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Advanced Receiver Fee-$25

41K views 20 replies 15 participants last post by  ThomasM 
#1 ·
This is my 2nd year with DTV and the fee is $25. Any way to reduce the fee or can I downgrade to a regular receiver?
 
#3 ·
The $25 fee is a clever way to "disguise" the actual individual costs.

It's $10 because you have at least one DVR on your account.

It's $10 because you have HD.

It's $5 for "whole home" service because your DVR supports it (even if you only have that one HD DVR!!)

Meanwhile, new customers get a $10 bill discount their SECOND year making it appear that discounts continue for their entire commitment. In real life, it just offers the same deal that "free HD for life" did while restricting it to just 2 years.

Ah, what would we do without clever marketing departments?
 
#5 ·
ThomasM said:
The $25 fee is a clever way to "disguise" the actual individual costs.

It's $10 because you have at least one DVR on your account.

It's $10 because you have HD.

It's $5 for "whole home" service because your DVR supports it (even if you only have that one HD DVR!!)

Meanwhile, new customers get a $10 bill discount their SECOND year making it appear that discounts continue for their entire commitment. In real life, it just offers the same deal that "free HD for life" did while restricting it to just 2 years.

Ah, what would we do without clever marketing departments?
I made the decision not to have whole home and you are saying that I am paying for that anyway?
 
#6 ·
bjdotson said:
I made the decision not to have whole home and you are saying that I am paying for that anyway?
it depends on how long you have had DirecTV. Accounts created prior to February 9th, 2012 keep the old structure. Everything past that is all or nothing. If you have your Advanced Receiver services split up as $10 for HD, $10 for DVR, then no.

If you have the $23/$25 Advanced Receiver Service charge, then yes. You are paying for everything, and an opt-out for whole home service is not possible.
 
#7 ·
My dvr fee didn't go up! I have been waiting for my new bill. It just came out and it's still the same price. $10 + $6 + $6. Still paying $22 for Advanced dvr fee (genie and 2 clients). My hd fee is waived. I was expecting it to go up to $13. So that's cool.
 
#8 ·
Ah Ha! Thanks for pointing out that the $25 is instead of the $10 & $10 & $3 & etc.


I just got the free Genie upgrade (with 2 year restart). Replaced an SD-DVR, and now have the Whole Home DVR setup. Lovin it! Transparent "LIST", over the SWM, can't tell the difference, literally!
 
#9 ·
bjdotson said:
I made the decision not to have whole home and you are saying that I am paying for that anyway?
DirecTV assumes that NOBODY can have just one receiver. (Like the Jay's potato chip ad- "nobody can eat just one") HA HA HA HA!!

As a result, folks that got DirecTV after 2-9-12 get popped $25 a month just for the PRIVILEDGE of having one of their HD DVR's. Of course, their slick advertising flyers only mention the PACKAGE price for the first year-not the "gotcha's". They have learned from their cable-TV competitors well which keep little surprises like "equipment fees" and "franchise fees" in the microscopic print at the bottom of their ads.

They don't like the idea of folks getting INDIVIDUAL DVR's for each room-even though the cost is EXACTLY THE SAME as "whole home" so they decided to pop subscribers the "whole home" fee whether you use it or not.

Of course, the customers prior to 2-9-12 often HAD individual DVR's and would probably go through the ceiling if they were charged the "whole home" fee without actually using it.

Clever, eh?
 
#10 ·
I have an HDDVR on 4 TVs one of those TVs has 2 HDDVRs), and have an SD mirror to the kitchen TV (and a guest room and a basement set and neither are ever watched) and was thinking of replacing the 2 HDDVRs on the big TV with an HR34 and putting a client on the kitchen TV. I suppose that resets me on the $25/mo but I'm thinking I'd like having an extra tuner and HD (finally) in the kitchen. The RF remote works poorly in the kitchen nand a client behind the TV fixes that.

Guess when next HDDVR croaks I'll jump, but glad to know up front where it's headed.

LOL, I have at least one HR20 still working great, might be a while before I get my '34.
 
#12 ·
As a new sub they are giving me a $5 credit on the advanced receiver fee for 4 months. They didn't have to, so that's cool. I'm downgrading my centurylink from 15megs to 1.5 since I don't stream video's or download a lot of stuff to save money plus buy a modem so I can save the monthly rental as well. That will more than off-set the new dvr fee. Plus I will get rid of my 3 tv client sometime this year which will save me $6 as well.
 
#13 ·
ThomasM;3188384 said:
The $25 fee is a clever way to "disguise" the actual individual costs.

