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I honestly don't think any of us would ever sign up for DirecTV if we actually read the Customer Agreement and thought about it.I just called them to see why I suddenly was no longer getting 5 HD channels I've been watching since I signed up. I was told they had determined that those channels were worth some extra $ to them, so they were now their own additional cost package!
I went to the Customer Agreement and found that they can indeed do that - Section 1 (d).
And if I don't accept the change, I have the right to cancel, subject of course to the early cancellation penalties - Section 5 (b).
Actually, they can also change anything in the Customer Agreement any time, and if I don't accept it, see above....
 Comments (17) |  |
| 1. Written by Terry Brown, on 19-03-2010 13:23 Wow, Seymour! That's quite a diatribe from someone who has obviously not read the customer agreement.... Seek help my friend. |
| 2. Written by Seymour Buttes, on 19-03-2010 00:08 You people are pathetic, paranoid and are probably liberal Democrats that think everyone should get everything for nothing as well. For anyone that thinks that all businesses are out to get you I would encourage you to get professional help immediately before you kill again. While occasionally one of you may have been victim of an error or perhaps even an intentional act of deception for the most part most of you are simply clueless or qualify as perpetrators of fraud yourselves. A company the size of DIRECTV has a legal department the size of a small Midwestern town that advises them on every policy and practice that they employ. Now I'm not saying that there are no instances of an individual that works for DIRECTV misleading a customer, intentionally or unintentionally. But as a corporate entity DIRECTV has everything to lose by setting policy and engaging in practices that are detrimental to its bottom line. The only way to avoid attrition is keep the customers you have happy so they will tell others. DIRECTV has about 18 million customers and they continue to grow. Apparently most of those 18 million are pretty well satisfied because DIRECTV has been ranked #1 in customer satisfaction for 9 years running. If they were p-i-s-s-i-n-g (Funny isn't it, that a website that is called Pissed Consumer won't let the word *** be used in posts. Pretty hypocritical.) off even 1% of their customers there would be about 180,000 people or so that should be posting on this site yet there is only a handful. Now of the 18 million or so people who are DIRECTV customers they are either 18 million of the stupidest people on the face of the Earth or the less than 1% who claim to have been duped are. Which is it? My money is on the 180,000 or less. DIRECTV agents are trained for 2 weeks before they take a single call. Then they go through another 2 weeks of On-The-Job training under the watchful eye of trainers. And once they are allowed to take calls without extremely close supervision they are subject to frequent monitoring to ensure that they deliver a quality consumer experience. Every call an agent takes is recorded and archived. They are required to quote accurate pricing based on what they are told by the prospective customer. If the customer attempts or does provide inaccurate information in an attempt to get service or discounts they are not entitled to how does the DIRECTV or one of its agents have responsibility for inaccurate pricing or information that could result. Agents are required to inform all customers that they are leasing, not buying equipment and upon termination of services the equipment must be returned to DIRECTV or the credit or debit card that they provided when they became a DIRECTV customer would be charged for the cost of the equipment. Customers are told to review their 1st bill and the Customer Agreement that is included carefully and to keep both for their records. New customers are told the length of their agreement and if they break that agreement due to early cancellation then they are subject to early cancellation fees. Currently this is $20 per month left in the agreement term. It will be charged to the credit or debit card they provided when they set up service. You see, when someone calls to sign up for DIRECTV some do not listen closely to what they are being told. It is my assessment that those who claim to have wronged are probably among those who wanted to rush through the sign-up process, argued with the agent about the length of the agreement, felt the cancellation fees were unfair or just ignored any information that the agent provided that didn't line up with their own personal perception of what they did or didn't have to do to hold up their end of the bargain. They think that to provide TV service as content rich as what DIRECTV provides is free, that DIRECTV gets 100% profit from every dollar they take in. Get a clue. Every business that exists today makes an investment and has an expense before any profit is made. DIRECTV is no different. Typically it takes DIRECTV at least 18 months to break even on a new customer. Let me repeat that for the really thick-headed among you. It typically takes 18 months for DIRECTV to break even on the installation and set-up of a new customer. No business exists to just break even and no business continues to exist if they don't make a profit. Since its establishment DIRECTV has continually improved its service, content and technology. No business in the television service provider industry has a record as good as DIRECTV. Some people complain that satellite TV use to be free. Really? If I recall a satellite system with a dish the size of Rhode Island ran about $8000 or more. That is about 6 years of DIRECTV service with the Premier package that contains over 285 channels of the most popular programming content available. No other TV service provider has anything even close. Of course, one does not have to have a TV service provider. For those of you who think TV should be free as your God given right, you can put up an antenna and get reception of local channels if you can get a strong enough signal. But shut your pie hole and don't complain when there is nothing to watch on TV or there is 30 minutes of program content and 30 minutes of advertising to pay for “free” TV. Or maybe you can watch programming content provided on the Internet that is free. But my friends, that is not free either. You either at least have to have Internet service which is not free, you are a mooch who only gets WI-fi from places like Starbucks or McDonald's (God love ya) or you are stealing service from someone. Who is the unethical one now? Are you familiar with the Pareto Principle? I doubt it. Simply put 80% of effects are derived by 20% of causes. It is also referred to as the 80-20 Rule. How does it have relevance to this monologue? 80% of the problems/complaints are generated by 20% of the customers a company has. These disgruntled people also increase the expense of doing business and guess who gets to cover the bill? The 80 percent who are relatively satisfied. Do me/us a favor, go kill yourselves now, before you cost me/us another penny. I/we will be eternally grateful. |
