2 year contract question...

[gvocks]

Either DirecTV doesn't know about the $20.00 per month or their math is terrible. When I spoke with the csr she confirmed that my 24 month comittment began in December 2006 when I added my locals and got the DVR. The email I got from DirecTV when I asked them how much my early termination fee would be said it would be $440.00. As they used to say on one of the old TV shows "Does not compute!"

BTW, I spent almost three hours on the phone this past weekend with DirecTV csr's regarding my latest R15 problems. Spent another couple of hours yesterday morning with a tech that they sent to work on it. Tonight we watched three different shows that we recorded last night and this evening--all three of the playbacks screwed up at least once. Mostly it was picture freezing or inability to fast-forward or rewind. We did manage to get through each show but it wasn't a fun experience!

Gary

IIRC it WAS 12.50 per month of contract left, or thereabouts.

NOW, (I don't remember when it changed but it has), its 20.00 a month per month left of the contract.

Lovely, ain't it? And DON'T FORGET, sports fans, there is NO trial period.

 

[jacmyoung]

It is a matter of reading the contract before you sign or agree to it. I am fully aware of what I got into two weeks ago, which was why I made sure I got all 4 HDDVR's in as short time as possible so my 2-year contract would not be extended too far out.

The next issue is hardware reliability. Being a long time Dishnetwork sub before DirecTV, a Comcast sub before that, I can tell you you will not find one company that does not have hardware issues. Having to replace 4 in a short time is certainly bad luck and I feel for you, but also very rare.

I agree there are constructive way to handle a bad situations like this one. When I had a similar issue with Dishnetwork, I talked to the right department, not only had them replacing my receiver, but got a total of $30 off each month for 6 months.

I certainly don't hope I have to go through the same with DirecTV this time, but there are situations in life I can't pick and choose, so I try to get the best out of it as I can and move on.

 

[jacmyoung]

Another thing I want to point out is when the same issue continues to repeat itself, the cause is often somewhere we have overlooked. In my case my Dishnetwork HDDVR continued to fail in one winter, after a few replacements it finally stabilized.

The summer after I was cleaning the cable box on the side of my house and discovered the Dish switch was not connected to the electric ground. I reconnected it myself and did not think much of it. The next winter came my receivers were rock solid.

Later I learned one of the reasons for proper grounding of the cables so the static charges generated by lighting (we have those more often in winter than summer) do not go into the house causing damage to electronics. My speculation was when my switch was not grounded it caused the damage to my receivers.

Had I not discovered it by share luck, I could have had another season of bad receivers and ended up cursing Dishnetwork and never wanted to use it again.

Not trying to make light of a bad situation you are in, just that sometimes s%^& happens and there is not much you can do about it.