Lying sales team and horrible customer service

I've been a DirecTV customer for 2 months and I'm already regretting my decision. When I called to sign up for their service, their customer service was excellent!! She was sweet, funny, promised me the world, but all along, she was planning to screw me over. I'm convinced that this is policy of the company.

When I signed up, I was told that there will be no additional charges other than the monthly billing fee for my programming and that HD access, DVR access and equipment fees were all included. A week after that, they charge me an extra $200 for equipment that I didn't sign up for. When I called to complain, I was stuck on the phone for 1.5 hours... no joke. I went through 3 levels of customer service (a complete oxymoron in their case) and I finally got this guy to see my point and give me a credit for it. He said it should show up on my account in a couple of days.

A month goes by and I was being charged again for my monthly bills; the credit wasn't applied yet. So I called yesterday and lo and behold, 1.5 hours later, I'm talking to this 3rd level supervisor, Debbie. Now, I've seen and met my share of biatches in the world, but this one is the worst of them all. DirecTV's attitude on existing customers aren't important starts with her. She was outright nasty to me, saying that I shouldn't expect any credit for things like this and that she was going to reverse the credit note from the last time I had called. I said "you can't do that... the last guy agreed to the credit" and she goes "yes I can... I'm going to make sure you don't get any credit". So I asked to cancel my service since it's within a month, and she threatens to add a $600 cancellation fee and report me to the credit beureau!!

Once you've given them your credit card info, you've become their slave. They can add any charge they want and you can't fight it. When I told her that this will tarnish DirecTV's customer service reputation, she laughed and said "do what you want, I don't care!!". That pretty much summarizes DirecTV's attitude towards existing customers.

Word of caution: DON'T EVER SIGN UP WITH DirecTV!!!

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Nov.15, 2007

Pay attention to the above complaint.

I responded to a mailout from DirecTV and talked with exactly the same type of sales woman as this writer. I was so

pleased with Anjoli, the agent, that I talked with her supervisor to compliment her. She was and is a liar of the 1st degree. None of what she sold me existed according to Alicia in Retention. This unhelpful Alicia went so far as to say I should not have ordered two receivers for one tv - despite my repeatedly telling her that it was Anjoli who told me that we needed

one DVR and one HD receiver to view and record programs. We paid $99 for the DVR and the HD was 'free' as part of signing with DirecTV. Anjoli also said she was 'giving me a special price of $36.99 per month for 3 months - because she was nice'. We do not have or want Premium channels so after 3 months the bil would be $49.99 after the $10 rebate for one year. Installation, service protection and leasing would be free. Well the bill arrived and it was

$80 and we still did not have constant service! We have had 3 sets of Tech support people out to our house within a week of having the service installed!

The Techies are wonderful. Very well intentioned and hardworking but they could not make work a system that was never compatible to begin with. Anjoli

sold me on a DVR Plus and a HD when in fact Miss Alicia from Retention insisted that 'you cannot connect 2 receivers to 1 tv' and even blamed me for not knowing that. She and Anjoli and Steve ought to be fired but of course they will not because it is easy to keep people without a conscience working for a corrupt company than it is to have honest people. I have met very honest people in my dealings with DirecTV: Phillip in tech support; Byron from a company that works for DirecTV;

and the original installers who tried to tell their boss (by phone) that the system would not work - they apparently were told to make it work and it did on a very basic level for a couple of days.

Today we spent $199 on a HD/DVR unit.

The picture is beautiful, the reception is what one expects from HD but the poor customer support from Alicia in Retention and the lies of Anjoli undo any pleasure we might have had. I wasted 1 hour 40 minutes today trying to get my bill sorted out. Prior to talking to Alicia in Retention I talked with Tina and her supervisor, Brian, neither of whom understood the purpose of my call and could only read from prepared scripts. Alicia in Retention understood English but was a waste of my valuable time because her goal was to take up my time and eventually to blame me for DirecTV's misrepresentation.

DO NOT TRUST DIRECTV SALES PEOPLE.