Thursday, August 14
DirectTV - Horrible, horrible, awful service
Recently one of my Direct TV TiVo gave up the ghost. I called Customer Servicer about this, and they said I could get a new HD DVR Plus at no cost, an upgrade of my dish at no cost, and keep my HD Tivo as a secondary receiver.
Great, scheduled this for August 9, 2008, technician to arrive between 8 AM and Noon.
At Noon, no tech had arrived, so I called Direct TV, I got the message I get EVERY SINGLE TIME I CALL DIRECT TV "We are sorry, due to high call volumes...". They aren't sorry, they're too cheap to hire enough employees in their support system. They got in touch with their local company that does the work, no tech till 2 PM. At 2 I got a call, he will be there in about 10 minutes. An hour later he was here. 3 PM for an 8 - Noon appointment. I'm impressed.
So, the tech starts installing my new dish, while he is doing this I unboxed the new HR21-100 HD DVR Plus and got it up in the rack with the rest of my gear. After about an hour or so, the tech comes in and informs me that the guy that loaded his truck this morning forgot to load masts for the dishes, so they are sending someone out with one. So we had to wait half an hour while the guy comes out from the warehouse. The tech wasn't particularly fast, but he was doing really nice work, my cabling and the whole install looks great. Eventually, around 6:30 he comes in and says things should be working, we turned on the box, and he went through the activation with Direct TV. Only problem, the box gives an error for some channels.
So, around 7 PM he gets back on the phone, we need B-Band blockers. He doesn't have any, but a tech in a nearby neighborhood has some. He explains that he has had it explained to him that they aren't required any longer. He'll go get them. The trip took about an hour, and he came back at 8 with the blocker and installed it. Everything is working great, so at 8:30 PM, 12 hours after my appointment was supposed to start, it is over.
My wife and I played with the system a little, then switched it off to watch a DVD.
Got up on Sunday morning, nothing, no signal, no Direct TV, so I called Direct TV and heard "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." on a Sunday at 9 AM. You aren't sorry. I know this for a fact. After near 45 minutes on hold, I got told that the installer didn't install the dish properly. After 5.5 hours? They told me it had to have a second satellite line attached for it to work. Here is the number to our service company, you should call them yourself. And we will throw in 3 months of free Showtime for your troubles.
So, $27 for over 12 hours of my time. I understand how Direct TV regards me now, as an easy mark, not a valuable customer.
I hooked up the second line myself from the old HD Direct TiVo that I still had installed. Now I have a working DVR.
Tuesday night, I realized that about 1/2 of my channels were no longer working. So, another call to Direct TV "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." Ok, if every time I call, I get this message, either I have the worst timing in the world, or you need to hire more people. I'm voting for the later. So, I spend about half an hour on hold, followed by another half our of "testing" with Direct TV, now I appear to have all my channels.
So, I start scheduling recordings both on my unit and from the Direct TV website on the internet. Things are great, except that bout half of my recordings are just a black screen and the question about deleting this show now.
Finally, this morning, I set my DVR to record the European Grand Prix Formula 1 race on Speed HD. When I got up and tried to start the recording, it was a blank screen. I tried to directly tune Speed HD, I got a "Searching for Satellite 1 771" error message. So I tried to put on Noggin for my kids, same error message. Reset the machine, things started working.
So I called Direct TV again. No sorry message, maybe they hired some more people. I get a nice lady on the phone, she tells me this is a known issue that has been happening for about a month. WTF? You sold me a defective product. Assholes. So, I asked if I needed a B-Band blocker on both inputs, as the tech had made several other errors. She told me that the B-band blocker might be the problem, that they were not supposed to be used on these units.
I'm going to be filing a complaint with the Texas Attorney General's office today for deceptive trade practices for selling me something that does not work.
Let's sum this up:
1. Inital call to Direct TV to setup upgrade - 0.5 hours.
2. Upgrade install visit - 12.5 hours.
3. Call next day to support - 1.0 hours.
3.5 Reroute cables to have second input hooked up on DVR - 0.5 hours.
4. Call to support for missing channels - 1.0 hours.
5. Call to support for defective recording feature - .5 hours.
So far I've invested 15.5 hours with Direct TV on a system that doesn't work. They have offered me products totaling $27 in value in compensation. Yep, I'm Direct TVs mark.
The unfortunate part is that I don't have much other choice around here. I could switch to Dish network, but I don't want the multiple dishes they require for HD. My father in law got Comcast HD recently, and it looks just horrible. AT&T does offer U-verse here, but it is still in it's infancy, and I have an MPLS network at the office they can't make work, so I'm wary of buying anything from them.
The one good thing is that we are watching much less TV now. More time for XBOX 360!
