Deceptive and Nonresponsive DirecTV

[Happy Camper]

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We are charter premiere package DirecTV subscribers with three HR21s and one HR10. As a result of the excellent posts and discussions here concerning DirecTV's "service Commitment" policies and early cancellation fees, we decided to email DirecTV and ask several questions:

1. Did we have a commitment?

2. What was it if we had one?

3. If we had a claimed commitment, what would be the cancellation fee?

4. Was it true what we had heard that they charged a two year commitment even if the activated receiver was a REPLACEMENT UNDER THE REPAIR PLAN?

They answered promptly that we did have a commitment, they cited the date, and said we'd owe $20 per month if we cancelled before the end of the commitment. They absolutely DID NOT answer question number 4, maybe because the dates and commitments they were claiming resulted from activating a receiver DirecTV had sent us under the repair plan to replace a defective receiver we had had for over two years before that.

So, we replied to THAT answer and asked "But the date you claim we activated a 'new' receiver' was in fact a replacement receiver under the service plan-do you still claim that 'commitment?'"

Interesting that DirecTV has not responded to that inquiry. So, I called DirecTV and got shuffled around with a bunch of gobbledy-gook, never got an answer, and hung up after being cut off once, redialing, and then being transferred twice before being put on hold over ten minutes.

We recently had received a Triple Play solicitation from Verizon FIOS which gave us a price on combined phone, internet and TV service which was less than we were already paying for just FIOS phone and internet, and it upped our internet speed to 25/15 and gave us free long distance. So we had the three services installed, and put the FIOS receiver in my upstairs man cave retreat, figuring that we saved money even if we never watched the FIOS TV. I did not put everything on the FIOS TV service but I got extreme HD and they give you HBO free for three months. My intent was to evaluate the FIOS service and to decide if we should cancel DirecTV and save well over $100 per month on combined services with everything from FIOS.

My appraisal of the FIOS TV service was that the quality of sound and picture was superb, and better than DirecTV, but that the FIOS DVR, onscreen menus and general utility were so completely awful that the only way we could tolerate FIOS TV would be to get high def TiVo boxes and cable cards, which we'd prefer not to have to buy. We'd also need TiVo programmable remote capabilities to fit the boxes into our whole house, RF repeater video system (with FIOS, one and only one available remote code would control all the boxes in the house-does not work for us)

However, this false, misleading, deceptive and nonresponsive service commitment and cancellation fee policy of DirecTV is SO irritating to us that we may just cancel DirecTV, go through the brain damage of fighting them, and have to pay for new TiVo boxes on top of that. In the short term, it will cost us, but it would ammortize in a little over a year.

Sometimes principle is worth paying a little more for, I'm thinking. We figure the DirecTV boxes are unreliable enough that if you had four of them, you'd replace at least one every two years and be in claimed indentured servitude to DirecTV forever, for life. This just made us mad.

So, for now, this Camper is not "Happy" with DirecTV. I really have no complaint about the actual service from DirecTV other than it blanking out in our fairly frequent North Central Texas thunderstorms, and it's expensive. I have even come to prefer the HR21 over the TiVo software, which I thought I never would (not my wife however-she loves TiVo, hates D* software). But, D*'s policies are so repugnant we'll probably leave DirecTV, even if we might be cutting off our noses for everyday TV service and hardware quality-D's hardware is excellent and FIOS's hardware and crappy software combined are miserable beyond description here.

That's the story. Sorry for the length, but I wanted to give you the full flavor of this Camper's dissappointment with D*. Interesting thing is that we'd have NEVER HAD A CLUE about D*'s policy and claims except for the great info you all put on these forums. They do not advertise nor overtly claim these 'commitments' and let you just keep on incurring them forever if you do not ask. Thanks for giving us the knowledge to protest and protect ourselves from these DirecTV jerks.

Respectfully submitted,
The Camper

[stonecold]

I be more then happy to figure out what is going on and tell you how to fight it. Also if your leaving fo fios I would not mine buying any owned equipment. DTV does not give employees breaks on hardware just on programing.

[iceturkee]

to the op, directv hasn't had a problem telling me that i am out of contract as it expired in june. nor have they had a problem telling me my contractual obligation didn't change everytime i had to replace a defective unit.

