I had direct TV for more than 2 years. Had no real issues, just the occasional cutting in and out in wind and rain. But I dealt with it. But when in came time to cancel, that was a whole other story. I moved in April 08 and wanted my services to be connected and my new place. The tech came out and said there was no way to get service and that he would note the account and cancel the order. I then called customer service who was so rude and told me to suspend my account. I went back and forth with the rep ans explained I wanted it disconnected.

They said they would take care of it. I guess feeling personally attacked the rep did not make the disconnect. 4 months later I am being billed $600 for service. No only am I being billed but they took it directly out of my bank account at the end of the month when all my bills are due. I was on the phone all day with reps, supervisors even managers that would not help me. They told me oh well, not is so many words, that it was my fault and they were not going to help! I then jumped online only to find hundreds of people havve posted complaints on the web with my same story. Direct TV can not continue to get away with this. Here is the letter I sent to them.

Billing Dispute

I moved in April and called to have my service moved as well. The tech came out and could not connect the service. I was in the hospital at the time and had my apt manager here with him. He called me in the hospital and explained it can not be connected. I was told by him he would cancel the service and order with nothing else for me to do. Your technician said he would document that the service was unobtainable at the new location at that time. I wanted to make sure so I then called customer service to let them know. The rep was short and rude and said no I should suspend service. I explained no that I just need to cancel. They assured me it was done. I heard nothing else until July when I received an email saying my account was past due. I immediately called and explain everything. The rep then told me the tech made no notes and shows he completed the work. I assured them I do not have direct TV nor a satellite dish here. I asked to speak to someone else. I then spoke with someone else who told me no they could see it was not connected and I had no service. I again was told this was resolved, after 2 hours of being on the phone. The rep I spoke to that day never told me there was still a balance and it would be coming out of my account.

Today my bank account was charged $600 which was my car and bill money for the month. I called customer service and have been getting the run around all day. I was hung up on twice then finally explained my situation to a gentleman that could not help me so he connected me with a Supervisor, Sherry, who told me she sees no notes of a cancel order but would look into it and would help me. 5 hours later she calls and said there was nothing she could do and to write a letter. I was shocked. I explained to her that I always paid my bills and why after more than two years of service with direct TV would I call to move service then just stop paying. I told her also the company had my address, phone number and obviously my email but I never heard a word until July. This is 3 months later. Had I known this was going on of course I would have immediately taken care of it.

One rep today said the charges were from a past due bill prior to April. I told him there was no way that could be true because I pay all my bills at directTV.com and I was current when I called to have my service transferred. He told me no no you did not pay since Jan. He went back and forth with me until I finally explained I had all my banking statements in front of me. He then changed his story. Same with the supervisor, who was the least helpful. She had me on the phone the longest and all she did was break down the charges. I kept telling her I understood the charge but how do we resolve it. She had no answer. She had no answer when asked why I never received a call. She said statements were sent out but if that was the case they would have been returned to direct TV because you still have my old address. She had no answers.

I cancelled my service in April. I never had any issues with direct TV until now. The tech did not do his job by not making better notes as of to what he actually did. Nor did the rep I spoke to make ANY notes.

I do not mind paying for bills or service that are mine or that I used. But in this case, I am being charged for service that was never given to me. I do not have a dish so signals are not being sent to my location however I am still being charged for service. I also am being charged an early cancellation fee. I more than fulfilled my end of the agreement. And all I want it to have these charges removed. This has caused me so much heartache and heartache. I always was pleased with your company and referred everyone I could talk to. This is leaving a horrible taste in my mouth about your company and employees.

I now can not leave my house because I have no money for gas, food and my car is in danger of repo because that was all the month I had at the end of the month. No one is willing to help me or even listen to me. They just keep telling me they have no notes. But the service was never connected here.

I am being charged for services that were never rendered. I am not asking for free service. I don’t think my request is unreasonable. All I want is to have this charge of $598.84 returned to my bank account. I have paid for the time when I had the service. Please don’t lose a customer and a word of mouth advertiser because one representative did not make a note! All I need is someone to please put themselves in my shoes for one moment and please be fair. Again I am not asking for anything but to remove charges when service was not being used I expect you to refund the money in good faith that was taken from my account, and that we can resolve this issue amicably.

For about a 7 month period of time our Direct TV receivers and HD antenna repeatedly broke or failed to receive service and the systems rebooted without any plausible reason several times a day until the receivers stopped working altogeather.

We went through 3 receivers during this time frame for the same reason.

After several hours either trying to get assistance from their tech support or trying to get them to understand the problems they eventually replaced each receiver over this time frame.

After each incident I called their customer service and specifically asked when my existing contract was scheduled to end. Each time I was advised that it would end in October 2009. I wanted to know the date because after the second incident we were going to find another provider.

Two months ago we had another incident that I escalated to the highest level in the tech support chain.

They sent the most highly qualified technician to handle the problem. This is what he told us:

1. the system installed was done so in the most incompetent manner he had ever seen in his time with Direct TV.
2. Every case that we had to get a replacement was as a direct result of the Antenna being installed incorrectly.
3. The antenna was not grounded.
4. The cables were loose and incorrectly installed.
5. The antenna could be moved around by simply touching it which explained why the slightest breeze would cause the antenna to move and lose reception.
6. Bad and improperly installed cable connectors.

Yesterday I called Direct TV and after an hour of getting the run around I was connected to the billing department.

I advised them that I wanted to schedule a disconnect for October because I was going to find another service.

They told me that my contract did not end until 4/14/2011 and I tld them that was impossible.

