[Bitterman]

Hi everybody, here's the background. A few years ago I upgraded to an HR-44 Genie. I did not want the Genie Clients that went with the Genie and kept my other two HR-24's. This setup, with 9 tuners for recording, has worked great for me. I've had a couple HR-24's fail and they were always replaced no problem and the new ones continued to work fine in my setup.

Last Thursday the HDD in the HR-24 in our bedroom died. Called support (I have the protection plan as well) and after going thru the teeth pulling of the L1 tech from God knows what country, reading from his script, I finally get a replacement approved. We were on vacation this week and got home today so I installed the replacement HR-24 and then went to activate it. I tried the automated system and got a "system error" so I had to call them.

I got to a human pretty quickly and he tried to activate the HR-24 and was having all kinds of problems and had to "call in the sales team". After about 15 minutes of them trying and not succeeding to activate the HR-24 the guy tells me that the sales team just said it's an old receiver and they are no longer activating them! I'm like you idiots just sent me an HR-24, why would you do that if you can't activate it?? He said they just found out about this policy. I said that I also still have an HR-24 in another room and that is working fine, and he tells me that that one may not working in the future.

He then tells me I have two choices. I can get a Genie or a Genie Mini. That's it? They don't have stand alone HD DVR's anymore? He says he'll send me a Genie. I told him I already have a Genie and as far as I know you can only have one Genie on your account. He tells me no, that's changed. I said Ok send me another Genie. A minute later he comes back and says you're right, you can only have one Genie...so now my ONLY choice is to get a mini. No I'm apparently stuck so I say fine and he says a Tech has to come out to install it and the earliest appointment is AUGUST 11th!!! Are you f*&^$%# kidding me? A MONTH wait??

Support has screwed up every aspect of this issue, from telling me the wrong order numbers, to giving me a FedEx tracking number when the replacement DVR actually came by UPS, to the reps not knowing a damn thing about what they're talking about and changing their stories.

I'm a long time D* customer, from back when you could actually install the systems yourself, and I'm also a System Administrator and computer nerd, lol, so I have a pretty good idea how things work. I knew it was going to suck when AT&T took over but they just seem to be getting worse at every turn. I know that there are a bunch of knowledgeable people here and I'd appreciate any thoughts or insight on this. Is this really a new policy about not activating HD DVR's anymore (I did see one thread on another board about a week or so ago where somebody had the same problem, but there was not much info)??

Ok, long rant over, like I said we just got back from vacation today and this was not what I wanted to deal with, lol. Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Doug

 

[jimmie57]

Hi everybody, here's the background. A few years ago I upgraded to an HR-44 Genie. I did not want the Genie Clients that went with the Genie and kept my other two HR-24's. This setup, with 9 tuners for recording, has worked great for me. I've had a couple HR-24's fail and they were always replaced no problem and the new ones continued to work fine in my setup.

Last Thursday the HDD in the HR-24 in our bedroom died. Called support (I have the protection plan as well) and after going thru the teeth pulling of the L1 tech from God knows what country, reading from his script, I finally get a replacement approved. We were on vacation this week and got home today so I installed the replacement HR-24 and then went to activate it. I tried the automated system and got a "system error" so I had to call them.

I got to a human pretty quickly and he tried to activate the HR-24 and was having all kinds of problems and had to "call in the sales team". After about 15 minutes of them trying and not succeeding to activate the HR-24 the guy tells me that the sales team just said it's an old receiver and they are no longer activating them! I'm like you idiots just sent me an HR-24, why would you do that if you can't activate it?? He said they just found out about this policy. I said that I also still have an HR-24 in another room and that is working fine, and he tells me that that one may not working in the future.

He then tells me I have two choices. I can get a Genie or a Genie Mini. That's it? They don't have stand alone HD DVR's anymore? He says he'll send me a Genie. I told him I already have a Genie and as far as I know you can only have one Genie on your account. He tells me no, that's changed. I said Ok send me another Genie. A minute later he comes back and says you're right, you can only have one Genie...so now my ONLY choice is to get a mini. No I'm apparently stuck so I say fine and he says a Tech has to come out to install it and the earliest appointment is AUGUST 11th!!! Are you f*&^$%# kidding me? A MONTH wait??

Support has screwed up every aspect of this issue, from telling me the wrong order numbers, to giving me a FedEx tracking number when the replacement DVR actually came by UPS, to the reps not knowing a damn thing about what they're talking about and changing their stories.