[durl]

The Verizon Triple Play has a 2-year commitment and early termination fee just like Directv, correct?

[jb14075]

Originally Posted by durl

The Verizon Triple Play has a 2-year commitment and early termination fee just like Directv, correct?

The commitment might be 1 year but when it expires you have to renew the commitment to continue the service. I believe the ETF is a set rate of $179.

[Happy Camper]

You are correct-we have a one year commitment, but the way it worked for us is that we thought of it as locking in a significant price reduction for service we already had, which may be a different circumstance than it is for many. If, at the end of the year, we do not like the TV, we can dump it, but our cost would go up again, I think, so why would we if we want to keep the superior internet and good phone service?

The triple play promotion we were offered was for existing customers, and the commitment is for one year. We already have FIOS internet and FIOS telephones, and Verizon Blackberries, etc., and we have had Verizon service since it became Verizon from GTE. We were the second neighborhood in the country to be wired for FIOS (after Keller) and we've had it ever since (did not get the TV then because of clunky boxes and crappy interface-still the case). So, we really did not worry about the FIOS commitment, the commitment was not stealthy, and the commitment does not apply to replaced equipment. And, NOTHING you do except calling up to extend your service can extend your commitment, on purpose or by stealth. If you need a new box, you get one, and it does not come with a two year commitment. What are the odds nowadays that if you have four boxes from ANYONE that one of them at least will fail within a two year period? We just think that the way DirecTV does their commitments is different, misleading, deceptive and unfair. That's our opinion-you are almost guaranteed contractual servitude.

When we added the FIOS TV, our monthly cost dropped $48 per month for six months, and $28 per month for the remainder of the commitment, six more months. If we never watched TV and never connected the TV at all, we saved money, and we have 25/15 internet speed (we actually GET about 26/20)and good phone service with unlimited domestic long distance. Since we had no intention whatsoever of cancelling FIOS internet or phone service, we looked at the deal as a chance to try out the TV for free, actually to get paid to try it out.

There are a lot of good things about D*, and if D* and FIOS TV were the same cost with the same contractual terms, I'd keep DirecTV and the decision would be easy-this thread is not the right place to set out how incredibly bad the FIOS HD DVR and interface is, but it's so bad it might be worth a lot of extra bucks to keep DirecTV.

We just don't like being involuntarily put in contract prison, even if we originally had no plan to quit D*. If you keep it for the rest of your life, it would not matter until those D* jerks tried to charge your estate a $200 cancellation fee because three of their boxes had failed and they sent you new ones. It's not so much that we want to leave D*, it's that we are furious that these jerks are essentially telling us we cannot leave without penalty despite very long subscriber service (something like thirteen or fourteen years, I think).

So, being furious with D* has consequences, even though we save money by leaving them in the not so long run. The worst adverse consequence is that to keeping FIOS TV with FIOS boxes as our only source of TV would probably result in my suicide after months of enduring their mind numbingly bad, and dumb, interface. The only way I can see to make FIOS competitive with D* for primary use is to get TiVo boxes with cable cards to interface with the excellent FIOS signal and now competitive channel selections.

Presently, we have D* and FIOS, and we're paying less for everything, even with redundant TV, than we were before. If we quit D*, we save a lot, eventually, but we get a worse product unless we buy our own boxes.

I'm not advocating that everyone quit D*. I'm just saying that we are so mad at their attitudes that we do not want to do business with them, and we're willing to endure some cost and inconvenience to punt D* out the door.

[scoop8]

Camper.

Thanks for the FIOS info. I'm in Irving and have had FIOS phone & net svc for about a year. I'm on the 20/5 net speed plan. I didn't sign up for FIOS TV since I have DTV but your info on the bundle price gets me to thinking about calling Verizon and adding TV svc even, as you said. I won't use it for a while. If this Vs/DTV fight drags on, I can get Vs with FIOS TV down the road. My 1-yr net/phone contract will expire in January.

[Happy Camper]

Scoop: We had an oddball package of phone and fast internet, leftover from selling a company a long time ago and keeping internet and residential phone service without really thinking about what we had or rebargaining for the best deal. Monthly, it was over $140.

