DirecTV review: directv sucks 820

After calling Direct TV for the umpteenth time about the early disconnect fee of $277.99 Finally I got through to the presidents CEO got right through no hassel, However same bull ###. So when the take it off my debit card I will take them to small clames court! Any one out there with advice. it would be appreciated.

After over 10 years of service with this company, I cancelled my service.
They told me I owe them $150 for early termination.
I told them I never signed a 10 year contract and there was no early termination.
Now they have their collection goons harassing me every day.
I told the goons as well as DirecTV to stop harassing me or I will sue both of them.
I also told the goons to back off and no one will get hurt.

I had been a subscriber for 14 years and they charged me for early termination.
I have filed a complaint with the N.C. Atty. General's Office
I will be filing a class action law suit or a personal suit or both.

As a former employee of DirecTV who has heard complaint after complaint about them, I wanted to take the time to post some facts about DirecTV customer service for consumers out there who feel like they've been ripped off and lied to. I will go through what I know for you and give answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

Also, if you have any questions about DirecTV and/or how to deal with them, I will do the best I can to answer for you.

1.Customer Service is Lousy.

A1. Will you receive poor customer service if and when you call DTV? Yes, a lot of times you will. Occasionally you will get an employee who cares and does their utmost to solve your issue. Most of the time they care to some extent but not enough. Let me explain why customer service sucks at DTV and what you can do to hopefully mitigate your terrible experiences.

DTV employs literally thousands of people on their phones. The average lifespan of an employee is about 3 months. You don't get on the phones with DTV customers until you have completed 3 weeks of classroom training, then two weeks of what they call On The Job training where you are closely monitored by coaches who help you through your calls. That sounds like a lot of training; It isn't. It's not nearly enough. When I got out of training I knew about 80% of what I needed to know to help you, the customer. I would consider myself one of the brightest people who went through the training. Not patting myself on the back, just observing that they will pretty much hire anyone because they have such high employee churn.

When you get out of training you have been fed information quickly and a lot of times been coached by someone who doesn't know the correct answers either. This is why you will call DTV and get a different answer almost every time, especially if it is an obscure or maybe confusing issue, like a special promotion or facts about local channels. DirecTV is a large corporation that has loads of things you should know to answer people's questions; to absorb all that takes months and months on the job and frankly, most folks just don't last that long. There are a number of different reasons why employees turn over so often, I'll go over some of them later.

To mitigate this, if you feel frustrated, ask to speak to a supervisor. They may make you wait for someone, but it is worth it. If you get disconnected, just call back and immediately ask for a supervisor. If this fails to get you a response, then ask to speak to their customer retention people because you want to "cancel". If this doesn't work, you have the option of communicating by mail with the OOP, or Office Of The President. This should be a last resort, because if you get a negative answer from the OOP, you are well and truly screwed. This means they won't do a finger to help you.

2. Customer Service people lied to me!

A2. Most of the time, because they are poorly trained, you receive different answers. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 99.9% of the time when you receive an answer from a DTV customer service person, they are giving you the answer they have been told. They are not deliberately deceiving you. They either have been misinformed or they truly don't know and are trying to desperately find information in the DTV database and have found what they hope is the right information. So are they lying to you? Not purposely. I know that doesn't help much. All I can say is if you feel you've received the wrong information and/or been lied to, ask to speak to someone in charge. Ostensibly they know the answers.

Another problem is DirecTV doesn't own all its call centers. They subcontract out to all sorts of different companies for call center customer service. So probably 7 times out of 10 you are not even talking to an actual DTV employee, you are speaking to someone from a third party company. They will tell you they work for DTV but they don't. So they may have even a poorer understanding of DTV and its services than actual DTV employees, depending on the quality of the third party providers training process. I have worked for DTV directly and also a third party provider, and let me tell you, when I worked for the third party, they basically didn't care about my giving right answers; all they cared about was how well I could upsell you the customer on HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax or a premium sports package. All the people I saw promoted while I was employed there were promoted not because they could do a great job, solve your problems and answer your questions. They were promoted because they were great at up-selling. I met all the metrics for this third party provider 100%, had 100% attendance and well over a decade of management experience, yet was passed over for promotion that was given to someone whose metrics were a mess because the one metric they cared about was sales, and that person did fantastic in that area. She couldn't help you in questions about your service but she was great at sweet talking you into trying HBO for three months.

