WARNING: Why DirecTV "service" stinks...
From a "customer service" point of view. DirecTV is far inferior to my local cable company. I have had a total of 3 sets of techinicians in my house (if you include the original installs). If you live in the northeast, I would avoid D* subcontractor "DirecTech" and see if you can get an independent company and pay a few $$$ more to save some headaches.
1) The first guys did the sloppiest install I have ever seen. The holes they drilled in my walls we about 3x to big for the cables, and yes I measured (you could feel wind blowing through them!!!). They did not install the $0.25 grommets to cover the holes, which all of my CableTV installers always did in the past. They left about 1 foot of slack in the cables on the exterior of the house, and they just flapped in the wind. Although they had ladders on the truck, they were to lazy to bring the stepladder into my basement. So they stood on one of my chairs that I was storing, and ripped the fabric on the seat!!! Also, one of the connectors fell off of the coax the first time I disconnected a receiver.
2) The second guys did not bother to check all of my recievers after they installed some grounding wires. Well I found out later that night the "grounding" caused one of my recievers to malfunction (wow, I bet they are sure glad they saved the 4 minutes it would have taken to make sure the system was actually working).
3) Let me preface this segment with the house wiring electrical problem I had. All four recievers stopped functioning properly due to some electrical overload. Well I have temporily fixed the issue, and need new boxes. Well D* said they wanted to send out some techs anyhow, and they would bring the boxes with them (and she would put that in the work instructions). This segment is my personal favorite. So the new set of techs show up. One was obviously the "Brains", and the other was the "Braun". It was fun, the "Brain" (let's call him "Jose") could not speak intelligeable English. So he had to speak through the "Braun" (let's call him "Jaun"). But the "Braun" was VERY obviously a trainee, who walked around with his mouth hanging open with a confused look on his face. So I explained the electrical problems I had, and that they were now resolved for the moment. Of course "Brains" began to have a heated argument with me that it had nothing to do with the electrical. So, they replaced the multiswitch and the LNB. Oh, and let me interject that they did not bring a ladder; so I had to spend 15 minutes diggin mine out of the shed. Then the "brain" said it must be the coax, so they ran a new one direct to one of the receivers. GEE! big surprise! Then finally he conceeded that it was the receivers. But OH NO, they didn't bring ANY with them!!! Then I said fine please fix the coax connector problem from visit #1. Well the "Brain" stood on my front step chain smoking, while the "braun" spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to put on a connector. After they left, and after I swept away the pile of cigarrette butts he left RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DOOR, I went back upstairs to inspect the new connector and needless to say the connector fell right off. So we called thier office back, and told them to have somebody out right away to fix the connector. Well, the "brain" calls back and my wife answers. He basically starts berating my wife (in the way that only insecure latino men treat thier women) and says something like: "Oh no honeee, you still don't understand, it's the boxes that are bad. Don't worry sweeteee, you have your husband call me and I'll explain it again to heeem". So at that point my wife has to explain to him about 3 times that he just "fixed" has fallen off again, and has to basically start screaming at him until he agrees to come back. Thankfully, he made the "braun" stay in the truck so he could fix it himself. Then needless to say I spent 1+ hour on the phone with D* to get 4 new boxes ordered. For some strange reason, they could only order the first 2 and had to shuffle me around to other people to get the other 2 orderd. And they wouldn't FedEx overnight them either (even though they promised they service tech would bring them!!!).
So let me list all the ways cable was better for 20+ years, in the several different houses and apartments I lived in (with various different cable companies):
1) Installs were always very very well done, by people who knew what they were doing. NEVER had to have someone come back to fix a problem previous installs. Definitely never had any problem with connectors falling off. And the installers were always couteous, and spoke English.
2) The 2 times I had a reciver fail, I drove 10 minutes to the local office and got a new one (I had a total downtime of 30 minutes). I did not have to wait 3+ days for them shipped to me.
3) Never had equipment fail due to electrical wiring. Which is amazing because when I was in college I lived in some old victorians with multiple receivers on very bad wiring (fuses would fry daily but all our receivers kept working!).
