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AT&T strikes again!

4K views 44 replies 19 participants last post by  jimmie57 
#1 ·
So a few weeks ago I called about moving my service. After several calls and tweets about paying a $199 to move, I was happy with my credits.

So this past Saturday rolls around.I have a 124 window for DIRECTV and Comcast for internet scheduled. Comcast again shows up at 1pm, very nice installer and done in 1 hour. Like last year, on time and great service.

Well 4:30 rolls around and not a word form AT&T. I called and get we are sorry e did not show up. WE can reschedule. I sat home form work for this! So install is a week later and nothing form DIRECTV for the time missed. HATE this new AT&T! Left them for internet 2 years ago and been so happy. Have them for cell service since 1990 and SICK of issues in the last 4 years. It might be time to leave them for everything. So now using a free trial of DIRECTV NOW in the mean time and its sucks! Guide in weird order and just odd to use. HULU and PS VUE seems better and looks like where I am going to try soon. No more boxes, installs, holes in walls, etc.
 
#7 ·
Never had issues in the past. 2 installs smoothly and many service calls.
All I asked for was communication. DIRECTV/AT&T could care less!!!
Takes 2 min to text, cant make it.
CS in this day and age sucks and NO WORK ETHIC anymore.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#3 ·
You looked into Xfinity Mobile? That's my first move next month when the Galaxy 10 arrives. I know people who are Apple users have had trouble with them with Wifi calling, but have heard few if any problems on the Android side. If you haven't looked at them do it. They piggyback on Verizon's network.
 
#6 ·
No, not yet and I have iPhones. Will try their TV soon. Friends in the area say its whole new game the last 3 years. Great PQ and DVR now. on demand great too.

So no 4K. Who cares. Not much on D* anyways and I pay for an extra box to have 2) 4K tvs running.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#5 ·
Yes, they have! 3 installs in the last 2.5 years. Always on time, fast, courteous and amazing customer service all around. They have turned it around.
Been with D* since 2000 and have watched excel and then flop badly under AT&T. CS among the dumbest and horrible. Been with AT&T since the Bellsouth days and in the last 3 years, have watched them fo firm flawless to absolute garbage. From Cellular, Internet to DIRECTV!!!

Done. This November, moving to Verizon for cellular or T-Mobile.
TV either now or Jan to Comcast or a streaming service. AT&T will be out of my life.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
 
#8 ·
Update: After Saturday's screw up, DIRECTV/AT&T schedule me for this past Tuesday. Well, I could not do that so called AND rescheduled via ext twice. Sunday and Monday I get texts telling me about Tuesday appointment. I assumed a mistake. 12:05 a DIRECTV/AT&T "Authorized contracter" shows up. So I figured why not.
He comes in and I show him where I want the TV outlet, etc. He says we have a problem. My Comcast internet is on the cable he needs (WTF?) I explained Comcast showed up on Saturday and ran a new line for internet. He then explains I have to pay for new cabling. I said yes, part of $199 move. He says no but will call is supervisor. Then says "I need to run home down the street to get my drill. It will take 15 min."

He comes back 75 min later. Proceeds to install dish too low on my concrete wall near my water pump.! F* it, it's mounted. Now he runs cabling to the spot. Being lazy and not securing the wire against house. Used zip ties to piggy back on Comcast great work. No comes the fun part. He start to drill for 5 min and says he cannot go through the wall. I see he is using a regular drill bit and try not to question him. I explained it just cinder block and AT&T put a hole 3" away last year. I turn away and he tries another spot!!!! Again he gets half way and get get through. Now I am upset and tell him its his drill bit. Nope he says rebar or metal in the way as the tip got red. Just as I was about to say, cancel the install and send some to repair and paint my freshly painted walls, he tells me he is running to Home Depot to try another bit. 1 /12 hours later returns after I assume lunch and a siesta to try again. 3 more bits and he is stuck. he is about to quit when guess what? he pulls out a Bosch masonry bit and goes through the wall like butter.

Now he runs cabling. No wall plate, no grommet in the hole. (i have plaster walls so looks like crap now. Then using screwed in cable clips in wall to secure cable like crap! One falls out leaving another hole I must now patch.

