DirecTV Customer service scores a "0" - Montana Owners Club

bighornram · 04-22-2012, 09:54 AM

WARNING: This is a rant.

Let me start off by saying I have been a customer of Directv for 20 years. I have a Directv TiVo unit that I purchased in 2001. When I returned from a trip in March my local ABC, CBS and NBC channels were gone. After playing the tech support game with the CSR several times. They offered to let me pay for a service tech to come look at my receiver and wiring fully knowing that a service call couldn't fix their changed feed. My other HD-DVR is receiving fine. Mr. Google found this thread on DirecTV Technical Forums. DirecTV, playing dumb to the fact that they changed the satellite feed broke my TiVo and offered to replace it with a basic DVR unit. They offer a SD DVR and an HD TiVo costing $100 and $200. I bought a TiVo and think they should replace my TiVo with another TiVo. They say it would be an upgraded receiver because it has HD Capability. My arguement is that with my SD dish it is an SD receiver. Despite them replacing someone else's for shipping cost, they hard balled me and I told them to just turn it off. I've had it with that company. Can anyone elaborate on a comparison with Dish Network? I want to cancel my DirecTV service totally. I have Comcast internet in my home and adding TV is cheap but can't take it with my Montana. Can anyone who has had both DirecTV and Dish chime in?

Ozz · 04-22-2012, 10:14 AM

Well, the search engine must be out of gas, but If you can find my 'Direct Tv hates Old People!'
I agree with you.

1retired06 · 04-22-2012, 12:28 PM

We have had DirecTV for at least 10 years, and have had nothing but outstanding service, and have found competent helpful folks on the trouble desk. Sorry you had a bad session. I am told, no personal experience, that the primary technical difference with Dish vice DirecTV, is that it is not as simple as DirecTV to set up, when Rving, because you have to lock in multiple sats vice a single sat with DirecTV. When we go to Florida for the winter, we simply call the 1-800 number and they reset the local channels for us from NC to Florida, and we do the reverse when we get back to NC from Florida. When we had a bad receiver this winter, they shipped us a new one, with a return box prepaid for the broken one, no questions asked. Within 72 hours of our call, the new one was up and running.

sailer · 04-22-2012, 03:43 PM

On Direct TV i change my locals as we move , even for 2 nites stay ,call give the campG address and bingo ,its done;;sailer

HamRad · 04-22-2012, 07:51 PM

Bighornram,
We have been with DTV for about 20 years and have never had any problem with them. We have even had excellent service while on the road. Even Boondocking! Had a problem with not receiving some of our channels. Within a few minutes the young lady had everything fixed and we were good to go. We have received some freebies from time to time when we had problems either real or perceived. About half the time the problems were "user related". Even then the service techs were always pleasant. If I had to rate DTV Customer Service I'd have to give them a 9.5 out of 10.

We are certainly sorry to hear you've had such a different experience. If we want "local" stations when we are on the road. If we really want local info we wind up the antenna on top of the coach. Good luck. Dennis

cdaniels · 04-23-2012, 02:33 AM

We have Dish and and only once had the same problem you did. They wanted to charge to send someone to help us fix the issue. I ended up hanging up and calling back a hour later got someone different and the issue was resolved. We have to reset our smart card on our reciever everytime we go if we have not been out in 30 days.The guy just could not get it set and working. He wanted to send someone and the cost was around $200.00. We leave our reciever in our rig the whole time for $5.00 a month but it does have to be reset each time we go. It consist of calling them and telling them to reset the smart card. What I have been told is after so many days of not being used it cancels it's self out. We looked into switching one time with Direct and thier set up is different and they gave us a run around. They are probably about equal. Depends on who you happen to get when you call tech support.

We are very pleased with Dish on the road. Not sure what kind of set up you have but they have a automatic Tailgate program for RV's. We have our own so never looked into that program.

Bigboomer · 04-23-2012, 02:58 AM

Bighornram,

We dropped DTV after 14 years as we got tired of paying for infomercials, local TV, etc.

We purchased a Sony Google TV, bought a pair of RCA digital rabbit ears for $11.99 and have Amazon Prime for $79 year.

We now enjoy 23 digital local stations for free!!! We can watch up to 4,000 movies on Amazon for free and can pay for new movies, etc. for anywhere from $0.99 to $4.99 and can also watch first run cable shows for free and pay.

My DW got tired of flipping thru the stations only to see another Ahh Bra commercial so that was it (actually she probably got tired of me telling her that her commercial was on again).....

In 4 months we paid for the new TV with the savings from DTV. The Google TV can also be used via the internet thru our Verizon MiFi 4G hotspot so we can also send e-mails, etc.....

Now DTV is begging us to come back with all kind of offers.....Joke is on them!

Good luck with that customer service!

DHenry · 04-23-2012, 04:43 AM

Ask for "Customer Retention" when you run up against a wall with the tech on the phone. That seems to work for me, Customer Retention rep. will see to it that you are a satisfied customer.

richfaa · 04-23-2012, 04:49 AM

Same here never a problem for over 10 years. The fan on our DVDR started to make noise then over heated and shut down. C S ran me through a few checks then shipped me a new DVDR. If you are having truble with one rep hang up and call again.Their tech reps have always been knowledgeable and helpful but there is always that one who is not...

