[satcrazy]

Got my monthly phone call from Direct to come back [ almost a year gone next month] I'm polite. They have now offered to buy out my remaining contract with Dish. I declined. For now.

I know I read somewhere on this forum that they too were offered a buy-out, and another peep said it was, well, underhanded. [ can't seem to find that post]

Anyone ever actually take them up on this? Seems pretty insane, they have to be losing money this way

Input?

 

[DodgerKing]

Is it DirecTV themselves or an outside marketing company contracted with DirecTV? This makes a difference as you usually do not see the rebates or discounts from the outside companies for a long time. If it was DirecTV directly, then the adjustments are usually impounded in your bill.

 

[satcrazy]

Is it DirecTV themselves or an outside marketing company contracted with DirecTV? This makes a difference as you usually do not see the rebates or discounts from the outside companies for a long time. If it was DirecTV directly, then the adjustments are usually impounded in your bill.

Good question.

They just said "direct tv" so how do I tell the difference?

I'm sure I could just ask, but if they are employed by direct as an outside co., what would be the question?

thanks

 

[MysteryMan]

Good question.

They just said "direct tv" so how do I tell the difference?

I'm sure I could just ask, but if they are employed by direct as an outside co., what would be the question?

thanks

Just ask them if they are employed by DirecTV or are working for a agency contracted by DirecTV and get their name and ID number.

 

[satcrazy]

O.K.

thanks.

 

[Shades228]

The buyout part is usually a rebate where you will get a Visa GC with the amount of the fee you had to pay to cancel the service. There is a form a long with your final bill that you would need to send in.

The thread you're referring to is where a DISH employee stated that you had to have a fee named something specific and DISH does not use that terminology. That information was incorrect as you just need to send a copy of the final bill with the fee. You then get a gift card with that amount. Link is here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=201119&page=4

All discounts and rebates are done through the DIRECTV website with the exclusion of the mail in rebate for the gift card. It can take a couple of months 6-8 weeks to get the gift card once you have submitted the form. This same offer may be available if you call DIRECTV and ask about coming back. There can be specific promotions that are available on those outbound calls only though to be more enticing for the take rate for outgoing sales which is harder than people calling in.

 

[Inkosaurus]

The buyout part is usually a rebate where you will get a Visa GC with the amount of the fee you had to pay to cancel the service. There is a form a long with your final bill that you would need to send in.

The thread you're referring to is where a DISH employee stated that you had to have a fee named something specific and DISH does not use that terminology. That information was incorrect as you just need to send a copy of the final bill with the fee. You then get a gift card with that amount. Link is here: http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=201119&page=4

All discounts and rebates are done through the DIRECTV website with the exclusion of the mail in rebate for the gift card. It can take a couple of months 6-8 weeks to get the gift card once you have submitted the form. This same offer may be available if you call DIRECTV and ask about coming back. There can be specific promotions that are available on those outbound calls only though to be more enticing for the take rate for outgoing sales which is harder than people calling in.

Former Dish and DTV employee and in the fine print it does clearly state that the final bill has to be sent in stating "early cancellation fee" which is something Dish doesnt do.
Its been well over a year since i worked for DTV but i can recall countless times where we just looked the other way in these situations or the customer had to escalate the call well beyond supervisor level to ever see that buy out.

 

[satcrazy]

Former Dish and DTV employee and in the fine print it does clearly state that the final bill has to be sent in stating "early cancellation fee" which is something Dish doesnt do.
Its been well over a year since i worked for DTV but i can recall countless times where we just looked the other way in these situations or the customer had to escalate the call well beyond supervisor level to ever see that buy out.

So, you are saying the buy-out is BS/major headache time?

What about asking for the offer in writing? [ Yeah, I know, fat chance]

 

[James Long]

So, you are saying the buy-out is BS/major headache time?

What about asking for the offer in writing? [ Yeah, I know, fat chance]

The rebate form from a couple of years ago (posted 9/19/10 - although I believe it has been reposted more recently):
http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23446&d=1284912284

In large print it says the rebate card (up to $200) will be mailed in 8-12 weeks. The small print (emphasis mine) is reproduced here:
**Early Cancellation Fee (ECF) offer for customers in a commitment with another television provider, who add advanced DIRECTV equipment and who follow the instructions on the ECF offer form provided at directv.com/rebate. Form must be completed and mailed with customer's original final bill which includes applicable ECF charge(s). Postmarked no greater than 90 days from the date of last activation with DIRECTV. Final ECF fee will be reimbursed in the form of a DIRECTV Visa® Prepaid Card up to $200 mailed to active DIRECTV account. DIRECTV Visa Prepaid Cards are issued by MetaBank™ pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. This card does not have cash access and can be used at any merchants that accept Visa debit cards. Card valid through expiration date shown on front of card. High-Speed Internet and Voice ECF charges are not eligible.

The rebate forms are only shown to people who have logins on the DirecTV site.

BTW: DISH's current early cancellation fee is $17.50 per month left on the contract with a maximum of $420. Leased equipment return fees and non-return fees would be in addition to the cancellation fee. DirecTV's rebate (if still offered) would cover about 11 months worth of the fee.

BTW2: DirecTV's current early cancellation fee is $20 per month with a maximum of $480.

 

[Shades228]

The largest issue with most of these are people not sending it in at all, not sending in an original bill, or they modify the bill blacking out lines or something. If you do this then they disregard the bill because they won't guess as to what you're trying to block out.

