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Last reply · posted in DIRECTV General Forum
To make a long story short, we just bought a house, so we moved. I had an appointment with DirecTV to do the mover's connection, as well as hook up HD service in our home. For some reason, they made 2 separate appointments on the same day, a Friday. One for the morning, one for the afternoon. Fine. Well, no one showed at all for the morning appointment. I had to take off of work to be at home for the appointment. When I called DTV they said it was the local installers problem, nothing they could do. Whatever. Finally at 3 PM an installer shows up and gets an attitude after I asked if he was the morning appointment or the afternoon appointment. I was obviously frustrated, but not out of line at any point, but this guy continues with the attitude after I ask further questions about the job he is there to do. He decides he doesn't want to do the install and leaves.

I called DTV and they said they would escalate the problem. I don't hear anything so I called DTV back the next morning. They don't see a problem with it seeing they have already rescheduled my install. I wasn't satisfied with this, so I spent 4 hours on the phone on a Saturday tracking down the local office with no help from DirecTV corporate. Finally I get the local office to install my DTV on a Sunday morning--just in time for football. Even after the install, I called Customer Retention and explained my problem and asked them to do a complaint against the local office for missing an install appointment. They agreed wholeheartedly and even gave me 10 bucks off of my bill for a year.

Okay, problem solved, right?

The next week I decided I wanted to upgrade my reciever to an HD DVR. I fork out the 300 bones for it, and schedule an install. I specifically wrote this info down, 9 December, 1-5 local. Friday, (the day before the install) I check on DTV online to make sure everything is good to go. MY APPOINTMENT GOT MOVED TO 16 DECEMBER AND NOBODY BOTHERED TO CALL ME AND LET ME KNOW THIS.

I spent another 2 hours back and forth with DTV on the phone trying to figure out what happened, and with them giving me the company line that is now getting famous, "Nothing we can do, the local installer changed it". Again, no accountability from DTV corporate, and once again they could care less about inconveniencing a customer because they know they have the Sunday Ticket monopoly.

Well, I am officially taking the hit and paying the penalty to get out of my current contract. I can't stand the attitude of this company and I'll make sure I write enough letters to the BBB, FTC and Attorney General to create some waves. I doubt anything will ever get done, but....I'm tired of it.
I've been a loyal customer for 3 years, A-list, everything. Is this how they treat their customers?

Am I out of line?

BTW, first post here, long time lurker though.
28 Replies · 4964 views
B
I agree that these screw ups happen far too often, it took 4 appointments yo get my install right, but don't give the installer the hassle. They go out and do what the work orders says. My problem was with our local install company. The people in the office screwed up , not the installer. Remember, you get more fliess with honey than you do with vinagar.
O
I agree that these screw ups happen far too often, it took 4 appointments yo get my install right, but don't give the installer the hassle. They go out and do what the work orders says. My problem was with our local install company. The people in the office screwed up , not the installer. Remember, you get more fliess with honey than you do with vinagar.


Well, if the local install office would answer phones or if DTV would handle it correctly instead of making the customer do it, I wouldn't have to use the installer as a middleman. And besides, I hardly hassled the guy. I had a right to ask why he was so late and I had a right to make sure the work order he had was correct. He was the one that took exception to it.
Jimbo
Well, if the local install office would answer phones or if DTV would handle it correctly instead of making the customer do it, I wouldn't have to use the installer as a middleman. And besides, I hardly hassled the guy. I had a right to ask why he was so late and I had a right to make sure the work order he had was correct. He was the one that took exception to it.

Sounds that way to me too, from what you've posted.
When I dealt with D* for an install, I had D* contact the local installer (they know who they use) while I was on the phone with them.
They had no problem doing this.
Maybe you can get on a three way with D* and your install company and straighten it out.

Good luck and let us know what the outcome is.

Hope you get it worked out.

jimbo
O
Sounds that way to me too, from what you've posted.
When I dealt with D* for an install, I had D* contact the local installer (they know who they use) while I was on the phone with them.
They had no problem doing this.
Maybe you can get on a three way with D* and your install company and straighten it out.

Good luck and let us know what the outcome is.

