Questions in Ike's aftermath

[Sancho]

I live on the outer edges of Houston, and even though my house didn't sustain any structrual damage, I have been without power for a week and have been told it could be another 3 weeks before they are available to repair electrical lines in my area. I have 2 questions:

1. If my receivers lose their activation after 30 days with no signal, and my power is out that long, what will I have to do to get reconnected? Will there be a charge for this?

2. I know I'm still being billed for my service, but since I'm not able to watch due to the power outage, will it be possible to get a credit while i'm unable to use my service? Can they tell that there has been no activity on my receivers in the time that I've been without power, or does that even matter?

I know in the whole scheme of things my D* monthly bill is a drop in the bucket, but with the other expenses I'm having to incur as a result of my power being out (no cooking at home, no food storage, no laundry, etc) I'm looking for ways to trim some costs in the short term until I get things back in order.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

 

[goober22]

1: your receivers may go into an "unauthorized status" due to the length (although without power, they won't be trying to connect!) but a call to D* should correct it - no charge.

2: You should be able to call D* and have the account put "on hold" due to the disaster. It should be frozen until you call back and have it re-activated once power is restored.

 

[da_smush]

Call them right away to get your account put on hold until you can start watching again.

 

[Sancho]

Thanks for the advice.

I called last week to inform them of the outage. They noted my account and told me to call back once power was restored. The CSR said she didn't want to hold or suspend my account since it was on a day-to-day basis.

My power was restored on Sunday (hooray for me!!!) and I called D* this morning to inform them that I had my service restored on the 21st. They issued me a credit for the time I was unable to use my service- 8 days.

I have to say that both CSRs were extremely helpful and friendly in my transaction. I've only been with D* since May after years of substandard service with various cable companies, but I have been VERY impressed with D* every time I've had a need to call. As far as I'm concerned, D* has the best customer service of any major company I deal with and I recommend D* to everyone I can. I'm sure there are some bad CSRs out there, but I haven't run across one yet. Needless to say, I'm a HUGE fan of D* and plan on being a customer for a long time to come.

 

[neomoon]

I our house was hit by the eye of the hurricane and while thankfully no major damage occurred to our house my DirecTv service was unavailable (searching for satellite) when the power came back up.

The boxes show a searching for satellite signal and I'm assuming it's just misaligned, unfortunately I own a two story house and the satellite dish was placed in a very weird position so I am unable to access it safely. I've called DirecTv and they have told me the earliest they can schedule a service call will be in DECEMBER.

I've spoken to three different agents on three different days and they all tell me this is the earliest day I can schedule the appointment. To make matters even worse I called DirecTv the day before the storm him and talked to a service agent to schedule an appointment ahead of time. Dispite having dates available for the end of September the agent refused to schedule the appointment for me because there was no reason to. I explained to them a hurricane was about to hit my house and that I would PROBABLY be needing someone to come out after the storm and dispite understanding the reason I was being proactive still refused to schedule the appointment.

I'm pulling my hair out over here!

 

[jtwex]

, unfortunately I own a two story house and the satellite dish was placed in a very weird position so I am unable to access it safely.

No doubt all hell is breaking out down there with many local contractors doing high priority items first. Your only bet is the local yellow pages & try to pay a local satellite company to come by & realign your dish. You can also try & locate a DTV truck (Starbucks, Dennys, etc..) & offer cash for a fast alignment.

Your only option before hand would have been to lie to DTV & tell them it wasn't working before the storm; I bet they still would have pushed you back a month even with a September appointment. Just a terrible situation down there.

 

[neomoon]

Thx for the advice

No doubt all hell is breaking out down there with many local contractors doing high priority items first. Your only bet is the local yellow pages & try to pay a local satellite company to come by & realign your dish. You can also try & locate a DTV truck (Starbucks, Dennys, etc..) & offer cash for a fast alignment.

Your only option before hand would have been to lie to DTV & tell them it wasn't working before the storm; I bet they still would have pushed you back a month even with a September appointment. Just a terrible situation down there.

What would be considered a high priority? I would think it would be "first come, first serve" if someone had their dish lost in the storm I could just as easily say the same thing.

Either way after each visit from the CSR I get this pre-recorded automated message from DirecTv saying they are aware of the situation and will be having techs call me directly to schedule an appointment but it's been about 3 weeks now and still no call from the local company. I have since cancelled my service and am to the point of just switching to fiber if it wasn't for my dependency on HD.

 

[jtwex]

What would be considered a high priority? I would think it would be "first come, first serve" if someone had their dish lost in the storm I could just as easily say the same thing.

Either way after each visit from the CSR I get this pre-recorded automated message from DirecTv saying they are aware of the situation and will be having techs call me directly to schedule an appointment but it's been about 3 weeks now and still no call from the local company. I have since cancelled my service and am to the point of just switching to fiber if it wasn't for my dependency on HD.

I'm not suggesting yours is a low priority 'fix' but many of these contractors are probably involved in some of the higher priority (& higher paying) areas of the hurricanes devastation. Not only is it a high turnover field but their are lots of opportunities down there paying more than satellite alignment. What kind of appointment did you get for your fiber install? Did you try contacting a local satellite/home entertainment company?

 

[neomoon]

I'm not suggesting yours is a low priority 'fix' but many of these contractors are probably involved in some of the higher priority (& higher paying) areas of the hurricanes devastation. Not only is it a high turnover field but their are lots of opportunities down there paying more than satellite alignment. What kind of appointment did you get for your fiber install? Did you try contacting a local satellite/home entertainment company?

I haven't called to set up the fiber yet, although I'm sure I could get fairly quick turnaround. My buddies and I called DirecTv during dinner last night and pretended to be setting up new service (Ultimate Package: Sunday Ticket, SuperFan, HD-DVR) and the lady promised install by Sunday. He was laughing so hard at me he had to hang up before I got a chance to get on the phone with her.