UPDATE! 9-2-2008
The DVR is still not working properly, so as I got ready to call Direct TV today, I logged into my account. I now have things added to my bill that I have never authorized.
Leased Receiver - Charge $4.99
DIRECTV Protection Plan - Charge $3.19
HD Access - Charge $9.99
That is $18.17 per month in new charges on my bill. Now they are telling me that the Protection Plan is only a partial month charge, and that it will be more in the future.
WTF Direct TV? $4.99 a month for a "FREE" receiver is not free, it is $60 per year. And, it does not work.
Adding a monthly "Protection Plan" to a device that hasn't worked right since delivery is a realy rip off.
And $9.99 for HD when it has been $0.00 for the past several years on my bill is just plain deceptive.
After arguing for about 15 minutes, they are giving me credit towards the DVR service. As of August 24th. No, wait, they can't do that, now it is $5.00 off my base package for the next three months. They did credit me for the "Protection Plan" and removed it. I'm looking at AT&T's Uverse site now.
Great, scheduled this for August 9, 2008, technician to arrive between 8 AM and Noon.
At Noon, no tech had arrived, so I called Direct TV, I got the message I get EVERY SINGLE TIME I CALL DIRECT TV "We are sorry, due to high call volumes...". They aren't sorry, they're too cheap to hire enough employees in their support system. They got in touch with their local company that does the work, no tech till 2 PM. At 2 I got a call, he will be there in about 10 minutes. An hour later he was here. 3 PM for an 8 - Noon appointment. I'm impressed.
So, the tech starts installing my new dish, while he is doing this I unboxed the new HR21-100 HD DVR Plus and got it up in the rack with the rest of my gear. After about an hour or so, the tech comes in and informs me that the guy that loaded his truck this morning forgot to load masts for the dishes, so they are sending someone out with one. So we had to wait half an hour while the guy comes out from the warehouse. The tech wasn't particularly fast, but he was doing really nice work, my cabling and the whole install looks great. Eventually, around 6:30 he comes in and says things should be working, we turned on the box, and he went through the activation with Direct TV. Only problem, the box gives an error for some channels.
So, around 7 PM he gets back on the phone, we need B-Band blockers. He doesn't have any, but a tech in a nearby neighborhood has some. He explains that he has had it explained to him that they aren't required any longer. He'll go get them. The trip took about an hour, and he came back at 8 with the blocker and installed it. Everything is working great, so at 8:30 PM, 12 hours after my appointment was supposed to start, it is over.
My wife and I played with the system a little, then switched it off to watch a DVD.
Got up on Sunday morning, nothing, no signal, no Direct TV, so I called Direct TV and heard "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." on a Sunday at 9 AM. You aren't sorry. I know this for a fact. After near 45 minutes on hold, I got told that the installer didn't install the dish properly. After 5.5 hours? They told me it had to have a second satellite line attached for it to work. Here is the number to our service company, you should call them yourself. And we will throw in 3 months of free Showtime for your troubles.
So, $27 for over 12 hours of my time. I understand how Direct TV regards me now, as an easy mark, not a valuable customer.
I hooked up the second line myself from the old HD Direct TiVo that I still had installed. Now I have a working DVR.
Tuesday night, I realized that about 1/2 of my channels were no longer working. So, another call to Direct TV "Sorry, we are experiencing unusually high call volumes..." Ok, if every time I call, I get this message, either I have the worst timing in the world, or you need to hire more people. I'm voting for the later. So, I spend about half an hour on hold, followed by another half our of "testing" with Direct TV, now I appear to have all my channels.
So, I start scheduling recordings both on my unit and from the Direct TV website on the internet. Things are great, except that bout half of my recordings are just a black screen and the question about deleting this show now.
Finally, this morning, I set my DVR to record the European Grand Prix Formula 1 race on Speed HD. When I got up and tried to start the recording, it was a blank screen. I tried to directly tune Speed HD, I got a "Searching for Satellite 1 771" error message. So I tried to put on Noggin for my kids, same error message. Reset the machine, things started working.
So I called Direct TV again. No sorry message, maybe they hired some more people. I get a nice lady on the phone, she tells me this is a known issue that has been happening for about a month. WTF? You sold me a defective product. Assholes. So, I asked if I needed a B-Band blocker on both inputs, as the tech had made several other errors. She told me that the B-band blocker might be the problem, that they were not supposed to be used on these units.
I'm going to be filing a complaint with the Texas Attorney General's office today for deceptive trade practices for selling me something that does not work.