I was then told that since I had my equipment replaced (not repaired) that I had signed a contract that automatically extended my contract for two years.

I demanded to speak to a supervisor and was told by the billing person that he did not want to talk to me and that he did not intend to change the contract end date under any circumstance because I signed a new contract.

He finally got on the phone and told me that he had made up his mind and that he was not going to change it and that if I wanted to cancel the contract I would have to pay them $360.00 for the remaining part of the contract.

He would not be reasonable at all and was extremely impolite and rude.

I asked him directly if he did not understand that this was a case of unethical business practices? He inored me and agan told me that he was not going to reverse his decision.

As a technical service operations center director it is my role to at the very least work with, accommodate, or negotiate in good faith with unhappy customers.

Direct TV does not care, conducts unethical and unfair business practices and should be investigated by the TX Attorney General and reported to the BBB.

I intend to submit this same inormation to both.

If you are even considering going to Direct TV please find another provider.

If I had $360.00 to burn I would pay them but unfortunately in this economy I am stuck with these unethical bastards.

MY HUSBAND IS ON THE PHONE YET AGAIN TO SORT OUR BILL WITH DIRECT TV. <br />
THEY HAVE BILLED US FOR THE 4 TIME S FOR SOMETHING WE DID NOT ORDER. WE HAVE BEEN ON THE PHONE EACH TIME FOR NO LESS THAN 45 MINUTES GETTING THIS SORTED OUT FOR SOMETHING WE HAVE NEVER ORDERED. THEY HAVE ASSURED US THAT THIS WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF ONLY FOR THE SAME THING TO APPEAR ON THE FOLLOWING MONTH'S BILL. THEY ARE A TERRIBLE COMPANY TO DEAL WITH $45 HAS BEEN ADDED TO OUR ACCOUNT EACH MONTH INCORRETLY. WHERE IS OUR COMPENSATION FOR THE TIME AND AGGRIVATION SPENT ON TRYING TO SORT OUT THEIR MISTAKES. <br />
DO NOT ORDER THEIR SERVICE THEY ARE THE WORST COMPANY TO EVER DEAL WITH.

It all started when I had decided it would be nice to add HD TV to my existing Direct TV service, a few months before my two year agreement was up. When I called and had the HD service added they told me I would renew my two year agreement, I was fine with that I had been satisfied with the service thus far. The tech that was sent out to my house to install the new HD satellite was extremely rude, it was a snowy day and he told me he had fallen off a roof a few days prior and is now very scared of roofs. He told me his back was bothering him and his boss would not give him the day off and also makes him work very long hours. He said he didn't want to go on the roof that day and asked if I could reschedule, I said I will if I have to but I only have a weekday off every two weeks so it would be another two weeks until I could have them come out and install it. He told me I just don't get paid enough to climb up on that snowy roof if you were to throw in an extra 50 bucks or so I would definitely do it, and I blankly said no way. After an hour or two of him trying to talk himself into not doing it and an hour of him leaving to finish another job and coming back he finally crawled up on the roof and installed the satellite. He came down and installed the receiver and it didn't work. So he crawled back up to tweak the satellite and came back down and it still didn't work properly, he told me it was because it was snowing and when the snow passed it would work fine, and he left. Well it didn't so I had another tech out two weeks later to fix it, he did. A few days after he left it again didn't work. I only received less then a quarter of my HD channels and even those faded in and out. So I called direct TV and complained about the first tech being totally unprofessional and the second not fixing it and said I didn't want anyone else coming out to my house and I wanted to cancel service, because it didn't work properly. I spent a totally of about 8 hours on the phone over a two week period talking to different reps and supervisors. I finally found a level headed supervisor who apologized for all my troubles and told me she had removed my new two year agreement. So I thanked her kindly and a few days later after setting up a new service to come out and installed I called Direct TV back to cancel. They did everything they could to keep me they promised to not make me pay for HD service or the receiver but I could keep them and through in 6 months free of all the premium channels. I couldn't turn it down so I talked to my fiancee and we decided to wait 3 or 4 months until our original agreement ended and cancel. So those 3 or 4 months have gone by and I called them. They told me I am in contract until 2010, I got pretty mad and hung up. I called back today after I cooled down a little and explained to the rep the situation. He told me that the supervisor who told me she removed the new 2 year agreement, hadn't removed but escalated the account and asked to have it removed, which the commitment dispute people had denied and had said the agreement will stand from the time the HD receiver was installed, did I mention the HD receiver doesn't work?

I switched to Driect TV after reading an Ad and contacting them with numerous questions. I was told that I could record shows from one TV and watch them on another TV. I was told my rates would be $24 a month for the services I wanted. The installer came out and looked around. HE told us we had to rearrange our front room furniture for him to hook up both TVs to watch a show that was recorded on another TV. It took a bit of strength, but the moving got done (have an old upright piano that had to be moved). He hooked everything up and said we were good to go. We try to watch some of the channels we ordered, they weren't there. We called customer service and was told there would be an additional charge. We agreed to the charge. We tried to watch a recoded show on the upstairs TV, and I could not figure out how to get it to come up. I called customer service yet again and was told that it couldn't be done. Where you record it is where you can watch it, unless, of course, I wanted a second DVR at some ridiculous price. I passed. A few months pass and all of a sudden my bill doubles. I called customer service yet again and was told that the promo rate had expired. That was one of the questions I asked when I first inquired I was assured it was not a promo rate. So, I cancelled my service. Then they told me I would be charged $300 to cancel. I told them I would not pay it. They then told me they would just charge my credit card. I am watching my account closely. I will protest it if they try.