DirectTv Nightmare: Our Contracted Experience and Regrets

[heather223]

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!

 

[Sheila]

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.

 

[Sheila]

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.)

 

[esavvymom]

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.

 

[The_Kitchen_Guy]

(*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.

 

[heather223]

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.

 

[gailz2]

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.

 

[NooraK]

Looks like the dispute has been resolved:

Viacom reaches deal with DirecTV - Jul. 20, 2012