DirectTV

[Cheesehead Craig]

Anyone have any opinions about them? I'm looking to engaging in their services here in the Twin Cities and wanted to see what people think of them and for those that do have them to see how their experiences have been. Thanks.

[]{ilr]3]

One of the worst decisions I have made was going to Direct TV

They promise the world and deliver a turd

All I have received is lies and broken promises

Install was 3 weeks late and I missed the start of the regular season this year. Said they would give me a discount, but it never happened.

The installer was nothing short of a criminal. Didnt complete the job, stole parts from the install boxes. I assume to sell for himself.

Everytime I have called to complain about anything they promise me rebates and free services and I never get them.

The service is shit. In heavy downpours the signal is still lost. I have an HR21 HD DVR and it is slower than dirt to respond when browsing channels through the guide.

I had the NFL Sunday Ticket Super Fan package and nearly every week I could not get the Packer game in HD until it was well into the 2nd quarter. Again, Direct TV pretended to care, lied to me and delivered nothing.

And to top it all off I was promised (and still am being charged) for local channels. I dont get a single one.

I have had it for 5-6 months now. I am thinking about paying the penalty to get out of my 2 year contract from hell!

[Cheesehead Craig]

Damn, that's harsh. Where do you live?

[SkinBasket]

{ilr]3]I have had it for 5-6 months now. I am thinking about paying the penalty to get out of my 2 year contract from hell!

If you start documenting all these problems and your calls, chances are you can get out of your contract without penalty. They have a contract to live up to as well, and if you press the matter with your Dept of Consumer Protection, they'll probably just let you drop.

[sheepshead]

I switched over late last year from comcast. The customer service has been far better than my old cable co. I was happy to get rid of them. More choices and a few bucks cheaper. I had a little snow. I can tell you what I did to clean it if youd like-but take the warnings about snow on the dish seriously.

[SkinBasket]

Don't you just coat the dish in non-stick cooking spray?

[red]

yuck

i've had just about the same problems as killerb

if you have a problem, you're screwed. i spent around 4 hours or the phone trying to get a problem fixed. about 3 hours and 45 minutes were on hold. they lied and pissed and moaned until i finally got them to agree to everything i wanted. new boxes(the old ones were used and were on the fritz), and i wasn't going to pay a dime to have them shipped because it was their fault for giving me shit in the first place.

after much arguing they agreed

they sent me "new" reconditioned boxes, which still didn't work. and when the bill showed up they had charged me 70 some bucks for shipping.

so i called back looking for a fight. and sat on hold for a couple more hours. when i said that the lady had agreed to waive all the costs the guy said he had no record of that, and said they was nothing he could do. so i got a manager and bitched some more. he said he couldn't waive the shipping free, but he would give me 3 free months of showtime in return. finally i agreed. only to find out a day later that they were running a deal and giving away 3 free months of showtime anyways.

and all this was after i called the first time saying there was a problem and instead of just listening to what was wrong they just sent out someone to look over the whole thing. guy showed up, didn't listen to me explain what the problem was, did 2 tests, stared at the thing, and said nothing was wrong. and i got charged 80 some bucks for it.

and it didn't fix the problems leading to the shipping problems

and don't even get me started on the lame excuses i got for the reason why there is no way i can get packer games. they said they wouldn't show the game of the local team (green bay), yet they also say i live far enough away from GB where i can not get GB local channels. so bullshit

now, if it snows that picture goes out, if it rains hard the picture goes out, and if its very windy the picture goes out. i'm also pretty sure if its too sunny that the picture also goes out

of course when you call to complain about something you always get the "thats the first time i've heard of that one", line. then you go online and find that theres been hundreds of people that have had the same problems, and got the same blank stare type of answer from them.

they don't run cable out by me, if they did i would drop direct TV in a second. its not worth it IMO. if i had heard anything positive at all about dish network i would jump on that in a second

[Freak Out]

I am so glad my OTA on the roof antennas bring in the local HD channels so well....I was so close to getting Direct TV but had to many trees to cut down so I said fuck it.

I'm happy with the the HD quality of the locals...plus I get the Palin channel.

[sheepshead]

Don't you just coat the dish in non-stick cooking spray?

Yeah, well mine is on a 2 story house. I didnt listen.

[Partial]

{ilr]3]I have had it for 5-6 months now. I am thinking about paying the penalty to get out of my 2 year contract from hell!

If you start documenting all these problems and your calls, chances are you can get out of your contract without penalty. They have a contract to live up to as well, and if you press the matter with your Dept of Consumer Protection, they'll probably just let you drop.

Highly doubtful, because unless you're going to take them to court, why would they drop it without an ETF? You're not going to beat a huge company like that in court.

I've had awful experiences with Dish Network and with US Cellular and haven't been able to break a contract for free yet unless they have changed a term (such as increasing texting ala carte from .10 to .20 cents - that one worked).

With that said, we get 250 channels + local and HD from Dish, and we play about 85 a month after taxes and fees. While I realize this is a ridiculous amount of channels and extra shit, I think the base plan starts at about 50 bucks or so.

In the end, it is probably just about as expensive for us to have Dish + Road Runner as it is to have Time Warner Cable + Road Runner, but with the Dish we have far nicer equipment (they have much better interfaces on their boxes, etc).

TW is really cheap for the first year with their 99 dollar phone, TV and internet bundle, but after a year it goes up to about 140 or so. My sister has TW for basic cable (1-200), DVR, and 6.0 Mbps road runner and she pays like 130 after taxes and fees.

The dish network box is worth any additional price over TW because the Time Warner boxes are horrible. They're slow, clunky, and just really poorly designed all around imo.

[Bretsky]

Hands down best decision I've made was to go to Direct TV from Cable

More bang for your buck; better customer service

IMO great move

[]{ilr]3]

I live in NW Iowa in a little town called Terril. In other words "Bum Fucked Egypt!"

I have a decent antenna and can pull in about 10 OTA HD Channels which is pretty good since most of them are 75-100 miles away.

Maybe my disapointment is because I really liked my cable company. A small company based in town. Great service and prices but they only offered 6 HD channels 4 of which I could pull in from my own antenna. I had a HD DVR made by Motorolla that used a TV Guide brand guide to browse and record shows and it worked well.

Since this is Vikings country I didnt get to see all the Packers games I wanted so I made my decision based on NFL Sunday Ticket and getting all the games in HD. If it wasnt for this I would have gone with Dish Networks HD only service and kept my local Cable service for the same price.

[Bretsky]

I live in a town of 10,000 where there should not be a lot of issues getting stations

Originally they scheduled me for a Saturday install; they always overbook their techs.

When he called to say he would be unable to make it that day I had to call back and reschedule.

I called and voiced my displeasure and they gave me a $100 credit on my first bill; that was dam cool

Charter Cable would never ponder doing that. They throw you a bone via a special and than jack your rate and bend you over after the special expires.

Direct TV >>>>> Charter Cable

[BooHoo]

I have Dish Network and have had great luck with customer service. I had a problem with one of my TVs and the tech traveled about 90 minutes to get to my house and it didn't cost me a dime. But I have been with them for over two years. My reception is rarely down. However, I recently had to brush the snow off my disc on the roof. I also get the NFL Network.

[mraynrand]

This stuff is pretty easy to hack into. I made my own satellite and pull in DirecTV. The activation codes are difficult, but not impossible.