I have had Directv service for close to 18 years and never had a problem. I installed the original dish on my chimney and had the dish upgraded to HD back in 2012.

Suddenly a few weeks ago I was getting a loss of satellite message on certain channels and then realized it was all of my HD channels. After a very long frustrating time with customer service on the phone, I got setup for a technician to come out to fix it.

He arrives and says he can’t work on it because they are not allowed to get on the roof. He felt the dish got out of alignment. He recommended a complete upgrade, which I didn’t want to do so he said they would install a new dish for free and I could keep my original equipment.

The technician spent almost 5 hours at my house trying to setup the new dish, SWM device, and SWM splitter with my equipment. He said he only knew how to hook up the new Genie equipment; this was an ATT Directv installer and not a contractor. He finally gave up and said I just needed to call for another appointment and upgrade everything.

Well this morning I decided to see if I could figure it out. I Googled wiring diagrams for the two SWM devices and connected everything, which he had completely wrong. I had my channels working back to normal within 10 minutes. It then took about 10 minutes per TV to reconfigure each receiver.

Blows my mind a technician can’t figure it out in 5 hours and I do it in 10 minutes. Makes me think it is a scam just to get you to upgrade and lock into a new three year contract.

Everything about Direct is a scam.

Send them a bill for labor and technical support on-site.
Would be interesting to see how they react.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Send them a bill for labor and technical support on-site.
Would be interesting to see how they react.

No kidding; I should.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
Send them a bill for labor and technical support on-site.
Would be interesting to see how they react.

There was a bank here in Central Florida — Barnett Bank. No longer in business. It was 20 or 25 years ago, I deposited a client’s check into my wife’s business account. The deposit never showed up: she was short $450.00.

The bank’s response to my inquiries was basically “go away and stop bothering us.” They insisted that no such deposit had ever been made.

I finally told them to check another customer’s account, gave them the other customer’s account number and time and date of the deposit. They finally found their error and restored the missing money to my wife’s account.

I then sent them an invoice for three hours of my time @ $85.00 / hour for chasing their error. They paid the invoice promptly.

Long story short, is I've been a customer in 3 states, the service got progressively worse over time, and I don't see my self ever giving them another dime.

The first time I had them was 2000 and I thought they were great. So much better than local cable company.

The next time I had them was 2005 in Texas and still thought they were much better than the local cable company.

When I moved to Alaska, I did their move service (you bring the boxes and they take care of a new dish and install) and regretted it. The HOA required a sketch of where the dish would go and I had a lot of trouble getting the local contractor to put an x on the survey of my property where the dish would be. Dish locations in Alaska are a big deal because they're at a low angle, and signal is weak enough that a dish is 3' in diameter. Took 4 months and DirecTV hounded me on the phone the entire time.

Fast forward to moving away 5 years later, and it was a pain in the ass to cancel them. I had to talk to so many supervisors in 3rd world countries that it was ridiculous. There was no place to return boxes in Alaska (not even the contract installers). They screwed around so long sending me the return labels that they arrived after I had already moved to Canada. I left the boxes with a buddy and mailed them the next time I was in Alaska.

I am on the verge of dumping DTV and going back to Cox (lesser of the 2 evils).

My DTV bill has been all over the place the last 6 mos and I have to call and argue with them and get some third world call center. I have been having issues with my Genie and, although I pay for a service contract they will not upgrade without signing a new 2 year agreement plus I will have to deal with the shit show that the OP spoke of.

Cox has seemed to come yo a little bit of an understanding that they have tp treat customers right and now have no contract options plus they ship you the shit and let you self install

Sounds like the guy was completely incompetent. I seriously doubt there is much difference getting the signal to the boxes from the dish in a genie system vs a non-genie system. Wire goes from dish to splitter. More wires go from splitter to boxes. Plug splitter's AC wall wart into outlet and splitter. Genie may have a special splitter that has a particular outlet for the genie dvr and the other boxes.

Glad you got it figured out. The only reason I think I know anything about this stuff is it was easier for me to learn about it and trouble shoot it myself than talk to DirecTV.

Well so far after about four years Direct has been pretty good, much better than Dish was.
You have to love it after two hours on the phone with Dish's tech department twice in two weeks you get told by the person on the phone from somewhere in India that "You will not listen and I am finished with you!" and he then hung up the phone. This was after the first weekend trying to program both new remotes that tech assistance said I needed. The following week it was two new control boxes they decided we needed. I finally got a supervisor, they sent a tech out, five minutes he had it going.

When we cancelled service, they sent boxes and instructions how to return them. I did and kept the UPS receipt. Six months later I get a call from Dish telling me that they never received the equipment and I was to be billed for replacement.

I still had the receipt with the tracking number. they actually told me that they were"Too busy to track it and I was responsible for it's "loss".

I got pretty good at saying "Supervisor now!" Very quickly that got resolved.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:
"Boss Man" and the meth-head

Good grief. Yeah I love how timely they are and their communication. My appointment for the tech was for him to arrive between 12-4pm. I took off work at noon and came straight home. At 4:30pm I get an automated call saying my new appointment time would be 5:30pm. So I left to go run an errand and within 5 minutes of me leaving I get a call from the tech saying he is at my house and no one is home. I told him I got an automated call saying my appointment was changed to 5:30 so I would see him then.

I had DTV for two years and as soon as my contract expired I dumped them. I signed up for 29.95 a month, contract said 29.95 a month but when I received my first bill it was 59.95 a month. When I called customer service they claimed there was some coupon I needed to submit to get the reduced rate. They wouldn't budge so the day my contract expired I canceled and then they had the nerve to keep pestering me asking what they could do to retain me as a customer. I told them to refund me the money they stole and of course they weren't willing to do that. I don't miss them at all