| 3. Written by BrianB, on 22-10-2008 11:57 I have been in contact with Customer service for the last week or so and am also having issues. My situation is a little different from the ones already posted. My dish was purchased from Direct with the sole purpose of being used in my RV. I called Direct and asked them about this and they said that I would only be charged for the time while I had the account activated(while on vacation). I only use this dish when I'm on vacation which is two or three times a year. I recently returned from vaction and as before I called in to customer service to suspend my account. I was told that he wouldn't be able to do that, that I had already suspended my account twice this year. I questioned what he was talking about and explained to him, that my account was a 'Mobile Vehicle Account'. He again told me that he wouldn't be able to suspend the account. I asked to speak to a supervisor, and she told me the same thing. She said she would go ahead and supsend the accout for me this time, but that from now on, I would only be able to suspend it twice a year. I asked her when Direct had implemented this policy, and she said that she had been with Direct for quite a while, and it's always been in effect, just not enforced. Over the next week's time, I sat down with the Customer Service Agreement and I couldn't find anywhere where it said I could only suspend my account twice a year. I also checked the "Mobile Vehcile Decleration of Intent" form that I had to sign in the beginning, and nor did it say anything about only suspending accounts twice a year. I called Direct again this morning and went thru the spill with the first gentleman, and after being on hold for 25 minutes, the phone starts ringing again, and it's a supervisor. I had to go thru the story again, and she said put me on hold. She came back a few minutes later with the same dated Customer Service Agreement that I had downloaded off their website dated April 24, 2007 or until replaced. She said that she couldn't find it on there, but from the policy papers they were given to interact with customers it says that customers can only suspend accounts twice yearly. My response to that was that it wasn't in the customer agreement, so they can't enforce that. Her response was that I could write a letter to Direct. As soon as I post this, that's exactly what I'm doing! |
| 4. Written by Sheryl, on 25-09-2008 21:09 Same thing happening with us too. Called to see why I lost 5 HD channels when I have the best package plan along w/NFL package. They said it's another $5 a month. I have been with DirecTV for 5 yrs and signed a 1 yr commitment in 2003. They are now saying I'm locked into a 2yr contract until 9/2010 because they contacted me 2 wks ago and said their HD box is defective and they replaced it for free but locked me into another two years without telling us we had an option. I'm filing complaint with BBB. |
| 5. Written by Jerapah, on 21-08-2008 12:34 If you are a subscriber of Directv and want to make changes to your account, I suggest you to do all your correspondences via email. You can submit email from their website. If you just call them, they type whatever you say on your account log, but then you don’t have a copy of it. I have bad experience with Directv. Feb 08, I received a letter offering to upgrade receiver but I need to pay. Then in March 08, another letter came offering FREE upgrade. Knowing this is too good to be true; I call the customer service to verify and asked if there’s commitment scheme attached to it. Cust service rep said it’s FREE and WITHOUT COMMITMENT. I verified twice and I signed up. Now come the time when I need to disconnect the service. Directv tried everything they can to prevent me to disconnect or make me pay penalty because commitment date was extended to another 24 months since the upgrade date. All my three calls to them that day were logged. I called three times to get three different people to tell me the history of my account, because I insisted there should be a note for without commitment. And yes, there is. Based on that information I argued back, still with no result. They said that whatever their rep said to me was wrong and no cust service rep can change their company policy and I still have to pay penalty. This is after 10 emails back and forth. They also said that when installer came to install new receiver there’s this agreement that we signed, agreeing to extended contract time. I asked my husband who was there when the installer came about the signed agreement and he said he did not sign anything. I asked Directv rep to provide me a copy of the signed agreement (supposedly by my husband) but they asked me to call the installer and ask for it!! (Asking me to do their job – this is even worse). Furthermore, they charged me for the old receiver that the installer forgot to disconnect when he installed the new one. Frustrated with the case, I complained to BBB (Better Business Bureau) about my case. Directv took my case and said that I was correct and I can disconnect my service with no penalty. Now come the time I want to disconnect (I requested this via email, since I was outside the US). They requested me to call them (even after I explain to them that I was not in the US). I insisted not to call, what’s the difference between email and phone call. Email has all the history of my case. After four emails to them asking to disconnect and threatening them that I will report this case to BBB again if they don’t disconnect me, they finally said please don’t involve BBB again and I will disconnect your service (and this is via email) Just like that!. I finally got what I want, but after I wasted soooo much time (3 weeks) and efforts. |
6. Written by JD, on 14-07-2008 19:56  this company f's you around, everytime you call to get some help with no signal, they want to send the latest  who they just hired yesterday to come out who has no  of what they are doing and charge you  amounts of $ that you are billed for....problem still no signal...I want to cancel ...they say I had a two year contract ... I want to see proof ..they won't show me proof now I am going to have a break down just trying to get rid of them...not to mention the huge ugly dish on the roof |
| 7. Written by Ayse T, on 24-06-2008 16:44 WOW! My first bill and it's NOT what I signed up for! and they actually read the agreement to me after I called to try and settle the issue. THEY CAN CHANGE PRICE AND PACKAGE AT ANYTIME!!. STAY AWAY! |
| 8. Written by Cheryl, on 03-06-2008 15:29 The same thing happened to me .How do you buy something and then they consider it a lease. Then they put you into a new 2 year contract without your knowledge. Who do they think they are. There needs to be a class action lawsuit I filed a complaint with consumer affairs. |
| 9. Written by Diane, on 24-04-2008 13:10 Someone higher up really needs to take a closer look at Direct TV's business practices. They a bunch of scam artists! Why do I buy a receiver at Best Buy, then find out from Direct TV that it's only being leased?! |
| 10. Written by Andrew, on 21-04-2008 11:55 They renewed my contract as well, (no notice to me until I called them about recently raised my monthly charges). |
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Consumer Forum is another great place to discuss consumer concerns NOT RELATED to this article. |