Fed up with billing issues

Status
Please reply by conversation.

future directv excustomer

New Member
Original poster
Mar 18, 2008
4
0
Why is Directv programmed to think that the company does not make mistakes?

I ordered Directv for my new apartment back in June 2007. It came with one free leased receiver and I leased three more receivers, one for each bedroom and the living room. The package came with a free movie package (HBO, Showtime, etc) for 3 months. Everything was going fine, until I called to cancel the movie package before the 3 months was up. The cancellation actually went smooth, but when I got the next bill, they charged me roughly $34 for the movie package... So I called, and they said that it was pro-rated and that I had to pay it, even though I called after only 2 months to cancel it, and the movie channels were cut off immediately after I cancelled them.

After arguing for 15 minutes with the rep, she finally agreed to take the charges off. I also noticed that I was getting charged for the Directv magazine subscription of $3.99/month, which I did not sign up for. I had her remove this subscription as well.

They kept sending me magazines and charging me for 3 months after I had cancelled it.

We weren't using the receiver in our room, so I called to cancel it and they cooperated and said they would send a box for me to return the receiver. Depending on where you get your information from, you have either 10 days or 2 weeks to return the receiver after the date of cancellation, or they charge you for the receiver. No box shows up and I get charged $55 for the receiver. I call, and the rep says "Don't worry, don't pay the $55 and when the receiver gets here we will take the charge off." 3 months later, still no box and guess what... that's right, late charges accrue.

I finally call and get an employee in the shipping department, and he tells me that there never was a box shipped to me... he sends one out, and I have a box 3 days later. I send the receiver back, the $55 charge goes away, but NOT THE LATE FEES. Meanwhile, the magazine charges and late fees associated with that are still adding up.

I finally just figure out what my regular bill is and that is all I have been paying for the last 5 months. I don't care what their "balance" says I owe.

They started calling me. I don't usually answer 1-800 numbers I do not recognize. They keep calling, so I finally answer, and no one speaks, then they hang up. I call the number back, and it's Directv... I say, did you call? They said yes, you owe us money. I argue with them about my situation, and I get hung up on... by a directv rep!

Christmas Eve rolls around, and I am having dinner with my family and I get a call. I answer and again, no answer... click! I call back and its Directv again! This time I ask to talk to a manage, and I get a guy. I tell him my situation just like the last rep I talked to, and CLICK... HE HANGS UP ON ME!

So, I have been paying $80.21/month because that is what I owe for every a month plus tax. I sent Directv an email yesterday, just to remind them that I am not paying the leftover amount, which is only roughly $30, but I'm so pissed about the whole situation that I refuse to pay it. I get a response saying that I must pay the amount, and that they are charging me more late fees for not paying it. The rep also treats me like I am an idiot and list my activity for this month... I already know my balance you moron! Then the rep informs me that my regular bill is actually only $73.42, b/c of some deal I got when I signed up.

I respond with, "Thank you for showing me that I have been overpaying with my regular $80.21 payment, since you noted that the regular bill is actually $73.42, so I will be deducting the extra that I have been paying for the past 5 months from next months payment. Thanks!"

What do I have to do to get them to cooperate and own up for their mistakes? When they know that I am right on the phone, they hang up on me... I am usually a pretty easy going, laid back guy and don't worry about the small stuff, but they have pushed me so far that I don't want to just give in to them.

Anybody have any suggestions?

- Future Directv Ex-Customer
 
Why is Directv programmed to think that the company does not make mistakes?

I ordered Directv for my new apartment back in June 2007. It came with one free leased receiver and I leased three more receivers, one for each bedroom and the living room. The package came with a free movie package (HBO, Showtime, etc) for 3 months. Everything was going fine, until I called to cancel the movie package before the 3 months was up. The cancellation actually went smooth, but when I got the next bill, they charged me roughly $34 for the movie package... So I called, and they said that it was pro-rated and that I had to pay it, even though I called after only 2 months to cancel it, and the movie channels were cut off immediately after I cancelled them.

