Missing Channels

My recieiver suddenly came up with missing channels (all channels above 325) - missing in the guide, and unable to tune them.

I turned of receiver, unplugged for several minutes (as they suggest), turned it back on, an then the missing channels went all the way down to 265.

Called D*, and they had me repeat the above, and then I got channels up to 379, but still missing > 379 channels. They did supposedly a reset of my service, but no help. Then they said I need a new access card (at $20).

Has anybody seen this? If they are swapping out cards anyway, am I getting screwed here?

Also, while the receiver was off, I pulled the card out to show the wife the $20 part, put it back in, and now I have no direct TV channels except channel 100.

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[MarkA]

Pull the card and put it back in to reset your receiver. It is not fully inserted if you are having trouble after you did that getting channel authorization. If your card is indeed bad, which it could be - point out to them that the card is THEIR property, and they should replace it for free. Threaten to cancel service if necessary. That might make them change their mind. A two dollar (or so) access card is much cheaper than the hundreds it costs to acquire a replacement for you.

It turns out the DirecTV guy I got on the phone originally is a moron. I called them again the next day to see if they would do a rehit. This time, the new guy found the service was terminated; he re-activated the service, and now it works like a champ - with my old card. Apparently the original direcTV phone support guy didn't know what he was doing, and he just flat out didn't re-activate the service during his attempt to fix it. I tried to cancel the new card, but it was already in the mail. They know it iscoming back to them "Return to Sender, adressee refuses delivery".

[John Corn]

Hi ibm135, Welcome to DBSTalk. :wave:

Glad to here your problem has been taken care of.
Might want to consider registering and stopping back by periodically, I'm sure you will find alot of useful information here. :)