I am about a 5 year DirecTV customer who moved into a condo on 6/27. It took me a few weeks to repaint, do the floor, and then begin to "play nice" with the condo board. I also had an "install" that was basically a survey by a technician that came out on the 1-800 number to survey the property. He gave me a way to install the satellite that would not be problematic and told me exactly how to word my "letter of permission" and how the unit could be installed to be unobtrusive as possible. I won't go into details there since the title of this thread is "INSTALL" but based on the board taking a month off, and then asking for additional information which skipped another month, I'll fast forward to the 10/20/05. Between June and September I kept DirecTV informed every single month of my issues so that my account was updated and the 'temporary suspension' was extended to cover me as I suffered through living with a Comcast DVR - a true piece of junk next to a Tivo.
On 10/20/05 I received full approval from the condo board. At that point I placed a call in to DirecTV to actually order the equipment. They seem to 'suddenly' have no record of the offer that was extended to me easily through the past several months and refuse to honor it. After spending roughly and hour and a half on hold, being transferred, I did finally reach someone who agreed to offer me the equipment at the previously agreed-to arrangement, so I placed the order.
On the morning of 10/28/05 I received a phone call from the technician in the truck, asking me how to get to my condo. He was over two hours away in the wrong city. DirecTV had sent my equipment to the correct address but the wrong city, despite my repeated updates to them on the phone of my new address. Looks like someone forgot to update the zipcode. The technician said that he would call back to his dispatch center and inform them that they would have to reschedule.
About a half an hour later, I get a phone call telling me that a technician would visit me by 12:05pm. This confuses me, as I receive another phone call asking me when I would like to reschedule. What ensues at that point is three hours of mass confusion. While I was calling DirecTV directly, I had 2 technicians in two different trucks, two dispatch centers, and DirecTV all calling me. What I did not realize - and what no one else seemed to realize, was that my order had been split into 2 - a "mover's connection" and a "HD DVR". One went to the correct city and one went to the wrong city. After about 3 hours of calls, being on hold, taking 2 calls at once, I finally reschedule for 10/29.
The morning of 10/29 a technician arrives with all my equipment. He refuses to do the install, stating a litany of reasons. The 40 foot latter wasn't long enough (even though I had rooftop access through my neighbor upstair's condo), I didn't have my approval letter in hand (which I could have gotten by waking up the board president who has cancer and is terminally ill but whom I did not want to wake up until I had received confirmation that the technician was going to perform the install), the install was a 2-person job, he wasn't sure how I was going to get support after the install, he needed a wide space to the sky and wasn't sure that I had it, there was no prior DirecTV install, etc, etc etc. I was happy to see him leave.
So I then had a reschedule for Friday 11/04 between 1-5pm. I got permission to leave work early. I inconvenienced my neighbor who skipped class so that I could have roof access. I cancelled my weekly visit with my elderly parents...all for my DirecTV install that I've been waiting for all summer.
At 12:05 pm I receive a phone call from the "local office" saying that they would have to reschedule for Monday since they did not have my equipment. The woman on the phone is absolutely clueless about any of my other struggles, and refuses to help me. So I call into DirecTV where I am presented with a litany of "I'm just looking at what I see on the screen and there is nothing that I can do" type responses. I finally get to a supervisor who agrees to help. I will identify her as Amy but that is not her real name. I finally get to Amy and explain my frustration to her. After about an hour of negotiation she calls me to tell me that the technician will arrive to install my unit. She does good followup with me. I receive a call from a technician saying that he has the HD Tivo but not the "regular Tivo" that was also promised to me by DirecTV. I tell him I don't really care about that unit because I do not have a TV for it, but just to come out and install the HD Tivo. They get to me by about 4pm. At this point Amy has gone home. She has called me several times and the local office in order to make sure that the technicians arrive but her shift is off at 4pm.
When the technicians arrive at 4pm, they tell me that they cannot do the install because the paperwork says "upgrade" and I am a new install. If DirecTV changes the paperwork, they tell me, even verbally over the phone, they will proceed. Once again I am stymied by a DirecTV representative who tells us that my upgrade was scheduled for Saturday but that my "Mover's Connection" is scheduled for Monday, when I won't even be home. At this point we beg her to change the "Mover's connection" to Saturday since the employees were there and ready to do the install. She refuses. We ask to speak to a supervisor, and thirty minutes into the "hold queue" it's getting too dark to do the install so the technicians leave without doing a thing. The technician did tell me that the install itself would be an easy one-hour job and he had no idea why the previous tech was so obstinate.