It's $10 because you have at least one DVR on your account.

It's $10 because you have HD.

It's $5 for "whole home" service because your DVR supports it (even if you only have that one HD DVR!!)

Meanwhile, new customers get a $10 bill discount their SECOND year making it appear that discounts continue for their entire commitment. In real life, it just offers the same deal that "free HD for life" did while restricting it to just 2 years.

Ah, what would we do without clever marketing departments?
It's interesting, many customers (research driven) said they would rather have one fee instead of multiple fees, even if they all add up to the same amount of money. Then there are customers that want every line item listed out. Sometimes instead of marketing, it's merely addressing what the customers said they wanted. ;)
 
#14 ·
Call them what you will and tie them up in a single line item too. The bottom line for me is the extra fees are why I am not with DirecTv anymore. The cost is way higher than cable for the same content and features. Ironically the price difference is about $25.
 
#15 ·
Red Dog said:
So my charge went from PLUS HD DVR $86.99 to CHOICE XTRA CLASSIC + $10 Adv. Reciever HD + $10 Adv. Reciever DVR = $91.99. A 5.7% percent hike. Pretty cheesy, DTV. :rolleyes:
Same thing happened to me although I don't consider it "cheesy".

I kind of expected my grandfathered status on a package that was dicontinued years ago would end at some point. That time has come.

And the annual February price increase is pretty much a given in my mind. This year it was a $5 increase all told. It just was done to conicide with a repackaging of my services and fees. They could have continued to maintain the PLUS HD DVR package and raised the price of that by $5 I suppose.

The bottom line is the same either way. My DirecTV went up by $5 in February.
 
#16 ·
LI-SVT said:
Call them what you will and tie them up in a single line item too. The bottom line for me is the extra fees are why I am not with DirecTv anymore. The cost is way higher than cable for the same content and features. Ironically the price difference is about $25.
In my case it's exactly the opposite. Becaue DirecTV charges a flat DVR fee for the entire account it's cheaper for me to stay with DirecTV. Other providers charge up to $20 for each HD DVR. That adds up very quickly.

I have 5 HD-DVRs and two SD DVRs. I have priced this same setup with other providers and it costs me more for the same programming and equipment with every one of the other providers that I have priced and I have priced every other provider that is available to me. Well, FiOS costs about the same for the first year during the promo pricing while the base programming package is dirt cheap and then it costs me more after that when the programming package goes up to full price.

DirecTV happens to be cheaper for me.
 
#17 ·
Satelliteracer said:
It's interesting, many customers (research driven) said they would rather have one fee instead of multiple fees, even if they all add up to the same amount of money. Then there are customers that want every line item listed out. Sometimes instead of marketing, it's merely addressing what the customers said they wanted. ;)
As you can't make 100% of customers happy 100% of the time....I'm one of those customers who wants each and every item spelled out - makes it easier to consider/challenge each one. There's also an implication that if it is all rolled up then it is "all or nothing" - which may be true or may not be. I just recently noticed that my auto insurance lists each discount (safe driver, multi-car, etc) by name, but not the amount. They just provide a total at the bottom. Even though this is about money I've not being charged I'll be contacting them to know the specific amount behind each discount. I'm perhaps weird that way (and other ways).
 
#18 ·
So I called yesterday to drop a box I wasn't using since I got my HR34. Then I called again today to drop down from Choice XTRA Classic to Entertainment to save $19 (including the sports fee). After trying several times, the rep said "but you cancelled your service yesterday!"

[Insert 30 minutes of CSR nightmare (although it wasn't her fault)]

Now, I have everything back, my service downgraded to Ent after only an hour on the phone. Although I'm probably going to have to call to get back my $10/mo HD fee waiver that got cancelled along with my service.

You would think that they'd offer me some additional freebie to make up for their faux pax, but no.
 
#19 ·
Satelliteracer said:
It's interesting, many customers (research driven) said they would rather have one fee instead of multiple fees, even if they all add up to the same amount of money. Then there are customers that want every line item listed out. Sometimes instead of marketing, it's merely addressing what the customers said they wanted. ;)
I think that bundling in the whole-home fee for folks with one TV is a little off-putting.
 
#21 ·
gully_foyle said:
So I called yesterday to drop a box I wasn't using since I got my HR34. Then I called again today to drop down from Choice XTRA Classic to Entertainment to save $19 (including the sports fee). After trying several times, the rep said "but you cancelled your service yesterday!"

Now, I have everything back, my service downgraded to Ent after only an hour on the phone.
That's what you think. Wait until you get a bunch of boxes to return your receivers... :D
 
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