The rebate form does not require specific name of a fee because the same offer is sent out to cable and telco companies. If it was a simple matter of renaming your fee to not make your customers eligible for other promotions they would. I don't believe that any of the major companies (MMVPD) would create a system which would intentionally disqualify people with a technicality of wording of a competitor's bill. They just bank on people who don't feel it's worth it to do the leg work. If your ECF is less than $100 do you make it an immediate priority? The goal is to lure them away, and then keep them, not to lure them away to deceive them immediately to make sure that they take off the instant they can.

Now I'm sure that the prior agent who has worked for both companies has heard complaints on every single promotion that either company has had depending on the departments that they work in. It's not like customers call in to let them now they got their promotion as promised. So when all you get is the negative calls they stand out. If the process isn't followed the way the instructions are setup I'm sure it can get frustrating to attempt to resolve later.

 

[Inkosaurus]

I was one of those agents who considers all customers liars
Kind of how like House considers all patients liars, i always figured it was something on there end that they did wrong.

Ofcourse you will never get a phone call from a customer calling in to say "Hey the contract buy out worked!" so obviously i only got half of the story when working at D* but i can tell you with 100% truth there were many many times when a customer called in multiple times over the course of several months who made 0 mistakes and it was our job to look the other way.

 

[satcrazy]

The rebate form from a couple of years ago (posted 9/19/10 - although I believe it has been reposted more recently):
http://www.dbstalk.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=23446&d=1284912284

In large print it says the rebate card (up to $200) will be mailed in 8-12 weeks. The small print (emphasis mine) is reproduced here:
**Early Cancellation Fee (ECF) offer for customers in a commitment with another television provider, who add advanced DIRECTV equipment and who follow the instructions on the ECF offer form provided at directv.com/rebate. Form must be completed and mailed with customer's original final bill which includes applicable ECF charge(s). Postmarked no greater than 90 days from the date of last activation with DIRECTV. Final ECF fee will be reimbursed in the form of a DIRECTV Visa® Prepaid Card up to $200 mailed to active DIRECTV account. DIRECTV Visa Prepaid Cards are issued by MetaBank™ pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. This card does not have cash access and can be used at any merchants that accept Visa debit cards. Card valid through expiration date shown on front of card. High-Speed Internet and Voice ECF charges are not eligible.

The rebate forms are only shown to people who have logins on the DirecTV site.

BTW: DISH's current early cancellation fee is $17.50 per month left on the contract with a maximum of $420. Leased equipment return fees and non-return fees would be in addition to the cancellation fee. DirecTV's rebate (if still offered) would cover about 11 months worth of the fee.

BTW2: DirecTV's current early cancellation fee is $20 per month with a maximum of $480.

Thanks for the link.

The last sentence on the actual form is very telling." Direct will not be responsible for" etc, etc....... So you must send in " original" final bill with cancellation fee circled [ and Dish does not specify "cancellation fee"?] and It could get lost, etc, etc..?

I didn't ask the csr about getting typical 1st year promotions with the buy out offer either, so I don't know if that's part of the offer [ I see they are now offering second year discount as well] and I wonder what Direct means by "customers adding "Advanced" Direct Tv equipment" as part of the buy out deal. I don't need a DVR, or the extra fees. I guess I sound a little paranoid, but Direct was not always forthcoming when I had them.

Too bad these companies feel they have to be deceptive, because most people will put up with alot, but being lied to is a dealbraker

 

[satcrazy]

The largest issue with most of these are people not sending it in at all, not sending in an original bill, or they modify the bill blacking out lines or something. If you do this then they disregard the bill because they won't guess as to what you're trying to block out.

The rebate form does not require specific name of a fee because the same offer is sent out to cable and telco companies

. If it was a simple matter of renaming your fee to not make your customers eligible for other promotions they would. I don't believe that any of the major companies (MMVPD) would create a system which would intentionally disqualify people with a technicality of wording of a competitor's bill. They just bank on people who don't feel it's worth it to do the leg work. If your ECF is less than $100 do you make it an immediate priority? The goal is to lure them away, and then keep them, not to lure them away to deceive them immediately to make sure that they take off the instant they can.

Now I'm sure that the prior agent who has worked for both companies has heard complaints on every single promotion that either company has had depending on the departments that they work in. It's not like customers call in to let them now they got their promotion as promised. So when all you get is the negative calls they stand out. If the process isn't followed the way the instructions are setup I'm sure it can get frustrating to attempt to resolve later.

I used the link from J long and the form says "cancellation fee" I'm not sure what your conveying here, maybe I'm misunderstanding what your saying.

 

[James Long]

Too bad these companies feel they have to be deceptive, because most people will put up with alot, but being lied to is a dealbraker

I don't see them as being deceptive. There may be scattered reports of people having problems getting the rebate but I believe (as Shades228 was trying to say) that anything on the final bill that could be reasonably accepted as a cancellation fee would be accepted for the rebate.

The common legal language of not being responsible for lost paperwork should be expected. Otherwise DirecTV could be open to a claim six or eight months later from someone who never got their rebate. A claim from someone who no longer has the original paperwork to send and may not be able to prove they ever paid a cancellation fee. Too many people are out to defraud companies to allow such claims. So such limits have become common legal language.

 

[msgph]

I get emails and snail mail offers every week wanting me to come back to DirecTV. Every one of these mentions paying up to $200: "Call now and get up to $200 toward you cancellation fees."

The email fine print say they are from DirecTV, Inc, not an outside agency.