December 2014 marked the end of our last 2 year contract with DirecTV. I would have liked to get rid of them before we re-up'd 2 years ago, but we did like DirecTV and were not convinced that we would be able to replace them with online programming. I am a huge sports fan and I would have had to give up sports almost completely. This is my short story experience with DirecTV and why I will never go back.
We got DirecTV the first year in our new home in 2009. They provided us with one HD DVR and 2 other standard receivers. I quickly noticed the difference since we only had HD TV's. I called DirecTV back within the first 30 days and they refused to do anything for us. They said that we were not eligible for an upgrade and we would have to pay full price for new HD receivers.
A few months later I found someone selling HD DVR's on Craigslist. After many attempts with other Craigslist posts to find used receivers where I could not activate the receiver, this post was from an authorized distributor. I ended up buying 2 for a total of $300, but when I got home to activate the DirecTV representative told me that I would be under a new 2 year contract as these are leased receivers. I don't understand what I was paying for, but it was much less than going directly through DirecTV, so we did it anyway.
After the first year, I had to call DirecTV every 6 months to discuss the increase in the bill. Most of the time they provided me with a $10 discount and another for something else. Unfortunately, most of the time I had to threaten to get cancel service before they put a cancel specialist on the phone who had the ability to do more discounts. Brighthouse cable TV service is the only other option in our neighborhood. It is so messed up because if our neighborhood is on the other side of the highway where we would have many more choices of providers. I checked with Brighthouse often to make sure our bill was fair with DirecTV.
After a couple of years, DirecTV had introduced the Genie service and whole home DVR service. They increased our bill for the equipment upgrade, but it came down after that with only a small additional monthly fee for whole home DVR service. Our DirecTV discounts were only good for 6 months at a time although the contract was extended for an additional 2 years. I called in November and again in December this past year to see if they could do any better since our contract was going to end in the middle of December, but they told me that they should be able to do more for me once the contract is up.
I called the last day of the contract and the representative from DirecTV told me that I should try again in a day. Of course the next time a representative would offer to upgrade our equipment with another 2 year contract. I told them that I was tired of paying $105 a month when we only watch a small handful of channels. They had different packages and I said that we would downgrade to the next lower package that didn't seem to drop any channels that we cared about.
PROBLEM:
DirecTV will change their programming offers, but keep you under your current one until you call to ask for a change. Most of the time the representative will speak to you like you have a package from 1996, not last year. They do not offer any concessions for the change, but they will always try to offer you a free 3 months of a movie channel. I remember they would tell me that I had to call in to cancel the movie channel at the end of the 3 months. They stopped that a few years ago, but this time they offered one movie channel for free for 3 months and another free for 3 months that I would have to call and cancel at the end of the 3 months. And if I cancel that movie channel package within the first 30 days there was a fee involved. WTF. Anything to get your money.
DirecTV will change their programming offers, but keep you under your current one until you call to ask for a change. Most of the time the representative will speak to you like you have a package from 1996, not last year. They do not offer any concessions for the change, but they will always try to offer you a free 3 months of a movie channel. I remember they would tell me that I had to call in to cancel the movie channel at the end of the 3 months. They stopped that a few years ago, but this time they offered one movie channel for free for 3 months and another free for 3 months that I would have to call and cancel at the end of the 3 months. And if I cancel that movie channel package within the first 30 days there was a fee involved. WTF. Anything to get your money.
After a few days with the new TV programming, I decided that NBA TV and NFL Network were not that important to me and decided to go to the next package lower. Finally we got closer to the $60 a month that I was willing to spend on television as we were at $72 a month... plus tax that they could not tell me how much it was. My wife did not notice the difference as she was working from home and not watching the TV as much in her off hours because she was working on her business website. Therefore it was a matter of how much was I going to sacrifice to be able to save another $100 a month.
Less than a week later I made the decision to drop DirecTV completely. This was a little difficult since we did have 4 HD TV's in the house. I determined also that since my daughter had her own cell phone and laptop when she visited us, I did not need to keep a TV in the spare bedroom for to satisfy her the few days she spent with us each year... so I listed it and the Blu-ray player in the room for sale on Amazon. I purchased a Nexus Player (review coming) as I figured it would be like having my tablet on the TV without using Chromecast. I also purchased 2 additional HDTV antennas from Clear TV for a total of $34 after shipping and handling. I signed us up for Hulu Plus with a promotion from having a Chromecast for free for the first 2 months. We have to wait a day to watch shows through Hulu, but sometime we were not watching them until the weekend when we had the DVR, so it is not that big of a deal... and the commercials are less anyways.
Back to DirecTV cancellation... So I knew that our account was going to be drafted that Monday for our bill, but they told me that they could not stop it. I understood that since I was calling them on a Saturday night. They told me that I would be due a refund and I calculated it to be around $45 which they told me that I would receive in 30 days as long ass they received their equipment back. Today the refund came, in the form of a Visa Prepaid Card. They have our cash, I don't understand why they couldn't just send us the check for the amount due rather than this. It does say that it can be transferred to our bank account, but this appears foul. (Looks like I blacked out the card number, but forgot the black it out on the letter head. I used it already on our cell phone bill. lol)
When I called to cancel the service with DirecTV, they told me that they will be sending 3 boxes for the receivers. Only one box came and a separate envelope for the access card to be mailed in. DirecTV sent me offers to reinstate our service, but nothing was new and the rates were not any better so I guess they don't miss us. I asked the representative about the other 3 HD DVR's that we had and if they were going to want those back. They said no, so I asked them if they were mine free and clear. They said yes, so I asked them if I could sell or give them away. The representative told me that they were tied to our account and nobody else could activate them. So now we have 3 HD DVR's with a whole home system that we can not use or get rid of. smh
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