DirectTV users: look at your bill closely!

[luvsJack]

My mom has DirectTv and yesterday my mom gets her bill. It has 4 pay per views on it totally over $30. Now my son, his gf and newborn are living with her at the moment. When I first glanced at the bill, I told her before we call lets ask ds if they rented any movies. I didn't think he would without asking but thought maybe he did and planned to pay her when the bill came in.

Then I looked a bit closer and realized these charges were dated February and March!

So, I call the 1-800 number and finally get a person on the phone. He proceeds to tell me that these charges are from Feb and Mar of 2007 !!!!! (she lived alone in 2007) That they were in the receiver she had picked up (it quit working and the service guy switched them out).

I asked him if he was serious. "huh?" "Are you seriously telling me that you are trying to make her pay for movies that were supposedly rented in 2007? Is that seriously what you are telling me?"

He started trying to tell me the procedure for renting pay per views. I told him I did not care how you rent movies, that they could either take the charges off or my next call would be to Dish and they could come get the equipment. He took it off with no problem.

I say all of that to say this: Watch you DirectTV bill. If you do a lot of pay per view, watch the dates by the charges; you may be paying for something you didn't get!!!!

 

[MIGrandma]

Wow! I can't even imagine.

I do look at our bill closely each month, but we never get pay-per-view movies. They charge $4.99 and up per movie, that's ridiculous. I have a Netflix membership, $17.99 per month for as many movies as we can watch. I think DirecTV should lower their pay-per-view movie price.

They gave us a coupon for a "free" movie in July, we never even used it because most of the movies they were offering we had already seen or weren't interested.

 

[luvsJack]

Wow! I can't even imagine.

I do look at our bill closely each month, but we never get pay-per-view movies. They charge $4.99 and up per movie, that's ridiculous. I have a Netflix membership, $17.99 per month for as many movies as we can watch. I think DirecTV should lower their pay-per-view movie price.

They gave us a coupon for a "free" movie in July, we never even used it because most of the movies they were offering we had already seen or weren't interested.

Yep. They sent her that coupon too. We had them put a block on pay per views so that they cannot be bought through the remote. Of course he had to tell me a dozen times that she would only be able to purchase by calling and it would be a $5 service charge per movie. So $9.99 per movie!!!! Yep, like that is going to happen! We can drive a mile and rent a movie for $2 and keep it for 2 days!!!

I told mom that if one more thing happened with her bill, she was switching to Dish!

They are already charging her $5 a month "lease" on equipment she purchased at Best Buy. I already had that argument with them and the girl said "oh, its not a lease. its a charge for service" (actually first she said it was a lease charge and then when I pointed out that mom owns the equipment she said its not a lease) The whole discussion made no sense. So, now after much arguing, they charge her the $5 and then credit the $5, which is why she watches it so close to make sure they do the credit.

 

[Tina]

Given the competition of Netflix and similar online movie services, I'm surprised that Directv hasn't gone with a prescription service yet for PPV. I won't order them because they cost too much. But if they offered an unlimited access subscription for $20 or less, I would consider it.

The last time I ordered a movie on PPV, I had to call to argue it off of my bill. I purchased a movie labeled as an All-Day Ticket around 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Just after the movie started, a heavy storm rolled in and I lost signal for about 20 minutes. I thought, "No problem. I'll just come back in an hour and catch the next showing." Nope. It was the last showing of the day on that channel. How does that make my purchase an All Day Ticket? It was available on other channels, but I'd have to buy it again. It was ridiculous.

So I had to call and argue with a guy who really didn't speak English very well. When I told him what had happened and asked to be credited so I could purchase on another channel, he tried to transfer me to Tech Support to resolve the signal issue. I told him, "I've already resolved THAT issue, it stopped raining!" So then he tried to end the call by thanking me for my business and asking if there's anything else he can assist me with? He spoke English, but he obviously didn't understand it. I was on the phone for nearly 30 minutes before we finally resolved the issue and I was able to order on another channel.

One additional item I've noticed on Directv PPV, that I didn't notice right away. All of the movies listed first on the guide are in HD - which they charge $5.99 for. Standard definition movies are only $4.99. That's a complete scam, IMHO.

But aside from PPV, I've been a happy Directv customer for over 12 years.

 

[luvsJack]

Given the competition of Netflix and similar online movie services, I'm surprised that Directv hasn't gone with a prescription service yet for PPV. I won't order them because they cost too much. But if they offered an unlimited access prescription for $20 or less, I would consider it.

The last time I ordered a movie on PPV, I had to call to argue it off of my bill. I purchased a movie labeled as an All-Day Ticket around 2pm on a Saturday afternoon. Just after the movie started, a heavy storm rolled in and I lost signal for about 20 minutes. I thought, "No problem. I'll just come back in an hour and catch the next showing." Nope. It was the last showing of the day on that channel. How does that make my purchase an All Day Ticket? It was available on other channels, but I'd have to buy it again. It was ridiculous.

So I had to call and argue with a guy who really didn't speak English very well. When I told him what had happened and asked to be credited so I could purchase on another channel, he tried to transfer me to Tech Support to resolve the signal issue. I told him, "I've already resolved THAT issue, it stopped raining!" So then he tried to end the call by thanking me for my business and asking if there's anything else he can assist me with? He spoke English, but he obviously didn't understand it. I was on the phone for nearly 30 minutes before we finally resolved the issue and I was able to order on another channel.

One additional item I've noticed on Directv PPV, that I didn't notice right away. All of the movies listed first on the guide are in HD - which they charge $5.99 for. Standard definition movies are only $4.99. That's a complete scam, IMHO.

But aside from PPV, I've been a happy Directv customer for over 12 years.

On Dish "all day" normally means from midnight to midnight or something similar. There may be some that aren't that way, but we have never come across them. We rarely purchase a ppv though, only if it's a rainy Sunday and dd and I see that something is on we really want to see.

I guess they route their calls through India? I have noticed that most of the people I have spoken with have an Indian accent and some do not understand English very well.

They have always been willing to fix the questionable charges with not too much problem. Don't have to speak to a supervisor or anything. I just wonder how many people are paying for something like supposed 2 year old ppv's without question.

 

[WhatATreat]

Ugh, my parents had the same thing happen and Directv was really nasty about it. They would not remove the charges. When my parents threatened to go with another service they were told if they did that they would be charged a huge cancellation fee on top of everything else (they had recently upgraded a receiver which apparently started the 2 year contract over again). They are going to switch as soon as they can.

 

[Chuck S]

After reading this thread, I'm glad I have cable instead of satellite. Of course, cable is the only way I could get decent internet service out in the boonies...no DSL, and we'll probably never get fiber optic.

 

[Tina]

After reading this thread, I'm glad I have cable instead of satellite. Of course, cable is the only way I could get decent internet service out in the boonies...no DSL, and we'll probably never get fiber optic.

Unfortunately, I live in a subdivison that has the cable/internet bundled into our HOA until 2022 (not kidding!). This cable company is delivering service reminiscent of the original cable service from the early 1980's. We have few channels, no HD, one PPV station, no DVRs, poor reception, etc. After one month of that, I went to Directv. The good news is that our contract is being sold to RCN. I know they are not the best company out there, but they plan to deliver state of the art service to us. We should be up and running with them in early 2010. Then I'll be dropping the Directv (and the extra costs!).

 

[Chuck S]

Unfortunately, I live in a subdivison that has the cable/internet bundled into our HOA until 2022 (not kidding!). This cable company is delivering service reminiscent of the original cable service from the early 1980's. We have few channels, no HD, one PPV station, no DVRs, poor reception, etc. After one month of that, I went to Directv. The good news is that our contract is being sold to RCN. I know they are not the best company out there, but they plan to deliver state of the art service to us. We should be up and running with them in early 2010. Then I'll be dropping the Directv (and the extra costs!).

Wow, I've never heard of a cable contract as part of an HOA. That's just weird.

 

[Tina]

I've seen it in a few places. A friend of mine had a similar arrangement in her new home in South Carolina. It was horrible. Her service included her landline phone and it never worked correctly.

 

[lillygator]

we've had Directv for years, never had a problem....even get $20 off a month every now and then when I call to ask about all these new customer discounts.

 

[ChristmasElf]

We too have been long time Direct TV customers and also have never had any problems.

Now the cable company here is the pits. We have them for internet and the land line phone into the house. I can't tell you how many times we have to "reset" the modem for internet-what a pain in the butt that is.

 

[RitaE]

Sorry, but I do my best to ignore our Direct TV bill during the 4 months that I'm paying for NFL Sunday Ticket.


As for the other issue, we've had them going on 9 years now and never a billing problem that I can recall. DH calls about once a year and asks about new packages or whatever and we always get a whole bunch of discounts or free movie channels.

 

[manning]

My wife looks at the bill and one year I almost got run out of the house. There was a charge for an adult rental. Boy did I get both ears full.

Well I'm looking at the bill and notice we were not home that weekend. It turns out a relative living with us rented it. He still had the spark in him at 85.

He claimed he did it by accident. I put a block on the account and told him if he wanted to rent them he will have to call the company and use his credit card. No more mistakes.

 

[Carl]

DirectTV is extremely high. We have a DVR and HD service, no premiums and not even the premium HD channels and our bill is over $70 a month. And when you get a bad connection or something at the satellite and have them come out, it cost $50. I believe when our contract is up we'll change to Uverse by ATT. We still have almost a year on the contract. Every time you have anything done, they extend your contract. The plus to DirectTV is the picture quality and the recorder work well. The minus is the extreme expense of it.

 

[lillygator]

$70? wow, I wish ours was that...we have dvr, did not activate hd, but have all the channels and nfl ticket....right now it's $240 until January.

 

[Tina]

$240!!!!!

I have Choice Xtra with 2 DVRs and HD (no premium channels) for about $90 per month. The only thing I'm missing is the movie channels and when I had them, I found they weren't worth it. They run too many of the same old movies over and over.

 

[Carl]

$240!!!!!

I have Choice Xtra with 2 DVRs and HD (no premium channels) for about $90 per month. The only thing I'm missing is the movie channels and when I had them, I found they weren't worth it. They run too many of the same old movies over and over.

Amen! That's what we found.