# DirecTV is not being nice



## DBCooper (Aug 15, 2000)

Seems like every time I talk to D* they have an additional nonsensical rule. Both of my DirecTiVos died after seven years, so while I was waiting for a replacement from eBay, I installed an old Hughes receiver that I once used with with my Series 1 stand-alone TiVo. 

When I called back to install the new DTiVo to replace the Hughes receiver, D* wanted a one-year contract! That's ridiculous. After 7 years they want me to sign a contract just to replace my defective purchased box with a different purchased box? That makes zero sense to me. And I'm currently out of work, so I don't need to shut the door on disconnecting D*.

But there are no alternatives where I live. Cable for the same channels costs $109 plus installation. Dish (ugh, no TiVo) is the same price if I give up the military channel, but I have trees blocking anything west of about 110 degrees. I can't even see the D* satellite #2 at 119.

I wonder if reinstalling the old DTiVo even though it doesn't work would also trigger the new contract. If not, maybe I could install the old one and the new one, then delete the old one.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

Just talk with another CSR. Activating an owned receiver should not trigger a commitment. The issue though is that there probably isn't a single CSR that remembers let alone knows that there are owned boxes because they've been doing leasing for a few years now and CSRs usually don't last 6-12 months. So you'll need to keep calling until you get one that knows what's up or just ask for the retention dept.


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## DBCooper (Aug 15, 2000)

I'll try that. Failing all else, I suppose I could buy a really cheap DTiVo on eBay and swap that drive into my unit. That looks cheaper than the new drive prices at Weaknees.


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## John T Smith (Jun 17, 2004)

Any used DTivo you buy is likely going to have a drive that won't last long... if it even works

If either of your old drives will still spin up, and you have a computer with two USB ports and can find/borrow external adapters, you can use http://mfslive.org/winmfs/ to clone your old drive to a new drive

I did that with several 80Gig drives... and "grew" them into 320Gig during the process


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

shibby191 said:


> Just talk with another CSR. Activating an owned receiver should not trigger a commitment. The issue though is that there probably isn't a single CSR that remembers let alone knows that there are owned boxes because they've been doing leasing for a few years now and CSRs usually don't last 6-12 months. So you'll need to keep calling until you get one that knows what's up or just ask for the retention dept.


BS! Signing me up for a commitment without telling me for activating on owned DTIvo is why I dumped DirecTV, They're lying bastids.

"It's our policy."

It's my policy to not send you another dollar and to cost you every customer I can for the rest of my life.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

netringer said:


> BS! Signing me up for a commitment without telling me for activating on owned DTIvo is why I dumped DirecTV, They're lying bastids.
> 
> "It's our policy."
> 
> It's my policy to not send you another dollar and to cost you every customer I can for the rest of my life.


Some CSR's just don't know any better. It's NOT "the policy".


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## DBCooper (Aug 15, 2000)

Retention solved most of the problems. They recoded the TiVo as purchased and that allowed him to remove the $10 HD charge. Meanwhile we did establish that there do not appear to be any MPEG2 HD channels available to me. He also waived the DVR charge for 12 months, so that gives me some breathing room. If they can get that $&#37;#% new HD TiVo out, maybe by that time we will have a better solution.

This guy was fairly knowledgeable, but seemed to think that D* had split the blanket with TiVo. I convinced him to read their web site and he agreed that he was mistaken. But he had heard nothing about the conference call this week.

One new problem has arisen. Setup is demanding that I make a phone call. I doubt that I can do that because I use Vonage. I don't recall that being a problem with my SD DirecTiVos and I know it wasn't required for their schedule updates. Maybe they want to do a software update?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

DBCooper said:


> ...
> 
> One new problem has arisen. Setup is demanding that I make a phone call. I doubt that I can do that because I use Vonage. I don't recall that being a problem with my SD DirecTiVos and I know it wasn't required for their schedule updates. Maybe they want to do a software update?


Tivos have always required a phone call as part of the initial Guided Setup. If you don't have a working phone line, you can perform most of the Guided Setup from a friend or neighbor's house using their phone line. No satellite connection is required for most of the setup.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

netringer said:


> BS! Signing me up for a commitment without telling me for activating on owned DTIvo is why I dumped DirecTV, They're lying bastids.
> 
> "It's our policy."
> 
> It's my policy to not send you another dollar and to cost you every customer I can for the rest of my life.


