dslreports logo

Review by aztr0 See Profile

  • Location: Brooklyn, Kings, NY, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
When it works.
When it doesn't work due to weather AND when not due to weather.
They want your money, they don't care about customer satisfaction.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:

I signed up for the Choice Package with 150 Channels, the regional sports package and also the Chinese package. I had 3 regular receivers and 1 HD receiver. I remember I had to pay for my HD receiver a couple years back even though the promotion stated free HD receiver. When I called them about why they charged me, they didn't give me a good answer, and pretty much said deal with it, because you have already paid and we can't refund you. Okay, call me stupid I guess, I got tricked. After a while, I would say a year into it, I would start losing signals on a perfectly good day/night. During the basketball season, MSG was not working, and after a while, the signal lost became very frequent. I finally gave DirecTV a call and told them the issue. Before the representative did anything, he told me that I was going to be charged the tech service fee of $49.95, but since I was a long time customer they will waive it. And how I should get the insurance. I said no, because if your service requires that I have to constantly call you to fix, then your company has a big problem.

The tech came and immediately knows the problem. He told me, that this thing in the satellite or the satellite itself will do this as time passes. So I'll have to get tech service again when it happens in another year. At this point I was mad, because of what he told me. But since the service was fixed for now, I didn't want to bother with DirecTV's customer service for a while. In comes, the next year, my receivers for my other rooms were old, and the remotes were not operational. I gave DirecTV a call, and asked them politely and nicely, whether the company can do anything about upgrading my receivers and/or replace my remotes. The rep tells me, unfortunately, they cannot do that. I will have to pay the price (I forgot how much) to replace them myself. I will note this, the rep did not give me any credit option to help me pay for some of the money, "because I was a valuable, long time customer." I kept my composure and told the rep I was going to have to think about whether I want to stay with the service any longer and hung up.

A couple months after, the losing signal on a good day/night issue occurred again, and I called for service. The rep told me they can't waive the fee, and the best they can do is take off $25 of the fee (this was after 2 calls, the first rep told me no fee waive at all, not even the $25). So I said okay, come and fix it. The tech came and fixed the thing. Then a couple months after, I noticed the problem is coming back again and I'm fuming, because I knew what the answers I was going to get from the customer service and I told them, it hasn't even been a year since the last service, you're going to charge me for having another tech to come over, when it obviously is your service issue? I ended that conversation and started to look for alternatives. In comes a mailing from Optimum about the triple play costing $69.95 a year. Since I already had Optimum, I knew what kind of customer service I was going to have. So I made the call to cancel DirecTV.

It was quite a funny call, I told them I was leaving the service. The rep asked why, I told the rep about all these issues that I had, and the fact that my remotes and receivers are all old and just not working properly due to age/use. The rep tells me that, DirecTV will be able to offer me credit up to $175 dollars for equipment replacement or something like that. So I was like WTF? I was told DirecTV can't do anything about crediting my equipment and I'll have to pay full amount from my pocket. Anyways, I was sick of this company by now. I was a loyal customer for many years and this is how they treat me. I'm sure people will ask, why I didn't leave earlier. I was hamstrung by my parents, since they like to watch the Chinese package that only DirecTV offered. It has gotten to that point where I just don't want to deal with DirecTV anymore and if my parents can't watch what they want, then tough luck, they'll have to settle with the Chinese channels from Optimum, since the triple play order has been placed.

member for 16.4 years, 795 visits, last login: 284 days ago
lodged 12.3 years ago