Which brings up another problem...once you've rejected someone on a pitch to sell you HBO or other premium services, at that point they basically stop caring. They are being harped on to sell, sell, sell. If you don't want to buy anything, they lose interest in helping you. You can't really blame them; the company will fire you if you don't meet certain sales goals.

That brings me to the final thing I have to say...please have pity on the poor suckers who have to take your call. They haven't created the mess but are forced to work in it. They are given poor training and conflicting information. They are harped on to sell, sell, sell you things, even if you can't actually afford it. They are being paid peanuts to do a terrible, crappy job. Don't yell at them. Pity them. In this economy, it is often the only job the unemployed can find. Blame the corporate structure and officers. Reserve your anger for them. The poor schmuck on the phone is trying (most of the time) to help you.

OH OH, I LIKE DIRECT TV VERY MUCH AND THE CAN QOATE ME TOO MAYBE IF YOU PAID THE BILL ON TIME AND BE NICE TO THIER REPS THEY WILL WORK FOR YOU TRY THE OTHER CABLE COMPANIES THEY ARE THE SAME... LOTS OF LUCK WITH THIS ONE.
KEN

Just spent over 3 hours getting a "bundle" from a very optimistic salesperson. After the sale was done and money swiped from my account
turns out i couldn't get 2 out of the 3 services in the bundle? and all of a sudden in order to get the extra two services would've cost $140 extra a month, for less than what i have now.

After 2 in a half long very painful hours of trying to get my account canceled.
DirecTV tried to have us call and negotiate with our current phone/ISP service so they can be apart of their bundle.
would not for the life of them cancel our account, i think somewhere in there they tried to sell me dish soap? and other house hold products.

By far the worst experience in my life on the Entertainment Part.
The salesperson alone should be most to blame giving the fact that he just sold a bundle that isn't fully available to their future customers.

ACCOUNT WAS CLOSED OUT WE TOLD DIRECTV TO STOP TAKING MONEY THAT WE WOULD CLEAR THIS BILL UP WHEN WE RECIVED IF 3 WEEKS LATER THEY DEBET 211.29 FROM OUR ACCOUNT WE HAVE CALLED THEM ABOUT THIS MATTER AND THEY ARE BEING SOB! ABOUT THIS AND THE CUSTOMER SERVICE IS VERY ### TOWARD THEY TELL US THAT IS THERE POLICY WHEN A ACCOUNT IS CLOSED I WILL BAD MOUTH DIRECTV TO EVERYONE AND WILL DEFACE THERE BUSINESS PRACTIES ANY WAY I CAN

It started out sounding like a good deal, switch to DirectV, get the football package, cancel it and the monthly bill is just $59.99. Well, the laugh was on us. I have never seen a company that tries to nickel and dime you to death like Directv. Our bill is currently over $90., we have to pay for HD (which ads claim is free), the remotes, and when something breaks they want you to pay dearly for it. The phone conversations with their representatives amount to running your head into a brick wall at about 30 mph. Hurts like the dickens and you get no where. I have not read a negative comment that I do not agree with. They are a crappy company and the best thing that could happen is to go out of business and all their employees who are puppets for the company would be unemployed forever. Cannot wait for this contract to be up. NEVER again! They lie, bulls--t, tell you what you want to hear so you don't think you need a Philadelphia lawyer to read the contract. Best piece of information for anybody considering Directv is CAUTION - CAUTION - CAUTION. New CEO is Michael White, good luck trying to get ahold of him. Read the fine print first that i c an't see. iam going to call my senator, congressman about direct tv, If more people do this maby somthing can be done.

3 hours on phone to cancel service order. CS Rep. Spvs. Andre, Op.#123466 said you can't cancel order and HUNG-UP on me. Consumer Affairs Complaint Filed...ex-new customer!