Hope you get it worked out.

jimbo


You are right, that is the way to do it, but would you believe I already did that? Even the DTV operator was confused on why the local office wouldn't answer. She kept saying " I know they are there, they are required to work the same hours as us!" Unreal.

Worse yet, DTV gave me 2 numbers to get in touch with the local office. One, an answering machine always picks up. The second is a voice mail for some pediatric nurse. Unreal that this company can't even get their contractors right info.
rkr0923
That my friend is why I do my own installs
K
My D* installers may have been contractors. I didn't ask to see their work identification. They did have shirts with Directv patches sewn on and their van had that fancy stick-on vinyl graphics all over it plugging something about D*. I know they don't make much money but the trainee said he only went to school for 2 weeks. Even Bill Gates went to school longer than that. Mine was just a simple upgrade this time and they are usually several hours late.

My main problems with D* are not their installs. #1 is them constantly lying about upgrade and leasing costs of their HD dvr's. Promising rebates I don't even qualify for. #2 HD quality is usually way too compressed. #3 is lack of regional sports in HD, even with the season passes etc. Problem is Dish and Time Warner are about the same. This months Home Theater Mag has a detailed article about Verizon FIOS TV. They are compressing their HD signals too and their HD dvr is $13 a month each. I currently use 5 of them. Where to turn. I need my NFL ST/Superfan.

I want to move but I have 3 E* dishes and 1 D* dish on my roof. I can't afford to buy a home anymore. Pretty tough finding an apartment that will allow 4 dishes pointing southwest. Thats 8 small holes thru my walls! They all know they have us by the balls.
Jimbo
That my friend is why I do my own installs

The AT-9 is the first dish I have ever had "Someone else" install, only so Icould learn and see how much difference there really is.
I will do my next one myself again, in my case I would have been done with the install by noon on the original due date, except D* would not allow me to get a AT-9 dish without them installing, (If they installed the dish,it was free, I would have had to buy the dish ($100) if I installed it and they would not re imburse me)

Jimbo
S
When D* called the install company about my problem the CSR told me that she finally had to ask for a supervisor because the front line wouldn't tell her anything and was basically rude to her. Now, you all tell me, where does the install company get off being rude to D*?
Scott Greczkowski
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU! Cutting Edge
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Sometimes a thread gets so many posts in it that is can cause issues for the server so that why today we introduce The Song Name Game Part 3!

So let the game continue!

The last song was added by Bobby who posted...

One Meat Ball - Andrews Sisters

CONTINUE ON AND HAVE FUN! WELCOME HOME TO SATELLITEGUYS.US!

Here are the original rules for the game as posted by WebbyDude back in 2006. http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/68645-Song-Name-Game

Just name a song title and the band who performed it. The next person does the same thing, but needs to list a song title or band name which includes a word from the previous entry. Pick songs from any genre.

Example:

Long Live Rock and Roll -- Rainbow

Rainbow in the Dark -- Dio

Another example:

Ride the Lightning -- Metallica

Lightning Strikes -- Ozzy Osbourne


Get it?


An additional note: we all know that song titles, sometimes, use profane words. Because this is a family friendly website it is advised that you clean up that title up a bit. This is accomplished by using something like sh!t instead of the real word. Thanks....
68526 Replies · 2672530 views
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harshness
Delta Dawn - Tanya Tucker
dishstaller
Can't You See - Marshall Tucker Band
sdfntx
See You in September - The Happenings
long_time_Dish
You Look Like You Love Me - Ella Langley
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dishstaller
See Me Feel Me - The Who
Peter Parker
Supporting Founder Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in DISH Network Support Forum
No idea what improvements might be involved.
19 Replies · 780 views
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bookworm370
Has anyone noticed an FF stutter with 713? I used to be able to hit FF a few times and skip smoothly. After 713 (maybe 712), when I skip forward, there is a definite stutter for as many times as I have pressed FF.

Can anyone check on this and report back? Recorded programs and then press skip forward a few times to see if it's smooth? Normally, it just jumps to the right place after the skips.
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N
I'm getting fabulous picture on Ch. 148 4k, but zero audio with H713. This is with a recorded show (Notre Dame game). Anyone else have this? Audio is fine on every other channel.
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R
Has anyone noticed an FF stutter with 713? I used to be able to hit FF a few times and skip smoothly. After 713 (maybe 712), when I skip forward, there is a definite stutter for as many times as I have pressed FF.

