Problems with DTV and non-return fees--Extremely Frustrated

[cfb]

Yes, the customer is clearly the enemy and must be fought tooth and nail.

I would however like some cheap boobs. Is dish network still offering those, and do I actually have to punch someone before I can get them?

In other news, business 101 says if everyone offers cheap deals to get customers and then do nothing for them after that, they'll leave and head for the cheaper deal.

Setting aside the myriad of business issues that Directv suffers from and sticking to this particular situation, there is no reason to charge a customer for not returning a box when they've returned the box, then delay issuing a credit until 'someone gets to look at it'. You guys are not only going to have a lot of government problems, the credit card companies are going to start giving you some problems too.

 

[ranmic]

Here is my take on this little post of CFB's

all the "bad" stuff happened because of bad customers. Termination fees " Lease recievers are a good thing over all and most of our long time customer appericate not having to spend a fortune on a hddvr as they use to spend 200 dollars on a sd box " etc.

Lets say I am Directv, I invite everyone i know to my place for some free beer some football and good times. and We do this every month for a year. Now after I feed and gave free beer to lets say Random customer #1 and Random Customer #2 they say bleep off punch me in the stomach . Ok I am a little up set to these guys what did I do I gave them foot ball and beer and munchies. Well my next door neighbor Dish network hires strippers i found out and my supposed friends the customer who punch me left me for some cheap boobs. So I get a bigger tv with a better picture and even better munchies and Customer 1 and Customer 2 come back and act like they never punched me I not sure about them but I let them back . Dish network gets a bigger tv and even more cheap boobs. again customer 1 and 2 punch me in the gut less then 6 months after asking to come back. I say I am tired of being beat and taken advantage up so in aother 6 months when Dish looses ESPN NEws and some other hd channels and I have some new dvr tech, 1 and 2 come back but this time I tell them they are welcome to come back for free but they have to stay with team directv for 2 years but if you leave early you goin to have to pay me for all my beer and munchies i give you. they agree and then throw a fit after a year when they want to go back ove to the cheep boobs and I say fine but pay up.

Customers jumping ship caused this.

Customers who said owning equipment was too expensive caused leasing .

Customers who think everything should be handed to them caused both companies to be more strict on there policies.

Damn good analogy Stone!!!!!!! Nothing better than beer and boobs. Oh, and some free food too.

 

[stonecold]

Yes, the customer is clearly the enemy and must be fought tooth and nail.

I would however like some cheap boobs. Is dish network still offering those, and do I actually have to punch someone before I can get them?

In other news, business 101 says if everyone offers cheap deals to get customers and then do nothing for them after that, they'll leave and head for the cheaper deal.

Setting aside the myriad of business issues that Directv suffers from and sticking to this particular situation, there is no reason to charge a customer for not returning a box when they've returned the box, then delay issuing a credit until 'someone gets to look at it'. You guys are not only going to have a lot of government problems, the credit card companies are going to start giving you some problems too.

The reason why we have to check dear sir is that we have had customers put everything from bricks to weights in the boxes.

 

[leifkenn]

The reason why we have to check dear sir is that we have had customers put everything from bricks to weights in the boxes.

But does it take almost 3 weeks to check?
And I was told on the phone that the DVR WAS received so to me that says that someone looked at it but still no refund.

 

[cfb]

The reason why we have to check dear sir is that we have had customers put everything from bricks to weights in the boxes.

And the problem with waiting until you see there are bricks or weights in the box to charge their credit card is what again?

When all of the available metrics say that customers arent happy with the policies and service they receive now vs 5 years ago, how do you sell that to yourself? Is a growing subscriber base while all the customer service metrics plunge a suitable result? Do you think thats sustainable?

This is the car dealer model. Get as much money from every sale as possible, dont do anything you said you'd do unless the customer got it in writing, and if they're an unhappy customer...oh well, there are a lot more people who wont know how we operate.

 

[stonecold]

And the problem with waiting until you see there are bricks or weights in the box to charge their credit card is what again?

When all of the available metrics say that customers arent happy with the policies and service they receive now vs 5 years ago, how do you sell that to yourself? Is a growing subscriber base while all the customer service metrics plunge a suitable result? Do you think thats sustainable?

This is the car dealer model. Get as much money from every sale as possible, dont do anything you said you'd do unless the customer got it in writing, and if they're an unhappy customer...oh well, there are a lot more people who wont know how we operate.

I cant comment further until i find out what going on. But 90 percent of the time people get charged these fees because they dont return equipment . And again these fees would not be here if customer did not have a habbit of blowing us off on returning equipment. I am going to look at this account tomorrow see if there anything out of the ordinary and if so see what we can do to fix it. if you have any problems with that go see my complaint department.

 

[cfb]

I think Directv's complaint department is about 3' tall, has a hinged lid, and has a big plastic bag in it, at least based on what I've seen.

While I dont work for directv, I think I can guess at what happened. He was a day or two late in sending the equipment back because the time frame is too short. Some people have lives and stuffing receivers in a box and mailing them in might take a little longer for some than others.

