Direct TV TERRIBLE Customer Service

The STORY:

First off, my HD satelite receiver litterally "died" within a year and half of using it. It just decided to never turn on that morning. Honestly, we do watch tv everyday, but our family is taught to limit telivision to about an hour a day, so no, the receiver was not overused or physically damaged at all.

After a few attempts to diagnose why the receiver was not working, we decided to give Direct TV a call. As always the automated phone systen is horrible and does not have any options leading to "receiver malfunction" instead they insistinctly promote and ask you to purchase an upgrade like a sports package. It took 3-4 tries of starting over and calling back to finally reach an actual live agent.

Once I got to the agent, I immediately felt like i was speaking to a DMV representative. Now if you are in California, you will now how saddening it is to talk to DMV employees (but that is another story). I've asked myself, if you really hate doing customer service for DIRECT TV, then why do it?. But anyway

MY MAIN COMPLAINT:

Ok so she walked me through her procedure of daignosis even though it was exactly something I did myself, I still listened to her and did everything asked. Finally she came to the conclusion that my receiver "died" and is very uncommon.

The solution was to have direct tv send a new receiver over with a return box so I can return the damaged one. But the thing is I am going to have to pay! SO:

-I am without a HD receiver for 3-5 days.

-I have to pay for the shipping of my receiver. (nothing should come out of my pocket)

-On top of that, I am getting a refurbished receiver that will most likely die on me again.

-I am going to take time out of my day to drop off the damaged receiver or else I will be charged more.

I am not blaming this situation on the customer service rep, but on DIRECT TV. She told me that this procedure is policy. I own a small family business and I understand what it means when we need to do things to save money. BUT DIRECT TV is a big business that has enough money to pay for commercials I see everyday, yet they can't cover shipping and provide us with a brand new receiver when one goes bad....

"The Rich keep getting Richer, while the poor stays poor" Is a very beleiveable quote that I've heard growing up. DIRECT TV needs to step up and help their customers. Think about it, a company like this which im sure is rich should lower the salaries of their upper class employees to pay their lower employees or to discount prices on services or keep customers satisfied. I pay over 70$ for a DECENT not great, package for telivision for the family. For over a year I have not had any complaints, yet they can't pay for my shipping or provide me with a new receiver. YES this complaint may seem small, but it being small should make Direct TV solve it even easier. Something like this should be known to customers about Direct TV. I was with comcast earlier, and they handled problems way better.

In 3 months my contract is over with them, I will be cancelling for sure.