Most frustrating experience ever! My DirecTV receivers are on the fritz (again). This time 3 of the 4 receivers we have in the house are laggy, flat out don't work, or when I try to power on/off, they fail to come back on. I was on w Tech support (20 minutes just to get to a live person) and they mentioned I should upgrade to 4K receivers as I was eligible for a free upgrade, but we got disconnected during the call. I called back up to do that, and they tried to charge me for the 4K receivers. As the call was at 37 minutes at that time, and I had to return to continue working, I didn't have time to escalate to a supervisor, and had to end the call frustrated. Today, on my day off, I tried to call in to exercise my "free" 4K receiver upgrade again (after almost 20 minutes to reach a live person again), and she again said that it was not an equipment charge, but an installation charge. At this point, I just wanted to get working TV again for my family so I said fine. She needed to do something but she said her system was slow and so I had to hold. She kept coming back on to apologize for the delays, then finally (I think about 40 minutes into the call) she told me (by the way) that this is a new upgrade and would require a new 2 year contract. At that point, I had had it, I asked to be sent over to the cancellations department. After a few minutes, someone came on, I could hear them just fine, but they kept repeating their name. I wasn't on mute or anything and kept trying to hear them I could hear them just fine. They finally said "I can't hear you" and hung up. Now, I'm fuming. I called back up to cancel service. Those people are always much nicer of course. I explained the whole situation and he said, let's try to get your service working. I went through the standard tech troubleshooting (that a 6-year old would figure out and that we have already tried a dozen times, power off/on, unplug, etc. blah blah) and the guy said that because the receivers had failed so many times in the past, that they'd have to upgrade, and that it would be a new 2-year contract! I couldn't believe my ears. I told him this was the most insane thing I'd ever heard. He actually agreed and said he would talk to a supervisor. He came back on saying that they would send a tech out, and they would try to fix it, but if they couldn't fix it, I'd need to call back in and try to escalate to get upper-management to waive the 2-year commitment. I asked him if he could see how completely ridiculous that was, he agreed but said that's my only option at this point. (chalk up another 30 minute call btw).
Well, needless to say I'm definitely shopping for new service. And if this experience has taught me anything it is never to get into another contract with AT&T. Most reputable carriers have services without contracts. Even if I have to get into one again, it'll never be AT&T. Absolutely unbelievable.
Well, needless to say I'm definitely shopping for new service. And if this experience has taught me anything it is never to get into another contract with AT&T. Most reputable carriers have services without contracts. Even if I have to get into one again, it'll never be AT&T. Absolutely unbelievable.