Direct TV has been scamming people by putting fraudulent service extensions and charging bogus early termination fees for years now. If this is happening to you as it has to me CONTACT YOUR ATTORNEY GENERAL OFFICE of your state. That is what I have done and my states Attorney General has informed me that they have so many complaints it may take them several months to get to all them. If you didn't agree to extend your contract then DON'T PAY THE CROOKS A DIME. If they damage your credit that will just be more money they will have to pay out in class action law suits coming up. They have made agreements with many if not all States to reimburse those complaining about their crooked practices. They are big so they think they can steal from you by threatening to harm your credit. Don't be blackmailed by these guys. Search "direct tv attorney general" in your search engine and see that there have been more complaints in some if not all states about Direct TV than any other business.

I'm paying a monthly maint. fee...Service failed 5/30/11...called DIRECTV...set up apptmt for 5/31/11...Tech came and adjusted dish...service failed again that night...called DIRECTV 6 more times requesting a supervisor...was told my issue was in CASE MANAGEMENT, and that they would call me...no one called...called agin 5 times---same story...called again today, 6/21/11...same story---under CASE MANAGEMENT & someone will call me...I cannot spend my working day waiting on phone calls that never come! DIRECTV service sucks!

When I signed up for service on [protected], the rep didn't inform me that I needed to send in a death certificate for my deceased grandfather who owed a balance of $54.20. This was not my balance, but it was connected to my name. I received no phone call nor email stating this or that their was a hold on my account. The tech came on 6-21 and spent over 5 hours setting up service when he found out about the hold. Upon calling to see about the hold and taking care of the hold that wasn't mine in the first place, the first rep, Tyran, was rude and showed no compassion for the situation. He, also, kept putting me on mute during the call, which is bad customer service. When I asked to speak to a supervisor, Johnathan #57047, he was ruder than his subordinate and showed no compassion what-so-ever as well. He also stated that their would be no credit issued at all even upon sending in the death certificate since I payed the balance. Even if I didn't pay the balance, it would have been written off anyways, so what is a little credit going to hurt, especially for a company who earned double-digit growths in 2010 and increased your cash flow over fiscal year 2009?! Customer service is at the core of every company and with customer service as such, by two individuals who represent the company and who are the foundation of the company, I rather pay double to another company for QUALITY customer service than to deal with jerks like them.

I think this might be my third comment on Direct T.V. They are a horrible company with unbelievable customer service. I would never, ever recommend.

Yeah I had the same problem with the recovery kits. They said that they had sent it twice but neither time did we get the recovery kit, and they claimed they couldn't send it to the P.O. Box. They ended up trying to charge us for it and wouldn't fix the problem until we'd finally cursed them out and told them no matter what, we weren't gonna pay for the box that they didn't send the recovery kit for.

I've had Directv before it was called Directv. I was one of the first 500 people to ordered the satalite system.
I quite Directv for two months and return with them...I made a call to Directv due to a monitor going out.
Directv wanted to charge me a service charge, also informed me i owned 2 monitors. This is new information to me and
of course the broken one is one I own. I reduced my bill from $89.00 to $39.00 a month. The movie channels suck
they show the same movie over and over...My next move is to drop them completly...

Had problems from the very b eginning with system up and down. Had sick husband at home who want to watch tv and it kept going off and on and had to call for reset. After about two months, I requested the service be discontinued due to continuing problems.

The servicer man came and was angry and cut the cables to direct tv and to time warner cable. I had to have the cables re-dug and this caused a crack in my driveway and my neighbors.

Poor service and revengeful service that would destroy other property. Yet non of the management heard my complaint or offered to fix it. Direct TV-poor service and unethical behavior I rate them thumbs down-do not use.

They have gone to hell in a handbasket. After 9 years with this company I now see they care noting about their consumers, Customer service reps suck and have no skills whatsoever. I'm canceling my service for sure this week and will try my many other options. What waste of years !

