In the beginning Directv touts their low rates of 29.95, I never once saw that supposedly because I didn't turn in all the right paperwork for rebates. So the rate is 79.00 for the first three months, the you get the whopper 120.00 a month. I'm done thats redicules. Now I call to cancel beause I will not pay that much every month-400.00 to disconnect. It doesn't take a rocket science to figure out that Directv is a bunch of theives.

I just got DirecTV because I can't get Comcast where I live. Of the first 20 channels, only 4 are regular programs. The remaining 16 are infomercials. Then the next 20 or so are pay per view. Then back to infomercials. I'm wondering why I'm paying so much money to watch commericals.. They advertise hundreds of free channels, but only a handful are programs, . The rest is advertisements?. Avoid DirecTV if you can!! It's not worth the money.. In addition, I ordered a bundle package through Verizon'. It was supposed to be $89/month for 1 year?. So far I've received a phone bill from Verizon for $84 and one from Direct TV for $124, . This is more than double what I thought I'd get even if it was prorated.

Just spent over 3 hours getting a "bundle" from a very optimistic salesperson. After the sale was done and money swiped from my account
turns out i couldn't get 2 out of the 3 services in the bundle? and all of a sudden in order to get the extra two services would've cost $140 extra a month, for less than what i have now.

After 2 in a half long very painful hours of trying to get my account canceled.
DirecTV tried to have us call and negotiate with our current phone/ISP service so they can be apart of their bundle.
would not for the life of them cancel our account, i think somewhere in there they tried to sell me dish soap? and other house hold products.

By far the worst experience in my life on the Entertainment Part.
The salesperson alone should be most to blame giving the fact that he just sold a bundle that isn't fully available to their future customers.

As a former employee of DirecTV who has heard complaint after complaint about them, I wanted to take the time to post some facts about DirecTV customer service for consumers out there who feel like they've been ripped off and lied to. I will go through what I know for you and give answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

Also, if you have any questions about DirecTV and/or how to deal with them, I will do the best I can to answer for you.


1.Customer Service is Lousy.

A1. Will you receive poor customer service if and when you call DTV? Yes, a lot of times you will. Occasionally you will get an employee who cares and does their utmost to solve your issue. Most of the time they care to some extent but not enough. Let me explain why customer service sucks at DTV and what you can do to hopefully mitigate your terrible experiences.

DTV employs literally thousands of people on their phones. The average lifespan of an employee is about 3 months. You don't get on the phones with DTV customers until you have completed 3 weeks of classroom training, then two weeks of what they call On The Job training where you are closely monitored by coaches who help you through your calls. That sounds like a lot of training; It isn't. It's not nearly enough. When I got out of training I knew about 80% of what I needed to know to help you, the customer. I would consider myself one of the brightest people who went through the training. Not patting myself on the back, just observing that they will pretty much hire anyone because they have such high employee churn.

When you get out of training you have been fed information quickly and a lot of times been coached by someone who doesn't know the correct answers either. This is why you will call DTV and get a different answer almost every time, especially if it is an obscure or maybe confusing issue, like a special promotion or facts about local channels. DirecTV is a large corporation that has loads of things you should know to answer people's questions; to absorb all that takes months and months on the job and frankly, most folks just don't last that long. There are a number of different reasons why employees turn over so often, I'll go over some of them later.

To mitigate this, if you feel frustrated, ask to speak to a supervisor. They may make you wait for someone, but it is worth it. If you get disconnected, just call back and immediately ask for a supervisor. If this fails to get you a response, then ask to speak to their customer retention people because you want to "cancel". If this doesn't work, you have the option of communicating by mail with the OOP, or Office Of The President. This should be a last resort, because if you get a negative answer from the OOP, you are well and truly screwed. This means they won't do a finger to help you.

2. Customer Service people lied to me!

A2. Most of the time, because they are poorly trained, you receive different answers. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that 99.9% of the time when you receive an answer from a DTV customer service person, they are giving you the answer they have been told. They are not deliberately deceiving you. They either have been misinformed or they truly don't know and are trying to desperately find information in the DTV database and have found what they hope is the right information. So are they lying to you? Not purposely. I know that doesn't help much. All I can say is if you feel you've received the wrong information and/or been lied to, ask to speak to someone in charge. Ostensibly they know the answers.

Another problem is DirecTV doesn't own all its call centers. They subcontract out to all sorts of different companies for call center customer service. So probably 7 times out of 10 you are not even talking to an actual DTV employee, you are speaking to someone from a third party company. They will tell you they work for DTV but they don't. So they may have even a poorer understanding of DTV and its services than actual DTV employees, depending on the quality of the third party providers training process. I have worked for DTV directly and also a third party provider, and let me tell you, when I worked for the third party, they basically didn't care about my giving right answers; all they cared about was how well I could upsell you the customer on HBO, Showtime, Starz, Cinemax or a premium sports package. All the people I saw promoted while I was employed there were promoted not because they could do a great job, solve your problems and answer your questions. They were promoted because they were great at up-selling. I met all the metrics for this third party provider 100%, had 100% attendance and well over a decade of management experience, yet was passed over for promotion that was given to someone whose metrics were a mess because the one metric they cared about was sales, and that person did fantastic in that area. She couldn't help you in questions about your service but she was great at sweet talking you into trying HBO for three months.

Which brings up another problem...once you've rejected someone on a pitch to sell you HBO or other premium services, at that point they basically stop caring. They are being harped on to sell, sell, sell. If you don't want to buy anything, they lose interest in helping you. You can't really blame them; the company will fire you if you don't meet certain sales goals.

That brings me to the final thing I have to say...please have pity on the poor suckers who have to take your call. They haven't created the mess but are forced to work in it. They are given poor training and conflicting information. They are harped on to sell, sell, sell you things, even if you can't actually afford it. They are being paid peanuts to do a terrible, crappy job. Don't yell at them. Pity them. In this economy, it is often the only job the unemployed can find. Blame the corporate structure and officers. Reserve your anger for them. The poor schmuck on the phone is trying (most of the time) to help you.

DIRECTV (DTV): I subscribed for directv b/c they were offering a package for $34.99 /mth for one year. While DTV rep was installing receiver we noticed the picture was not clear and needed to change the receiver. I called while the installer was still here and spoke to several reps for approx 3 hours. (DTV advertises you have 24 hours to change or cancell service w/o penalty). This was literally 3 minutes! I asked to change for HD receiver and change program from the original $29.99 pckg to $34.99 pckg. They did so but charged me $142+ instead of the $34.99 as advertised (they say b/c I was a client for 3 minutes with the $29 pckg!!! and was not entitled to receive $34 pckg). I for the next 3 days I spoke to many, many sales reps for a total of approx 14 hours - to no resolve. Some were nice - but just passed me along. Many, many reps were very rude. I have never in my life been so frustrated. This is an abuse, theft and misleading advertising and policies. I don't know what to do. They have billed me $142.25 for the first month and $75 for the second month. I cannot afford this. I am going through a very difficult time and only signed up to the offer b/c it was $34/mth. Our building does not have cable and each apt must provide their own service. Please, please help me. DTV said if i suspend service I have to continue paying!!! How can they get away with this??? Please help me - I cannot afford this. Also, they sent me 2 receivers in error - I returned one, sealed never opened with the original DTV tape. DTV returned the box w writing on the outside that a cable was missing!!! it was NEVER opened! Also, I don't know why, but I don't have access DTV service as of Thursday!! How can these corp abuse consumers so shamelessly?

I don't want anything to do with DIRECTV - they can refund my money, and collect their receiver.
Consumers should be made aware of DTV tactics.
It has been the worst experience in my life.