Direct TV-Florida Misleading,Deceptive, Liars, Scam Artisit, Robbers Nationwide Nationwide
I purchased service with direct tv through Bellsouth in November 2006. The Bellsouth (AT&T) Triple Play. Phone Internet and Direct TV for 99.00 per month (yeah right). I had a 1 yr obligation . In April of 2008 (well after my year obligation) I had called to pay my bill and told them one of my 3 boxes were not working. He said fine I will send you another with a box to send the non working one back. Never once did this person say that by sending me a replacement box that it would start a 18 month new commitment from that date. Well in May 2008 I called to pay my bill and the person was rude and I had forgotten to send the broken box back and I paid my bill but they said I had to pay for the box before they would cut my service back on. I told them the box would be in the mail in the morning to please cut my service back on He rudely said NO. I told him to send enough boxes for me to send them all back. Well I am a Busy Person so 1 month later ( I had sent the broken box back by this time) I look on my account with them expecting to see a 0.00 Balance and I see a 365.00 early cancellation fee. I called and raised heck-found out that they still had not canceled the account . So I talked to a Manager, He said He would take the 365.00 off because I had well met my 1yr commitment and he sent out boxes to send all of the receivers back. Now 4 weeks later I am preparing to send all the receivers back and look on my account and there is a 525.00 balance (which 165 is for the 3 receivers) I call again and a girl starts to tell me that I did cancel early because when I received my replacement box that it started my commitment all over for 18 months. What kind of Bull is this.
She argued for 30 minutes with me and would not let me talk to a manager. She said this is stated in the fine print of the agreement (Bull). This is the craziest thing I have ever heard of, and something needs to be done about these people robbing the public. I see this is one of many complaints against Direct TV. Any Advice? Please Help.
Donna
Middleburg, Florida
U.S.A.
1 Updates & Rebuttals
Constance
Virginia Beach,Virginia,
U.S.A.
Us too...
#2Consumer Comment
Thu, July 24, 2008
We had a good run-in with this company ourselves. We are over on the other side of the state, near Tampa. We are a military family. We signed up for this plan when we found out that we were getting transferred to FL. We were previously with Verizon.
We also fell for this bait of the $99.00 Triple Play deal. How about more like $199.00? First you got to love Bellsouth/AT&T's non-disclosure of $46.00 just to initiate your service, then they have billing service fees, then you have the 10 installments of $10.00 for your DSL equipment, your phone service is $31.00 monthly, your internet is another $42.95, and well let's just say this your Direct TV is certainly not $16.00 which would total up to $99.95. Each and every Direct TV bill I had was over $70.00 + taxes, and I had no premium stations, no DVR box, nothing just the basic channels of which most were for home shopping and ten Disney/Kids/Cartoon Channels. Tired of being robbed blind, and tired of not being able to change a billing date ( without paying them $65.00 for the privilege of doing so...they would call us as a "courtesy call" to remind us on the 30th of the month that our bill was due yesterday, and that I would always tell them "and you will get your money on the first because that is when the bank sends your payment."
What scum. Oh, and after being sick of all this, we decided to call up the competition...the cable company... $125.00 a month...includes all taxes ( won't ever go up with out written notification) Cable internet ( they provide you the modem free of charge), Digital Cable with a ton of stations, DVR box so you can record anything you'd like to play back, HBO, and home telephone service with all kinds of nifty features like caller ID and Call waiting ( that you have to pay for separately with Bellsouth). We immediately decided to change...then we ran into a little problem with the old provider...
Our cable company said that we could keep our phone number if we had wished to do so, only Bell South would not release it to them. It is called they sent me what would be my final bill after I had asked for the service to be shut off. I only had service for half a month. They wanted me to pay the bill in full ( until the middle of the following month) as well as to continue to pay for their leased internet equipment until I had paid it in full and was stuck with it. Come to find out BellSouth charges you TWICE what the router for your DSL costs to buy at Circuit City or Best Buy, had I known that, I would have went out and bought it from the get go, instead of paying $100 for a used one through them. I told them that I would pay them when they sent me and amended bill. My amended bill was $12 less than the $108.00 and change bill they sent me to begin with...got to make sure that you pay all those fees now!
Direct TV was the worst to deal with. I read the paperwork that the installer had given us. When he came to install he was very nice to us and we had no problems. My husband does similar type work with the military and was knowledgeable about what the installation tech was doing. He had us sign some paperwork stating everything was installed as we had expected it to be and gave us copies. It wasn't until we were leaving Direct TV service did they inform us that we were obligated to 18 months of service...their representative said it was because their equipment is so expensive. My husband begged to differ and said that they don't ask for any part of the dish back anymore and the boxes...they are junk without the cards and they change the boxes ever 2 years. That if we decide that we no longer want their service that they will charge us for 18 months of service dating back to October of last year....blah, blah, blah...and then the representative (just like T-Mobile did a few months back,) and why I will never pay any company like this in any form other than a money order any longer...this woman had the nerve to tell me "we have your bank account numbers and we will then just draft it from your account" We immediately had the bank account numbers changed and my husband notified his command about it.
Some lovely people over at his command were nice enough to send these people a letter and that the military can let their personnel know to boycott certain companies/establishments because they like ripping people off, matter of fact they are the ones who helped get the predatory lending act passed.
We will never do business with either of these companies ever again.