Can anyone check on this and report back? Recorded programs and then press skip forward a few times to see if it's smooth? Normally, it just jumps to the right place after the skips.
My wife mentioned that her remote is acting strange this morning. She hit FF and it went to 15x FF.
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Bobby
I'm getting fabulous picture on Ch. 148 4k, but zero audio with H713. This is with a recorded show (Notre Dame game). Anyone else have this? Audio is fine on every other channel.
This has been an ongoing issue. A fix is coming, probably in the next software version.
Foxbat
Wife bought me a t-shirt that has "have you tried turning it off and on again?"
Here's the one I need:
1792365258110.webp
dishstaller
Here's the one I need:
Just ordered one....that's great.
dfergie
Staff member HERE TO HELP YOU!
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
Stumbled across this ... http://www.gaspricewatch.com/USGas_ZipSearch.asp
I found no local prices, although it did show stations at my location...
Added these to this post...
USA National Gas Temperature Map
State By State Gasoline Taxes
Gas Buddy

Ethanol Free Stations

5552 Replies · 460591 views
Bobby
Regular$5.999​
Premium$6.399​
Diesel$7.999​
at Costco, Rohnert Park.​
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harshness
I wonder if California is getting into the Winter formula.
dishstaller
Regular$5.999​
Premium$6.399​
Odd that out there, Prem is only 40 cents higher. Here it's a full dollar more.

Last night it was about $4.17 gas, $6,19 diesel.
harshness
Odd that out there, Prem is only 40 cents higher. Here it's a full dollar more.
On the West Coast, a 40-cent differential is common. It used to be 30 cents before the prices rose above $3.

A "full dollar more" sounds like it may be boat gas (non-alcoholic), which is a whole different discussion.
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Foxbat
Here in Indiana, the difference between Regular and Premium is usually a dollar, but some charge even more:
1792374072446.webp
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dishstaller
A "full dollar more" sounds like it may be boat gas (non-alcoholic),
Both non-ethanol and prem run about the same....buck more. When we were up in TN it was a buck more up there as well.
jokeworm
Last reply · posted in What's Cooking?
Ok, I'm bored .... actually - to be more precise - I'm bored of eating the same rotation of 9 or 10 meals that are currently my "go-to" meals. My wife works the long hours - I work from home as and when i feel like it ... which means i generally do most of the cooking ... and so by default - i also make out the shopping list ...

We cook at home 5 or even 6 nights a week - but we always seem to fall back on the same old tried and tested "quick and easy but tastes ok" meals. Week in week out.

Pot Roast - mash and Peas.
Spaghetti
Chicken Pasta in cheese sauce.
Curry & rice
(these are some of mine)

Now it's not that I'm not adventurous in the kitchen ... I'll try anything once or twice ... but we all do it. Unless your name is Martha Stewart or Rachel Ray .. we all eventually fall back on our 8-10 favorite "meals"

So i thought - if we shared some of our own go-to meals with each other ... we might be able to add a few "new" ones to our own arsenal of meals.

So again - I ask you ...

What's for dinner tonight ?

Please give me something new to add to my rotation ... its our weekly shop tomorrow - so i want to pull together a few idea's and try and eat a meal each day next week that I've never had before .. or at least something that is not on my current "go-to" meal plan.

What meal do you always seem to fall back on in your house ? Maybe its something that I've never tried or not had in a while. I need inspiration !! I've got a blank shopping list in front of me - and nothing sounds good .. HELP !
4332 Replies · 331142 views
TRG
TRG
Beef and vegetable stew with buttermilk biscuits. Water.
It seemed appropriate on an unusually cold and wet evening in New Mexico.
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Bobby
Chili Cheesebugers, Tater Tots.
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TRG
TRG
I made shrimp parmesan with spaghetti and a salad.
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S
venison lasagna
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dishstaller
Smoked some salmon on the grill while enjoying some Blue Moon beer. Kinda cool tonight so I fired up the heaters. Here in FL, we fire up heaters once the temps get below 60 :cool As for the salmon, I seared them first, then flipped them off to the side not over the coals and brushed on some lemon pepper marinade followed by some salmon seasoning. Threw some hickory chips on the coals and then closed the vents to about 10% airflow. Yum.
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osu1991
Pub Member / Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club

The number-one US state for EV growth, according to the June 22 Yardi report?
Oklahoma.