I called and complained to DIRECTV/AT&T again (first time about charge and they have his badge number.) and basically nothing was done. Was told MGNT form the loyalty dept would call and I am still waiting for someone.

When my contact is up next January, I am done with DIRECTV/AT&T. I will go to Comcast for TV or a streaming service. AT&T lost me for internet almost 2 years ago and I was with them since 1990. Going to lose me for Sat now after 18 yrs. This November, leaving AT&T Wirless since 1988 for Verison or T-Mobile for years off issues and now horrible cell reception at new house. Towers not fixed since Irma last year.

Been and very happy AT&T customer since 1998 for many services, 2-3 years ago, service when south and I stuck wit them (sister worked for AT&T for 15 yrs.) but the time has come.
iTs been painful to watch and I am just done. This install was the final straw!
 
#9 ·
Anyone who is going to complain about the quality of cabling runs should do their own or hire a third party. Directv has always done the bare minimum to get the cable where it needs to go. They aren't going to install wall plates, fish cables etc.
 
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#16 ·
They failed TWICE to do a move/install for me last November/December. Never showed up and never contacted me. While spending hours on the phone sorting it out I was told that they are "transitioning systems" and that is supposedly part of the problem. It seemed to me that they were touching no less than 3 different "systems". The agent was working with at least 2 other "departments" at the same time I was on the phone with them. Total f'ing chaos. I wasn't about to try a 3rd time (and another 2 week wait) so I hired my own guy to install the dish and connect to my wiring. ATT credited me the $199. Its a miracle I still have service and my account actually shows my new address.

I'm down to 1 receiver now and in my new house its in the basement where the utilities come in - using an HDMI extender to get to my TV. I don't want those idiots in my house. I don't want them running a single wire. The dish is on a pole so they can't screw that up (hopefully). I hope I never see another DirecTV/ATT installer again.

The service I have now is hanging by a thread. Fiber internet and TV is only a couple of miles from my house. When it gets here DirecTV is toast.
 
#30 ·
But Comcast's 720p is coming everywhere as they complete their DOCSIS 3.1 upgrades. I saw somewhere else that not only are they converting to 720p, but they are using a constant bit rate of 3 Mbps. If that's true and still the case, that's worse by FAR than the 720p conversion!
 
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#31 ·
I get this strange feeling that I'm in a Twilight Zone episode with TV world, there is 1080p, 4K, 8K, and there is advertising of the technology allover the place but than they tell you is we have the equipment and is going to get even better but we wont let you buy programing in these great formats because it's just for show.
 
#32 ·
Well, they got me as well but I am not going down without a fight which will probably result in my terminating my D* account if they don't make things right.

We are seasonal and move a couple receivers back and forth and have done so for years. Changed our service address before we left for our seasonal site last year and was still in the old system. Easy Peasy and no issues in getting it done, nor was there any cost or commitment added on to do so.

Got home yesterday, called to have my service address changed back to our home address (billing address was NEVER changed). No problem they said. After a couple hours on the phone and 5 different reps, we finally got our locals back for our home location. Guess it's not as easy a thing to do under the new system as it was under the old D* system. Come to find out, our account was migrated just a couple weeks before we arrived back home. Was never notified that this was happening either. Shortly after the change was made, I get an email saying I agreed to a new two year agreement and want to charge me the 199.00 for changing our service address back.

Phone call to retention/loyality confirmed this and the rep said she would notate my account about what has occurred. She is a holdover from pre ATT days and completely understood and simply stated to me that the rep who actually performed the switch (who was also supposedly a holdover) was not aware of the new changes and the only way she knew about all this was that she had a similar occurance a few days ago. Seems they were not trained on all this nor does the new system advise them of when a new commitment/charge is incurred or isn't when they attempt to adjust an account in any way. They are literally flying blind.

At absolutely NO point during my conversations with ANY of the reps was it mentioned that there would be a new two year commitment or the 199.00 fee to simply change our service address back like we have done for years at no cost before ATT. I challenged them to prove I agreed to anything or that I was made aware of either of these gotchas since they supposedly record all these conversations. If I had known about these things prior to making the service address change, my account would have been terminated immediately over this. I will be calling back on Monday and pursuing this further since there is no way I am paying the movers fee or continue my subscription under a new 2 year agreement with the future possibility of having to fight yet again over whether they are going to charge me an ETF if I end up leaving, which is now closer than ever.
 