Let's sum this up:
1. Inital call to Direct TV to setup upgrade - 0.5 hours.
2. Upgrade install visit - 12.5 hours.
3. Call next day to support - 1.0 hours.
3.5 Reroute cables to have second input hooked up on DVR - 0.5 hours.
4. Call to support for missing channels - 1.0 hours.
5. Call to support for defective recording feature - .5 hours.
So far I've invested 15.5 hours with Direct TV on a system that doesn't work. They have offered me products totaling $27 in value in compensation. Yep, I'm Direct TVs mark.
The unfortunate part is that I don't have much other choice around here. I could switch to Dish network, but I don't want the multiple dishes they require for HD. My father in law got Comcast HD recently, and it looks just horrible. AT&T does offer U-verse here, but it is still in it's infancy, and I have an MPLS network at the office they can't make work, so I'm wary of buying anything from them.
The one good thing is that we are watching much less TV now. More time for XBOX 360!
UPDATE! 9-2-2008
The DVR is still not working properly, so as I got ready to call Direct TV today, I logged into my account. I now have things added to my bill that I have never authorized.
Leased Receiver - Charge $4.99
DIRECTV Protection Plan - Charge $3.19
HD Access - Charge $9.99
That is $18.17 per month in new charges on my bill. Now they are telling me that the Protection Plan is only a partial month charge, and that it will be more in the future.
WTF Direct TV? $4.99 a month for a "FREE" receiver is not free, it is $60 per year. And, it does not work.
Adding a monthly "Protection Plan" to a device that hasn't worked right since delivery is a realy rip off.
And $9.99 for HD when it has been $0.00 for the past several years on my bill is just plain deceptive.
After arguing for about 15 minutes, they are giving me credit towards the DVR service. As of August 24th. No, wait, they can't do that, now it is $5.00 off my base package for the next three months. They did credit me for the "Protection Plan" and removed it. I'm looking at AT&T's Uverse site now.
Labels: bad product, bad support, direct tv
Comments:
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Mine still gives me the "771" B.S. and Direct is, as usual, almost impossible to contact UNLESS you want to buy ESPN Football or something like that. I'm looking into U-verse cable now.
We decided with the Digital upgrades we needed local channels and at the same time our daughter wanted to install a DVR in her room which required a new dish etc. We had already had Direct tv for almost 10 years and had a box in our livingroom and Bedroom. The Salesman made us an offer we could not refuse with a great upgrade package and all these perks etc. We wait for a week and the installer comes in a pickup truck with all kinds of loose stuff in an open bed, everything looked helter skelter to me initially and it turned out it was. These guys were sub contractors out of Texas up here in NY working their rears off. End of the day cold and damp outside and they claimed it was their 7th install of the day.
You could tell it was as they made a complete mess, THE most sloppy install outside I had ever seen. They mounted the new heavy duty slimline dish on my DECK RAIL...Which I asked them NOT to do but since the old lighter weight dish was there before, they claimed the new one would be too heavy for the side of the house. Guess they just did not wish to climb that day??? While they were installing inside we found out that our old boxes needed to be replaced and that even though they knew what they were supposed to be doing, AN UPGRADE....they did not have the new boxes with them. So the wife gets on the phone with Direct tv WHILE the installers were here and ordered the boxes. The installers told us we needed STANDARD Boxes because we would not be able to hook up HD boxes to our older tv sets without some other gadgets. I told them to just leave us the gadget we needed for each of the two tv's and I would hook them up and they didn't have any but said that the standard boxes would do what we needed and they left in the same hurry they installed the upgraded dish with. When I looked at the actual install, they drove three inch long lag bolts thru my deck rail and they were sticking ot everywhere for people to get cut on, then, they drilled a huge hole in the side of the house for the double wide cable they needed to use for the DVR and never corked up the hole they made around the wire and the way they ran the new wire was ridiculous to say the least, They snapped off a huge hunk of Deck rail edge when they got to close with one of the lag bolts and left piles of wire wrapping and other pieces for our year and a half old grandson to pick up and thank god he knew enough to make a hundred trips to nanna to give the pieces to. very very sloppy.
