Tech / Special Interest → Cable & Satellite TV > [DIRECTV] DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket Scam

Re: [DIRECTV] DirecTV NFL Sunday Ticket Scam

He might have a right to complain - though checking to be sure it is done - is appropriate. As soon as it was on the bill a that it would be renewed the OP should have called and made sure it was a mistake on their part. In a perfect world a person would not need to check - unfortunately not a perfect world.

It is not a cause for any type of lawsuit.
--
Brian

"It drops into your stomach like a Abrams's tank.... driven by Rosanne Barr..." A. Bourdain

Nope, def not a lawsuit, as they should credit it back.

Interesting.

You know what this reminds me of? Cramming. For those unfamiliar with the term, The Public Utilities Commission of Ohio calls cramming a "scam" and defines it as:

"Cramming is the illegal practice of adding charges to your telephone bill for services that you did not order."

(That word - "illegal" is important - that means its a criminal act and carries criminal penalties in Ohio and in many other states)

The FCC says "“Cramming” is the practice of placing unauthorized, misleading or deceptive charges on your telephone bill."

You can find plenty of other articles about telephone cramming on the internet. The key concept is that phone companies put charges on bills for services that people never ordered and simply hoped they wouldn't notice.

Now, it hasn't happened enough in the cable/satellite business to have the type of lawmaking that we've seen in the telephone industry... but that doesn't make the practice of billing people for things they never ordered any less of a scam.

So let's boil down the original post:

"I signed up for DirecTV… [which] included…. a one-year NFL Sunday Ticket subscription…. I canceled [the NFL Sunday Ticket subscription] ca. March 2011.

In my August 2012 statement, I found a charge for a 2012 renewal for NFL Sunday Ticket. I immediately [cancelled it]… I told him to never bill me for NFL Sunday Ticket service again…

… I received my August 2013 statement. Once again I found a charge…for [NFL Sunday Ticket]."

So, by my count, that's twice he got billed for something he never ordered. Once he cancelled in 2011, they never had authorization to bill him again. He never ordered the service again. I guess he's lucky he noticed the charges, but that misses the point. They never had the right to bill him in the first place in 2012 or 2013. He didn't order the services. You don't get to put things on the bill because you feel like it. That's a scam.

It's nice that the OP noticed the charges - and yes, Directv reversed the charges... of course, they never had any authorization to make them in the first place, so how is that doing a favor to the OP?

The responses seem to follow two patterns. First are the folks who say Directv just made a mistake. Funny the mistake is always in their favor. I might give them once, but twice? that's not a mistake, that's a choice.

Then there's the folks that focus on the fact the OP got a refund. Those people say something like:

"Especially since there was no fraud."
"In the end - no fraud happened so nothing to sue over."

Hmmm... yes, the OP didn't have any losses. But that's only because he caught the scam. When Directv had no authority to bill in the first place, why should it be the consumer's responsibility to catch them?

What about the people who don't notice the charges? Apparently some folks think its fine to bill people for things they don't order, and if they don't notice, they're just out of luck:

"While they did reinstate the auto-bill they also did give him ADVANCED warning."

You think that it's okay to bill people for things they've never ordered, just as long as you give them some kind of warning?

So if a company put a note on your bill that says "hey - unless you object by a certain date, we're going to bill you $10,000 a month for something you don't want" and if you don't happen to notice it, you have to pay?

Seriously?

Amazing. Wish I knew who some of the folks posting here are. I'd start sending them random nondescript bills that said that unless they objected by a certain date, they were obligated to purchase something expensive from me... I bet at least a few of them would never notice the bill until it was too late....

No you dont. Thats why its called "Binding Arbitration".

I guess some people just don't know how to deal with customer service, I have found that Directv has one of the best, after my first bill last month for the NFL package I noticed that they were charging me for the max package, I called them and they put it back to the basic NFL package and credited me the difference and gave me an extra $10.00 off a month for 12 months, been with them for 13 years and have always found them to be very helpfull.