#33 ·
Well, they got me as well but I am not going down without a fight which will probably result in my terminating my D* account if they don't make things right.

We are seasonal and move a couple receivers back and forth and have done so for years. Changed our service address before we left for our seasonal site last year and was still in the old system. Easy Peasy and no issues in getting it done, nor was there any cost or commitment added on to do so.

Got home yesterday, called to have my service address changed back to our home address (billing address was NEVER changed). No problem they said. After a couple hours on the phone and 5 different reps, we finally got our locals back for our home location. Guess it's not as easy a thing to do under the new system as it was under the old D* system. Come to find out, our account was migrated just a couple weeks before we arrived back home. Was never notified that this was happening either. Shortly after the change was made, I get an email saying I agreed to a new two year agreement and want to charge me the 199.00 for changing our service address back.

Phone call to retention/loyality confirmed this and the rep said she would notate my account about what has occurred. She is a holdover from pre ATT days and completely understood and simply stated to me that the rep who actually performed the switch (who was also supposedly a holdover) was not aware of the new changes and the only way she knew about all this was that she had a similar occurance a few days ago. Seems they were not trained on all this nor does the new system advise them of when a new commitment/charge is incurred or isn't when they attempt to adjust an account in any way. They are literally flying blind.

At absolutely NO point during my conversations with ANY of the reps was it mentioned that there would be a new two year commitment or the 199.00 fee to simply change our service address back like we have done for years at no cost before ATT. I challenged them to prove I agreed to anything or that I was made aware of either of these gotchas since they supposedly record all these conversations. If I had known about these things prior to making the service address change, my account would have been terminated immediately over this. I will be calling back on Monday and pursuing this further since there is no way I am paying the movers fee or continue my subscription under a new 2 year agreement with the future possibility of having to fight yet again over whether they are going to charge me an ETF if I end up leaving, which is now closer than ever.
Geez, this just keeps happening and happening. Bet that CEO has no idea all this crap is happening.

Rich
 
#38 ·
I was surprised that you were able to get your service address changed without a truck roll and on site activation by a tech. I believe you had mentioned that requirement a few months ago. I would go online and review the latest TOS and see if there is any mention of moving requiring a two year additional agreement.

I was transitioned to the new ATT web site last month after a two month delay after notification and the site lists six equipment boxes even though only four are active on my account. I was figuring that they would screw up the bill to reflect the additional two boxes but so far no change. I am not going to make any changes to my programming or equipment for the next year if I can manage it because I am afraid they may screw up the account and I will have no redress.
 
#39 ·
When I made the call, I stated right out that all I wanted was to have my service address changed back to my home billing address, that we have been doing this for years and I didn't need a truck roll or anything else. Since I was talking to a retention rep from the pre ATT days, he knew exactly what I was talking about. I get to retention by saying "contract date" at the automated prompts. He did have to jump thru a few more hoops in the new system to get it to take but he was able to do it. It also took a while longer (about an hour vs. less than 5 minutes) for my locals to update in my channel guide but eventually they all changed back as I wanted.

Where things went sideways was even though he assured me that no fee or contract renewal would take place with this change as it has always been in the past, shortly after hanging up with him I got the email congratulating me on the move and informing me of the 199.00 charge and new 2 year commitment.

Update since my last post: So after my previous post about following up on Monday, I decided not to wait that long and called back again that same day and spoke to yet another pre ATT retention/loyality rep. I am glad I did. I explained everything that happened and asked if there was a way to appeal/dispute the charges and commitment renewal because none of this was my fault. I changed my service address while under the old system, at no point was I notified that I had been moved to the new system and the previous rep who made the change back for me a short time ago failed to inform me of the fee or commitment renewal even though I clearly asked him to confirm it wouldn't before he did the change. I truly thought I was still in the old system and it wouldn't be a problem to switch back. She said the system didn't show any of that yet but didn't dispute what I was saying because she had another customer just a couple days ago that was going thru the same thing. She put me on hold and contacted the "back office" to find out if anything could be done. She said that she was told that there was no way to reverse it since the changes had not posted yet but because it had not posted to the system yet, she did say she would try and cancel the order and hopefully that would stop the fee and renewal.

