An open letter sent to DirecTV concerning deceptive practices (1 Viewer)

[Chris Lockwood]

I don't see why Wendy's would send expired coupons on purpose, since most people would notice that and not bother going there- so how would that get them more business?

The manager may not have had the power to accept expired coupons even if he wanted to (and how many businesses do accept them?).

 

[mattCR]

I have recently switched to DTV. Now, Verizon isn't a carrier in our area at all, so I will never see FIOS. AT&T is coming out with u-verse near us, but it's limited, and from what I've seen of it.. it sucks. So our real choices here were:

SureWest
TimeWarner
DirectV
Dish

TimeWarner's policies were, in short, beyond deceptive. Price increases seemed to occur almost every 2-3 months; channels would appear, disappear, and be gone. There were less then 15 HD stations, and most of those were in terrible quality. They refused to support QAM, which would be one of the only reasons I'd consider a cable company. And there attitude was abhorrent.

I think these problems affect the entire field, no matter who your provider is, because they feel as though they can "get over" on you. Fine, you're with us, or not switch.. we don't care, enough people pay so bugger off.

It's a sad state of affairs. On the whole, so far I've been happy with DirectV. My bill has stayed the same for a year, and even considering I have all the HD & pay stations, it's $50 less then I was paying TimeWarner for fewer channels.

I think the biggest thing this thread shows me is that all of the companies pretty well have a suck side; if you look up customer complaints, the cable companies and satellite companies lead the marketplace, none of them have clean hands.

Caveat Emptor.

 

[genedjr]

This is an interesting place for my first post, but I cannot resist adding a bit to this discussion.

First - many are using the term customer service interchangeably with customer support - to be precise:

• Customer Support is the function in a company customers contact to resolve questions and issues.
• Customer Service is how each and every employee of that company interacts with customers, directly or indirectly.

I have found that while customer support has mostly moved off shore to lower costs, the actual support is getting better than it was a year ago. It is certainly better than five years ago when we Americans mostly complained about not being able to understand the support specialist over the phone.

However, customer service has taken a nose dive. I believe partly as it is not stressed hard enough in training and partly due to the stress of modern life in very hard economic times. While this is no excuse, it is what is happening.

Now as for posting your complaint - good job. If you don't demand excellence you will never get it.

If I get poor service, I do in fact complain. If it is not corrected - I do what all customers 'should' do - I spend my hard earned money elsewhere.

One other note: All large companies, including those identified in this thread watch the Internet and for the most part take action to preserve existing revenue sources. Many studies have confirmed that it costs 10 times as much to gain new customers as it does not keep the ones you have.

Every large company is going to have some dissatisfied customers, it's how that company treats them that impacts the bottom line.
...gene

 

[Clinton McClure]

Unfortunately, I ( like many people) are in a market with only two options available if I wish to have more than just 6 local channels. Dish or DirecTV. There are no cable companies or other options here. For us, it's the lesser of two evils but you're over a barrel no matter which you choose.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Clinton,

The trend to give things away to new customers over existing is
nothing new. It makes sense that the cable and dish companies
want to make the best offers to those new customers they hope
to woo aboard.

However, I can bet you that if you call the dish or cable network
and threaten to cancel about being charged for upgrade equipment
they will take care of it for FREE if it means getting you into another
2-year contract.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I agree, Ron, but a person shouldn't have to jump through hoops to be treated the same as the guy next to him. When I upgraded, however, I did not sign another contract. I'm month-to-month so I can leave if I want with no strings attached, but with DirectTV being the only other option, I've really no reason to leave Dish.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Ed B-
A couple of workarounds for you. Regarding using IR with multiple cableboxes. I'm not sure which universal remote you have, but most have RF receivers with addressable outputs. That means you can have cablebox1 and cablebox2 listed as devices and have cb1 wired up to output 1 and cb2 wired up to output 2. Assuming you had one of these models you would have to buy the RF reciever to make it work.

As to the DVR, I have a FIOS DVR box free for a year as part of my package so I understand the limitations. I am using Windows Media Center with Fios. I have 2 cable card tuners hooked up to a Vista machine and 4 hooked up to a machine running Win 7. Think of this as a "whole house DVR". I have a 1.5 Tb drive on the Win 7 box and a 1 Tb drive on the Vista machine dedicated to TV. If I ever start to run low on space and don't want to delete I can add additional storage for the price of a HD. I can then stream this content to my TVs over cat5 (or using wireless) via a media extender (like an XBOX). I already had the XBOX and the PC. I pay Verizon $3.99/month per cable card. This works with live TV too.