I have had direct tv for about 10 to 15 years i have all the goodies my bill is about 140.00 per monthI called the 13th of July to tell them i was having a new roof installed and needed to relocate the dish like the next week no service. I called and was informed it would not be fixed until August 17th no service for one month.I have never been late on a payment since my payment is auto deduct. Also i pay an additional service fee per month for service. This isn't service. They did not care and would not let me talk to a supervisor. What kind of company treats good customers this way.

I've only had this service since February, 2011...and have already found out how right all of these complaints are. Talking to their customer service reps is like talking to a parrot - they say the same thing over and over - con compassion, no real concern for your problem...just the DirectTV party line. Thanks for the advice about notifying the State Attorney General AND the Better Business Bureau. They want to charge me $360 cancellation fee - when they've been overcharging me for the past 6 months on our agreement. A technician is coming tomorrow - it will be interesting to see how he handles the problems of static HD reception and a TV that goes on and off at will. I hate this company now - and just want out.

Well since i had new service installed last friday by dish network. The picture is clearer. There is no hesitation on channel change. The installer was polite, not messy even explained the remote control to us . was 70.00 per month cheaper. bye bye Direct tv. you shot your self in the foot again. I had been with you many years. Since you wanted to not fix my service for 6 weeks I found service elsewhere. Definitely not good business

PLEASE HELP. I am a single mother going to work and school. I canceled my direct service after 1 WEEK. I was told by 3 representativesof directv that if I was dissatified by the service I had a month to cancel with NO fees. Once I canceled they took out 74 dollarsfrommy account leaving negative funds. Now they are saving I have to pay 420 dollars in fees. I am reallyin trouble and I need someones help.

I woke up one morning to find my receiver would no longer turn on. I called DirecTv and scheduled the earliest appt for a tech with was 3 days later on Friday, August 5 2011 from 4-8pm. I had to have my girlfriend arrange to leave work early so somebody would be there by 4:00pm. I received a call from the tech at 3:45 pm and he said someone would be over probably within the hour or so. I never heard back from anybody and I called him back at 8:05 pm only to leave a message and never hear from him again. I then called DirecTv and spoke to Cindy and told her the situation. After explaining it to her she then put me on hold another 18 minutes! When she finally returned she said a tech would be calling me within 20 minutes. I asked what do I do when nobobdy calls withing the 20 minutes and she again confirmed that she would guarantee someone will call within 20 minutes. Of course, nobody called.
The following morning I was rudely awakened at 7:40 am on my only Saturday off with a call from Abby from DirecTv only to tell me someone will be calling me in 20 minutes again! I did't receive a call until 3:10 pm. The tech finally arrived at 6:00 pm to install the new receiver. It took him 6 1/2 hrs to complete this one thing! He was at my house until 12:30 at night!
I have never been treated this bad or heard of this kind of service.

i called directv in 5/18/11 i was going to cancel my serves i'm on social security and have to cut expenses i talked to a couple people and got to the last person she was real nice and told me she would see what she could do to help and keep my business she ended up telling me she would give me their family pack for $10.99 and to help me out she would give me dircetv till sept 18 free i had to call back to set up an auto pay while we were talking she told me to update to hd and with the auto pay thing it would be free in the end how i had the upgrade coming since i was a loyal customer for so long and i would be committed to 2 years contract i figured for $10.99 plus hd i would do that i got a bill for july i called to find out why was told they don't have that deal i was offered any more and the best they could do was give me the family pack for $29.99 i told her that was not the deal i was suppost to get she said she could not see anything in there notes i ask for a supervisor she said she was one and that was all she was offering she told me i could cancel but i would still have to pay $20.00 a month til the end of my contact and i was committed to a 2 year contract because i upgraded to the hd i called back about an hour later because this was not the deal i was suppost to be getting i finally got the department that made or could make the offer the guy said he would honor the deal then after reading the notes which he seem to find then told me he don't know how she figured it and could not do it at the end the best he offered was $19.99 for a year the thing is since i upgraded to hd when they turned that on committed me to the 2 yr contract this was the best i was going to get or cancel and still pay the $20.00 a month to the end of the contract and have no tv is there any way to get out of this looking forward to any response greg

boo steelers!

