DirecTV Sued By Washington State 181
thomst writes "A week ago, Rob McKenna, the Attorney General of Washington State, filed suit against DirecTV, alleging 16 counts of unfair, deceptive, and unethical business practices. The charges include failure to disclose important contract information (such as early termination fees, 'service maintenance' fees, and rebate terms), misrepresentation, 'negative option' billing, 'unconscionable enforcement of contract to which there has been no mutual consent,' failure to honor promotional offers, and 'imposing charges when no service has been provided.' The complaint is available online (PDF). MSNBC's Bob Sullivan states that McKenna's office received 375 complaints against DirecTV in the 11.5 months before he filed suit, and 59 additional complaints in the 24 hours immediately after the filing was announced. Sullivan's story also states, 'McKenna said he'd been working with DirecTV for months in an attempt to avoid a court battle, and he was surprised DirecTV refused to change its business practices voluntarily.'"
Re:Buying boxes (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that REALLY pissed me off too. I thought I "bought" their high-end DVR when I forked over the cash at BestBuy. Not to mention it is not possible at the store to read the massive thing you sign when "buying" it. Then, several months later when I wanted to cancel because my 2-year term was up, I'm told I can't because I added a receiver. But I paid for it! I'll give it back to them if they want it, but no. I even threatened to nuke the credit card it's being billed to but was told my account would then go to collections. I used to really like DirecTV but now I will never, ever recommend them to anyone.
Re:I had a bad experience with DirecTV DVR (Score:3, Interesting)
"Ever since DirecTV have been bombarding me with mails begging me to come back"
I quit DirecTV when my ( now ex ) wife moved out on me. We had gotten it so she could watch 49ers football. It was hard to cancel, they kept trying to "save" the account. In any given week I get at least one mailing from them asking me to come back.
In the last couple weeks, they have started calling again. Thank God for caller ID.
Re:Washington "State" (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Buying boxes (Score:5, Interesting)
My mother-in-law, a DirecTV customer, died a year or so ago. My wife had such a hard time trying to terminate the account that she swears she will never do business with them and will do her best to discourage any of her friends from signing up with them.
DirecTV bought bad word of mouth for decades when all they had to do was to say that they were sorry for her loss, the account is cancelled, and here is your confirmation number. Have a nice day.
Re:Buying boxes (Score:4, Interesting)
We've had equally "interesting" experiences ....
1) We upgraded one of our boxes to the DirecTV DVR ... cost us a few hundred dollars as I recall... only to find out that unlike our own receiver(s) this upgrade wasn't owned by us but leased with a monthly charge for the lease no less. So I called them up indicating I wanted my old hardware back and to come and get the new box. They never returned the old hardware claiming, "well we're not sure where that went, would you like a movie channel free for a month?"
Bastards!
Time passes....
2) Our bill suddenly shows a "2nd" leased receiver charge... Do we have a 2nd receiver that is leased? No. As I indicated before I always bought our own hardware with the exception of the "upgrade" fiasco. Never mind this other supposedly leased receiver isn't even hooked up... took them the better part of an hour to finally get it. Granted I probably will be hooking that one back up again (and HR10-250) since the MPEG 4 tivo receiver STILL isn't out yet and their HD DVR really really sucks.
And hey while I'm bending your ear... the other thing that makes me see red is wrt their NFL sunday ticket. So I like football and the team I follow isn't always on the local channels since we're in a different market. Now everybody everywhere is shooting NFL football in HD. You think DirecTV Sunday Ticket would show you the game in HD? HA! Fork over another $99 on top of the already astronomical NFL Sunday Ticket price. Now I could understand the extra price back the "good ol days" before the switch over but we're well past that.
Pretty sad state of affairs....
Re:I had a bad experience with DirecTV DVR (Score:5, Interesting)
Not my experience... (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps it depends on where you purchase DirecTV service through. The Best Buy "bundled" promo must have hidden a pantload of gotchas in there from the sounds of it.