:eek


It has no ZEV mandates and "minimal" incentives, Yardi says, but also has cheap electricity, high multi-car household rates (so, for example, a non-Lightning Ford F-150 pulls their trailers), and a consumer base willing to switch.
112 Replies · 899 views
navychop
Servant's problem.
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meStevo

Never realized that Tesla is losing to BYD at manufacturing too, which IMO is Tesla's biggest accomplishment and area of innovation. Nice writeup about the state of play and how we got here though. I have no faith that we're moving any productive direction though sadly, most changes and efforts feel reactionary rather than rooted in making use of the time being bought by tariffs, with few exceptions.

So: how are the cars so cheap, and what is being cut to get there? The best public accounting comes from the Rhodium Group, which compared BYD, Geely, and Leapmotor against Tesla's Chinese operation, a fair comparison because it removes labor costs and shipping from the equation entirely. Their estimate is that BYD builds a car for about $4,700 less than Tesla builds a Model 3 in Shanghai, roughly 15 percent of the Model 3's price. The breakdown is the interesting part. Direct government grants account for about $292 per vehicle, which is 5 percent of the gap. The biggest single factor is vertical integration: BYD makes about 80 percent of its top-tier components in-house, against 37 percent for Tesla, and that eliminates roughly $2,369 per vehicle in supplier markups. Lower overhead, meaning cheaper engineering talent and administrative cost spread across enormous volume, accounts for another $1,719. And BYD pays its suppliers on 155-day terms, against Tesla's 60, which is worth about $214 per car in float. When people say the Chinese advantage is subsidies, the per-vehicle number says otherwise. When people say it is slave wages, the Tesla Shanghai comparison says otherwise too. The advantage is mostly that BYD decided, twenty years ago, to make its own batteries, its own motors, its own power electronics, and its own semiconductors, and Western automakers decided the opposite.​
harshness
The EV company to watch out for is SAIC. They seem likely to take over Government Motors at some point.

GM originally struck a JV deal with SAIC to gain access to China. Now SAIC has taken China back with the substantial library of technology GM shared and they're looking to export to Mexico, South America, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific.
osu1991
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Ham Radio 2.0
· posted in Ham Radio 2.0
0 Replies · 11 views
Ramy
Supporting Founder
Last reply · posted in The Sports Section
Really excited for this season with Kentucky having a new coach and some really exciting recruits. Probably won't last long, but here's hoping this season is great.
148 Replies · 1734 views
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Foxbat
They ought to have fun with this… :devilish
osu1991
They ought to have fun with this… :devilish
Was thinking same thing. It should be a good week for sec shorts and roll call
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R
A lot of upsets yesterday, but my LSU Tigers won.
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Foxbat
Best fan sign I saw during the ND-BYU game: "Bear ate your Lucky Charms!" (Bear being the Cougars' QB). I was going to suggest, "Have you or your team been involved in a Carr crash?"
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meStevo
Lifetime Supporter
Last reply · posted in The Chit Chat Club
A continuation of a thread from the pub, just general discussion of AI.

Brief 60 minute clip about next gem autonomous fighters - not remote controlled, but rather collaborating with controllers and aircraft in the theater.


View: https://youtu.be/DRm0mbp_n1k


We've literally got a movie already about this ;)


View: https://youtu.be/a2PW7a9ViDc
67 Replies · 1139 views
meStevo
Agreed, it mostly regurgitates known solutions. That's the point. Nobody needs an innovative fix for a driver error or a creative way to format a report. Let it handle the solved problems so people can spend their time on the ones that aren't.
harshness
Agreed, it mostly regurgitates known solutions. That's the point.
That's the point at which innovation ends, and there's no longer any point to software engineering other than swatting bugs that result from misapplication.
meStevo
That's the point at which innovation ends, and there's no longer any point to software engineering other than swatting bugs that result from misapplication.