i paid $221.20 dollars 8 months ago and still going no service no refund but got the run round and told it takes 8 weeks for a refund well WHAT THE f*** it;s been 8 months and i;ll still waiting so all i got to say is f*** DIRCETV

LOYAL Directv customers since 2002; purchased NFL package every season, Now new customers recieve this offer FREE WITH their programs, We are forced to pay $45.00 amonth for seven months to get the same, What's wrong with this picture? does not pay to be loyal

well many businesses do that-- offer incentives to those who just join or new customers...its just based on whether you were there at the right promotion or not. Directv also doesnt' really give a crap about its customers.. they just want to sign up as many people as possible...so its not surprising...and check your bill...you're probably paying WAY too much and FAR more than the new customers are paying...of course in a year or so they'll be paying way more too...thats just how the company works...its about screwing people over not much else

Hi have a good day sir i have recieved an email last august 9 2011 that I have won a 1000 o00 in lottery is it true or fake?please help me..

I CAN NOT BELIEVE ALL THE COMMENTS THAT I HAVE READ REGARDING THE DISGRACEFUL, DISHONEST, FRAUDULENT, CLUELESS MORANS AT DIRECT TV. I BELIEVE IT, BECAUSE IT HAS HAPPENING TO ME AS WELL. BUT WAS NOT AWARE IT;S HAPPENING TO SO MANY OTHERS. I HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCING THE SAME ### FOR MONTHS. I AM SICK AND TIRED OF PUTTING UP WITH ALL OF THIS, AND I WILL NOT TOLORATE IT ANY LONGER. THANKS FOR THE PUSH. I WILL INVOLVE LEGAL COUNSEL, TO RESOLVE THIS MATTER. GET INVOLVED AS WELL. LETS PUT THESE [censored]HEADS WHERE THEY BELONG, OUT OF BUSINESS. BUNTCH OF CROOKS!1

DIRECT TV AND THEIR PEOPLE SUCK, PERIOD!

Been a customer for over 4 or 5 years, but somehow a contract was renewed in Feb of 2010. I went through a divorce in late 2010 which forced me to sell my home and move so I moved in with my son and moved the service with me. I then bought a house, (living with my son was temporary) and never thought much about it since there was a dish on the house. But it was a DISH network dish pointed in a different direction so DirecTV could not get a signal. The only way they could would be to put the dish in my front yard next to the street which is unacceptable. Even though I was a customer for so long and there's only a few months left on the contract and they cannot get a signal at my current location, they insist on charging me $120 to cancel the service. This just isn't right.

I am trying to get new service with DirectTV ONLY because my apartment complex has an exclusive agreement with them. DirectTV just *randomly* linked my account with a delinquent one of someone who has my same first name and lived in the same apartment complex and who owes more than $500! They INSIST that this person is me and are unwilling to check personal information, such as my social, to prove that the person is not me! And they will not allow me to open my OWN account until this person has canceled and paid for their account! Does this sound crazy to anyone else?!?!? And they will not allow me to speak to a "supervisor"...although I'm sure if I did they would be no better than "Peggy"!

As of 6/4/11 I had Fios Installed. I was continued to be billed by directtv. I was told no one never disconnect your service in the mean time i was over charged $216.00 . I talked to customer service and was told we cannot reinburse you you will have to prove you had Fios installed write a letter to the corporate office and let them decide weather they are willing to reinburse your funds. I do have a bill when it was installed if you have a fax number or address thanks Robert Murray

I have had a damage claim going since February 2011 and I am still waiting to get this resolved. Every time I have called DirecTV, I am put on hold or transferred to someone else who cannot help me. The damage that occurred from the install, DirecTV claims is not their responsibility due to a third party that installed the equipment, which was setup by an authorized retailer of DirecTV from whom I set up my service. This retailer worked out of Sams Club. I have been told that the retail service, who handles these third party issues, personal has attempted to contact me but I have only had one call from them and that was today 09/12/2011, but I missed the call. Therefore, we will see how long it takes to get my return call back, since I had to leave a message. As usual, there is no live person to answer any calls and the pin # they give you expirers after seven days. Beware of where and how you get your DirecTV service! That is if you think it is smart to do business with them at all. From my standpoint I say no, their business tactics are sneaky and customer service is very, very poor. . I am going to contact the Ohio attorney general to file a complaint and see if there is anything they can do to help.

