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The unauthorized placing of a service referred to as NFL Sunday Ticket charges by DirecTV on my bill reflects deceptive business practices. When we initially signed up with DirecTV in January of 2008, we were offered the NFL Sunday Ticket option as a free service, which I declined, however they insisted, because it was "free", so why not (they said that, not me). We were told we could cancel it anytime prior to the expiration of the 3 months "New Customer Offer" and there would be no charge(s). (Please note, no one in my household watches football, and the only males are my husband and 3 year old grandson. Neither of them have any interest in the sport. We did not even "use" the service when it was given to us free as new customers.)
On February 26, my husband called to cancel any and all extra services and maintain only our Choice Xtra program with DirecTV. On our July Qwest/DirecTV bill, the NFL Sunday Ticket showed up again with a charge of $0.00. My husband paid no attention to it as it was a zero charge. However, on our August statement, a charge of $41.50 showed up. So I contacted DircecTV offices to have the charges and service removed. Not canceled, as we did not order it, but removed as an erroneous charge.
I spoke to 4 (four) different very inept representatives in their office and was told that a "mailer" in some form had gone out stating the charges would be placed on my bill. I do not know of any mailer, and do not recall having seen anything saying I was going to be charged for the service. I do not deny if it was sent or not, but if it was, the wording on it must have not left me with the impression that I was going to be charged $249. Apparently, according to the DirecTV staff, the "default" was that my account would be charged, just for having received the mailer and not responding with a resounding "NO". This is where I am stating that the billing practices in this matter are deceptive and perhaps illegal. In order to have a charge to my account for any service, the business must have my permission. An alleged "act of omission" on my part in this matter does not give them the authority to charge my account. Their default should be set to "NO" unless the specific charges are authorized.
I have spent hours with rude customer service reps and their supervisors and all have told me that I can't have it removed. If a credit and/or a charge shows up on my bill next month, I will be in their office in a heartbeat. I have filed a complaint with the BBB (of which they are not a member - go figure) and I am currently filing a complaint with the Division of Civil Rights located here in Denver.
Their customer service is horrible, many of the reps do not speak/understand English. If you ask for a supervisor, they just get one of their buddies in the next cubicle on the phone. When talking to anyone at DirecTV, they cannot give out their last name, however ALWAYS GET THEIR EMPLOYEE BADGE NUMBER.
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I had the same problem. I go online to check my bill and saw it was nearly $300 which was outrageous because i usually pay about 80 bucks a month. I just added HD service and I was thinking that they added installation charges for the tech to come and install the new satellite dish that I needed when I was told that installation would be free and all I needed to pay was an extra 9.99/mo. for HD service. I wrote down the cust service rep name and her extension just in case they tried to screw with me.
Well guess what they did! When I called to inquire about the $300, the cust serv rep put me on hold for nearly 20 min. just to come back to tell me that I was subscribed to NFL Sunday Ticket. I was furious. I yelled, cussed, threatened, etc., you name it! They gave it to me free for 3 months back in 2006 when I first had directv installed I think and I was told that I could cancel but I had to do it before the next season starts, which I did. They even had it documented that I cancelled it back in Aug 2007 and now these jackoffs want to charge me again. Well she told me they put it in my bill that I had to either say yes or no if I wanted to renew but I failed to do that. That was a lie. On my Sept bill, it clearly stated "NFL SUNDAY TICKET-Will not auto renew in 2008" I told her that and I also told her whatever shows up on my bill is also in your computers too and that they better quick playing (that was not the word I used) with me and fix this quick! I got put on hold for another 20 min. She finally comes back and says they cant give me a credit for it because the season already started. Then I got even nastier. I told her to put me on with a manager/supervisor before I really lose it with you! On hold for another 20 mins.
Finally the manger, her name was Jennifer, came on and basically told me the same thing. The season already started and they couldn't credit me the charges and I failed to reply about the auto renew thing, etc. etc. etc. I called her a liar, I told her she was blatantly refusing to take responsibility, and that this is illegal! She still wouldn't cooperate. She told me I had to write to directv to dispute the charges. I told her Im not doing that and that she's obviously is gettin a kick out of screwing with a customer and I ended the conversation with "How do you sleep at night?", then hung up.