 

[Tom Boucher]

Shit canned DirecTV for Prism. Saved almost $100 a month too. Got a whole house DVR without a ridiculous additional charge either, and can record more than 50 season passes which I've been promised was coming in a software update since I got my non TiVo DVR in 2005.

 

[lvicious]

I appreciate the heads up Ron. I am currently moving into my 2nd home since graduating from college and this is a huge upgrade for me. I considered leaving Suddenlink who provides my digital cable and Internet services for DTV. Verizon Fios is not available here in west Texas. Suddenlink had immeasurable problems at first after buying up Cox Communications in this area but over the years have become more efficient and valued in many ways with their customer service and services offered.


However, there are things that are not offered that I can get via satellite. I voiced my opinion to them in the past for practices that were undesirable but it was mostly growing pains it seems. So I am sticking with them plus I do not want to deal with what you went through which is very possible.


My parents definitely taught me the power of the pen and I have used it in a professional and respectful manner when the time arose and not just to whine for the sake of crying to someone because I did not get my way. Bad customer service and practices are rampant throughout most companies in the world. Too much outsourcing overseas to people who are never trained or given insight as to what is happening with their company in Austin, Tx.. "Dell". Too many CEO's who are not hands on from top to bottom and along the way training methods weaken or the trainers themselves are considerably weak and we pay the price.


Someone has to let these guys know what the problem is and while I am always positive that for every time I mention an issue to a company that someone else has already done the same.. I still write that letter or make that phone call. There would be a line out my door for apologies owed and rightfully so but that's not realistic and never going to happen and I don't expect or ask for that. Rarely do I have a supervisor apologize for a lowly cust. reps service or lack there of but it does happen. Sprint, AT&T, Chase.. I could go on but they all have their moments.

It's amazing though what a simple letter in a respectful manner can do. You usually will never know what becomes of your letter behind the scenes. Probably nothing for the most part but there are times. Simple matter.. a local TV station here had their 2nd tier Meteorologist typing up daily forecasts on their website. I know it's west Texas but there is a thing called spell check for people with decent jobs and 3rd grader spelling capabilities. It was insulting to me to have to read through that garbage and even though I stopped reading it and went elsewhere and it was just a simple write-up for a forecast it is still unacceptable for anyone. Wrote the station asking them to politely use spell check, etc and was given a nasty letter back from his boss.

I wrote the CEO in New York and boom. Apology letter that was sincere, the forecasts were taken offline until a system was put in place to automate it and check any other writings before uploading beyond spell check and 3 months later he was gone for what I was told were other complaints that had been focused on this guy for other reasons. It all adds up and makes a difference... mostly. Also was told by a buddy who works there that others had complained of the spelling errors. The Internet..>.>


So no matter who the company is or how long you have been a customer or how large or small the issue is.. there is nothing wrong with a simple phone call. Make your way up the ladder to a supervisor and if that doesn't work bust out the pen and paper. Again thank you Ron.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I currently have Verizon Fios service which includes phone, internet and tv. And no one does deceptive practices like Verizon! I was promised a lot to switch from Direct TV and they wouldn't honor what there own employee promised! As far as picture quality, I love the picture quality and the number of channels offered. How ever at this time they still do not have NFL Ticket!!! My neighbor also signed up for Verizon around the same time and they quoted a price then turned around and charged for a business account when it was a residential account. As soon as I am free from the 2 year contract I am going back to Direct TV. I never had the kind of who cares attitude like I have gotten from Verizon, basically when I called them to complain about what I was offered. They came up with a lame excuse and the attitude was oh well not our problem!

 

[Jason Charlton]

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz

I was promised a lot to switch from Direct TV and they wouldn't honor what there own employee promised!

Can you be more specific on what was promised and what they failed to deliver? I switched from Comcast cable to Verizon FiOS several months ago and have been very pleased with the service. There have been minor annoyances, but they are few and far between.

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz [url=/t/280194/an-open-letter-sent-to-directv-concerning-deceptive-practices#post_3877392]

How ever at this time they still do not have NFL Ticket!!!

Were you aware that NFL Ticket requires DirecTV when you signed up? Looking at the Verizon website, it's pretty clear that NFL Sunday Ticket is ONLY available with DirecTV. It's even a part of the logo for NFL Sunday Ticket!

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz [url=/t/280194/an-open-letter-sent-to-directv-concerning-deceptive-practices#post_3877392]

My neighbor also signed up for Verizon around the same time and they quoted a price then turned around and charged for a business account when it was a residential account.

Sounds like a clerical error. These things happen. Was it resolved, or is he still being charged the wrong amount?

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz [url=/t/280194/an-open-letter-sent-to-directv-concerning-deceptive-practices#post_3877392]

As soon as I am free from the 2 year contract I am going back to Direct TV.

