I read on here about a 65 year old lady who felt deceived and lied to by SmartCircle and DirecTV at a Best Buy. Her story rang so similar to the way I felt deceived at a Sam's Club that I wanted to share my story.
This elderly lady should not feel bad about being gullible to their tricks. I am a college educated, successful, professional and only after going home and thoroughly reading the fine print in the documentation I was given, doing further research, and contacting my cable company, did I realize how I was deceived during their sales pitch.
Here is a list of how I was deceived:
1) The contractors working for SmartCircle wear DirectTV apparel, have displays that show DirectTV prominently, and use paperwork to sign you up that say DirecTV. There is not one piece of paper, shred of evidence, or any verbal or written disclosure that you are talking to a contractor from SmartCircle. You are purposely led to believe that you are speaking with someone from DirecTV.
2) When you raise concerns or objections to their sales pitch, they will tell you exacty what you want to hear to get you to stay on board. Here are some of the untruths I was told:
a) After signing up for DirecTV, you still need your cable company for your high speed Internet. I raised this as a concern with respect to their claims that my total pricing would actually be lower after switching. The SmartCircle rep assured me, as if she had intimate knowledge of the cable company's policies, that I could look at my cable bill and take off the TV part of the bill and my Internet bill would be the remainder. Well, that's not the way it works. When you have cable and internet on one bill, you generally get a bundle rate. When you unbundle, your Internet Only rate will likely be higher than you are currently paying as a bundle. In my case the unbundled rate was going to be about $30/mo more than the DirectTV, uh I mean SmartCircle rep assured me it would be.
b) All the details and assurances they give you of your cost being lower are based on the initial 12 month introductory price, and even more some of the savings are based on 90 day limited trial items being included such as HBO and other premium channels. In actuality, cost averaging over two years my cost would have been almost $30/mo more in the end. The reality was that it would have come to the same price during the first year and would have been $60/mo MORE during the second year. By the time most people figure out the exorbitant pricing they're stuck with, you're already stuck in a 2 year contract and can't get out of it.
c) That leads me to something else she told me. I told her I didn't like the idea of signing a two year contract. This is when she said something to the effect of -- "Well, I'm not supposed to tell you this, but all you have to do to get out of your contract is tell them that your TV keeps going out. They give you a 99% uptime guarantee and if you say you're not getting 99% uptime, they'll let you out of the contract." I beg to differ on a couple of points. First, she's saying "Lie to DirecTV and you can get out of your contract". Second, the 99% uptime doesn't mean that YOUR TV will be up 99% of the time. There's plenty of disclaimer language in the DirecTV contract that says their 99% uptime doesn't include issues like weather or other things outside their control. You're not getting out of your contract by telling them that a storm caused your TV to go out for an hour - sorry, but that's just not true.
d) I told her I didn't like that my pricing was going to go up after 1 year and that I was stuck in a 2 year contract. She went so far as to tell me to just call DirecTV after a year and tell them that I didn't want my pricing to go up and that they would be accommodating and extend the introductory pricng for another year. And if they wouldn't play ball, just to use the 99% uptime guarantee to get out of the contract. Let's think about this for a second... You're stuck in a 2 year contract. They're not just going to extend the introductory pricing out of the kindness of their heart when they have you in a 2 year contract. Sorry, not going to happen. Another lie.
e) They offered introductory freebies such as HBO, Showtime, TMC, etc and the NFL Ticket for the current season. She told me that I had to call DirecTV to KEEP them going if I wanted to or they would automatically be cancelled after their introductory period was up. In the case of the premium channels that was 90 days. In the case of the NFL Ticket it was one free season. Maybe she was misinformed or maybe this was another form of deception, but the reality is that you have to call DirecTV to cancel them prior to the expiration of the introductory period or they automatically continue and bill you for them. In the case of the NFL ticket, that would have been a one time fee of something like $400 next season. Better not forget to cancel that so-called freebie!
At this point, I've been convinced enough through deception to go ahead and sign up. They take my credit card for a $20 deposit and sign me up. I pushed off the installation date for a couple of weeks to give me time to verify everything I had been told. Upon reading the DirecTV contracts and speaking with my cable company I realized just how inaccurate the information was that I was told by the Smart Circle sales person.
I called DirecTV corporate to cancel. After 15 minutes or more of them trying to convince me to stay, they finally relented and said they were going to cancel my subscription and get a refund of the $20. I hung up thinking this was over.
Three weeks later, after receiving numerous voicemails trying to set up installation appointments even after I cancelled and having NOT received my $20 back, I called DirecTV back to straighten this out. Only on my second call did I find out who Smart Circle was. The second customer service representative said that she could cancel the account but that I had to talk to Smart Circle to get my $20 refund.
Upon calling Smart Circle they were polite and helpful and promptly refunded my money, but even in light of their politeness and prompt refund, I really feel that I was deceived through the entire process, told misleading information, untruths, and was even told to lie to DirecTV if I wanted out of my contract at any point in the future. Fortunately, I caught it before signing a 2 year contract. I'm sure there are many, many people who get caught by these deceptive sales tactics and end up stuck in two year contracts with no recourse becase, after all, the lies and deceit are all verbal, but the contract is in writing, and that's what you're stuck with in the end.