I collected my thoughts, had a beer, calmed down some. I called back. Much different experience this time. I did not yell, scream, and curse this time. I was still put on hold a lot but the cust serv rep, her name was Nicole was 100xs more helpful. But she told me something that the last girl didn't tell me. When I called to schedule an appointment to have the hd satellite installed, the rep took it upon herself to add NFL Sunday ticket without my authorization! It was added on Sept. 24 which was the same day I called about having HD service installed. I told her about how i had it cancelled and about the "will not auto renew" on my bill, she verified it put me on hold this time for about 5 mins. and not only told me they would credit the service on my bill, but she apologized! I breathed a sigh of relief. I told her thank you and that I wish i got to her first instead of the other barracudas I talked to earlier. I filed 3 complaints on the all 3 cust serv reps: 1) the one who activated NFL Sun ticket without my authorization, 2) the one who put me on hold for so long that wasn't helpful and appeared inept and outright held back important info. i needed to know, 3) the manager Jennifer who refused to acknowledge any wrong doing on directv's part and blatantly refused to help me. Hopefully one of them wont have the same job anymore and maybe cleaning bathrooms or something. LOL. I highly doubt it though. But I did leave a lovely compliment about Nicole.
Something needs to be done about Directv as the same thing happened to me. They said Directv had a free offer of NFL Sunday Ticket when I got my install appt. scheduled. I told them I don't want it as I would never watch it. The guy said well it is free you should just put it on your account anyway. I said I didn't want it on my account. I only watch the local team so why would i want it. He said Ok he would not add it.
Low and behold today (july bill) has nfl sunday ticket charge. Well I call up the number on the website. As evidently you cannot remove services on website only add them. Well the guy on the number they gave me can't do it they have a special number to call if you want to remove NFL sunday ticket. Well I get transfered to that number and I tell that woman the story and she says well we have a deal for 6 payments of 29.99 you can keep NFL ticket. What part of I don't want NFL ticket even if it were one cent don't you understand. She says it is her job. Well I will be complaining to FCC and Attorney General.
Same exact thing happened to me and they tried to say they sent me numerous alerts I never received I was lied to by att saying I had internet overages and didn't get it squared away till I had already paid for the entire package this is a serious fraud..
We never ordered Sunday ticket and it showed up on our bill. I called and spoke to 4 people to get it removed. They said because we didn't notice that we had to pay for it. I said it's like your taking money out of our safe deposit box and because we didn't notice it for a few months or years you're allowed to keep it. We never signed up for and we never authorized it. The direct TV employees said if it's on your bill & you didn't take it off it's your fault. So Direct Tv believes they're allowed to add anything to your bill if you don't notice that they're allowed to keep it. They also added some kind of insurance for $24.99 we never ordered. they said we had the initial insurance at $7.99 I never ordered that either and somehow upgraded to the triple price version of something we never use or ordered. I'm still fighting for that. It's been going on for years. We set up automatic payment so it's easy to pay bills and you want to trust the company. Direct Tv is untrustworthy and they are thieves. There should be a class action lawsuit against them.
I also had this experience, except I have specifically asked to know if these charges/packages would not show up on my bill the following year. They would NOT guarantee that, and instead encouraged me to "watch my bills" to see what is happening. Said they didn't have control over that. Utterly ridiculous. Sure enough this year the sunday ticket package showed up on my bill again, and I had to call and cancel, and yet again they would not guarantee that it wouldn't show up next year again.
In addition I have now been receiving numerous phone calls telling me how they wanted to thank me for my patronage by providing STARS or some other movie channels free for a month or so, and then quickly threw in how it was going to renew going forward. I said emphatically I wanted NO new services. They kept pushing and asked what I liked to watch, and I said sports, and so then they tried to pull the same trick with some sports packages. They seem DESPERATE to get me to add more channels. All this while my bill is due to go through the roof anyway due to the end of my promotional period. I fully believe this is an intentional act to try to obfuscate the additional charges when the bill goes up next month, and I will think the increased charges are merely due to the second year of my contract beginning, when in fact I would be paying for additional premium channels as well.
Same thing happened to us multiple times. This must illegal. I can't believe they haven't been sued yet or maybe they have and make more money counting on the fact most people are too busy to look at all their bill to make sure they aren't being charged for something they have never ordered or authorized.
Same thing for me. The scam continues. I didn't even sign up for "free" I do not watch football or sports. I call and they keep transferring me to someone else and after about an hour they just disconnect me. No way out.