HR21-700 dying, thinking of HR34+WH

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

Hard drive on HR21 going and getting worse by the day, have tried all options other than reformat. Off contract and its past due for upgrade.

Interested in HR34 + Whole Home, but after I talked to retention, I was told I need:
HR34 at retail $399.
WH at retail $199.
3 HD receivers to replace current SD at retail total $297.
They want me to pay for $600 for HR34 and WH and they will throw in the 3HD receivers at $297.

At present I have no HDTV, would like HD capability of HR34 for living room only but not needed now, and if I do nothing in HD dont understand why I would need to replace my 3 current SD receivers that are working fine (1 is DVR).

I had hoped I could work deal with new contract to get HR34 and whole home installed at no costs but got blindsided by the apparent need to replace all the receivers.
The 1TB, 5 tuners and whole home are much more important than HD.
If it wasnt this time of year when the HR21 is dying I wouldnt mind investing some cash into hardware but between birthdays and christmas around the corner I cant afford to dish out several hundred in cash at the moment, and the wife is driving me crazy to get HR21 replaced ASAP.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions, criticisms!?!

(noob to the board, have used for reference many times but never registered or posted before)

 

[dtro77]

Hard drive on HR21 going and getting worse by the day, have tried all options other than reformat. Off contract and its past due for upgrade.

Interested in HR34 + Whole Home, but after I talked to retention, I was told I need:
HR34 at retail $399.
WH at retail $199.
3 HD receivers to replace current SD at retail total $297.
They want me to pay for $600 for HR34 and WH and they will throw in the 3HD receivers at $297.

At present I have no HDTV, would like HD capability of HR34 for living room only but not needed now, and if I do nothing in HD dont understand why I would need to replace my 3 current SD receivers that are working fine (1 is DVR).

I had hoped I could work deal with new contract to get HR34 and whole home installed at no costs but got blindsided by the apparent need to replace all the receivers.
The 1TB, 5 tuners and whole home are much more important than HD.
If it wasnt this time of year when the HR21 is dying I wouldnt mind investing some cash into hardware but between birthdays and christmas around the corner I cant afford to dish out several hundred in cash at the moment, and the wife is driving me crazy to get HR21 replaced ASAP.

Thoughts, ideas, suggestions, criticisms!?!

(noob to the board, have used for reference many times but never registered or posted before)

The reason you have to have HD and DVR with the HR34, is because thats the required terms now for leasing the HD DVRs.

You must pay the $20 advanced Whole home fee for the hr34.

If your keeping the SD rooms, then you might as well just get the HR21 replaced with another single room HD DVR. Cause your SD receivers will not do whole home service.
I'm not 100% sure on this, but I think Directv won't allow you to just lease the HR34 without having MRV.

So

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

Anyone else with thoughts?

 

[nuttz565]

Your basically in the same boat as me although I'm over at *E. When I signed up with *E they did not have whole house. Now that this is out I called them the other day and they wanted like $600 upfront for the hopper and 3 joeys. I can't justify spending that kind of money so I'm thinking about just going over to *D. For 99$ I can get the set up I want. Might be something to think about as you could probably get the same pricing over at *E for new customers.

 

[RLDreams]

The reason you need to upgrade all your other boxes to H25's is because you want WH, your old SD boxes will not work with the whole home system. You do not need HD TVs in every room, but if you want to have WH ,than you need HD boxes. Just know that the H25s do not have coaxial or Svideo out, so your TV does need to have component inputs for it to work, or you will need component to coax adapters. There is no reason to pay $600-$900 for what you want, sounds like you got a csr having a bad day. You say you have been a long time customer, what deal you can get depends on how long. You can get an HR34 for $99 after rebates and they can wave the $99/ea fee for the H25s as well as the $79 charge for the new dish and installation. Try contacting eafilipiak@directv.com, or mike.white@directv.com.Be sure to include your DTV account number and a phone number to contact you at. Explain your situation and what you want. Provided you have been a good customer and your account is in good standing you should get a call back from somebody much more willing to work with you and keep you as a happy DTV customer than the normal CSR or retention

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

The reason you need to upgrade all your other boxes to H25's is because you want WH, your old SD boxes will not work with the whole home system. You do not need HD TVs in every room, but if you want to have WH ,than you need HD boxes. Just know that the H25s do not have coaxial or Svideo out, so your TV does need to have component inputs for it to work, or you will need component to coax adapters. There is no reason to pay $600-$900 for what you want, sounds like you got a csr having a bad day. You say you have been a long time customer, what deal you can get depends on how long. You can get an HR34 for $99 after rebates and they can wave the $99/ea fee for the H25s as well as the $79 charge for the new dish and installation. Try contacting eafilipiak@directv.com, or mike.white@directv.com.Be sure to include your DTV account number and a phone number to contact you at. Explain your situation and what you want. Provided you have been a good customer and your account is in good standing you should get a call back from somebody much more willing to work with you and keep you as a happy DTV customer than the normal CSR or retention

Well I talked with Diann ( eafilipiak@directv.com ) and she simply offered the same thing Retention did and nothing more. $600 from me.
I emailed mike.white@directv.com this morning and havent heard back quite yet. Really getting stressed over all this!
I really do not want to move to Dish! But I cant pay $600 out of pocket for this hardware.