CATCRAW · 04-23-2012, 05:21 AM

I have been with DTV since 1996 and only once had an issue I could not get resolved through CS. Here is the email for someone who got my problem resolved. Leave them your phone number and I gat a call back right away and my problem resolved.

ellen.filipiak@directv.com

Mynabird · 04-23-2012, 07:35 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by sailer

On Direct TV i change my locals as we move , even for 2 nites stay ,call give the campG address and bingo ,its done;;sailer

Everytime we call to change we have to spend 20-30 minutes , if not more, asking/telling them we want it changed! First, they want to come out & install. (duh)

Then we have to explain that we are an RV & move around & then we get the explanation of West/East Coast feeds. (sigh) Yes, if you are looking at our account, you will see we have it. Oh! Mixed responses!

I would just like to call & say we are an RV & move several times & would just like access to local stations.

So,what is the number "you" call, that we can use to cut down ours explanation time? I greatly appreciate your sharing!

bighornram · 04-23-2012, 09:21 AM

I know most of you guys have had a great experience with them. I have until now too. I don't know why this had to be such an issue with them. I simply don't want to give up the TiVo features. Could be worse, I could been one of the people who paid TiVo for the lifetime subscription. That is lifetime "of the receiver". I offered to pay the $100 difference and they won't do it. I think I have REALLY tried to be fair about this. Sigh..... Thought of another comparison. Sirius changes their signal and "breaks" everyone's factory radio units then offers to replace them with radios not having all of the other features. When you buy a component specific to a proprietary signal you are at their mercy forever.

Art-n-Marge · 04-23-2012, 01:53 PM

I have been with both DirecTV and DishNetwork. I find that Customer service reps run the gamut for satisfaction. Some are just horrible and some are great. I find that over several days of asking my questions I will finally get the person with the real answers. It seems like the others just give an answer based on their (lack of) intelligence and understanding. No two techs are alike.

I have had good experiences with both, but have switched between the two when the prices climb on me for no good reason and I don't like the BS answers. Then I jump ship and go to the other one.

It all really sucks. Now I am down to basics which means I get all the shopping channels... AGHHHH!

I wish they would price out each channel, individually and then I could pick what I want based on this price. I understand ESPN and anything attached to Disney (like ABC, etc.) and the price goes nuts and since they bundle them into the basic channels this drives the price up every year! For this reason I don't need 10 ESPN channels and 30 shopping channels and would rather be able to pick the 15 good channels we LIKE. I would love this capability.

Their marketing and the way they bundle things is not doing me any favors. They both do this.

Ozz · 04-24-2012, 12:05 PM

Here is my story:

Direct TV hates Old people!!
Elder abuse; the final exploitation. Direct TV, you should be ashamed of yourself.
The mean company sells and half-installs their equipment in our RV’s, knowing we use them on the road, when those of us give who them the information that we do not have their equipment at our stick-houses, this is our permanent address. Even when at a RV park for a month, they won’t come to us when we have a problem.
If your billing address is different from your service address, you are out of luck!
We spent hours on the phone talking to them when we were in Loveland, after exhausting everything they had in their little books in their little cubicle, they told us we should have someone come out and check the system. Someone? I’m thinking that would be them. Nope. Not them.
I saw a beat-up old pickup entering the campground one day, had a satellite dish and a bunch of junk in the back of his little truck. He headed to the back of the RV park, I hopped on my bike and chased him down. I gave him our site number and asked him to come by when he finished.
He showed us how to reset settings on the set-up guide, after power is interrupted with the portable dish, that was all it was.
You would think the little person with their little book in their little cubicle would have told us that.
Nope, they hate old people..

richfaa · 04-24-2012, 01:34 PM

I know if you so much as utter the word RV, they will stop talking to you and start selling servces to you and tell you that you can't do whatever you are asking them to do if you are in a Rv unless you purchase the...RV package.
We never Say the RV word. We refer to the Montana as our Residence and we have no problem.

bighornram · 04-24-2012, 04:20 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

I know if you so much as utter the word RV, they will stop talking to you and start selling servces to you and tell you that you can't do whatever you are asking them to do if you are in a Rv unless you purchase the...RV package.
We never Say the RV word. We refer to the Montana as our Residence and we have no problem.

That may have been my first strike....

HamRad · 04-24-2012, 06:16 PM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by richfaa

I know if you so much as utter the word RV, they will stop talking to you and start selling servces to you and tell you that you can't do whatever you are asking them to do if you are in a Rv unless you purchase the...RV package.
We never Say the RV word. We refer to the Montana as our Residence and we have no problem.

It must depend on who you get. I've never had any trouble when I indicate I'm in my RV. I always tell them that we simply take our boxes from the house with us on the road. After we get whatever problem we're having fixed they sometime may try to sell me some package or other but are not out of line. I simply say 'no' and thank them for their help.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Happy Trails, Dennis.

melnjoy · 04-24-2012, 07:40 PM

We had Dish for about 20 years they made me switch to Directv about 5 years ago, I have 5 recievers 3 of them are DVRs. I have had problems but I pay the $5 monthly insurance and have not had any problems with customer service no matter where I am at. The service people that have come out to fix problems [witch most are operater error] have been very helpfull.
Mel

richfaa · 04-25-2012, 04:00 AM

You are correct Dennis but we no longer take any chances. We also have that 5.00 per month insurance and we are told they will service no matter where we are.We never had a problem changing our local channels except for the couple of times we said we were in a RV park. Now we say we are in our Winter residence and give the RV park as our service address.We do not change for short periods we just use the antenna for local channels.

IMO the difference is if you have a Stick and brick and a permanent billing address they do not hassle you but if you are a full timer with no permanate address and tell them so they will try to sell you the RV package.Wonder how that would work with a full timer with a Texas or S.D address, not a P.O. box or a mail forwarding company and they did not mention that they were full timers and in a RV????

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