After arguing for 15 minutes with the rep, she finally agreed to take the charges off. I also noticed that I was getting charged for the Directv magazine subscription of $3.99/month, which I did not sign up for. I had her remove this subscription as well.

They kept sending me magazines and charging me for 3 months after I had cancelled it.

We weren't using the receiver in our room, so I called to cancel it and they cooperated and said they would send a box for me to return the receiver. Depending on where you get your information from, you have either 10 days or 2 weeks to return the receiver after the date of cancellation, or they charge you for the receiver. No box shows up and I get charged $55 for the receiver. I call, and the rep says "Don't worry, don't pay the $55 and when the receiver gets here we will take the charge off." 3 months later, still no box and guess what... that's right, late charges accrue.

I finally call and get an employee in the shipping department, and he tells me that there never was a box shipped to me... he sends one out, and I have a box 3 days later. I send the receiver back, the $55 charge goes away, but NOT THE LATE FEES. Meanwhile, the magazine charges and late fees associated with that are still adding up.

I finally just figure out what my regular bill is and that is all I have been paying for the last 5 months. I don't care what their "balance" says I owe.

They started calling me. I don't usually answer 1-800 numbers I do not recognize. They keep calling, so I finally answer, and no one speaks, then they hang up. I call the number back, and it's Directv... I say, did you call? They said yes, you owe us money. I argue with them about my situation, and I get hung up on... by a directv rep!

Christmas Eve rolls around, and I am having dinner with my family and I get a call. I answer and again, no answer... click! I call back and its Directv again! This time I ask to talk to a manage, and I get a guy. I tell him my situation just like the last rep I talked to, and CLICK... HE HANGS UP ON ME!

So, I have been paying $80.21/month because that is what I owe for every a month plus tax. I sent Directv an email yesterday, just to remind them that I am not paying the leftover amount, which is only roughly $30, but I'm so pissed about the whole situation that I refuse to pay it. I get a response saying that I must pay the amount, and that they are charging me more late fees for not paying it. The rep also treats me like I am an idiot and list my activity for this month... I already know my balance you moron! Then the rep informs me that my regular bill is actually only $73.42, b/c of some deal I got when I signed up.

I respond with, "Thank you for showing me that I have been overpaying with my regular $80.21 payment, since you noted that the regular bill is actually $73.42, so I will be deducting the extra that I have been paying for the past 5 months from next months payment. Thanks!"

What do I have to do to get them to cooperate and own up for their mistakes? When they know that I am right on the phone, they hang up on me... I am usually a pretty easy going, laid back guy and don't worry about the small stuff, but they have pushed me so far that I don't want to just give in to them.

Anybody have any suggestions?

- Future Directv Ex-Customer

I would suggest you talk to retention. IF you are serious about canceling, say cancel at the prompt and you will be connected to retention. Tell them the whole story, WHILE KEEPING YOUR COOL, and they are likely to help you out. Be forewarned, if you threaten to cancel, they may take you at your word and turn off your services.
 
