DirecTV - All Purpose Complaint Thread!

If you talk to the standard reps they always say there are no discounts or promotions. Once you finally get to the US based customer loyalty reps they always come up with something. I just leave a reminder on the calendar and make the call. The day they say no is the day service with them ends. And it may regardless. This summer we had the house repainted. The installers that originally put up the dish did so on the roof, replacing the DISH Network dish. Instead of removing all the old coax they cable-tied the new to the old. It looked like ****. I took everything loose before the painters did their thing and after, ran it properly, tucked in the eves and out of sight. It was short and needed a new section run to finish. The tech that came out said they don't do roofs. And the dish is on the roof. If it ever needs adjusting or replacing it's a no go. They offered to place it on the front of the house. Like the wife was going to go for that. The problem I face with options is when the power goes out, the cable goes out, and no internet for streaming. The joys of semi-rural living.

 

I’ve done the dance with them a number of times over the years I know the drill. I called and got the customer loyalty, no discount. Signed up with
Hulu and told them I was cancelling and nothing. Maybe they offered like $20 a month but it still had my after tax bill to over $100. Whereas in the past the discounts kept me at $50-70 a month. And if I want to add the SEC channel for a few months for football? New channel package, any discount drops and have to start the process again

Not sure what you mean here but no matter where you are if power goes out, tv and internet go out right? I live rural, can’t get any channels off antenna, but have great internet. Yeah it’s possible internet goes out and we have no tv either, but it doesn’t happen to us too much and we’re just not bothered by it if it does.

 

And that would be the difference between Texas and the Pacific NW. We just had the first "fall" storm of the season and was on generator for most of Saturday. The heavily treed area I'm in is prone to regular storm outages that can range from a few hours to a few days. A good ice storm could serve up a week outage. A while back Comcast had their engineers out door to door trying to drum up sales. He tried hard to convince me that cable doesn't drop service when the power goes out. I used to work on fiber optic multiplexers for the phone company and had to explain powered repeaters to him.

 

DirecTV subscribers beware, they are adding premium channels as a 3 month freebie *without* notifying subscribers in advance. I discovered by accident I had Showtime because I still had "Billions" in my record manager despite dropping Showtime almost 2 years ago. Suddenly last week, new shows started showing up in my que. I contacted customer service to find out how and when this was added and was informed this was a "promotion." 3 days later I got an e-mail letting me know about this so-called promotion. Obviously, the idea behind this sort of thing is many subscribers won't catch added premium channels that they would otherwise never check out until the charge starts showing up on their bills.

 

I autopay by CC. If they pulled that stunt I would dispute the charge and cancel service. Thanks for the warning. Makes me wonder in the NFL Sunday ticket suddenly becoming free is part of that scam.

 

I cancelled the NFL Ticket when the players started the kneeling nonsense a few years ago. DirecTV has provided it free to me ever since.

 

To follow up on my post, I just got *another* email indicating that the free 3 months of Showtime would be canceled if I didn't renew it. It shows up on my monthly bill as a $10+ charge which is then deducted at the bottom of the bill. Basically, DTV is saying they gave me a free 3 months subscription as a reward for being a long time customer.

 

I opened the bills yesterday and saw that my AT&T bill for DirecTV had jumped from $82 a month to $131 a month. And of course, the change was that a year of promotional deals expired in January. I pulled out the super-secret tollfree number that routes to the US loyalty reps...and immediately got put on the pipeline to off-shored service reps. I listened in amusement as the rep was happy to tell me that he could save me $9 a month for 3 months versus the $50 a month I was saving. Many words were spoken (calmly) and I was routed to a loyalty rep.
Two results, first, my Choice package was full of sports package bloatware that I don't watch, so she downgraded me to the Entertainment package (same channels minus the sports packages), then second, found some good promotions for HBO/Showtime. Now I'm back to sub $80 a month. She was shocked to hear that the super-secret tollfree number now routes you into the international carousel. Bottom line, if you want to speak to the reps that don't read scripts and can save you $$, just say cancel to the robo-menu. You will be routed right to the loyalty reps. She also said that the recent buyout by the minority partner is making for good changes and the mood there is brighter.

 

I had finally had it with Direct TV for many reasons, including the constant jacking up the prices and having to call all the time. I just don’t get it. I know so many people who have cancelled due to that, so why do they keep doing it? And their hardware is terrible. We switched to Dish two years ago. Felt like we came out of the stone ages. Far superior hardware and interface, and no playing around with our rates so far. Much happier. Makes me mad they are in Costco trying to sign people up when on the other hand they seem to chase people away.

 

Simple answer? AT&T, possibly one of the worst corporations in the world and definitely some of the worst customer service. The rep I spoke with kind of surprised me talking down AT&T and up with the new controlling owner so openly. She said there would be changes coming that should make customers happier but only time will tell. Like they say in Missouri...show me. But for yesterday's exercise, 20 minutes of my time on the phone was worth $600 over the course of the year, so it was worth it.

 

I was a long time Directv customer until about three years ago. I switched to Dish and enjoyed them for awhile but then they got in a dispute over my local NBC so I bailed. Back with Directv and like the current deal $86 or so for the first year with more channels, three months of movie channels and NFL Sunday Ticket. Their remote control is now better than it used to be. Anyway, if I can negotiate a similar rate for my second year, I will be happy I switched back.

 

That’s good to hear. The hardware I had was far inferior to Dish.

 

I just discovered that Dirctv carries the Russian state television network RT. I will need to cancel.

 

I’m watching. Doesn’t seem in favor of Putin at all

 

RT is a Russian state-controlled television network and given their war on Ukraine I choose not to support them or their carriers.

 

Your choice.

 

DirecTV dropping RT America in light of war in Ukraine

 

I think that's a poor choice. At least you know where RT is coming from and you can at least be aware of their talking points. It's not like RT is going to change anyone's mind on what Russia is doing.

 

cancelled my directv stream a couple days ago. i feel so free! i think my monthly bill had gone up to over 90 dollars with taxes and fees. i started out around 65 with at&t a few years ago. the service was terrible, i would constantly get error messages, and i have chatted 4 times in the last month with customer service reps who told me they would give me discounts, promotions, unlimited dvr, etc etc. enough was enough.

 

Wife called to have Dish moved before getting a new roof. Before they said goodbye they asked if they could do anything else. Wife said got anything for free? They knocked $55 of bill for 12 months.

 

I'm curious, is your dish mounted on the roof? Mine is, and the AT&T techs will not touch it. If I re-roofed, no more DirecTV. If it goes out of alignment or the transponder goes TU, no more DirecTV. Congrats on the reduced bill. It's easier than most think to save hundreds with a phone call.

 

On the roof and roofers said no warr if it’s on the shingles. Directv is coming out for $49 to move and mount on side fascia.