Even if it was DirecTv policy (and it isn't), how it would be different from TiVo policy? If you want to re-activate your old TiVo or any other TiVo you have to sign up for a minimum of one year commitment.


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## DBCooper (Aug 15, 2000)

Reactivating an old receiver doesn't trigger it because I reactivated an old one for just a few days last week. It appears to apply only to new serial numbers.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

DBCooper said:


> One new problem has arisen. Setup is demanding that I make a phone call. I doubt that I can do that because I use Vonage.


Most likely you'll be fine with Vonage. I've had Vonage for many years with DirecTivo's and the only one that gave me any trouble dialing in was the last one made, the R10. All the others would dial in and connect about 75% of the time. So keep trying until it finally connects. Make sure Vonage is set to the highest quality. One other trick if it's not working is to insert the "fax" Vonage pre-dial code as a prefix in the Tivo's dialing string. I don't remember what it is now but the Vonage website should have it. Something like *99 I think.


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## DBCooper (Aug 15, 2000)

The dialing problem turned out to be the number that the DTiVo was dialing in order to get the local numbers. I guess the software was old. Whatever the case, when I listened in, it was a voice recording at DirecTV. When I substituted the right number (pre-dial option) the call went through.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

samo said:


> Even if it was DirecTv policy (and it isn't), how it would be different from TiVo policy? If you want to re-activate your old TiVo or any other TiVo you have to sign up for a minimum of one year commitment.


You don't think that telling the customer they have a one year commit and quietly making it a two year commit is different?

You don't think that telling the customer there is NO commit while quietly making it a two year commit is different?

You don't think that having a one year commit and mot two years is different?

You don't think starting every new account with an ETF fee that is over $400 on day one is different?

Don' cha think that if the product was any good, they wouldn't need to trick customers so they can't stop paying for it?


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

netringer said:


> Don' cha think that if the product was any good, they wouldn't need to trick customers so they can't stop paying for it?


Yea, they've "tricked" nearly 19 million customers and growing. Those darn dirty DirecTV guys.


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## texasPI (May 9, 2010)

Stuff like this is why I left D*. Their recent change in their customer agreement give me the out of my two year commitment of which I still had 6 months remaining. I beat the CSR over the head with it, he was a rude bastard from the get go and I loved every minute of it. I've read numerous accounts online of people trying to get out of their contracts after D* changed the terms and all said they failed and doubted any one could. It took me 50 minutes on the phone but it was worth it.

First thing the CSR asked when I told him I did not agree with the change in terms was, "what's changed?" So I started rattling off the changes and he asked me to hold on to get a copy of the agreement. He obviously thought he would stump me. Before I told him the changes I asked him to show me where in the agreement it said I had to identify the changes in order to cancel. Yeah, he couldn't. He was a smug, rude ****** and it was my pleasure ruining his day. Btw, I knew I had him when he had no idea how to pronounce infringement. As a last resort to extort money from me he tried to claim I had not returned two recievers I had deactivated over a year ago. I had the tracking number and offered to give it to him and he quickly backed down.

Btw, I'm normally not an ass to people but this guy got us started on the wrong foot and I refuse to be talked down to by ANYONE.

That's my rant and that is why I now have cable and a TiVo. :up:


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

texasPI said:


> That's my rant and that is why I now have cable and a TiVo. :up:


Yeah cable. They're great. They would never pull crap like that.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

HiDefGator said:


> Yeah cable. They're great. They would never pull crap like that.


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## MikeAndrews (Jan 17, 2002)

HiDefGator said:


> Yeah cable. They're great. They would never pull crap like that.


I could have cancelled my Comcast subscription the day they installed it and any day afterwards, so you're right.

The same with UVerse.

As I said, ya gotta wonder if the DirecTV product is so good why they have to lock you in to it.

But hey, if you _can_ cancel your DirecTV service, for gods sake, *CANCEL your DirecTV service!*


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

netringer said:


> I could have cancelled my Comcast subscription the day they installed it and any day afterwards, so you're right.


