So I’ve been a DirecTV customer for something like 5 of the last 7 years. I’m on month 23 of my latest contract and I called to cancel because I may want to see what new customer promotions they have and I don’t watch much TV during the summer. I expected I would be told I’d have $20-40 in early term fees because that’s what my agreement said. No problem.
After being offered some great retention deals (I almost said ok) I asked to be cancelled for now. Rep says ok, then says hang on a second, I need to look into this box you added to your account in March. FWIW, in March I was on a boat a friend had bought out of a bankruptcy. It had been unused for a couple of years, but it had an old DTV box, and because we’d be off the coast I’d called about activating the access card in it on my account. I tell the rep under no circumstances do I want to extend my agreement, but if I can activate it without extension then I’d like to do it for a while. The rep says no problem, it absolutely won’t extend me, and he has me on in 5 minutes. I’ve been paying the extra fee ever since. The rep I’m speaking to now, however, becomes a COMPLETE jerk and says guess what – when you activated that receiver, which was a leased receiver, you extended your contract another 2 years per your agreement. I explained I’d been adamant about that not being the case before I activated it and that the original rep had clearly and explicitly said there would be no extension. The new rep basically says tough luck. I tell him I’ll fight it with whomever, because I’m confident I’ll prevail in a fight over it, and I tell him to cancel me anyway. He says fine – you have 21 days to ship all the equipment back to me. Again, this is in a boat now several states away from me so I pump the breaks and say I’ll get back to him.
Does anyone know how much of this is BS? I’m prepared to risk the $400 termination fee (20 months x $20/month) because like I said I don’t think they have a legal leg to stand on. I never leased this receiver from them, and I realize they were probably never authorized to activate it for me anyway. If I cancel service of course I’ve got the 2 units in my house to send back, and that should be sufficient I think. If anyone has any experience or knowledge about who to contact about this I’d appreciate a pointer. Right now I’m trying to figure out if we need to just ship back that other old receiver or not. It’s an old HR24-500 if that matters.
Right now I figure I just got a real jerk rep, but if DTV is really going to make an ordeal out of this then I’m going to complain about his as loudly and visibly everywhere I can, and then I’ll also be contacting the California AG and the FCC to see how any of this could be legal or even tolerable.
Thanks for any help.
After being offered some great retention deals (I almost said ok) I asked to be cancelled for now. Rep says ok, then says hang on a second, I need to look into this box you added to your account in March. FWIW, in March I was on a boat a friend had bought out of a bankruptcy. It had been unused for a couple of years, but it had an old DTV box, and because we’d be off the coast I’d called about activating the access card in it on my account. I tell the rep under no circumstances do I want to extend my agreement, but if I can activate it without extension then I’d like to do it for a while. The rep says no problem, it absolutely won’t extend me, and he has me on in 5 minutes. I’ve been paying the extra fee ever since. The rep I’m speaking to now, however, becomes a COMPLETE jerk and says guess what – when you activated that receiver, which was a leased receiver, you extended your contract another 2 years per your agreement. I explained I’d been adamant about that not being the case before I activated it and that the original rep had clearly and explicitly said there would be no extension. The new rep basically says tough luck. I tell him I’ll fight it with whomever, because I’m confident I’ll prevail in a fight over it, and I tell him to cancel me anyway. He says fine – you have 21 days to ship all the equipment back to me. Again, this is in a boat now several states away from me so I pump the breaks and say I’ll get back to him.
Does anyone know how much of this is BS? I’m prepared to risk the $400 termination fee (20 months x $20/month) because like I said I don’t think they have a legal leg to stand on. I never leased this receiver from them, and I realize they were probably never authorized to activate it for me anyway. If I cancel service of course I’ve got the 2 units in my house to send back, and that should be sufficient I think. If anyone has any experience or knowledge about who to contact about this I’d appreciate a pointer. Right now I’m trying to figure out if we need to just ship back that other old receiver or not. It’s an old HR24-500 if that matters.
Right now I figure I just got a real jerk rep, but if DTV is really going to make an ordeal out of this then I’m going to complain about his as loudly and visibly everywhere I can, and then I’ll also be contacting the California AG and the FCC to see how any of this could be legal or even tolerable.
Thanks for any help.