I've had DirecTV off and on for 9 years now. From what I've experienced (compared to Time Warner and a few other providers) is that DirecTV's customer service is unparalleled in terms of being efficient, effective, and compliant. They have even won J.D. Power awards for customer satisfaction from what I recall. When I was a new customer (or renewing my NFL Sunday Ticket) I'd receive pay movie channels included for 3 months, get used to them, and would get the free period extended (several times over the course of a whole year) by calling into customer service and threaten to cancel my account down the road. Practically every time I called in I got some promo offer extended.
That being said, it could perhaps have something to do with different states having different whys and wherefores. But I do know that going to "Worst Buy" is typically a bad move. From what I've heard their sales consist of a lot of items that are being phased out by the manufacturer. So they are dumped into the market as end of life items at a deep discount. Can't count how many items I've tried to return that can't be replaced since they were no longer actively sold or supported. So I can only imagine purchasing a bundled service through them...
Re:It's about time (Score:4, Interesting)
A long time ago, they used to be good folks to deal with. That's gone down hill.
I had bought a HDVR2 (Standard def TiVO receiver), which was their latest greatest at the time. They wanted to send someone out to install it, but I bought on a Friday night, and they couldn't schedule until Monday. No big deal there. I installed it myself that night. It worked well. Over a span of a few years, I bought a few other pieces of equipment. I think I only ever called once during that period for a repair, and the guy was at my house the next day to help. It was for a defective regular receiver for my girlfriend's kid's room.
The last time I moved, the install went ok. It took a few extra days to get someone out. This was a big move for us, so I didn't have time to get on the roof and wire everything up. I also wanted the newer dish, which I could have bought online for a few bucks. It took them several days to show up. At the prior house, we had gotten the NFL sports package, but that was for a friend to watch. Since the friend wouldn't be watching, we didn't need it any more. "Sorry, you can't cancel at this time, you have to cancel in 3 months." I forgot, and on the 4th month I called and they said the same thing again. Perpetually trapped with an add-on package that I couldn't get rid of.
Not too long after that, the signal started going. I'm fairly sure it was the multiplexer. I called them to come fix it. They scheduled for a week later. The guy never showed, so they rescheduled for another week later. (2 weeks, no service). The guy showed a day after the scheduled date, with a new DVR in hand. He said they had not scheduled for a repair, only a DVR upgrade. Huh? He couldn't do the repair, only the upgrade that I hadn't asked for. I spent an hour on the phone with DTV, and they finally scheduled a repair in two weeks. So, a month with no service. I called, told them to go screw themselves, and called a local wired provider, who was out the next day to do the install.
I was fairly lucky, my pricing was fixed because I was grandfathered in. The "current" rate was much higher than what I was paying. A month or so after I cancelled, I started getting nasty calls from them saying I was late on my bill. It was a month of daily calls, where they asked for money, and I told them to go screw themselves. Ok, I was a little clearer on the phone, but that was the end of each conversation. They finally realized I wasn't going to give them anything, and they went away. It wasn't worth their time to call, since I had made it abundantly clear that I had cancelled, and wasn't going to pay them anything.
Ya, they got pretty bad. It's really unfortunate, I liked their service. I was a customer for many years, and they managed to alienate me. Obviously, I'm not the only one.
re: Collections (Score:3, Interesting)
They will send trivial amounts to a collection agency, too. I had a dispute with them and changed to Dish. You prepay for DirecTV, and the disputed bill contained a month of service, plus the new month (and the service was off). I refused to pay and they sent the entire bill to a collection agency, even though the last month of service was not used. My credit history is almost spotless, except for that one DirecTV bill hanging out there...
I worked at a place with monthly subscriptions and we discussed sending outstanding bills to a collection agency. Everyone decided against it because we thought it would generate more negative feelings toward the company than it would bring in money. Apparently, they never had this meeting at DirecTV!
Re:Buying boxes (Score:2, Interesting)
I never had any problems listed with DirecTV. Of course I didn't cancel early and yes I knew there was a contract when you get these things. It didn't cost that much and the installation was free. I think if I remember correctly the whole thing was free except that you have a two year contract. I never bought their DVR because logic dictates that it's not going to work if you ever cancel the service. Instead I got a DVD-R. This deal is really no different that the deal you get with cell phone companies where they give a free or discounted phone. (Don't have one of those either--I use a pay-as-you-go and bought my phone outright.)
