protection plan

Without the Protection Plan, DirecTV has no obligation to replace a defective receiver. Their current policy says they'll replace a defective receiver for $20, but that policy is not published anywhere, and DirecTV can change that policy at any time, without notice. Also, reports vary whether replacing a defective receiver without the Protection Plan triggers a new commitment. There is some information that at one time there was no new commitment. But there have been a lot of reports (like the one above) indicating that there is a new commitment. Those commitments could be in error, or DirecTV could have changed their unpublished policy. There is no way for you to know.

Also, without the Protection Plan, there have been reports that DirecTV will not replace a defective receiver without an $80 tech visit first to confirm the problem is with the reciever.

With the Protection Plan, DirecTV has a contractual obligation to diagnose and fix/replace defective receivers at no cost to you. Contractually, there is no charge for a tech visit, no charge for the receiver, no charge for shipping, and no commitment extension.

Wow, to PP or not PP - that question pops up here almost daily! The bottom line is this:

With the PP, you pay $5.99 per month and other than the inconvenience of scheduling a service call, you have no worries about the repairs to your dish, LNB, wiring, switches, splitters, power inserters, or receivers (owned or leased) that deliver DirecTV to your television. They cover everything except intentional damage and damage or loss that should be covered by your homeowner's insurance (theft, flood, etc.) There is an officially-published document outlining the exact terms located here:

http://directv.com/learn/pdf/DirecTV_service_contract_v4.pdf

Without the PP, you can likely get a defective leased receiver replaced for ~$20 S&H, but then again, the CSR might would rather have you pay for an ~$80 in-home service call to "verify" the exact cause of the failure. This should not affect your commitment unless you replace a failed owned receiver with a leased receiver. The ~$80 service call should include the labor and parts to repair whatever is at fault - dish aiming, LNB, bad cable, switch, etc. It would not include repairing in-wall wiring; that would be an extra cost. Of course there is no officially published policy on this, so it could change, in D*'s favor or yours, at any time. These details are just what is happening "in practice".

So, if you want to minimize your expenses should D* change its policies, you might consider the Pp a better choice. If you don't think you'll have more than one service call per year and can fix most non-receiver failures yourself, then you may want to pass on the PP. However, to say things like, "if they want me to continue to pay, they'll fix it for free," is somewhat ignorant. For better or worse, when you are obligated to pay at least for your commitment term or pay ETF's to cancel regardless of what happens. You have agreed to a contract that stipulates that. Trust me, I'm not a D* "fanboy" or "apologist", but that's the way it is. D* has no control over the equipment once it's installed in your home. Wind happens. Squirrels happen. Power surges happen. None of those are D*'s problems unless you have the PP.

bigboyman2 said:

Unless he owned the box and it was swapped for a leased one. That would trigger it

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input but here's my scenario. I utilized the schmoozing prowess of a coworker to upgrade to a HR20 last May. I understood that I would extend the commtiment until May of 2009. When the receiver was installed, I had difficulty with 2 channels. ESPNHD and TNTHD. It was hit or miss as to wether I would receive them or not. Then something wonderful happened. The Boston Celtics awoke from their 20 year slumber to advance to the conference finals. The issue was that ESPN had the Eastern Conference and TNT had the West. As time went by my intermittant problem became a constant problem and I could not receive what I consider to be the 2 most prominent HD channels. So in late May (around game 6 of the conference finals) I called DirecTv. Here's how it all went down.

I was informed by the first CSR that, after much complaining, the service call would not cost anything and the would be out to correct the problem. So the Halsted Communications guy came out and "fixed" the problem. In this process he blamed the person who had installed and wired the dish as this was the root cause of the problem in his opinion. So he re-wired from the dish to a barrel and I might add did a great job. That being said the problem persisted so I called customer service as I looked at my bill and noticed that I had been charged $79 plus 13% tax. I complained that the problem persisted and another call was scheduled as I was under warranty for the first.

The 2nd technician came out and "fixed" the problem. He got the channels to work while he was here but when I got home from work the 2 channels did not come in so I called and was bumped up to Level 3 Technical support.

Then came the 3rd service call. Same issue the channels came in while the tech was here but when I came home no TNT or ESPNHD. That being said a 4th service call was arranged. I also got $5 off my bill for 3 months and 3 months of Showtime and 3 months of the HD extra pack. Only problem was I couldn't see any of the channels as the problem was also on those as well. (Yes MPEG 2 channels). I did mention that perhaps this was an equipment issue and could we swap out the box but I was told no.

The 4th service call was scheduled for the day of my daughter's kindergarten graduation between 12p and 4p. At 3:30 a call came that the tech couldn't get there until sometime between 4 and 6. At this point our family had given up 16 hours to DirecTv and Halsted communications. At 4:30 that day I called to re-schedule the appointment and as I was leaving for a party that night the technician showed up.

Onto appointment #5. I got a supervisor from Halsted who was very nice and professional. He did the usual checking stuff and saw the problem occur. I mentioned that perhaps this was an equipment problem and asked if he had another HR DVR in his truck. He did and we swapped out the box and all appeared to work o.k.

Now we arrive at this thread. While at work I just for ha ha's decided to check my bill online. I noticed that I was being billed for the protection plan. I had expicitly said that I did not want the plan and did not want to be billed for it on all of my correspondence with D*. So I called Directv and went through the entire ordeal. At this time I was given $5 off my bill for 3 months and was told that I would be credited the charges for the protection plan. As I was about to hang up I asked what my commitment date was.

I believed that it was May of 2009 but I was informed that because I was not on the protection plan my new date was July of 2010. This was because I had swapped out my HR20 for a HR21. I said hold on and send me off to customer retention.

I then talked to a CSR there (who did an excellent job) who informed me that if you are not on the protection plan, even if you have a leased receiver, if you swap out a box your commitment is extended. We griped about this as it's not right. You're paying $300 at the time to lease a box. I told him this story and we talked of another problem we had had with phone companies and I was told that the $79 charge for the original service call would be removed from my bill. I told him that he didn't have to do that as the technicians had earned the fee.

I will be with Directv for the next 2 years as I am going to upgrade my SD DVR and I got another $5 off my bill for 3 months and 3 months of HBO and Starz.