That's actually pretty rare these days so you're lucky. Most cable systems lock you now as well. Around here Charter, Comcast and Time Warner will lock you in for 12-24 months. Dish and DirecTV are 18-24 months. Right now around here Uverse is the only one that doesn't lock you in. Same in much of the country as well. It's getting rarer and rarer to find a cable company that doesn't also do commitments now. So you might want to stop using that argument like it's universal. 



> As I said, ya gotta wonder if the DirecTV product is so good why they have to lock you in to it.


The top reason they do it is to recover the cost on hardware. You think that free install with hundreds of $$$ worth of equipment and installer time is really free? LOL.


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## mdougie (Mar 9, 2009)

I've had dish, I've had cable, and I currently have Direct TV. Direct TV is hands down the best. Great service, great channels.


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## texasPI (May 9, 2010)

HiDefGator said:


> Yeah cable. They're great. They would never pull crap like that.


Did I say they wouldn't/don't? At least with cable you can tell them to pound sand without a commitment to hanging over your head.

Edit: Btw, the reason I wrote the following was not to suggest that cable is better than Directv but rather as an explanation as to why I was here on this forum as a result of purchasing my first TiVo unit.



> That's my rant and that is why I now have cable and a TiVo.


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## texasPI (May 9, 2010)

netringer said:


> I could have cancelled my Comcast subscription the day they installed it and any day afterwards, so you're right.
> 
> The same with UVerse.
> 
> ...


Exactly! Also, with Dish a customer has the option to sign up without a contract if they so desire. Try doing that with Directv.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

texasPI said:


> Exactly! Also, with Dish a customer has the option to sign up without a contract if they so desire. Try doing that with Directv.


Or with TiVo. Didn't TiVo lock you in for at least a year?


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## catocony (Nov 14, 2006)

I learned years go with cell phones that you're better off buying your own unlocked phone (assuming your in a GSM provider) versus being continually locked in with your provider by always have a 1-2 year commitment after "upgrading" to a "free" phone. I'll pay a hundred bucks every few years for the flexibility of telling AT&T to piss off if I ever feel the need.

I think it was much better when you just bought your gear for DirecTV and didn't have to worry about the service commitment. I've basically been off-contract with them since 2000, and it was nice to know that I can drop them. Especially with the horrible service and customer service issues that now seem to crop up every six months to a year. 

I will say this - at my place, I can have cable (Cox), Verizon FIOS and satellite. When I was last seriously considering dropping DirecTV - over this past winter - I priced everything out with Cox and FIOS. They were both more expensive over both the long and short term. It doesn't really matter which transmission system you go with, if you want all the sports and movie channels, you're going to get the high-end package of whatever provider you use and those high-end packages are all going to set you back well over a hundred bucks a month now. 

The providers all wonder why people are downloading off the internet and using Netflix more and going back to OTA for local channels. Well, unless you're a sports nut, or just don't like watching programming on a monitor (not that you can't use a new TV as a giant monitor), it's much cheaper to download and go OTA. Of course, that's not very convenient, so you just pay the premium to have every delivered in one nice package. 

However, once you look at the premium package rate, plus extra fees for DVR (luckily mine is still waved), HD, per-receiver fees after the first one, and that now satellite is taxed in most areas (I remember when it wasn't) your costs are sky high.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

catocony said:


> I've basically been off-contract with them since 2000, and it was nice to know that I can drop them ....
> I will say this - at my place, I can have cable (Cox), Verizon FIOS and satellite. When I was last seriously considering dropping DirecTV - over this past winter - I priced everything out with Cox and FIOS. They were both more expensive over both the long and short term.


So for 10 years you were off contract you couldn't find a better deal. You could have received a lot of free upgrades extending your contract for two years at least 5 times over this period. Thats what I did. I got couple of free HD DVRs and whole bunch of free programming as a loyal customer. I'm not going to switch from DirecTV any time soon, so contracts do not bother me.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

catocony said:


> I think it was much better when you just bought your gear for DirecTV and didn't have to worry about the service commitment. I've basically been off-contract with them since 2000, and it was nice to know that I can drop them. Especially with the horrible service and customer service issues that now seem to crop up every six months to a year.