I'm a long time D* customer, from back when you could actually install the systems yourself, and I'm also a System Administrator and computer nerd, lol, so I have a pretty good idea how things work. I knew it was going to suck when AT&T took over but they just seem to be getting worse at every turn. I know that there are a bunch of knowledgeable people here and I'd appreciate any thoughts or insight on this. Is this really a new policy about not activating HD DVR's anymore (I did see one thread on another board about a week or so ago where somebody had the same problem, but there was not much info)??

Ok, long rant over, like I said we just got back from vacation today and this was not what I wanted to deal with, lol. Any thoughts are much appreciated!

Doug

Most likely that your old HR24 has had the hard drive die.
If so, you can buy a hard drive and a docking station and connect it externally.
It works great. I recently transitioned to a solid state 1 terabyte drive. Wow ! Probably works a fast as your Genie.
What happens if I put a 1TB SSD in my HR44-700? | Page 40 | DBSTalk Community

I also think you should call "Customer Retention". They can probably help you. I have not heard anything about doing away with the HR24s.
Try this number: 877-999-1083 AT&T

 

[codespy]

On my legacy DirecTV online account, only Genies and minis are available for lease. No more dual tuner HR’s, no TiVo THR22’s, and no HD receivers listed anymore.

I have an owned H24 in my storage I deactivated a couple months ago. I’m going to try and get it activated quick unless it’s too late, otherwise it’ll be a permanent doorstop!

 

[Bitterman]

Most likely that your old HR24 has had the hard drive die.
If so, you can buy a hard drive and a docking station and connect it externally.
It works great. I recently transitioned to a solid state 1 terabyte drive. Wow ! Probably works a fast as your Genie.
What happens if I put a 1TB SSD in my HR44-700? | Page 40 | DBSTalk Community

I also think you should call "Customer Retention". They can probably help you. I have not heard anything about doing away with the HR24s.
Try this number: 877-999-1083 AT&T

Great ideas, thank you. Wish I had thought of the external drive before I called in the problem. I actually have hooked up external eSATA drives twice in my house to get more capacity. Both times they only lasted about a year before the drive failed. Probably my fault though for using a desktop drive and not one made for servers or NVR's. Great idea to call retention too, thx for the number!

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

 

[codespy]

I just got off with tier 2 Tech Support- rep's been there 7 years now and very astute on everything. He said only accounts morphed over to ATT billing are affected which started July 1st- not people on legacy billing like me. I guess we shall see once people start posting their experiences, and what billing system they are on.

@Bitterman- what billing system are you on?

 

[b4pjoe]

I still have the option at my att.com account to order an HD-DVR.

 

[Bitterman]

I just got off with tier 2 Tech Support- rep's been there 7 years now and very astute on everything. He said only accounts morphed over to ATT billing are affected which started July 1st- not people on legacy billing like me. I guess we shall see once people start posting their experiences, and what billing system they are on.

@Bitterman- what billing system are you on?

I'm switched over to AT&T billing for a while now. Actually I'm shocked that there are still people on DTV billing, from what I've read that should have been switched a while ago.

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

 

[codespy]

From what I gather new accounts go on ATT. For the few of those remaining on legacy like me, the migrating supposedly stopped a while ago/last year. I do not know specifically when.

 

[P Smith]

to the reps not knowing a damn thing about what they're talking about and changing their stories.

as you did state it, you should take the wording as the rep's personal opinion !
So, don't trust them !

 

[NashGuy]

I just got off with tier 2 Tech Support- rep's been there 7 years now and very astute on everything. He said only accounts morphed over to ATT billing are affected which started July 1st- not people on legacy billing like me. I guess we shall see once people start posting their experiences, and what billing system they are on.

Given the pending closing of the transaction that will soon see DTV spun off from AT&T to a new separate company (DIRECTV Entertainment Holdings LLC), I wouldn't think that AT&T would unilaterally be changing DTV's hardware policy right now. I'd think it would be done at the direction, or with the blessing, of the new leadership, assuming anything has actually changed. The spin-off is supposed to finalize this month or next.

Once the transaction closes, I think all DTV billing will be separated back out of the AT&T system. (That should be fun for customers, ha.) Maybe they stopped the migration from the legacy DTV to the unified AT&T billing system last year because they thought that a DTV spin-off may be on the horizon.

