigger business class internet, but with all of it, I still come out ahead.

Sorry for the thread hijack!!
 
  • #11
I don't have those issues with the DirecTv guide - mine will go forward a week, but 12 hours at a time. I did notice that it no longer says NEW in the info box - it used to. But if you are recording a series you can set up the DVR to only record the new episodes. I am patiently waiting out the Viacom issue and hoping it is fixed by the time I get back from vacation. We watched those channels every night!
 
  • #12
Check out this link:
http://www.directvpromise.com/It also gives you a link to use to find FREE copies of all your shows on-line. :)
 
  • #13
chefsteph07 said:
Hey, did you also hear DTV got rid of Comedy Central, Nick, MTV and 14 others channels last night? We got ours in April and I am hopping mad right now. I'm sure my bill won't be lowered either.
Gosh. What a loss. :rolleyes:
 
  • #14
I admit it, I'm so old that I remember when MusicTV played music!
 
  • #15
Of the channels they got rid of we only miss the Nickelodean and TVLand stations. The rest can stay gone!
 
  • #16
The_Kitchen_Guy said:
I admit it, I'm so old that I remember when MusicTV played music!

I remember that too...

How about this one:
I remember FOUR channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, & PBS) and (gasp) having to get UP OFF THE COUCH to change them!!!
 
  • #17
esavvymom said:
We were going to bundle when we moved here, but the tech could only do it if he made our internet service the Roadrunner LITE.....we had premium. We kicked him out and said no thanks. So we had Business class for a corp discount rate of $65 mo, and digital cable (no premium channels) for the $108, gone up almost $20 in the last 5 yrs....little by little.

I considered satellites, but didnt want the weather interference, and being able to watch in multiple rooms. We use Vonage for phone at $30 unlimited. Funny thing was whenever TWC called to offer bundled service, I just had to say I had vnage and they would say, "oh, ok. Thanks." and then hang up. We now have a bigger business class internet, but with all of it, I still come out ahead.

Sorry for the thread hijack!!
Hijack a little more and tell me about Vonage. What do you like? What don't you like?
 
  • #18
BethCooks4U said:
Hijack a little more and tell me about Vonage. What do you like? What don't you like?
I love it! We have used them for, gosh, at least 7-8 years or more?? We have never had a problem with them. We started using them with our regular Roadrunner broadband. Since then, we've upgraded multiple times because of DH's work, and now the whole-streaming TV thing. DH uses Skype alot too, so he didn't like having to share bandwidth with our movies on netflix. ;)But as far as Vonage, it's been great. At this point, we probably can use their cheapest plan, since we use Skype or our Cell phones so much- but I cannot complain about them.The only negative is if you have no internet service or your power is out, so is your phone. :D But that is rare. You do have to register your address for the 911 calling - but I think with any digital phone service you have to do that now. But it's easy to do. Thankfully, we've never had to use 911 (once because of kids shooting fireworks in the woods- years ago. Cop drove by OUR house, instead of where the kids were...so I guess he found us ;)). As far as cost, we spend approx $35 a month with unlimited calls. The extra $10 or so is because of the lovely taxes and FCC fees. Oh, and you do have to sign-up online and use automatic payment (credit card, etc). My in-laws in Chicago area use it also.
If you are interested, let me know, and I can forward you a referral or tell you my phone number so you can list it when/if you sign up....they give me a free month. But I will still talk to you if you don't. ;) LOL
 
  • #19
Bobbi, we aren't doing it any time soon, just gathering info, but message me and if we do ever switch I'll give you the referral. I'm sure I'll forget later if I don't get it now.
 
  • Thread starter
  • #20
Back to the problem at hand..Fine print says (& so do the wonderful people working at Direct Tv) that if you cancel for any reason you will be charged a $440 cancellation fee. After talking to 2 different people, you can only get out of the fee IFyou are military & got stationed to a new place
you die
you get put in a "home"
& if the dish doesn't work because it is being covered by bushes and etcThey can also add and remove any & all channels without penalties because it says that in the contract..With all the problems we had getting it put in we should have known. Even told them 4 times while they were installing it that we would have the installer rip everything out with all the problems. We were told then that since a box had been turned on the contract started & we would be responsible for the $440 cancellation fee.So frustrated........
 
  • #21
That so stinks!!

After all is said and done, the Viacom channels not included, do you at least have TV and it works, etc?