When the box didnt show up per the time frames in the agreement that the customer probably has never seen, directv slapped a charge on him and decided to take their sweet time looking over what he sent in, and will issue a credit when they darn well feel like it.

Of course, nobody does 'exit interviews' on former customers, although pretty much everyone this happens to will never be a directv customer again. They'll complain to the various agencies they can complain to, and we have plenty of evidence as to the results of that. "F" ratings (yeah, there I go again), dropping from #1 to #4 in customer service, one and two out of five star reviews.

Again, to be fair, Dish did the same thing to me. I wont ever, ever, ever be their customer again. I wrote many, many reviews about my experience and at rough estimate around three quarters of a million people read them.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the loss of business from that significantly offset whatever benefit Dish got from charging me hundreds of dollars for equipment they'd already received, as is the case here. They didnt get any money from it, since when I called my credit card company they just said "Oh those Dish guys do this all the time. We dont even need to investigate, we're giving you a permanent credit. Forget about it!".

I suspect Directv has another 6-12 months at most before you're in the same bucket.

 

[freckldgrl]

The paperwork that comes with the return kit says to return it in 7 days in clear print. The customer actually has almost 3 weeks before a nrf is charged from the time the box is deactivated. When everything works right (which surprisingly is most of the time) the return kit arrives at customer house within 5 business days. Once fedex had it, it took about 3 business days for D* to receive it (if they are still using fedex). In many places fedex would pick it up for you at no charge and you didn't even have to be present.

On the very rare occasion when I got a call about this, it was usually because the customer said the return kit never came even though fedex showed it as delivered, it got delivered to a different location because customer had "moved", or because customer didn't mail it back until the charge showed up on the bill.

Mistakes do happen, but I don't feel it's the norm.

 

[leifkenn]

The paperwork that comes with the return kit says to return it in 7 days in clear print. The customer actually has almost 3 weeks before a nrf is charged from the time the box is deactivated. When everything works right (which surprisingly is most of the time) the return kit arrives at customer house within 5 business days. Once fedex had it, it took about 3 business days for D* to receive it (if they are still using fedex). In many places fedex would pick it up for you at no charge and you didn't even have to be present.

On the very rare occasion when I got a call about this, it was usually because the customer said the return kit never came even though fedex showed it as delivered, it got delivered to a different location because customer had "moved", or because customer didn't mail it back until the charge showed up on the bill.

Mistakes do happen, but I don't feel it's the norm.

I canceled my service on 7/9 and received the kit at 3Pm on 7/16 of course on a weekend.
it was delivered to the post office on 07/20 and according to the tracking # it was picked up by the shipper agent on the 7/23 (whoever the shipper agent is).
When I called on 08/2 I was told that the package arrived on 07/29.
Within the 21 day period.

 

[freckldgrl]

Yours was just a cluster all the way around. You canceled on a Friday so the return kit didn't ship until that next Monday. Since it arrived at post office late that Friday, you couldn't get it back until after the weekend either. The charge went through on the correct day but it was a bad run that lead up to that. What really frustrates me about this one if that at least in the past, this should have been a straight escalation that has a resolution time of 2 days to reverse the charge. Yours definitely is a mistake. My original comment was more for the complaints from those who say this is being done on a regular basis just because D* can.

Edited to add: it takes longer for a refund when your account is closed but you shouldn't have had to fight like you have for an answer

 

[stonecold]

I think Directv's complaint department is about 3' tall, has a hinged lid, and has a big plastic bag in it, at least based on what I've seen.

While I dont work for directv, I think I can guess at what happened. He was a day or two late in sending the equipment back because the time frame is too short. Some people have lives and stuffing receivers in a box and mailing them in might take a little longer for some than others.

When the box didnt show up per the time frames in the agreement that the customer probably has never seen, directv slapped a charge on him and decided to take their sweet time looking over what he sent in, and will issue a credit when they darn well feel like it.

Of course, nobody does 'exit interviews' on former customers, although pretty much everyone this happens to will never be a directv customer again. They'll complain to the various agencies they can complain to, and we have plenty of evidence as to the results of that. "F" ratings (yeah, there I go again), dropping from #1 to #4 in customer service, one and two out of five star reviews.

Again, to be fair, Dish did the same thing to me. I wont ever, ever, ever be their customer again. I wrote many, many reviews about my experience and at rough estimate around three quarters of a million people read them.

I'm not entirely sure, but I suspect the loss of business from that significantly offset whatever benefit Dish got from charging me hundreds of dollars for equipment they'd already received, as is the case here. They didnt get any money from it, since when I called my credit card company they just said "Oh those Dish guys do this all the time. We dont even need to investigate, we're giving you a permanent credit. Forget about it!".

I suspect Directv has another 6-12 months at most before you're in the same bucket.

21 days my dear friend 21 days. take 5 days worst case scenario to get from customer to dtv. And the count down does not start till fedex delivers the recovery box . So if really to make sure we have the boxes on you can safely sit on them 16 days a little over two weeks before sending them in and still not be charged. I would get them out asap but I think we give more then enough time.

Or better yet.... if someone calls us up and ask for some more time etc ... I even have a way refreshing the count down. But if customers dont call to let us know we cant do anything.