So that being said, if I wasn't saving ~$400 per year (D* vs. cableTV), I would drop this company immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
From a "customer service" point of view. DirecTV is far inferior to my local cable company. I have had a total of 3 sets of techinicians in my house (if you include the original installs). If you live in the northeast, I would avoid D* subcontractor "DirecTech" and see if you can get an independent company and pay a few $$$ more to save some headaches.
1) The first guys did the sloppiest install I have ever seen. The holes they drilled in my walls we about 3x to big for the cables, and yes I measured (you could feel wind blowing through them!!!). They did not install the $0.25 grommets to cover the holes, which all of my CableTV installers always did in the past. They left about 1 foot of slack in the cables on the exterior of the house, and they just flapped in the wind. Although they had ladders on the truck, they were to lazy to bring the stepladder into my basement. So they stood on one of my chairs that I was storing, and ripped the fabric on the seat!!! Also, one of the connectors fell off of the coax the first time I disconnected a receiver.
2) The second guys did not bother to check all of my recievers after they installed some grounding wires. Well I found out later that night the "grounding" caused one of my recievers to malfunction (wow, I bet they are sure glad they saved the 4 minutes it would have taken to make sure the system was actually working).
3) Let me preface this segment with the house wiring electrical problem I had. All four recievers stopped functioning properly due to some electrical overload. Well I have temporily fixed the issue, and need new boxes. Well D* said they wanted to send out some techs anyhow, and they would bring the boxes with them (and she would put that in the work instructions). This segment is my personal favorite. So the new set of techs show up. One was obviously the "Brains", and the other was the "Braun". It was fun, the "Brain" (let's call him "Jose") could not speak intelligeable English. So he had to speak through the "Braun" (let's call him "Jaun"). But the "Braun" was VERY obviously a trainee, who walked around with his mouth hanging open with a confused look on his face. So I explained the electrical problems I had, and that they were now resolved for the moment. Of course "Brains" began to have a heated argument with me that it had nothing to do with the electrical. So, they replaced the multiswitch and the LNB. Oh, and let me interject that they did not bring a ladder; so I had to spend 15 minutes diggin mine out of the shed. Then the "brain" said it must be the coax, so they ran a new one direct to one of the receivers. GEE! big surprise! Then finally he conceeded that it was the receivers. But OH NO, they didn't bring ANY with them!!! Then I said fine please fix the coax connector problem from visit #1. Well the "Brain" stood on my front step chain smoking, while the "braun" spent about 15 minutes trying to figure out how to put on a connector. After they left, and after I swept away the pile of cigarrette butts he left RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY DOOR, I went back upstairs to inspect the new connector and needless to say the connector fell right off. So we called thier office back, and told them to have somebody out right away to fix the connector. Well, the "brain" calls back and my wife answers. He basically starts berating my wife (in the way that only insecure latino men treat thier women) and says something like: "Oh no honeee, you still don't understand, it's the boxes that are bad. Don't worry sweeteee, you have your husband call me and I'll explain it again to heeem". So at that point my wife has to explain to him about 3 times that he just "fixed" has fallen off again, and has to basically start screaming at him until he agrees to come back. Thankfully, he made the "braun" stay in the truck so he could fix it himself. Then needless to say I spent 1+ hour on the phone with D* to get 4 new boxes ordered. For some strange reason, they could only order the first 2 and had to shuffle me around to other people to get the other 2 orderd. And they wouldn't FedEx overnight them either (even though they promised they service tech would bring them!!!).
So let me list all the ways cable was better for 20+ years, in the several different houses and apartments I lived in (with various different cable companies):
1) Installs were always very very well done, by people who knew what they were doing. NEVER had to have someone come back to fix a problem previous installs. Definitely never had any problem with connectors falling off. And the installers were always couteous, and spoke English.
2) The 2 times I had a reciver fail, I drove 10 minutes to the local office and got a new one (I had a total downtime of 30 minutes). I did not have to wait 3+ days for them shipped to me.
3) Never had equipment fail due to electrical wiring. Which is amazing because when I was in college I lived in some old victorians with multiple receivers on very bad wiring (fuses would fry daily but all our receivers kept working!).
So that being said, if I wasn't saving ~$400 per year (D* vs. cableTV), I would drop this company immediately!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:
