directv HD boxes?

[hiwaygal]

After years of my DH begging, I agreed to get satellite and we chose directv.

We've had it for all of about 15 days and the HD box died sometime last night.

Customer service is NOT impressing either of us, he's been on the phone with several folks for about an hour now and they're telling us it'll be a week or so before they can fix it

It seems we have more problems with HD recievers than we should...does anyone else notice this problem? (we had problems with HD cable boxes too) Is it just us or is it the HD?

 

[lewdyan1]

Not just you! My sister has been dealing with Directv HD box problems for weeks now! Customer service has been bad! To make her feel better they took $10.00 a month off her bill for a year, but the box still doesn't work!

 

[hiwaygal]

oooooooooooooo...a whole $10!

Is there some kind of secret decoder ring for these boxes?!?!?!

 

[bicker]

I looked into DirecTV, and in the end got too concerned about having to shell-out money for something that my cable company was willing to let me lease, and would be willing to replace on detection of the slightest problem.

 

[hiwaygal]

I hear ya, bicker!

Our cable company is SOOO frustrating though, it got to the point where my DH knew the personal cell number of one of the top ranked network ops guys in our area. It proved useful on several occaisions.

But he insisted service was more reliable with satellite so I figured we'd give it a shot.

Now, to be fair, Ernesto went through yesterday and we lost power again sometime last night. We have another "standard" box though, and it's fine.

DH knows about this stuff, could install it himself, but customer service is pathetic!

 

[Mish19]

We had a problem with a DirecTV box and we received a refurbished one. When the technician came to check the box and everything when the refurbished one didn't work either he told us to INSIST on a new box. That a refurbished one is someone else's nightmare. Don't let customer service push you into a refurbished box. Well, we insisted on a new box and they gave us a new one.

 

[agnes!]

We have DirecTV (just the regular, not HD) and we loooove it. Better service than our local Cable TV(Cox), cheaper prices for more/better programming. Plus in our neigborhood the cable isn't underground, it's out on the telephone/electric poles. Back when we had cable tv, every time that there was a rainstorm the cable would go out. The only time we have had service interruptions is in the middle of a severe thunderstorm/snowstorm with heavy cloud cover, but that's been fairly rare & usually doesn't last long.

agnes!

 

[hiwaygal]

We had a problem with a DirecTV box and we received a refurbished one. When the technician came to check the box and everything when the refurbished one didn't work either he told us to INSIST on a new box. That a refurbished one is someone else's nightmare. Don't let customer service push you into a refurbished box. Well, we insisted on a new box and they gave us a new one.

We couldn't even get "customer service" to give us a new box. The soonest we could get a technician out here is NEXT weekend. That's just unacceptable to us.

They kept insisting it was the wiring or something with the satellite...but we told them that wasn't possible since the other box is working.

Oddly enough, we completely disconnected the HD box and let it sit for about an hour, connected the standard box to the HD tv (and it worked), then re-connected the HD box and it worked!!

So...two and a half hours on the phone (in which they gave us some freebies and agreed to give us a rebate if we bought a new box today) and some frustration later, all is well.

I'm glad everything worked out, but I'm still shocked at the leve of customer service. Some of the things those folks said to my DH

 

[hiwaygal]

We have DirecTV (just the regular, not HD) and we loooove it. Better service than our local Cable TV(Cox), cheaper prices for more/better programming. Plus in our neigborhood the cable isn't underground, it's out on the telephone/electric poles. Back when we had cable tv, every time that there was a rainstorm the cable would go out. The only time we have had service interruptions is in the middle of a severe thunderstorm/snowstorm with heavy cloud cover, but that's been fairly rare & usually doesn't last long.

agnes!

We had Cox too. And they weren't too bad really...for us Directv is actually about $10 more a month. Our cable was underground, and all our inside wires had been checked many times.

Cox would just randomly charge us $50 for a "service call" when they didn't even come out here! It got ridiculous and so we went with Verizon for phone and Directv. When Verizon comes through with FIOS, we'll be dropping Cox's internet service too! I can hardly wait!

 

[ALittleDisneyFan]

My husband is a tech for Direct Tv. Their customer service is AWFUL, and honestly, I swear they lack any kind of sense. My husband had a customer who's dish was over a mile away from the house, and Direct TV told her that he owns the equipment to dig up an acre of her land to put the cords underneath the ground. Of course, he doesn't own that kind of thing!

My husband is a brave soul though.. he goes into A LOT of homes that are downright filthy with feces all over the floor, infested with roaches, etc. In one instant, he was thisclose to having to install it into one ladies house. She had about 50 cats, and owned 3 homes that were connected together. The neighbors told my husband he was lucky he didn't have to do anything with that house, because there were roofers one time laying a new roof, and they were PUKING off the side of the house because it was so bad... Yuck!

Sorry your box is broke!

 

[hiwaygal]

My husband is a tech for Direct Tv. Their customer service is AWFUL, and honestly, I swear they lack any kind of sense. My husband had a customer who's dish was over a mile away from the house, and Direct TV told her that he owns the equipment to dig up an acre of her land to put the cords underneath the ground. Of course, he doesn't own that kind of thing!

My husband is a brave soul though.. he goes into A LOT of homes that are downright filthy with feces all over the floor, infested with roaches, etc. In one instant, he was thisclose to having to install it into one ladies house. She had about 50 cats, and owned 3 homes that were connected together. The neighbors told my husband he was lucky he didn't have to do anything with that house, because there were roofers one time laying a new roof, and they were PUKING off the side of the house because it was so bad... Yuck!

Sorry your box is broke!

EWWWwwww!!! Sorry your husband has to deal with such awful places!

 

[mom_of_5]

We have 5 boxes, two of which are HD and yes we are always having problems, fortunatley when one goes on the fritz we run to another tv and it is working, then vise versa. Customer service is not on the friendly side either, durring a recent call they told me I should switch to cable tv if I was not happy with direct tv. Needless to say I proceeded to chew her out, hang up on her, call back speak to a supervisor and receive an appology.
Unfortunatly on my things to do list for the past two weeks is to call direct tv about another box that is "dead" I am not looking forward to it. Why is it so hard to find good reliable customer service nowadays?

 

[hiwaygal]

Oh I agree!

We got directv because of a package deal they have going right now...we got NFL Sunday Ticket, all the movie and HD channels for four months for like $75. DH wanted it so bad, so I agreed.

Today, one of the customer service reps told us that since we weren't really "paying" for the service, we could live without it for a week. I didn't come up with this package, I just took advantage of it.

Several other folks were just as short and rude.

But here's what really got me...you CANNOT get a replacement box from them! Your service technician must have one shipped from directv to replace yours, and they will only do it once they have determined your box is really bad! That's just crazy! Why can't they set up a service center and allow folks to come in and drop off bad boxes and pick up new ones!

Or, better yet, create some kind of internet connection capability (like a USB) so that a diagnostic could be run and a replacement box ordered on-line! It would be fairly easy, and wouldn't require a whole lot of people being rude on the phone, AND could run 24/7!

Ah well...the customer service is bad enough...but I also wonder about problems with HD boxes. It seems like these go bad pretty frequently (at least they have for us...we went through 7 with cable ).

 

[bicker]

Why is it so hard to find good reliable customer service nowadays?

The really good customer service folks are working for the places that offer better work at higher wages. Beyond that, even good people cannot do a good job with too much work to do: The more productive a company is, the more it fulfills is primary purpose of serving shareholder interests. Of course, that can be mitigated if we make the companies compete on service, but the contribution to profit from better service is so small, that it is now a bad investment to charge the same as your competitors and give far better service.

 

[IceQueen777]

I guess it is hit or miss with regards to customer service these days. The DirecTV box in the kitchen went out, and they sent me a new one and I got it within two days. They didn't make me have a technician come out to the house. All I had to do was a little troubleshooting over the phone and when nothing worked, they just said they would send us a new box.

Oh, and DirecTV has switched to leasing boxes now.

 

[bicker]

That may be the case for the SD boxes, but the HD DVR the still want $300 up-front. Comcast wants nothing up-front for their HD DVRs.

 

[IceQueen777]

That may be the case for the SD boxes, but the HD DVR the still want $300 up-front. Comcast wants nothing up-front for their HD DVRs.

Oh, I wasn't sure about how they did it with the HD DVR boxes because I bought mine at Best Buy (for $500!!!!) about two months before they started leasing them.

I've mostly been happy with DirecTV, but I do agree that they tend to be more expensive than cable when you factor in the cost of the equipment. However, I don't think that I will go back to cable. Cable was out for two months in my area after Katrina, so my neighbors had no TV and no internet during that time. I had TV as soon as electricity was back on.