I've been with Directv since the mid-90's. In all that time not one other MSO has offered anything that was better than what Directv was providing. I have a workshop filled with old Directv boxes that I bought and owned. They are all worthless junk now. I'm amazed they can up the early cancel fee to $400 but more power to them if they can. I can't see how it will affect me anytime soon.


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## catocony (Nov 14, 2006)

samo said:


> So for 10 years you were off contract you couldn't find a better deal. You could have received a lot of free upgrades extending your contract for two years at least 5 times over this period. Thats what I did. I got couple of free HD DVRs and whole bunch of free programming as a loyal customer. I'm not going to switch from DirecTV any time soon, so contracts do not bother me.


They shipped me a free R15 a few years ago and I've gotten plenty of discounts over the years when I've called in to complain. Believe me, whenever I have a problem the first thing out of my mouth is "you know I'm not bound to your service". I had my Premium pack for free for several 3-month periods over the years, and got NFL Sunday ticket twice for free. Up until a few months ago, I had a "customer service discount" for one reason or another for the better part of four years.

Again, I'm happy not being bound to them. The "free" upgrades sound like a great deal - until you miss parts of half of the Redskins games on Fox last year due to transmission problems between the local Fox affiliate and DirecTV. Or when a software download screws up your DVR for a week until there's a fix. Issues like that.


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## catocony (Nov 14, 2006)

HiDefGator said:


> I've been with Directv since the mid-90's. In all that time not one other MSO has offered anything that was better than what Directv was providing. I have a workshop filled with old Directv boxes that I bought and owned. They are all worthless junk now. I'm amazed they can up the early cancel fee to $400 but more power to them if they can. I can't see how it will affect me anytime soon.


I agree in part, DirecTV generally is good and for the first 8 years or so I had zero issues. The only time I called them was when swapping out hardware or to do two moves. But since 2006, I've had at least two issues a year and each issue quickly turns into a life-sucking death march to find a resolution. I used to really preach about DirecTV to all of my friends and coworkers and neighbors. Not anymore. It's like a lot of services in this day and age - you pick or stick with a vendor not because they're the best or doing a great job but because they suck less than the competition.


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## rescue25 (May 3, 2005)

Well I had a very long conversation with D* and I am really pi$$ed. After a 45 minute discussion with one CSR I was able to get a free upgrade to their 500 gig HD DVR and I was trying to get back a discount that they gave to me for the last three years as a "LOYAL" Customer I was trying to get some more love as it were but she would not give me anything more for free. Then I asked for her to kick me up to her manager and he completely flipped the deal that I had just struck and stated that he would only give me 100 off the hd unit. Well I was about to tell him to pi$$ off and cancel my subscription. 

I called Dish and they have a 1TB networked system. That sounds smoking. Their lease fee with dvr charge was 25/mo with a 24mo commitment with once it was done would cost for the first year would save me about 20/month. And If I signed up for auto pay and paperless billing I could get HD free for life ANOTHER 10.00 FEE SAVED/MONTH.

That sounded great but I too am unemployed and my benefits are about to run out. with the 24 month commitment we could not guarantee being able to pay it. and to boot my 708 is dieing I think the drive is developing bad spots. original 80 gig drive. I have several 200 gig drives but I cannot find the information to reformat the other drive and then I would need to migrate everything to the new drive. I forget what kind of drive is installed into the 708's is it SATA or IDE

I am kind of afraid to open it at the moment. I have a couple of old desktops that I could up load ubuntu to reformat the new drive for Linux. though I need a PRIMMER ON HOW TO DO IT. I CANNOT FIND IT ANYMORE. CAN ANYONE POINT ME INTO THE RIGHT DIRECTION?

SINCERELY

Rescue25


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## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

No offense, but if you're unemployed and benefits are running out...I would think tv would take a back seat to feeding your family and keeping a roof over your head.


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## shibby191 (Dec 24, 2007)

rifleman69 said:


> No offense, but if you're unemployed and benefits are running out...I would think tv would take a back seat to feeding your family and keeping a roof over your head.


I hear you there.


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

Wow. That huge bold font just about blew the eyes out of my head.


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