Why are you on a 2-year contract? How long ago did you sign up? One of the reasons I opted for FiOS is that they DON'T require any contract, and the prices (at least when I signed up) were the same whether or not you signed up for a contract or not. If, like me, you weren't required to sign a contract, I hardly see how this is their fault.

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz [url=/t/280194/an-open-letter-sent-to-directv-concerning-deceptive-practices#post_3877392]

As far as picture quality, I love the picture quality and the number of channels offered...

...basically when I called them to complain about what I was offered. They came up with a lame excuse and the attitude was oh well not our problem!

So, aside from NFL Sunday Ticket requiring a DirecTV receiver (which again, should have been made very clear) you seem to like everything else about the service. Is there something I'm missing?

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Originally Posted by Dave Moritz

I currently have Verizon Fios service which includes phone, internet and tv. And no one does deceptive practices like Verizon! I was promised a lot to switch from Direct TV and they wouldn't honor what there own employee promised! As far as picture quality, I love the picture quality and the number of channels offered. How ever at this time they still do not have NFL Ticket!!! My neighbor also signed up for Verizon around the same time and they quoted a price then turned around and charged for a business account when it was a residential account. As soon as I am free from the 2 year contract I am going back to Direct TV. I never had the kind of who cares attitude like I have gotten from Verizon, basically when I called them to complain about what I was offered. They came up with a lame excuse and the attitude was oh well not our problem!

I had a TON of billing/back office problems when I hooked up FIOS which took me a few months to get sorted out. Other than that I loved the TV quality and internet speeds. Unfortunately they sold out to Frontier in my area, who after a few months said they were too small to negotiate good deals with programmers/networks so the TV portion would be going up $30/month, or I could get free sat service for a year. I didn't want sat so I switched back to Comcast where it has been surprisingly problem free.

 

[Dave Moritz]

My neighbor had problems with being over billed and I had problems with just about all the offers made over the phone not being honored with Verizon Fios! The picture is great and there is alot of on demand programming but in the end they really didn't save us as much as they said they would and not honoring what they said they would do makes me want to dump them and go back to Direct TV. It was a money issue with me as I am only working part time so I ended up getting rid of Direct TV. I never had any problems with Direct TV and they always worked with me, oh and they never promised what they couldn't deliver. I have a contract with verizon but as far as I am concerned they violated the contract when they refused to honor what the salesman promised and 1 year is coming up soon. I will keep my phone and internet, especially internet as the speed is really good with Fios and if the money improves and the price drops on the 150/35 package I might upgrade to that. Currently I am paying for 25/25 on Fios. Also with Direct TV I can get NFL Ticket when I can get back to full time hours and that is something I can not get with Verizon Fios.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Hey Jason, Sorry I have not been on HTF much lately. Verizon Fios Employee Promises/Offers Free HD DVR for 1 Year All movie channels Free 1 Year After getting the bill that was way more than they said it would be I found out that they would only let my have HBO/Cinemax for free for the one year and that I couldn't have the free HD DVR with the movie channel offer. I didn't matter to them that I was offered this to switch from Direct TV so I feel that if a customer is told something and after repeating it back and it being verified over the phone. Well Verizon should honor it even if they have to reprimand the salesman and tell him to not do that again. The picture quality is really good and I have not had any problems with the equipment and the selection of on demand is insanely big. I do not like the bate and switch tactics that Verizon uses and my neighbor who got Fios TV after I did was told a price and they charged them more after the fact. They also tried to charge them for a commercial account when it is a residential. It took them months to get that straightened out and it is something else I do not get is why Verizon pulls crap like that? When I signed up I could no longer afford NFL Ticket anyway and knew that they did not offer it so while I miss it I knew going in that it was not available. I still would like to have it but it was all about Verizon offering great hd picture quality for less than what I was paying for Direct TV combined with a separate Verizon phone & internet bill. My neighbor argued with them for months and I am not sure if that ever go fixed or if they just continued on over charging them. They are not worried about it anymore because a day or two ago they went back to Dish Network and where canceling the tv part of there Verizon Fios account. I realize I was stupid for doing a two year contract and I will never do a contract again! Verizon said that if I did a contract that they would lower the cost for the service so I like an idiot said oh wow that sounds good sure. I am happy with the picture quality and the channel line up even without NFL Ticket but the bait and switch at the beginning and offering so much and then saying to bad we will not honor most of it still pisses me off a bit. I am ready to go back to Direct TV so if I can afford NFL Ticket later on then I can call up and order it. I just do not like getting lied to and that is enough for me to go back to Direct TV.