 

[James Long]

Once the transaction closes, I think all DTV billing will be separated back out of the AT&T system. (That should be fun for customers, ha.)
Maybe they stopped the migration from the legacy DTV to the unified AT&T billing system last year because they thought that a DTV spin-off may be on the horizon.

All of the "owned" receivers converted to "leased" by AT&T's billing importing back to DIRECTV as "leased". That sounds about right.

There may be room in the AT&T system for services provided to customers under contract to AT&T (such as AT&T Fiber customers or AT&T Wireless customers who bundle DIRECTV Stream). It would be good for those customers to have one provider to deal with instead of two. Making things easier for the customer has long been a hallmark of AT&T''s operations. Right?

Hopefully the transition will not be to difficult for the company or its customers.

 

[NashGuy]

There may be room in the AT&T system for services provided to customers under contract to AT&T (such as AT&T Fiber customers or AT&T Wireless customers who bundle DIRECTV Stream). It would be good for those customers to have one provider to deal with instead of two. Making things easier for the customer has long been a hallmark of AT&T''s operations. Right?

Yes, I was thinking the same thing after my earlier post. I know that there are bundling agreements in place as part of the spin-off deal, so I could certainly see DTV and DTV Stream subs who also have AT&T products (wireless and/or broadband) continuing to get a unified bill from AT&T. (That said, I don't know if AT&T TV has ever been part of unified AT&T billing; all their billing may just be paperless autopay to a registered credit card, like Netflix.) Given the fact that all Uverse TV subs (AFAIK) must also have AT&T broadband, and pricing is often done on an overall, bundled basis, I'm not sure if we'll ever see that product's billing spun out of AT&T before it simply gets shut down in a year or two.

But for standalone DTV and DTV Stream subs with no other AT&T services, I would expect their billing to shift over to the new DTV company in the coming months.

 

[lyradd]

Bitterman...Like you, I have an HR44 and 2 HR24's. A month ago I started having trouble with one of the HR24's. It was skipping and stuttering. A tech came out a few days ago and replaced the HR24 with same. He also replaced the dish. The replacement is a refurb but is working fine. Not sure why you had trouble activating yours.

 

[Bitterman]

Bitterman...Like you, I have an HR44 and 2 HR24's. A month ago I started having trouble with one of the HR24's. It was skipping and stuttering. A tech came out a few days ago and replaced the HR24 with same. He also replaced the dish. The replacement is a refurb but is working fine. Not sure why you had trouble activating yours.

Yeah, they SENT me the replacement HR24 too, then all of a sudden "we can't do that". I might try calling again to see if I get anywhere, probably retention as suggested above. Does anybody know if the retention department is still in the United States at least?

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

 

[lyradd]

Yeah, they SENT me the replacement HR24 too, then all of a sudden "we can't do that". I might try calling again to see if I get anywhere, probably retention as suggested above. Does anybody know if the retention department is still in the United States at least?

Sent from my moto z3 using Tapatalk

I have this number for retention dept: 1-866-586-4990. I have no idea if that's correct as I have never called.

 

[Davenlr]

They could not activate the HR24 they sent me either, and this was almost 6 or 8 months ago. They ended up just allowing me to cancel my contract and return my Genie, and start streaming ATT TV instead. I have two HR24s, 3 H24s, and 1 H25 in a box, just wishing ATT was going to get rid of DirecTv to a company that cared about customers, but doesnt look like it will happen in my lifetime.

 

[LTYRS]

They could not activate the HR24 they sent me either, and this was almost 6 or 8 months ago. They ended up just allowing me to cancel my contract and return my Genie, and start streaming ATT TV instead. I have two HR24s, 3 H24s, and 1 H25 in a box, just wishing ATT was going to get rid of DirecTv to a company that cared about customers, but doesnt look like it will happen in my lifetime.

Are you happy with ATT TV? How does it compare to DIRECTV? Wondering if it could be an option in the future if I run into trouble with my HR-24.

 

[P Smith]

Are you happy with ATT TV?

check the site for appropriate forum and you'll find a lot of info regarding your OT question

 

[Davenlr]

Are you happy with ATT TV? How does it compare to DIRECTV? Wondering if it could be an option in the future if I run into trouble with my HR-24.

Sent you a private message.

 

[LTYRS]

check the site for appropriate forum and you'll find a lot of info regarding your OT question

Thanks, will do.