I called the installers and registered a complaint and they sent out their supervisors to repair and rework the entire intall, they gave me 50 bucks for the numerous holes in the deck rail made by the lag bolts and broken edging, put the dish on the roof and rewired the entire thing and made us sign a waiver to hold them harmless from that point forward which was cool.They did it the way it should have been done the first time almost a week before... The new boxes had arrived the day before and guess what??? Still no Local channels, The supervisor informed us that his crew had screwed us yet again as we definitely needed the HD boxes with the dish they had used. So again on the phone with Direct TV who would do NOTHING to ease our burdens on this now 2+ week old botched install. We had to wait another two weeks for the new boxes to come with the installer from Direct tv technical support. Well, The same night all this is going on, the new box we put in the living room, STOPPED working. The power kept turning on and off and on and off by itself. So we quickly disconnected the box and made yet another phone call to these dimwits. Mind you, NONE of them can do a thing to help you ANYWHERE up the chain...They are obnocious and rude and seemingly quite ignorant. Even the supervisors are infantile. Here I am writing this complaint today, the day the new boxes were supposed to arrive with the tech from Direct TV. I got to bed at 5am and was up again at 7:30 waiting for the 8-12 appointment to arrive. I figured my luck he will be here early....Well for once It never happened that way and at 10 am I get a call from the "TECH SUPERVISOR" who also happens to be nothing more than a SUB CONTRACTOR.....The man called in sick and they can't get out here today....I rose the roof to no avail, I have had it with them...it is now two weeks with no tv in the living room and over a MONTH since we initiated this joke. Waiting to see what new adventures we will start in the morning and or IF we can actually GET what we have been PAYING for for over a month now with no complete service??? BEWARE People. Like anything else in this country today. Direct TV is severely understaffed, they are cheap, their employees are probably also fed up with the way they run their business and all the grief they have to take so they JUST DON'T CARE to do their Jobs properly...AND watch those damned salesman, they lie their behinds off to get you onboard offering all kinds of things that will NEVER materialize because the MORONS don't write anything down so there is no record OTHER than knowing how to get your money.
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You could tell it was as they made a complete mess, THE most sloppy install outside I had ever seen. They mounted the new heavy duty slimline dish on my DECK RAIL...Which I asked them NOT to do but since the old lighter weight dish was there before, they claimed the new one would be too heavy for the side of the house. Guess they just did not wish to climb that day??? While they were installing inside we found out that our old boxes needed to be replaced and that even though they knew what they were supposed to be doing, AN UPGRADE....they did not have the new boxes with them. So the wife gets on the phone with Direct tv WHILE the installers were here and ordered the boxes. The installers told us we needed STANDARD Boxes because we would not be able to hook up HD boxes to our older tv sets without some other gadgets. I told them to just leave us the gadget we needed for each of the two tv's and I would hook them up and they didn't have any but said that the standard boxes would do what we needed and they left in the same hurry they installed the upgraded dish with. When I looked at the actual install, they drove three inch long lag bolts thru my deck rail and they were sticking ot everywhere for people to get cut on, then, they drilled a huge hole in the side of the house for the double wide cable they needed to use for the DVR and never corked up the hole they made around the wire and the way they ran the new wire was ridiculous to say the least, They snapped off a huge hunk of Deck rail edge when they got to close with one of the lag bolts and left piles of wire wrapping and other pieces for our year and a half old grandson to pick up and thank god he knew enough to make a hundred trips to nanna to give the pieces to. very very sloppy.
I called the installers and registered a complaint and they sent out their supervisors to repair and rework the entire intall, they gave me 50 bucks for the numerous holes in the deck rail made by the lag bolts and broken edging, put the dish on the roof and rewired the entire thing and made us sign a waiver to hold them harmless from that point forward which was cool.They did it the way it should have been done the first time almost a week before... The new boxes had arrived the day before and guess what??? Still no Local channels, The supervisor informed us that his crew had screwed us yet again as we definitely needed the HD boxes with the dish they had used. So again on the phone with Direct TV who would do NOTHING to ease our burdens on this now 2+ week old botched install. We had to wait another two weeks for the new boxes to come with the installer from Direct tv technical support. Well, The same night all this is going on, the new box we put in the living room, STOPPED working. The power kept turning on and off and on and off by itself. So we quickly disconnected the box and made yet another phone call to these dimwits. Mind you, NONE of them can do a thing to help you ANYWHERE up the chain...They are obnocious and rude and seemingly quite ignorant. Even the supervisors are infantile. Here I am writing this complaint today, the day the new boxes were supposed to arrive with the tech from Direct TV. I got to bed at 5am and was up again at 7:30 waiting for the 8-12 appointment to arrive. I figured my luck he will be here early....Well for once It never happened that way and at 10 am I get a call from the "TECH SUPERVISOR" who also happens to be nothing more than a SUB CONTRACTOR.....The man called in sick and they can't get out here today....I rose the roof to no avail, I have had it with them...it is now two weeks with no tv in the living room and over a MONTH since we initiated this joke. Waiting to see what new adventures we will start in the morning and or IF we can actually GET what we have been PAYING for for over a month now with no complete service??? BEWARE People. Like anything else in this country today. Direct TV is severely understaffed, they are cheap, their employees are probably also fed up with the way they run their business and all the grief they have to take so they JUST DON'T CARE to do their Jobs properly...AND watch those damned salesman, they lie their behinds off to get you onboard offering all kinds of things that will NEVER materialize because the MORONS don't write anything down so there is no record OTHER than knowing how to get your money.
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