We went for the one year triple play, improved the phone by adding long distance, upped our internet speed slightly to 25/15 (but we are getting 26/20 consistently), got FIOS TV with an HD DVR, Extreme HD, and free three month trial HBO/Cinemax for just over $100. (it adds something like $22 a month if we keep the HBO-we will not until we cancel D* and reconfigure all the TV)

I think we might have gotten some of this because I called up and told them they had been sending a torrent of conflicting and often confusing offers, and I just had some questions. I told them we wanted to try the TV, but their package with slow internet, basic TV and Freedom phone just would not do-I wanted to try the HD and HD DVR, and we needed fast internet and the same phone.

It was more like giving them a shopping list-phone, high speed internet and TV with HD DVR and HD channels and challenging them for a deal (for trial purposes I did not give a rip about movies, premiums, etc.-on DirecTV we have everything but porn).

I'd just call them and try to bargain some. I'm not sure what their authority is, but there seem to be a lot of "packages" they have that they do not advertise anywhere. What we actually got was a "package" which definitely did not appear in any of the ads filling up our mailbox every month. Not even close.

With what you have with D*, you will not like the FIOS DVR, menu or interface at all, but the signal rocks, no HD lite, no pixel loss, and no blackout in one of our thunderstorms. As best I can tell, FIOS has no 1080p, but what we are getting is terrific. Without buying our own TiVo boxes with FIOS provided cable cards, it will break my heart to switch from D* to FIOS, sort of like going from driving a Porsche to an old golf cart. The FIOS interface is so bad you'll wonder what those nerds out in Irving do all day. What they do not do is think up competitive products in the DVR dept. You may want to try them before you dump your D*. I thought Verizon's boxes would be bad, but it's much worse than you can imagine. Going from an HR21 downstairs up to a Verizon HD DVR upstairs just makes me crazy. With Verizon, I just sit there and say "What the F is this?" It's hard to believe the same corporation which gives such superior worldwide Blackberry service could put out such a crappy product with otherwise great TV. I think they spent all their money on infrastructure and hooking people up and then sold their souls to a devil Motorola salesperson with obsolete bargain technology. Seriously, you will at least reconsider when you see how bad it is.

Long term, if we dump D*, keep FIOS TV, get all the channels they have, get four of their HD DVRS and keep phone and internet the same, it will be about $213 a month, I think, but that saves about $100 a month from having had a stupid jumble of FIOS internet and phone with D* service including (that we neither bargained for or thought out this combo), the premier package, HD, four boxes and the service plan. I'll have to buy my own HD TiVos or go crazy.

Verizon gets our business by being competitive on the BUNDLE. If it were just TV, I'd stay with D* even though we think they are slimeballs. Verizon TV alone, compared apples to apples, is just not competitive yet. You have to bundle, save money and hate D* to switch to FIOS TV. You'll long to unleash one of your HR22s after you look at what FIOS gives you.

Respectfully,
The Camper

Good luck!

[Happy Camper]

Many thanks to Scott and everyone for valuable advice and email addresses! I used all the weapons and got the bogus service commitment removed! Magic.

While it is not D*'s "policy" to charge for a replacement unit under the repair plan, I have received numerous replies and emails to the effect that D* routinely does it-e.g. makes a convenient "mistake" when new receivers are activated under the repair plan and activates the service commitment, requiring the unwitting consumer to jump through hoops to get it removed.

Fortunately, you all have advice which eliminates some of the hoops. This whole thing has left me with a bad taste in my mouth from DirecTV, but good feelings about the support from members here.

Many thanks for the help!

What in the heck has happened at D*? It seems they are going out of their way to irritate long term customers.

Respectfully,
The Camper

[durl]

Originally Posted by Happy Camper

What in the heck has happened at D*? It seems they are going out of their way to irritate long term customers.

Respectfully,
The Camper

Just out of curiosity, I emailed Directv to learn about my commitment period. I knew it's almost 2 years because we recently added another HD-DVR but I wanted to see how they handled the request. We've been customers for over 10 years and have had no problems with them. I merely asked when my commitment was up.

I got a timely reply notifying me of when my commitment period was up and they gave me a "loyal customer" perk of 3 free months of Showtime, even though they had already given me a "10-year customer" perk of monthly credits. Perhaps they were concerned I would jump ship (although I never gave that indication), but it was still a nice gesture for someone who's been with them for a decade.