I will never, ever, sign up for DirecTV after this experience.
A
Iowa,#2UPDATE Employee
Sat, January 02, 2016
There are many times people will talk to someone and then not fully remember what was said during the conversation. It is like in school as kids and you would play telephone with 10 students, by the time the message got to the 10th student it was completely different or abbreviated. This is the situation with issues customers have when buying anything in the retail world. There is fault on employees who dont know all the correct information and also relay the wrong information cause they didnt fully understand when they were being trained.
Now to your issue: the employee was talking you through the whole sale and process and what can be done. When a person gives a customer a comment as far as what their internet will be with a company, that is all on they company who they have that service through. You say this person insured them it was going to be only so much, but they just didnt go on to tell you that this is a national average and also when you cancel a service with a company it is all on that sales person with that company if they want to help you or hurt you.
Also with this when you contact a company and say i want to cancel a service with you, cause i want to get service with someone else. That company will do almost anything to keep you happy, drop your rates for a little, tell you that the other company cant do those sort of deals, and try to keep you around so they make money off of you. Now does a person doing sales for Directv make money from that sale yes, but we are just showing you a service to help you decide if you want to change or not.
The biggest thing you dont understand is that, when you are on the phone and completing a sale with smartcirle. Is that every point is touch, that this is a 2-year agreement, you will recieve premium channels for so many months and then auto billed for it after that time if you dont cancel, same with NFL sunday ticket, then ask you if it is fine to do a credit check, then go over what you will be paying for your service. The fault lies with yourself on not paying attention when on the call. Everything is clearly laid out and also if you have concerns with what you may pay then call up your current provider and ask i was thinking of cancelling my tv service cause i dont use it, what would my bill be then since i am just keeping my internet. Simple question and then at that point you know, and you can then go and sign up for Directv or not. If your upset cause you made a decision your not happy with then take fault, no reason to find blame in the person that sold you the product. Thats like buying a tv from somewhere and it is not working properly and yell at that person cause they sold you a tv that doesnt work right, it was brand new out of the box, they knew about a product and told you about it and you bought it, and now you have to take ownership of it.
travelrider
Florida,#3Author of original report
Fri, February 07, 2014
In your rebuttal to my initial report you said:
"DirecTV, like any other business, will do anything to make money, and just like, as Smart Circle brags, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut and a number of major league sports franchises, they have enlisted Smart Circle to that end. They receive their increased business as a result and can't concern themselves too much with what Smart Circle does to accomplish that result."
Thereinlies the problem and the reason I assign some of the blame to DirecTV. I also assign some of the blame to Sam's Club, Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Costco, and anyone else who allows these sheisters to operate in their facilities or on their behalf. I also blame DirecTV for allowing SmartCircle reps to wear DirecTV apparel without the SmartCircle logo also appearing.
I did not mean to imply that my bad experience was entirely DirecTV's fault. Quite the contrary - most of the fault lies with SmartCircle's deceptive practices, but by contracting with SmartCircle, these other companies share in the responsibility for the unscrupulous actions of this contracted sales force. Maybe this is an extreme example, but if you hire a hit man, you are just as responsible for the murder as the guy who pulled the trigger. In this case, hiring a company known for deceptive practices should make these companies culpable for the actions of SmartCircle.
#4UPDATE EX-employee responds
Fri, February 07, 2014
I was a customer of DirecTV for three years and can give you plenty of other reasons to stay away from them. But it would be fairer for you not to fault them for your experience with a Smart Circle rep.
I hope that as you have found Ripoff Report you have taken the time to search for other complaints about Smart Circle. They have previously been named Wholesale Warehousing Industries, DS-Max, Quantum and NCI. You will find a wealth of information just on Ripoff Report if you search these other names as well.
DirecTV, like any other business, will do anything to make money, and just like, as Smart Circle brags, Wal-Mart, Pizza Hut and a number of major league sports franchises, they have enlisted Smart Circle to that end. They receive their increased business as a result and can't concern themselves too much with what Smart Circle does to accomplish that result.
That girl you talked to on that day was one of Smart Circle's field reps. She was paid on a strict commission basis and fully personally responsible for all expenses she incurred -- gas for driving out to that store, etc. -- and likely barely generating income or possibly even falling into debt. She wanted the commission that your contracting would have generated and was willing to do just about anything to get that sale. They spend an hour or so each morning in a field office practicing on each other, likely voicing the exact concerns you raised, and having ready the answers that you heard. There are SOME standards on what they are allowed to say but not as many as you think. The manager of that office was also paid strictly commission based on what his reps sold and literally couldn't afford to regulate them that much. So I can't be sure how much of what you were told was stuff she was encouraged to say, versus her own decision to cross the line.
I worked in Smart Circle for nearly two years some time ago and back then, they treated their reps exactly the same way but they NEVER ripped off customers. Their deals were all fully legitimate and quite cost-effective. It's disheartening to read stories like yours and seeing that they no longer care at all about customers, but in a way it's also a good thing; that may quite well sound the death knell for this organization.
Thank you for sharing your experience. Hopefully your efforts will yield good fruit.