I didn't have a problem canceling. They offered a deal (I expected that), but that was that. I liked the service, but I'm having to cut back, so it had to go. Since I was well beyond the contract term (and I'm sure the equipment is out of date) I didn't have to return the boxes, much less the dish. I haven't received any calls either.
And one thing I can say for them over Comcrap: They keep your original lineup. When Comcast took over Roadrunner on my mom's service, first they moved several of her favorite channels so that she had to get a box at $5 extra a month. Then they took them off without any announcement. We found out that she would have to pay extra to receive those channels! She dropped them and went to DirecTV. When DirecTV discontinued my particular package, they didn't remove any of my channels or make me pay extra.
The only thing I got burned on this way was with an alarm service. We purchase several hundred dollars of alarm equipment, only to find when we eventually canceled the monitoring service, it was shut down and we had no way (short of signing up with another alarm company) of running this ourselves.
Re:Where does the surprise part come in (Score:3, Interesting)
Once upon a time I worked at a K-mart and on one summer day a guy shows up in a utility uniform and wearing a hard hat. He walked up to the customer service desk (skipping the line), and politely informed the person working there that if a copy of a check wasn't FAXed to the electric company the power would be switched off in 15 minutes. Apparently nobody had been paying the electric bill for a few months. :)
I've never seen managers scramble so fast in my life, and the power never went out, so I guess they were able to respond in a timely fashion when suitably threatened.
Never underestimate the amount of bureaucracy in any major corporation. The average employee might even want to be helpful but probably is powerless to do anything.
However, in this case the matter at hand was screwing customers, and I doubt the executives felt terribly motivated to be accommodating...
Is this what the world comes to? (Score:3, Interesting)
"...every time I feel like bitching about Comcast I'll remember DirecTV and tell myself it could be worse."
Seriously, how did we reach the point where Comcast is the best we can get? We thought Comcast had lowered the bar for customer service - how is it that everyone else in the industry still manages to trip over that bar?
Re:Buying boxes (Score:3, Interesting)
Not to mention it is not possible at the store to read the massive thing you sign when "buying" it
Sure it is. Just stand there, read it, and refuse to pay or sign until you are finished. The retailer will quickly see the stupidity of the document and tell their supplier if everybody actually did this. If the document is unnecessarily large then you can be sure that it is only that way to bolster the seller's advantage and your detriment. Mobile phone peddlers are particularly good at this sort of crap also. In Australia at the moment they are fond of hiding a fee for processing a payment to them (e.g. $2 to process a CC payment or a cash payment over the counter) in the fine print.
Re:Buying boxes (Score:2, Interesting)
Please direct your mother to this document, and to the local enforcement agencies. If there is no place on the balcony she can install a dish in LOS of a sattelite for a company that offers local services, then they must allow it to be mounted to a wall or roofline that is in direct contact with one of the rooms she rents.
I have fought this with 2 previous rental companies successfully. in once case, i was forces to sign a contract with a local provider for 1 year to get TV at all until the ruling came in, and then I switched back to sattelite, billed the rental company the termination fees from both providers and the difference in my bill when i signed back up, and was additionally awarded a fee of $500 for my trouble by the courts. About 15 other tennats also switched within days. The rental agency is bound by FCC law to give you permission to have this installation done.
Also, check her contract. moving to a location wherte service is unavalable due to location, obstruction, or local policy automatically allows her to exit her contract without penatly provided all leased equipment is returned in a fully functional (not physically damaged) state. The can not charge a termination fee because she can't get service, and if they did, the apartment complex would be required by law to compensate her 100%.
Re:the 2nd happiest day of a directv customer (Score:3, Interesting)
You haven't been given squat.
If you accepted new receivers from them, then they extended your contract, possibly without your knowledge and/or consent.
They came out to my house because I told them that their installation (done by their contractor) was not compliant with the national electric code (no ground on outside antenna) and they tried to extend my contract from that date. That did not go over well.
In my opinion, they are thieves and criminals, and they get away with it because they have an unlimited budget for litigation. I expect that the State of Washington will be delayed and appealed ad infinitum, and I expect that the judgement will reflect that.
As far as your bill goes, if it gets too high, you can always switch -- if you can get out of your contract. (See paragraph 2, above.) Good luck with that.