I have called back twice now since then and I am told I am still not in a commitment so it appears that cancelling the order in the system may have worked. I have checked my billing online and it shows my service address changed as well as an estimated bill for next month that shows the drop in price due to the changes in local taxes and regional sports fees which are much higher in Florida than they are in Michigan. So although I think I am in the clear, I will continue to call every day or so until my actual billing date just to make sure everything rolls over month to month as it has in the past without any surprises.

But suffice it to say that I am already in the process of coverting my Winegard Travl'er RV dish to Dish and with an existing roof antenna at home that gets over 40 locals in three different DMA's and a 150/15 internet connection with no data caps, all I need now is to decide what streaming service I want to go with and what to use to record a few things from the antenna and my 20+ years with DirecTV will come to an end.
 
#40 ·
It is getting Bad at AT&T. It's not just the service were getting from the Directv side, it's company wide. I had been with AT&T wireless for around 20-25 years except for the little time they moved everyone to T-Mobile or someone around 1988 or so, then they moved us back about a year later. I just left them for another carrier about 2 weeks ago. I needed to get a number from them so I could port my phone #'s over to the new carrier. They didn't even waste a breath to try and hold on to me as a customer. They are hiring some of the cheapest and least professional people I have ever encountered in their stores. You feel like your surrounded by thugs or shady people, and they will go out of their way to lie to you. AT&T reminds me of organized Crime in their Business ways.
 
#42 ·
Where things went sideways was even though he assured me that no fee or contract renewal would take place with this change as it has always been in the past, shortly after hanging up with him I got the email congratulating me on the move and informing me of the 199.00 charge and new 2 year commitment.
From the TOS
DIRECTV EQUIPMENT LEASE AGREEMENT

Movers Customers - If you are moving your existing Leased Equipment and not adding any new or upgraded Equipment and your current Term Commitment is less than 12 months, you are agreeing to a new 12 month Term Commitment. If your current Term Commitment has more than 12 months remaining, you will remain on the longer Term Commitment.
 
#43 ·
Them telling you one thing, and then sending you a bill that is different than what they told you. Might be time to give the State Attorney General a little heads up of these things. You pay taxes and this is just what you elected him for.
 
#44 ·
They never "officially" sent me a bill.

What happened was that after the first retention rep went into my account in the new system and changed my service address back to my home address, the new ATT system automatically sent me an email about an hour later advising me that my "Move request" had been received, that I would be charged the movers fee of 199.00 and that I had agreed to a commitment renewal where I had not done anything of the sort. The second rep I spoke with was able to cancel the move request and so far, no fees or commitment renewals have appeared on my account.

Regardless, even though everything appears to have worked out ok this time around, not being able to temporarily change our service address like we have done for years will result in our leaving D* after 20+ years.

There are hundreds if not thousands of D* customers that move their service around all the time. Tailgaters, campers, vacationers who never call to have their service address changed and just get by without locals when out of their spot beam. The ONLY difference here is that for those of us that do extended stays away from home, get horrible OTA signals from an antenna and would like to receive our local/network broadcasts in our "temporary" location, we had to call to request the temporary change, which D* used to do all the time and without issue. So if anything, by calling and advising D* of our location change for a while WE are the ones that are abiding by the TOS more so than the others mentioned previously who never call and yet we are the ones that are being most affected by this. It's just that ATT now wants to nickel and dime you at every turn and that is just not going to happen in our instance. I am not going to pay hundreds of dollars extra each year nor am I going to put myself into a perpetual commitment just to continue to do what we used to do for free.

Already called Dish who will be installing our stuff next week where we can change our service address simply by calling, in a chat or using a smartphone app and at no additional cost or commitment. D* (pre ATT) did it easily, Dish does it even better. So there is no doubt it can be done, ATT just chooses not to any longer. Really sad.
 
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