Obviously the install was a headache and a half....but you can probably end up dealing with the rest as you get used to it?? Maybe the whole episode thing will get sorted out as other folks complain too. I would expect the Viacom channels will come back eventually. It's just a matter of DTV standing their ground with the markets. All networks go through that issue.

Hope it works out- and again- sorry for the hijack. :blushing:
 
  • #22
Oh man, that's horrible!!! I'd ask to speak to a supervisor and lodge a complaint. Explain the nightmare installation and also explain how you didn't know how poor the system was until it was installed. How were you to know until you tried it?!! This is horrible customer service and you will be sure to tell every single person you know your horrible experience with the system and the customer service and as soon as your 2 years or whatever are up, you will be leaving and going with XYZ company. I'd lodge this both as a verbal complaint with a supervisor in the CS department and also through written letter. Sorry, that's the "Jersey" in me coming out. (I grew up there.) lol :DWith as much competition out there, you'd think they would step up and try to make you happy. Guess they aren't that confident in their product since they don't offer a guarantee on it. I thought legally, any contract you are given a certain window of time to change your mind. I wonder...
 
  • #23
lt1jane said:
I remember that too...

How about this one:
I remember FOUR channels (ABC, CBS, NBC, & PBS) and (gasp) having to get UP OFF THE COUCH to change them!!!

Unless you were a kid in northern Wisconsin, in which case, you had WSAU 7 out of Wausau - grainy image - mostly CBS but also broadcast ABC and NBC shows if they were popular. The only reason you got up off the couch was to turn the volume up or down, or to just turn the idiot box off.

The first video played on MTV was the Buggles Video Killed the Radio Star. How ironic - MTV killed the Video Star.
 
  • #24
Unbelievable! Well tell them that you will tell everyone never to get Direct TV. I know I won't after hearing your experience. I'd ask to talk to a supervisor and up the line and contact the BBB. They may help. Did they tell you there was no way out before you signed? How long is the contract for?
 
  • #25
No - you're being fed a raft of nonsense. If you are unhappy, contact the VP of customer affairs, Ellen Filipiak via the direct connection
Contact DIRECTV Office of the President - DIRECTVI would also FAX a copy of whatever you send to her office - tells her you are serious. Just call your customer service rep and explain your are not satisfied, you are writing to her and want to send a fax as well, to be certain she knows about your concerns.
In your letter, explain you are giving them one opportunity to fix the situation or you will be writing to your state attorney general's office and filing a complaint, and your BBB. If that doesn't get you solved, file the state attorney gen. complaint and BBB, and fax copies to every member of the DTV board at
http://dtv.client.shareholder.com/officers.cfm.I would also start stuffing IN boxes by writing to them FirstnameLastnameATcompany.comWe have been DTV customers through several moves, seems like over 20 years, since they started. Every now and then I call and insist they give me the new customer pricing, which they do.------PS - seems like any business transaction has 3 days before it becomes a done deal. Ring 'dem phones and keep pressing for a supervisor. Legally, they can't hold you to a contract that has not been accepted by you--you may have signed for the service, but when they can't provide the service, you are not bound to the contract (not for 3 days at least)!
 
  • #26
BethCooks4U said:
Hijack a little more and tell me about Vonage. What do you like? What don't you like?

We had Vonage for a few years before we moved. I liked it except when the DSL was down, which happened sporadically because of Verizon. They would switch something at a box down the road, perhaps thinking that thingie wasn't in use. I really don't understand the technical stuff, but it would suck to lose DSL for a few days. We didn't have Verizon DSL so DH would have to call our provider who then had to call Verizon to tell them about the problem and get their truck out to fix it. This was in suburban Washington, DC. After a year or two DH upgraded to premium service with the DSL provider so that we would get 24 hour turn-around instead of having to wait a week for Verizon to come out. It did not make conducting business fun. Sometimes the DSL would flicker and go out for an hour or two. The worst incident was when we were trying to sell our house. An agent came for a showing thinking we knew she was coming since the agency left a voicemail. The house was a complete mess and I was mortified.

With Vonage you can forward your calls to your cell or other #. I would do this while on vacation or when the DSL was down. You can also go online and see all the income and outgoing call #s.

We had Dish Network for several years before moving as well. We were quite happy with them, only losing signal during heavy rains or snow.

We are now Fios customers, which is shocking after all of the cursing that I did about Verizon. Nothing ever goes down except when the power is out.
 
