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  • Report:  #341982

Complaint Review: DirecTV - El Segundo California

Reported By:
- Dayton, Ohio,
Submitted:
Updated:

DirecTV
2230 East Imperial Hwy El Segundo, 90245 California, U.S.A.
Phone:
310-964-5000
Web:
N/A
Tell us has your experience with this business or person been good? What's this?
Last Winter we decided to upgrade to digital service (high def) and also DVR service so we can freeze live TV. Well, that's what we got... frozen TV.

The contractor was too lazy to simply put the new dish on the roof where the old dish had been for the last five years. He said there are too many service calls for people who need the snow and ice scraped off their dishes. But we never had such a request, it's my frozen a** that goes up there and scrapes the ice off with his fingernails after every snow fall.

So, the contractor tries to put the pole in the ground next to a tree giving an ok shot at the southern sky. There was too much gravel underground (left there by the previous messy contractors - aren't they all slobs?) so he moves the pole over 5 feet so it's behind a small tree. Remember, this is December in the MidWest, so there are no leaves on any trees.

We tell him that he's aimed it right through a branch and we'll loose our signal come Spring. He syays there's a 90 day guarantee. We said Spring isn't for 120 days. OK, just call us IF you need it moved,

Duh, 120 days later the leaves were lush and green, and we lost all the digital channels. A week later we lost the analog channels. We called to have it moved back to the roof but DirecTV said it was the contractor's fault, we should call him. Well, we have no idea who he was, it was just some guy in a white van with DirecTV labels on his equipment and cardboard boxes. Fine, so DirecTV offers to call another contractor to move the dish for $50.

So, we ordered cable TV and already had it installed. We're not paying the most recent DirecTV bill, since there was no service. In fact, they owe us for the last two weeks of the last month that we paid in full, which was about $90 a month, so they owe us about $45.

Bullybasher

Dayton, Ohio

U.S.A.


3 Updates & Rebuttals

Friendly Help

Anderson,
South Carolina,
U.S.A.
You were knot happy? What wood you expect if you bark at them?

#2Consumer Comment

Thu, August 14, 2008

Read your DirectTV T&C *very* carefully before you proceed. If you fail to give back *all* of their equipment to them (& fail to keep proof that you did give everything back) they will ding you $450. I do not have DirectTV because their offers always have a lot of mouse print. As someone said about insurance policies, ''The big print giveith and the small print takeith away.''


Bullybasher

Dayton,
Ohio,
U.S.A.
update

#3Author of original report

Thu, August 14, 2008

Resolved! To get results I had to email the president ([email protected]) with a photo of our satellite dish pointed at a tree. A nice woman from DirecTV called to say the contractor was totally out of line. She also said the help-line guy on the phone was out of line when he said DirecTV was not at fault, and we should try to contact the installer, the anonymous contractor. So, she simply wanted us to send back the DVR and another converter box that we had paid about $40 for already, so we didn't quite own it yet because they are worth about $50. They mailed us pre-paid boxes with EPS in them, so that was relatively painless. She made sure we got about $300 back from DirecTV to recoup the $200 we paid for the DVR, the $40 we paid for the converter box, the $45 we paid for half a month's service which we didn't get, and the $150 we paid for installation of the new dish and DVR service last Winter. We almost got our money back, but not quite.


Bullybasher

Dayton,
Ohio,
U.S.A.
A promise to refund the installation charges.

#4Author of original report

Sat, July 05, 2008

After taking a photo of the dish aimed at a leafy green tree and emailing it to the CEO of DirecTV, we got a call from his secretary. They offered to refund the installation costs, plus a bit more to make up for lost service. She would label it an "incorrect installation". They sent empty boxes to us to send them back the $300 digital DVR and an analog box which was almost paid off. We spent $5 a month on it since October, so that's $40 we've paid on it. Well, anyway, I boxed them up to send them back. The fine print INSIDE the empty boxes said to be sure to send the equipment back within 7 days of receiving the empty boxes. Ooops! It was probably a bit more than 7. They said we could be faced with $470 in charges if we waited more than 7 days. Hmmm... I should have just sold the DVR on eBay. We'll see how this goes.

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