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

That didnt work either, email to mike.white was routed to Diann who restated no other offers would be made. DANG!

 

[KasumiX]

How long can you go without? When I cancelled to switch to Dish I was getting new-customer level offers to return within a month.

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

How long can you go without? When I cancelled to switch to Dish I was getting new-customer level offers to return within a month.

I could go months without. I have Roku and Netflix alone could entertain me.
However I couldnt take that gamble because my wife and kids would drive me NUTS.

 

[raoul5788]

to Satelliteguys J_BIRD_MEDIC!

You might have better luck talking to retention. You can get them by saying "cancel" at the prompt. A word of caution, if you threaten to leave, they may say "so long"! Tell them you want to stay and understand that they are able to offer better deals than the regular csrs. Don't expect everything for free, even most new customers pay $99 for the HR34.

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

I have already talked to retention (as posted in original post) and their offer was $600.

Do you recommend I call retention a 2nd time?

Thank you for the welcome!

 

[raoul5788]

I have already talked to retention (as posted in original post) and their offer was $600.

Do you recommend I call retention a 2nd time?

Thank you for the welcome!

Sorry, I missed that. As I mentioned, you aren't going to get everything for free, but it seems as if they want more than usual for an existing customer. Another call couldn't hurt, maybe you can get a better deal. You should be able to get the HR21 replaced at no cost or further commitment since it's failing. Perhaps you should start with that.

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

Sorry, I missed that. As I mentioned, you aren't going to get everything for free, but it seems as if they want more than usual for an existing customer. Another call couldn't hurt, maybe you can get a better deal. You should be able to get the HR21 replaced at no cost or further commitment since it's failing. Perhaps you should start with that.

Ya I have no problem giving them $100-200 and signing another 2 years. But $600 is ridiculous since it would cost a new customer only $99.
Really disappointed in that offer from both retention and customer advocacy. Doesn't seem they want to budge from that number and I cant wrap my head around the fact they would rather me jump to Dish that meet what they are offering new customers (minus any programming promotions).

 

[raoul5788]

New customers always get better deals, that's just the nature of the beast.

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

"the beast" suckith!

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

My name is Andi Thompson and I am the Manager of DIRECTV’s Office of the President.

I have personally reviewed your account and recent emails and have confirmed the information provided is accurate. I realize this is not the resolution you were hoping for, however this is DIRECTV’s final position on this issue and further correspondence on this matter will not receive a response.

Sincerely,

Andi Thompson
Manager, DIRECTV Office of the President

Customer Via Email(Entered by DIRECTV) - 09/24/2012 06:32 AM
So your business practice is to treat a new subscriber better than an
existing one?
If so, is this how the game is played, to hop from one company to the next
every 2 years?

Im simply appauled and angered that a new customer would get everything I
want for $99 AND a bunch of promotions but you want $600 from me with no
promotions and that is the best you can do.

 

[raoul5788]

Unfortunate. Perhaps you should consider moving to Dish. Another possible solution is to get the HR21 replaced for free, since it is defective, and pay the lease fee for another dvr. You can connect them via ethernet. Then email customer service and request mrv service via ethernet. That would be unsupported, btw. That should be only $3/month. That wouldn't cover all of your wants, but it may be enough. If not, like I said, maybe it's time to move to Dish. Would they have the programming you want? To me, that's more important than the equipment.

 

[RLDreams]

Well you could always play the name game. OP mentioned wife and kids. So if account is in his name and he is out of contract, he can cancel. Then have his wife call up as a new subscriber under here own name, provided her name is not on the current account.

 

[raoul5788]

Using the same address could be an issue even with a different name. It's worth a try though!

 

[J_BIRD_MEDIC]

Created a new account in wifes maiden name and added Lot 2 to address.
Installed yesterday with no issues.

Will be calling to cancel existing account today.
Very sad I had to play the system to get this done, but its done and Im happy now.

Thanks to everyone for the thoughts, advise, and ideas!