My Direct TV Rant
Ok I’m tired of Direct TV. Really tired. I have been a long standing customer, and really had no problems with their service until last December. I will spare you the gory details, lets just say it took over 12 calls to Direct TV, 3 calls to the local Direct TV technicians, over 11 hours of time on the phone/hold (including one time waiting 2 hours on hold with a Direct TV rep trying to call the local technicians), Escalated 4 times, 2 visits from the installers (who’s boss lied to me 3 times), 1.5 wasted vacation days from work, all over a month span to just get an upgraded satellite dish installed with HD receiver.
After all of that, it took 4 more calls and 3 more hours of time on the phone/hold to request a simple receipt for this transaction since it does not appear on my bill. Each time I was told they don’t give receipts and my request was “unusual”. Umm… for a simple receipt? I was promised one and never received one to this day. I gave up. Not sure what businesses do not provide a receipts if requested by a customer.
6 months have passed and now the HD receiver they gave me in this debacle, does not work, it is junk now. It took 3 calls to tech support, to finally get them to send a technician out. They had to nerve to try and charge me 70 bucks for the technician. Mind you the problem was not one that a technician needed to be sent. He arrived, looked at it for a minute and said “your box is kaput, call them to get a replacement.” Hmmm… um ok I told them that 3 times on the phone. What was the point of him coming out? Especially since he is not allowed to bring a replacement! So now a fourth call to tech support, They send out a new one. I get the new one tonight, hook it all up, press the power button and… dead as a doornail, DOA, kaput. The “new” (eh-hem… reconditioned) receiver does not even turn on. After an hour of checking and re-checking connections, etc, it is clear I can’t solve it. Now call #5 to tech support, I tell them what happened, they do nothing but send me ANOTHER box. So as of this Thursday I will have a 2nd “reconditioned” replacement HD receiver.
What a freaking waste. If they didn’t have these lame contracts when upgrading, I would have dumped them 6 months ago, now I’m stuck with them for now. As soon as the contract is up, buh-bye Direct TV. Not that Comcast or Dish Network will be any better.
I’m sure my story is not surprising and one of thousands of complaints against them. They are more concerned the bottom line than treating their customers with respect and common sense. One day that bottom line is going to take a major nose dive with service like this. I support capitalism, but I don’t support very bad, unethical, just plain idiotic corporations that give capitalism a bad name.
