what was he thinking?

[gpollock87]

my new customer free premium channels were supposed to be cancelled on 12/28. but, i forgot and just called earlier today. the csr named john told me i would be charged 2 days for each premium. i said ok thats fine because i forgot to call. john told me he had an offer for me for the inconvience. i said not your fault. but, he insisted on hbo free for 3 months. i said ok thats fine add it. i noticed after i cancelled them i still had all the premiums. i checked my online account and i see recent activity of $50.99 for all the premiums. i called back and it took forever to finally get them all cancelled.

 

[Jimbo]

my new customer free premium channels were supposed to be cancelled on 12/28. but, i forgot and just called earlier today. the csr named john told me i would be charged 2 days for each premium. i said ok thats fine because i forgot to call. john told me he had an offer for me for the inconvience. i said not your fault. but, he insisted on hbo free for 3 months. i said ok thats fine add it. i noticed after i cancelled them i still had all the premiums. i checked my online account and i see recent activity of $50.99 for all the premiums. i called back and it took forever to finally get them all cancelled.

All TV providers do this .... you want to make sure you call in to cancel after the free period is over, most are counting on the sub to forget.

 

[gpollock87]

All TV providers do this .... you want to make sure you call in to cancel after the free period is over, most are counting on the sub to forget.

i know. he kept them all live and added 50.99 to my account after i told him to cancel them this morning. i didn't mind the charge for 2 days,thats my fault. but he shouldn't have charged me for them after he was told to cancel them

 

[Jimbo]

i know. he kept them all live and added 50.99 to my account after i told him to cancel them this morning. i didn't mind the charge for 2 days,thats my fault. but he shouldn't have charged me for them after he was told to cancel them

Your right ...
That and they are also pro rated.

 

[Mr Tony]

Thats why I always put it on the calendar (or phone) a day or two before to call and cancel

 

[Will94]

I was really looking forward to having the premium channels free for three months (switched to Dish on 11/30). I have a 7 yo and have missed a lot of promising movies since he's been around.

I've been terribly disappointed to find out that Starz has stopped showing films in their proper aspect since whenever the last time I watched them was. AFAIK, HBO and Cinemax have always shown everything at 16:9. Only Showtime/TMC shows things correctly, but they've apparently lost a large portion of their newer film catalogue to Epix, and that wasn't included in my free preview.

EDIT: Oh, and I just put it on my calender to call and cancel on 2/29!

 

[bobvick]

With Dish, at your mydish.com account, you can set them not to auto renew if you have freebies or reduced price.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Just love it when the reps from HBO, Showtime or Starz visits our office and tries to push the value of the movie channels.

Says we should not advise our customers to call and cancel them or set them not to auto renew.

IMHO, they are over priced to begin with. The original series provides some value, but I rarely if ever watch any of the premium programming.

 

[Mr Tony]

even when they had freeviews the programming was just repeated

 

[dishrich]

IMHO, they are over priced to begin with. The original series provides some value, but I rarely if ever watch any of the premium programming.

Agree with you on all of them, but $10/month for HBO is not too bad...it's cheaper than their streaming service & I can handle this better than even 1/2 price deals on the other premiums. DISH is still advertising this on their local commercial drop-ins on the cable channels; this is supposed to be an on-going price for anyone signing up for this; as long as you do not cancel HBO, you won't loose this promo. (yea, I know we'll have to see what happens on the next price increase, but at least for now, I can do this)

even when they had freeviews the programming was just repeated

True, but even so, I'm surprised at the number of movies I haven't seen yet, that I DVR during those freeviews. Since they can be watched anytime, I just move them to an external HDD & save them to watch another time.

 

[pattykay]

Thats why I always put it on the calendar (or phone) a day or two before to call and cancel

The problem with that, with Directv, is that if it is only free for one month (Fox Soccer Plus, for example) and you drop it less than a month after you added it, Directv charges you a Premium Service Disconnect Fee of $10 plus sales tax, for something that was supposed to be free. If you added it right after your bill was issued (which is usually when the Fox Soccer Plus promo shows up on my online account) this makes it hard to cancel it before the next bill is issued to avoid being charged for it. You end up getting charged something either way. I have been charged that $10 fee twice for that promo, and each time I called Directv to complain and got them to apply a credit to offset the fee, but it is still a hassle.

 

[Jimbo]

The problem with that, with Directv, is that if it is only free for one month (Fox Soccer Plus, for example) and you drop it less than a month after you added it, Directv charges you a Premium Service Disconnect Fee of $10 plus sales tax, for something that was supposed to be free. If you added it right after your bill was issued (which is usually when the Fox Soccer Plus promo shows up on my online account) this makes it hard to cancel it before the next bill is issued to avoid being charged for it. You end up getting charged something either way. I have been charged that $10 fee twice for that promo, and each time I called Directv to complain and got them to apply a credit to offset the fee, but it is still a hassle.

I believe the $10 fee is only for the first month, so if you get it free for the 1st month, cancel it the day after the promo expires, at that point it's pro rated, not a monthly charge.

They started the $10 thing because people would turn on a Premium channel for 1 show date and turn it off the next day.