Addressed by what you didn't quote. This cycle is as old as computing: compilers, libraries, frameworks each automated the tedious part, and the human work moved up a level. Innovation didn't end; it shifted. And people still make new compilers, libraries or frameworks.

Nobody's forced to hand anything off. Anyone who wants to keep doing it by hand still can, and people who couldn't do it at all now can.
harshness
... and people who couldn't do it at all now can.
Misapplication isn't something that the casual coder can identify. They can only discover, the hard way, that it doesn't work at some point.
meStevo
Misapplication isn't something that the casual coder can identify. They can only discover, the hard way, that it doesn't work at some point.
You're not wrong, but that's part of learning. Whether from others or our own mistakes, we've all learned that lesson one way or another.
harshness
Whether from others or our own mistakes, we've all learned that lesson one way or another.
I'm not sure that the school of hard knocks is the quickest or surest education to find your way.

There are many examples in the headlines of people getting burned multiple times and not wavering in their pursuit of stupidity.
meStevo
I'm not sure that the school of hard knocks is the quickest or surest education to find your way.

Good thing not everyone will have to learn the hard way then. The same tools can explain why something broke.

There are many examples in the headlines of people getting burned multiple times and not wavering in their pursuit of stupidity.

This is true of literally anything, though.

Happy to agree to disagree, but I'm already enjoying the dividends personally and helping others at work and at home do the same.
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dishstaller
Been reading this thread but not commenting much, primarily because there is so much "news" out there on this topic and it is hard to tell what is real and what is theater.
My biggest problem with AI is that these agents are taught...not necessarily programmed but taught. Well, there's an old saying "garbage in/garbage out". I remember a Joe Rogan show a while back when he had Elon Musk on and they talked about AI and Elon said one of the AIs (can't remember which one, sorry) was asked which was worse, Thermonuclear War or mis-gendering Kaitlyn Jenner and it came back with the answer that mis-gendering was worse. Now forget the politics involved with all the gender stuff we have been subjected to the past few years.....to say that mis-gendering is worse than the killing of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of human beings.....Kaitlyn Jenner included.....is simply insane not to mention incredibly dangerous.
meStevo
Been reading this thread but not commenting much, primarily because there is so much "news" out there on this topic and it is hard to tell what is real and what is theater.
My biggest problem with AI is that these agents are taught...not necessarily programmed but taught. Well, there's an old saying "garbage in/garbage out". I remember a Joe Rogan show a while back when he had Elon Musk on and they talked about AI and Elon said one of the AIs (can't remember which one, sorry) was asked which was worse, Thermonuclear War or mis-gendering Kaitlyn Jenner and it came back with the answer that mis-gendering was worse. Now forget the politics involved with all the gender stuff we have been subjected to the past few years.....to say that mis-gendering is worse than the killing of hundreds of millions, perhaps billions of human beings.....Kaitlyn Jenner included.....is simply insane not to mention incredibly dangerous.

Agents need appropriate context to make what would be understood as the correct read in a situation like that, and that Gemini answer was a clear miss on that front.

That said, we've also seen Musk (and/or his team) put his thumb on the scale (or just release a very poor product) with his own deployed AI since:


In the end, it's all a tool. Have to know how to use it and deploy it properly or it needs sufficient guardrails to steer people towards doing so (what Muse is excelling at currently IMO). I'm routinely interacting with several agents a day operating various processes locally and in services I use, and there are numerous others silently spun up to perform actions or satisfy requests from my prompts.

Related to earlier discussion in the thread on leveraging local inference: this kind of analysis happening behind the scenes is something everyone will have built into Windows, IMO. Most people won't see all of this, just the results, unless they want to dig into how the fix was chosen. Stuff like this will be standard as agents get local system access baked in, and more of the inference itself moves on-device.

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T
Good thing not everyone will have to learn the hard way then. The same tools can explain why something broke.



This is true of literally anything, though.

Happy to agree to disagree, but I'm already enjoying the dividends personally and helping others at work and at home do the same.
You invested in datacenters?
meStevo
You invested in datacenters?


Though, I do have stocks in my portfolio that benefit from data centers.
TWiT Tech Podcast Network
· posted in TWiT Tech Podcast Network
0 Replies · 13 views