  • #27
scottcooks said:
PS - seems like any business transaction has 3 days before it becomes a done deal. Ring 'dem phones and keep pressing for a supervisor. Legally, they can't hold you to a contract that has not been accepted by you--you may have signed for the service, but when they can't provide the service, you are not bound to the contract (not for 3 days at least)!

I agree with this- find out what your state's policy is! And since you called them before the 3 days was up they need to abide by this.

Beth- I just heard that Verizon is doing something where you can get home phone for like $19.99 a month as long as you have WiFi in your house? I haven't checked into it as we have Uverse and our phone is bundled.
 
  • #28
I was thinking the 3 day (72 hour) cancellation policy applied to. But not positive.Just for the record, I used DirectTV once before when my Father was still alive. He was paralyzed from the neck down & in a bed 90% of the time. He asked for it & I got it for him. It was a HUGE freaking headache from the beginning. We had issues with them DOUBLE CHARGING us each month. I made the mistake of doing the automatic payments so I wouldn't have to remember to pay the bill each month & twice a month they were pulling out the funds. I ended up having to get the bank involved to block them from making withdrawals, then fought for the longest time to get the over-payments applied. to the upcoming bills. If it had been my personal service I would have been more hardheaded about paying, but with Dad's situation I didn't want them to turn off his service. It was months & months of fussing, talking to supervisors, threatening to report them, etc. to get it fixed. I'll NEVER use them again nor would I recommend them to a friend. It was a stressful nightmare. And, as previously mentioned, weather can affect the service. Cable's been much more reliable in my experience. Having said that, I pretty much quit watching TV when I moved to Japan. There was no TV guide for the military channels, they pick & choose what we watch. (We didn't have NBC, CBS, ABC, etc ~ we just hat the Armed Forces Network & they would show various prime time shows but on schedules that were totally off from US showings.) Now that I have kids, they watch all their stuff. My husband has converted all their movies, their Baby Einstein videos, their Elmo videos, etc. over to digital copies. We put them on an external hard drive & hooked up a Western Digital box between the internet line & the TV. They can watch all their favorite shows or switch over to Netflix & see Dora, Diego, Wonder Pets, etc. on demand! LOL No commercials!!! I gave up the cable all together a couple of months ago (the box hadn't been turned on since the sitter watched in in January) and it was a waste of money each month. I've been catching up on the shows I missed while living in Japan on Netflix. Hubby just ordered Hulu Plus too, but we're not impressed. Will probably cancel that one soon. I'd rather watch the whole series in a marathon than drag it out over a couple of months. My short term memory's awful (complements of the moron who assaulted me in '94 & gave me a concussion), so when they drag out the shows I tend to forget stuff. Waiting & watching them in a cluster is much more enjoyable for me. And I don't miss the commercials either! :D
 
  • #29
We have Dish Network. We have had it for 14 years. The only time we had any issue with it was when the original installers came out. They were up and down quickly and it was done. However, they did not screw it down properly and about two months later, after one very bad storm, the signal got bad. We called and within 24 hours we were all set again. After that, we have only had a few issues signal wise during storms. Never long, really! In fact, our tenant has cable. She has more issues than we do. No lie! We have since had the dish replaced with the newer ones. We were told our was obsolete. The guy came out on a 98 degree day. He put up the new one, ran new wires as well as those too were obsolete. NOT A SINGLE ISSUE AND NO CHARGE!!!
Also, we have wifi in our home. Pat bought a Magic Jack system. IT WORKS and is only $2.19 a month, yes all paid up front, but we can call anywhere at anytime for just that $2.19.
 
  • #30
We currently have Dish and have had it for almost six years this time. We've had it in the past but when we moved to our current city, the house we were in had cable so we disconnected Dish. We eventually decided to try DirecTV and did NOT like it. We disliked it to the point that we paid to get out of our contract several months early!!

My parents and my in-laws both have DirecTV and I still do not like having to fool with it. Unless Dish does something extremely crazy, we will be with them for a while!
 
  • #31
pampered1224 said:
Also, we have wifi in our home. Pat bought a Magic Jack system. IT WORKS and is only $2.19 a month, yes all paid up front, but we can call anywhere at anytime for just that $2.19.

Explain to me how this works? I use our home phone mostly for PC and for when we are not home and there is a sitter here! We have WiFi, but no computer that is left on 24/7 as we only have laptops and very old desktops!
 