I am so angry and frustrated I don't know what to do. If DISH had an HD-TIVO or if I were even remotely satisfied with my Comcast HD DVR I would quickly cancel. But there is no competing product, I have lived with the plain "DVR" all summer and it is crap.
Any suggestions with coordinating this amongst a circus of buffoons would be appreciated.
On 10/20/05 I received full approval from the condo board. At that point I placed a call in to DirecTV to actually order the equipment. They seem to 'suddenly' have no record of the offer that was extended to me easily through the past several months and refuse to honor it. After spending roughly and hour and a half on hold, being transferred, I did finally reach someone who agreed to offer me the equipment at the previously agreed-to arrangement, so I placed the order.
On the morning of 10/28/05 I received a phone call from the technician in the truck, asking me how to get to my condo. He was over two hours away in the wrong city. DirecTV had sent my equipment to the correct address but the wrong city, despite my repeated updates to them on the phone of my new address. Looks like someone forgot to update the zipcode. The technician said that he would call back to his dispatch center and inform them that they would have to reschedule.
About a half an hour later, I get a phone call telling me that a technician would visit me by 12:05pm. This confuses me, as I receive another phone call asking me when I would like to reschedule. What ensues at that point is three hours of mass confusion. While I was calling DirecTV directly, I had 2 technicians in two different trucks, two dispatch centers, and DirecTV all calling me. What I did not realize - and what no one else seemed to realize, was that my order had been split into 2 - a "mover's connection" and a "HD DVR". One went to the correct city and one went to the wrong city. After about 3 hours of calls, being on hold, taking 2 calls at once, I finally reschedule for 10/29.
The morning of 10/29 a technician arrives with all my equipment. He refuses to do the install, stating a litany of reasons. The 40 foot latter wasn't long enough (even though I had rooftop access through my neighbor upstair's condo), I didn't have my approval letter in hand (which I could have gotten by waking up the board president who has cancer and is terminally ill but whom I did not want to wake up until I had received confirmation that the technician was going to perform the install), the install was a 2-person job, he wasn't sure how I was going to get support after the install, he needed a wide space to the sky and wasn't sure that I had it, there was no prior DirecTV install, etc, etc etc. I was happy to see him leave.
So I then had a reschedule for Friday 11/04 between 1-5pm. I got permission to leave work early. I inconvenienced my neighbor who skipped class so that I could have roof access. I cancelled my weekly visit with my elderly parents...all for my DirecTV install that I've been waiting for all summer.
At 12:05 pm I receive a phone call from the "local office" saying that they would have to reschedule for Monday since they did not have my equipment. The woman on the phone is absolutely clueless about any of my other struggles, and refuses to help me. So I call into DirecTV where I am presented with a litany of "I'm just looking at what I see on the screen and there is nothing that I can do" type responses. I finally get to a supervisor who agrees to help. I will identify her as Amy but that is not her real name. I finally get to Amy and explain my frustration to her. After about an hour of negotiation she calls me to tell me that the technician will arrive to install my unit. She does good followup with me. I receive a call from a technician saying that he has the HD Tivo but not the "regular Tivo" that was also promised to me by DirecTV. I tell him I don't really care about that unit because I do not have a TV for it, but just to come out and install the HD Tivo. They get to me by about 4pm. At this point Amy has gone home. She has called me several times and the local office in order to make sure that the technicians arrive but her shift is off at 4pm.
When the technicians arrive at 4pm, they tell me that they cannot do the install because the paperwork says "upgrade" and I am a new install. If DirecTV changes the paperwork, they tell me, even verbally over the phone, they will proceed. Once again I am stymied by a DirecTV representative who tells us that my upgrade was scheduled for Saturday but that my "Mover's Connection" is scheduled for Monday, when I won't even be home. At this point we beg her to change the "Mover's connection" to Saturday since the employees were there and ready to do the install. She refuses. We ask to speak to a supervisor, and thirty minutes into the "hold queue" it's getting too dark to do the install so the technicians leave without doing a thing. The technician did tell me that the install itself would be an easy one-hour job and he had no idea why the previous tech was so obstinate.
I am so angry and frustrated I don't know what to do. If DISH had an HD-TIVO or if I were even remotely satisfied with my Comcast HD DVR I would quickly cancel. But there is no competing product, I have lived with the plain "DVR" all summer and it is crap.
Any suggestions with coordinating this amongst a circus of buffoons would be appreciated.