I went through a crazy amount of billing issues last year when I signed up for D. I had Dish but needed an additional option when MLB EI was taken off Dish. I had read about how terrible the standard def. dvrs for D were, so I decided to get D for baseball season and then suspend the account during the offseason, while keeping my Dish service. I had billing problems with D for 4 months. They did all kinds of things --- didn't apply discounts, added the magazine like your case, in the middle of it all they added the protection plan. When I told them I didn't order the protection plan, they said they would have to charge me $10 for cancelling (even though I didn't order it in the first place). They said they had to put the charge on my account and wouldn't be able to remove it until I actually received a bill with the cancellation fee and then contacted them to have it removed. They also changed my $10/mo. referral discount to $5/mo. There were ALL kinds of issues. I have to say, I still hate D and the billing issues I dealt with. I just reactivated my service a week ago. I don't have paperless billing, so I can't view my account billing details online, but the balance it shows now already looks messed up. I'm so (NOT) looking forward to my first bill back with them and trying to figure out what they messed up this time. If it wasn't for the fact that I like to record the games and start watching them on the dvr after they've been on for an hour or more so that I can skip commercials, I would just pay for the crappy online service at MLB.com and pay cancellation fees to Directv. Before I reactivated my account I thought about eventually making the switch completely from Dish. I read that the standard dvrs will be like the HD dvrs later in the year, and figured they may be tolerable enough to switch over. Now that I see I'm going to have billing issues to deal with again, I don't think I want to do that. I might even take the plan down to the family plan or something so that I am not paying for a regular package during baseball months. I wish you the best of luck with your billing problems. I would not wish Directv billing issues on anybody!! Just when you think they understand what is wrong and they plan to correct it, they make other changes and mess up different billing issues completely. I have to say, I envy the people who have never had problems with them.
 
I went through a crazy amount of billing issues last year when I signed up for D. I had Dish but needed an additional option when MLB EI was taken off Dish. I had read about how terrible the standard def. dvrs for D were, so I decided to get D for baseball season and then suspend the account during the offseason, while keeping my Dish service. I had billing problems with D for 4 months. They did all kinds of things --- didn't apply discounts, added the magazine like your case, in the middle of it all they added the protection plan. When I told them I didn't order the protection plan, they said they would have to charge me $10 for cancelling (even though I didn't order it in the first place). They said they had to put the charge on my account and wouldn't be able to remove it until I actually received a bill with the cancellation fee and then contacted them to have it removed. They also changed my $10/mo. referral discount to $5/mo. There were ALL kinds of issues. I have to say, I still hate D and the billing issues I dealt with. I just reactivated my service a week ago. I don't have paperless billing, so I can't view my account billing details online, but the balance it shows now already looks messed up. I'm so (NOT) looking forward to my first bill back with them and trying to figure out what they messed up this time. If it wasn't for the fact that I like to record the games and start watching them on the dvr after they've been on for an hour or more so that I can skip commercials, I would just pay for the crappy online service at MLB.com and pay cancellation fees to Directv. Before I reactivated my account I thought about eventually making the switch completely from Dish. I read that the standard dvrs will be like the HD dvrs later in the year, and figured they may be tolerable enough to switch over. Now that I see I'm going to have billing issues to deal with again, I don't think I want to do that. I might even take the plan down to the family plan or something so that I am not paying for a regular package during baseball months. I wish you the best of luck with your billing problems. I would not wish Directv billing issues on anybody!! Just when you think they understand what is wrong and they plan to correct it, they make other changes and mess up different billing issues completely. I have to say, I envy the people who have never had problems with them.
So even though your having so many issues with D you'r staying with them just for baseball?
 
So even though your having so many issues with D you'r staying with them just for baseball?

I HAVE to have some type of MLB EI service because of baseball. Because of the many billing issues I've had and the terrible (in my opinion) user interface of the standard def dvr, I only keep my D account active during baseball season. It's either that or pay the cancellation fee and get it through the local cable company. From what I've heard, their dvrs are just as bad and other prices are high. I really like the Dish dvr interface. It's so much more logical, easier to use, and more reliable than any other I've seen. For that reason I will keep it all year and just keep adding the D service only during baseball season -- until a better option comes my way. I'm just hoping I won't have to deal with another 4 months of billing issues this year.
 
For all you people that have bill problems....it is so much easier to outline your case in an email and have a written record as opposed to a "he said, she said" type of relationship on the telephone. Sometime it may take a couple of back and forth emails, but having that backup is well worth it if you have to move up the ladder to get the problem resolved.
 
Status
Please reply by conversation.
***

Users Who Are Viewing This Thread (Total: 1, Members: 0, Guests: 1)

Who Read This Thread (Total Members: 1)

Latest posts