I have been a subscriber to directv for 15+ years. I open my account when the company was PrimeStar. I recently had some finanical problems...and my service was dis-connected...I call directv to tell them I didn't want to close my account I just was unable to pay at the moment, because I had other bills I need to catch-up ...The next thing I know I was sent a box to return my equipment and my debt card was charged $1008.52 without my promission on 9/16/11. I have overdraft charges on my account and was unable to pay my mortage and bills and all the billing supervisor could say to me after 15+ years...I will not get my money back for early consolation on my account, but I never cancelled my account...just needed some time to pay more important bill and then re-open my account with directv.

i hate direct tv, i just odered service again, paid 200 dollars for instulation, and never showed.so i called them after an hour over the time, they said i still owed them money fromm 3 years earlier.which i dont, it was paid, if it wasnt paid dont you think they would have said something.well they took our money and set up a date, i even got a reminder call the day before.well here it is 3oclock and no direct tv.so i am out of the 200 dollars i gave them and out of the money i would have made today.and they couldnt even call to say it was cancelled, i hope direct tv burns in hell, i will never have nothing to do with their crocked no count sorry ### again, go f*** yourselves

My husband and I have been customers since 1998 and I have to tell you recently your customer service has been downright horrible. I called to have the mover's connection move our dish at which time I was offered HBO, Starz, Cinemax etc for 6 months for free. Lo and behold last month I had a charge of $52 for the same "free" service. When I called, the representative argued that I was mistaken they don't give 6 months free. I requested to speak to a supervisor to try to get this resolved. I was told that one would call me back within 24 hours. Here we are a month later, I have never received a call, but have another $52 charge on my account and a $45 credit. I called customer service to be told by the representative that it would take 6-8 weeks for the credits to apply. It has already been 6 weeks and I only got a $45 credit. I again asked to speak to a supervisor, had to wait for 45 minutes at which time Amy Employee number [protected] told me that I had to pay for the first month of the "free" programming and that the "free" part started 1 month after service was started and she was sorry that I misunderstood. I informed her that I did NOT misunderstand and that this was absolutely fraudulent and false advertising. I told her I was not going to pay for the first month and she told me that she would discontinue my programming then. I told her not to touch my account. I sent an email to this person and the email bounced, guess now I will just have to contact the Attorney General's office and file a fraud complaint.

We canceled service with DirecTV at the end of July 2011. On Oct 3, 2011 we received a September 30 statement received from DirectTV for $21.16 for movies purchased on 12/27/2010, 5/22/2011, 7/29/2011, and 7/30/2011. At least one movie, stated by DirecTV - if not three of these movies were advertised as "free" through the customer loyalty program. In fact, we never received a free movie, but were billed in every case.

Upon calling DirecTV on 10/3/2011 6:30p, they repeatedly (6x) stated the charges would be dropped if I reinstated my service with DirecTV. Each time I stated that I did not want to renew my service. They insisted on telling me about their promotions even after I made it clear my answer was "No". After the 6th time they passed me to a billing specialist who did not resolve my problem. Instead, they stated thata while seeing a movie was ascribed to customer loyalty I had used the remote to order, not the internet or remote with telephone line, therefore I was ineligible for the refund.

DirecTV works against their own interest in treating past customers poorly. Through their actions they ensure past customers will not renew service. Worse - these same customers will speak out against DirecTV ensuring additional loss of market share. This is truly a low quality company that should be avoided.

They stole $593.00 from my bank account in "2" days. Be advised that they can make these deductions on your debit card and there is nothing you can do to stop it once they start the transaction. This has messed up my home mortgage payment, my dughters health insurance payment, my car insurance payment and my electric bill payment. I will never do buisiness with them again and I will bad mouth this company indefinitely to everyone.

maybe you should have paid your early cancellation fees and such or they wouldn't of automatically charged your card.