Class-Action Lawsuit Accuses AT&T of Lying To Customers About DirecTV Now (kctv5.com) 35
A massive class-action lawsuit is accusing AT&T of lying to customers about DirecTV Now when it bought Time Warner. KCTV5 reprots: At the time, they promised customers and investors, they would be cutting prices for their streaming service called DirecTV Now. However, the lawsuit accuses the company of switching up TV packages, confusing customers by getting rid of the bundles it had been offering, charging higher prices for new types of bundles, and then bringing back the original bundles at a higher price. Investors were not happy about this because stock prices tanked. DirecTV Now was hemorrhaging customers, losing about 260,000 customers in December. "AT&T's registration statement 'touted yearly and quarterly growth trends... including quarterly subscriber gains in its DirecTV Now service sufficient to offset any decrease in traditional satellite DirecTV subscribers, such that AT&T was experiencing an ongoing trend of total video subscriber 'net additions,'" reports Ars Technica, citing a segment of the complaint.
"But in reality, 'DirecTV Now subscribers were leaving (i.e., not renewing) as soon as their promotional discount periods expired, while at the same time new potential DirecTV Now customers were unwilling to pay the higher prices and therefore not subscribing at all,' the complaint said. By the time AT&T bought Time Warner, 'AT&T's reported 'net additions' growth trend was already reversing into a severe 'net loss.' [T]he AT&T registration statement 'purported to warn of numerous risks that 'if' occurring 'may' or 'could' adversely affect the company while failing to disclose that these 'risks' had already materialized at the time of the acquisition,' the complaint said."
"But in reality, 'DirecTV Now subscribers were leaving (i.e., not renewing) as soon as their promotional discount periods expired, while at the same time new potential DirecTV Now customers were unwilling to pay the higher prices and therefore not subscribing at all,' the complaint said. By the time AT&T bought Time Warner, 'AT&T's reported 'net additions' growth trend was already reversing into a severe 'net loss.' [T]he AT&T registration statement 'purported to warn of numerous risks that 'if' occurring 'may' or 'could' adversely affect the company while failing to disclose that these 'risks' had already materialized at the time of the acquisition,' the complaint said."
Playing fast and loose with the truth? (Score:2)
Kinda like 5GE isn't it? Make that shyte up and trowel it out.
About effin time (Score:5, Insightful)
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Class actions are losers (Score:3)
Only the lawyers get rich. And the companies don't pay enough to hurt them.
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But of course... (Score:5, Interesting)
Garbage service, not promotion expiration (Score:1)
As a long suffering DTVNOW subscriber (now moving on to PlayStation Vue), I can assure ATT investors that the cause of DTVNOW's decline has far, far more to do with their completely shitty service than any promo expirations. Having tried a few streaming services, I can safely say DTVNOW is the absolute worst. I would have abandoned it long ago if they weren't the only service with my favorite channel (TVG). Fortunately, that channel is now available separately for a nominal fee, and so adios DTVNOW! The buf
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As one of those people that abandoned Directv Now after my promotional expired, all I can say is good riddance. The DVR service was horrible, 20 hours or 30 days I think, and they only allowed 2 streams. Three if you where willing to pitch in a extra $5. Then they where going to raise the price $5 for the package I had. I kicked cable to the curb for that bullshit.
PSvue is superior to directvnow but doesn't have the history channel. Which is why I left it and went with directv now. But I've found t
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It is cloud based dvr, but yes you can skip commercials on on the dvr.
What do they mean now? (Score:2)
They've been lying for years.
Oh, that's Direct TV Now?
Oh, that's different. Never mind. This is Emily Litella.
/Actually, it's not different. It's business as usual.
Why I left DirecTV Now (Score:1)
I have an account but can't be buggered to log in. Anyway, I was a DTV customer of theirs for quite a while, and I loved the package I was on, I wish it carried my local stations, but you can't win them all. Then one day I got an email from DTV saying, in essence, "Hey, that cool package you're on? Yeah, you're losing it. But here's the replacements!" The new packages had half the stations, same cost, no local stations....and I couldn't get everything I wanted that I had before, and they TRIPLED the cost of
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the only station I lost was the History channel
History did nothing wrong.
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