DTV Poor Customer Service + Billing Nightmare

[JD Hogg]

At the end of September, I had scheduled in advance to cancel my DTV service on 10/16/13. About 1 week prior (on 10/10/13), DTV went ahead and shut off my service. I called them up and asked why my service was disconnected prior to my scheduled date and I was told that it was a glitch in their system and it was not actually supposed to disconnect until the planned 10/16 date.

The CSR apologized and asked if I wanted to remain w/ DTV and I said yes because the cable TV provider in my area was much more expensive than my current DTV service/plan. He turned the service back on and said that my billing cycle date would change because my service was disconnected.

Fast forward a couple of weeks later, I received a "partial" statement and noticed that NONE of my previous discounts/promos/credits were applied. I called up retention and spoke with a supervisor. He explained to me that one the service is disconnected, ALL credits are removed and are no longer applied if service is re-activated.

I explained to him that my DTV account was closed because of an ERROR on their part (disconnecting me a week earlier than requested/scheduled). He agreed that it was their fault and that he would send my case up to DTV's "Escalation Dept" where they would be able to restore my credits.

About 10 days later I received an email from DTV stating that ALL of my credits/promos/discounts (about $45 total) would be re-applied back to my account (with the new billing cycle) and called CSR and got a confirmation that this is indeed the case.

Yesterday I received my FIRST full bill under the NEW billing cycle and NONE of my credits were applied. I called retention and spoke w/ a supervisor and she manually adjusted/added a $45 credit to appear on my next statement.

I also asked her if she could forward this matter to a department that handles account/billing so in the future the $45 credits get AUTOMATICALLY applied to my statement (instead of having to call in each month). She said that she will forward it to get it corrected - although I have ZERO faith that DTV will get it right since they've screwed up a few times already.

My question is should I WAIT and see if this gets resolved or should I contact DTV's "Office of the President" or maybe some other department that could better handle this matter?

Any advice/recommendation is greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[Tampa8]

Just my own opinion - you're making a mistake on their end bigger than it is. I say that because at this time, you are getting the credits as they said you would. Nothing you posted is different than can happen with most any larger company. In this case, I actually give a little credit (yes pun intended) to DIRECT for at this point following through on your complaint. So no, I wouldn't contact as yet.

 

[JD Hogg]

Just my own opinion - you're making a mistake on their end bigger than it is. I say that because at this time, you are getting the credits as they said you would. Nothing you posted is different than can happen with most any larger company. In this case, I actually give a little credit (yes pun intended) to DIRECT for at this point following through on your complaint. So no, I wouldn't contact as yet.

Fair enough - but what IF the credits are NOT automatically applied on my next statement again. What would be the best approach then?

 

[Hutch1814]

Means Directv screwed up I have to give them some credit to them as well for reapplying the credits. I would give it a full billing cycle since your last call and see what happens. If it's not been corrected then I would contact the OoP only if you feel that another call is going to return the same result. Just my thought on it though. Maybe somebody that's had a similar experience can chime in


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[raoul5788]

Isn't your next statement your last one due to your cancellation? If so, you may have to deal one more time with the knuckleheads, but that should be it.

 

[JD Hogg]

Isn't your next statement your last one due to your cancellation? If so, you may have to deal one more time with the knuckleheads, but that should be it.

This is my first FULL bill/statement since they prematurely cancelled me and NONE of my credits were applied. They credited the $45 towards missing from this bill towards my next month's bill which will have it's own $45 credit (total credit should be $90 for next billing statement).

My previous bill was partial for 1/2 billing cycle (which they manually adjusted/applied 1/2 of my credits).

I'm just worried that I have to do this 'phone dance' with them EVERY month about getting my credits applied (which will always be 1 month behind, which I do not want). I'll give them another billing cycle to straighten it out before emailing the Office of the Prez.

I'm just frustrated explaining the entire story to each CSR rep I speak to because they either refuse to read the history notes on my account or they're not comprehending it correctly.

 

[raoul5788]

So you aren't cancelling your service?

 

[JD Hogg]

So you aren't cancelling your service?

No. I thought about switching to cable TV but it would have been around $30 more p/m than what I'm currently paying DTV (with fewer channels). I scheduled my DTV cancellation about 2 1/2 weeks in advance but DTV decided to pull the plug a week earlier w/o my consent and w/o any notice.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Thats going to be a pain to get fixed, and more than likely will never get it corrected based on my experence.

I had a customer to do the same thing and I was told they forfeited the credits after they called and requested the disconnect.

My question is why would you schedule it to be disconnected? Why not just wait for them to install your new service, and then call and disconnect?

I would just start writing some letters to Directv's corporate office snail mail.

 

[Hutch1814]

Thats going to be a pain to get fixed, and more than likely will never get it corrected based on my experence. I had a customer to do the same thing and I was told they forfeited the credits after they called and requested the disconnect. My question is why would you schedule it to be disconnected? Why not just wait for them to install your new service, and then call and disconnect? I would just start writing some letters to Directv's corporate office snail mail.

I think he was trying to get more or better credits and they called his bluff IIRC. He had no plans of disconnecting just trying to see who was gonna blink first. Sucks he is in this spot now though

 

[Claude Greiner]

I think he was trying to get more or better credits and they called his bluff IIRC. He had no plans of disconnecting just trying to see who was gonna blink first. Sucks he is in this spot now though

I was thinking the same thing also.

That does sometimes work, but there is not much more your going to get if they are giving $45 credits right now.

 

[JD Hogg]

I think he was trying to get more or better credits and they called his bluff IIRC. He had no plans of disconnecting just trying to see who was gonna blink first. Sucks he is in this spot now though

I was trying to get a new Genie box because my current Genie receiver sucks donkey nutters (freezing, slow response, black screens, issues w/ C31 client etc) and DTV didn't want to replace it for me. Fed up, I decided to look elsewhere (ie cable TV) and wanted to give myself a "cushion" just in case DTV were to call me back and offer to replace my receiver and for me to look into cable TV pricing/promos and to give a window for installation if I ended up going that route.

Instead those morons decided to disconnect me a weak prior to the scheduled date. They did take responsibility for their error (hence why my credits were reinstated) - but they can't seem to fix the billing issues.

 

[JD Hogg]

I was thinking the same thing also.

That does sometimes work, but there is not much more your going to get if they are giving $45 credits right now.

The $45 in "credits" include 2 friend referrals. I've referred 6 new accounts/friends to DTV in the 1 year that I've been with them. NEVER doing that again after this experience - regardless of the $10 savings on my bill.