 

[Mr Tony]

The problem with that, with Directv, is that if it is only free for one month (Fox Soccer Plus, for example) and you drop it less than a month after you added it, Directv charges you a Premium Service Disconnect Fee of $10 plus sales tax, for something that was supposed to be free. If you added it right after your bill was issued (which is usually when the Fox Soccer Plus promo shows up on my online account) this makes it hard to cancel it before the next bill is issued to avoid being charged for it. You end up getting charged something either way. I have been charged that $10 fee twice for that promo, and each time I called Directv to complain and got them to apply a credit to offset the fee, but it is still a hassle.

I was referring to the 3 months promos...not the 1 month ones

 

[dishcomm]

All TV providers do this .... you want to make sure you call in to cancel after the free period is over, most are counting on the sub to forget.

It's referred to as "negative response".....

 

[pattykay]

I was referring to the 3 months promos...not the 1 month ones

Okay, your earlier post wasn't exactly clear about that:

Thats why I always put it on the calendar (or phone) a day or two before to call and cancel

In any event, I just wanted to make sure that people reading this thread are aware of that fee so that they don't cancel the one-month promos too early. In my opinion, that fee should not apply to freebies in the first place. If Directv has already agreed to give it to you for free, why should they care when you cancel it?

In my case, my billing cycle is the 28th through the 27th, and my bill is issued on the 29th. So, I log into my Directv account on the 30th to read my bill each month, and that is when I see the Fox Soccer Plus offer when it is available, so I added it that day. (October 30) Since October is a 31-day month, and the fee only applies if you drop it in the first 30 days, I could have dropped Fox Soccer Plus on November 29th without any penalty. However, that is the same day of the month that my bill is issued, and I did not want to see a charge for Fox Soccer Plus on my bill, so I did an online chat on November 27th to ask about removing Fox Soccer Plus. The chat agent did not mention the $10 fee, and he assured me that it would be removed and that I would not be charged anything for it. Fox Soccer Plus was not removed from my account that day, so the agent must have delayed the removal so that it wouldn't be removed until the following morning. (November 28) However, that was still one day too early, so of course I got charged the $10 fee. I suppose I could have waited until the 28th to do the online chat, but then Fox Soccer Plus probably would have been removed right away, so I couldn't win either way. That is what really gets to me, since it seems like the agent was trying to make sure I got charged the fee even though I specified that I did not want to be charged. Like I said, this was the second time I have been charged that fee for this promo, so I knew what to expect going into the chat. I chatted to drop Fox Soccer Plus two days early to give plenty of time for the fee to be charged, and for me to call Directv to get the fee reversed, before my bill was issued. The fact that Directv charges this fee even if you only drop the package a few hours early (which is what happened the first time I got this promo) and that Directv does not charge a fee if you drop the three-month promos a day early, just shows how arbitrary the fee is.

 

[Jimbo]

Okay, your earlier post wasn't exactly clear about that:

In any event, I just wanted to make sure that people reading this thread are aware of that fee so that they don't cancel the one-month promos too early. In my opinion, that fee should not apply to freebies in the first place. If Directv has already agreed to give it to you for free, why should they care when you cancel it?

In my case, my billing cycle is the 28th through the 27th, and my bill is issued on the 29th. So, I log into my Directv account on the 30th to read my bill each month, and that is when I see the Fox Soccer Plus offer when it is available, so I added it that day. (October 30) Since October is a 31-day month, and the fee only applies if you drop it in the first 30 days, I could have dropped Fox Soccer Plus on November 29th without any penalty. However, that is the same day of the month that my bill is issued, and I did not want to see a charge for Fox Soccer Plus on my bill, so I did an online chat on November 27th to ask about removing Fox Soccer Plus. The chat agent did not mention the $10 fee, and he assured me that it would be removed and that I would not be charged anything for it. Fox Soccer Plus was not removed from my account that day, so the agent must have delayed the removal so that it wouldn't be removed until the following morning. (November 28) However, that was still one day too early, so of course I got charged the $10 fee. I suppose I could have waited until the 28th to do the online chat, but then Fox Soccer Plus probably would have been removed right away, so I couldn't win either way. That is what really gets to me, since it seems like the agent was trying to make sure I got charged the fee even though I specified that I did not want to be charged. Like I said, this was the second time I have been charged that fee for this promo, so I knew what to expect going into the chat. I chatted to drop Fox Soccer Plus two days early to give plenty of time for the fee to be charged, and for me to call Directv to get the fee reversed, before my bill was issued. The fact that Directv charges this fee even if you only drop the package a few hours early (which is what happened the first time I got this promo) and that Directv does not charge a fee if you drop the three-month promos a day early, just shows how arbitrary the fee is.

Normally, if you call in and address this they will remove the fee.
That said, if you do it on a regular basis, I can see them not dropping it. (Last part not directed to you, just general info)

 

[pattykay]

Normally, if you call in and address this they will remove the fee.

Right. My point was that Directv should not charge this fee for freebies in the first place. Heck, if Directv would simply shorten the window to 28 days instead of 30 days, that would help in my case.