Some people of legitmate complaints unfortunately I dont get those I got CFB, who wants to make a mountain about every mole hill, and if he so unhappy i dont know why he doesnt switch. He not happy and he allways talking about switching maybe he should just pull a goaliebob and head over to the other forum.

 

[leifkenn]

21 days my dear friend 21 days. take 5 days worst case scenario to get from customer to dtv. And the count down does not start till fedex delivers the recovery box . So if really to make sure we have the boxes on you can safely sit on them 16 days a little over two weeks before sending them in and still not be charged. I would get them out asap but I think we give more then enough time.

Or better yet.... if someone calls us up and ask for some more time etc ... I even have a way refreshing the count down. But if customers dont call to let us know we cant do anything.

Some people of legitmate complaints unfortunately I dont get those I got CFB, who wants to make a mountain about every mole hill, and if he so unhappy i dont know why he doesnt switch. He not happy and he allways talking about switching maybe he should just pull a goaliebob and head over to the other forum.

I would beg to differ.
I was charged the no return fee 21 days from when I canceled.

 

[freckldgrl]

Unless it's changed in the last year, it is 21 days from the day the box was deactivated. Day 1 started on the exact day the box is deac, day 21 started at 12:01am on the 21st day.

 

[harshness]

In the event that all of the DIRECTV equipment is not returned to DIRECTV within twenty-one (21) days of the termination of your DIRECTV programming services or is damaged when it is returned to DIRECTV, you agree to pay DIRECTV the sum of $45 per each DIRECTV standard receiver; $175 for each DIRECTV DVR Receiver; $125 for each DIRECTV HD Receiver; or $250 for each DIRECTV HD DVR Receiver that is not returned to DIRECTV or that is damaged when it is returned to DIRECTV as compensation for a portion of the expenses incurred by DIRECTV in establishing your account and providing you the DIRECTV equipment for your use.

DIRECTV says in their T&Cs (as freckldgrl points out) that you have 21 days. If DIRECTV really means that you have 16 days so that they have five days to review it, they need to be treated to a serious smackdown. If they're going to bill on the 21st day regardless, heads need to roll.

If nothing else, the deadline needs to be based on when they get around to getting the return kit to the customer and not put the onus on the customer to make up for their sloth.

Bill early and often and let the customer escalate it is not a viable, ethical nor defensible business model.

 

[stonecold]

Here what really happens

customer calls to cancel

In our billing system we cancel the account ....

Our order system supposed to issue recovery kits that day but it doesnt. But the 21 days dont start until the recovery kits are in our order system and shipped out .

I will also way as I said before if you call us a few days before day 21 we can reset the countdown.

 

[leifkenn]

Here what really happens

customer calls to cancel

In our billing system we cancel the account ....

Our order system supposed to issue recovery kits that day but it doesnt. But the 21 days dont start until the recovery kits are in our order system and shipped out .

I will also way as I said before if you call us a few days before day 21 we can reset the countdown.

The thing is that I had the equipment on site within the alloted time period.
But was charged any way and now Directv is saying it has only received 1 receiver when both were sent in the same box.
Of course there is no way to prove that I sent both of them.
But I have not seen proof that they did not receive both receivers.
The one they charged me for they received at least from what I have been told by a CSR and a Supervisor.

The customer in the end has to bear the burden of proof .
And about the only way to do that is to have a Notary and 3 witnesses on hand and an affidavit signed when you package the receivers.

It is perfectly fine for a Corporation to perpetrate a fraud and steal a customers money and there is nothing we can really do about it.

 

[cfb]

The package weight from UPS should show the weight of two receivers rather than one.

 

[leifkenn]

The package weight from UPS should show the weight of two receivers rather than one.

Unfortunately it was USPS and another weird thing is that the Delivery status says picked up by Shippers Agent.

The USPS does not list any weight.

 

[mickiee]

Hello,
Yes i heard it from many peoples. i am using dream-box but i am not getting any problem in that.i will try to find some good information about it then i will tell you.

thanks!!

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[cfb]

Unfortunately it was USPS and another weird thing is that the Delivery status says picked up by Shippers Agent.

The USPS does not list any weight.

Thats a huge bummer. When Dish and Directv first started doing this, I had a thought that they should have the installer guys drop by and pick all the boxes up and give you a receipt for them, then they could mail them all back in to the company in one big box. It'd probably save some money and eliminate these sorts of problems. If your area had retailers, you could even drop the boxes off there.

I'm sure the installers and retailers wouldnt like that idea though.

There are just too many ways for this whole thing to go wrong and piss off a customer. But like I said, there isnt much of a lobby for ex-customers.

Check into the lease agreement. I think the agreement says you cant sue in small claims but have to use arbitration, and if I remember right directv has to pay the arbitration fee. That'll be a lot more than the cost of the receiver you sent in that they claim they didnt receive. It might be a hassle but they might just give up.

This involves the early cancellation fee, but it might work for receiver chargebacks as well:

http://www.ehow.com/how_5255105_cancel-reverse-early-cancellation-fee.html