  • #32
Heather, Magic Jack, Skype & Vonage are all done through your internet line. When you call 911, it does NOT display your address. So if you use a sitter a lot, you'd need to have your address printed out & posted somewhere the sitter knows to look should they have to dial 911. In an emergency, most people get forgetful. So even if they think they know your address, they might forget in an emergency. Hubby & I have been using Skype since before we left for Japan in '06. It was MUCH cheaper than Vonage back then, and even though they've gone up on the price, it's still cheaper than Vonage. Magic Jack has come along since, then & I know a lot of military families who use it overseas ... but we were happy with Skype & didn't want to change phone numbers, so we kept Skype. We had a cordless hooked up to the computer, so we could answer Skype from another room, but if the computer went off, so did the connection to that phone. My guess is that Magic Jack is similar.
 
  • #33
Sheila said:
Heather, Magic Jack, Skype & Vonage are all done through your internet line. When you call 911, it does NOT display your address. So if you use a sitter a lot, you'd need to have your address printed out & posted somewhere the sitter knows to look should they have to dial 911. In an emergency, most people get forgetful.* So even if they think they know your address, they might forget in an emergency. Hubby & I have been using Skype since before we left for Japan in '06. It was MUCH cheaper than Vonage back then, and even though they've gone up on the price, it's still cheaper than Vonage. Magic Jack has come along since, then & I know a lot of military families who use it overseas ... but we were happy with Skype & didn't want to change phone numbers, so we kept Skype.

We had a cordless hooked up to the computer, so we could answer Skype from another room, but if the computer went off, so did the connection to that phone. My guess is that Magic Jack is similar.

(*I had someone call 911 once, verify their address, I sent the ambulance ... to a vacant house that they'd moved out of 2 weeks prior. He forgot that they had moved & gave the old address. Even adults do crazy things in an emergency.)
 
  • #34
While it is not a bad idea to have the address posted anyway, with Vonage, you have to register your address through a special section on the website specifically for 911. I THINK that when I call 911 from my home phone, it actually connects to a call center, not the local 911 and they transfer/connect you to the correct area from there....but I am not sure.I know they tell us that if we move, or if we travel and take our phone modem with us (you can do that and makes it easy to still get your home phone calls), that you have to make sure to update the address in the database. Otherwise, if we called 911 from that new or temporary address, they would dispatch to our old address in the database, and not our actual location.I would have to look at their FAQ. We have had it for more than ten yrs.
 
  • #35
Sheila said:
(*I had someone call 911 once, verify their address, I sent the ambulance ... to a vacant house that they'd moved out of 2 weeks prior. He forgot that they had moved & gave the old address. Even adults do crazy things in an emergency.)

Adults do crazy things even when it's NOT an emergency. ;)
 
  • #36
Sheila said:
Heather, Magic Jack, Skype & Vonage are all done through your internet line. When you call 911, it does NOT display your address. So if you use a sitter a lot, you'd need to have your address printed out & posted somewhere the sitter knows to look should they have to dial 911. In an emergency, most people get forgetful. So even if they think they know your address, they might forget in an emergency. Hubby & I have been using Skype since before we left for Japan in '06. It was MUCH cheaper than Vonage back then, and even though they've gone up on the price, it's still cheaper than Vonage. Magic Jack has come along since, then & I know a lot of military families who use it overseas ... but we were happy with Skype & didn't want to change phone numbers, so we kept Skype.

We had a cordless hooked up to the computer, so we could answer Skype from another room, but if the computer went off, so did the connection to that phone. My guess is that Magic Jack is similar.

Our Uverse phone works the same way as Vonage as it is digital phone. I think you are correct about Magic Jack- if our computer shuts off then we loose the phone connection. I just realized that we are paying $35 a month for Uverse. I also just heard about something similar through Verizon for $20 a month. Need to check it out still.
 
  • #37
We recently moved from an area that had cable (we bundled) to a more remote location 4 miles away. We started with Verizon for our phones and internet, and after much ado, were able to cancel out since the service to our area was horrible. We then signed on with Dish for our TV service (and local phone company with DSL). We LOVE the Hopper and Joey they now offer.My daughter-in-law has Direct and was so mad about the channels being dropped, she called, and was able to get a $.38/day refund per channel, I believe it is. Call, and keep speaking to someone higher up.
 

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