Bad Customer Service - DirecTV

[Mike]

Few things get my blood boiling as much as bad customer service. I was on the phone with CS at DirecTV for over an hour today, passed from person to person (some supposedly "supervisors" - I really think they throw the call over to the DirecTV person sitting next to them who plays the part of the DirecTV supervisor :bigfrown)

Long story short, I was trying to have DirecTV automatically withdrawal money from the correct account, and DirecTV continues to use a closed one. So while were getting dinged for over-draft on this closed bank account, no one at DirecTV can tell me what happened to my form that I sent in to DirecTV for the change! No one at DirecTV can tell me if it ever was received! No one at DirecTV can transfer me to anyone else at DirecTV! Apparently, most employees at DirecTV use rotary phones that don't transfer. No one at DirecTV can compensate us for DirecTV's error! No one at DirecTV can do anything but have me send in another form and wait 2 billing cycles while we get dinged with overdraft again!

Did I mention this is DirecTV?

I love the product, and I laugh when the cable companies poke at satellite services as being so choppy with blackouts. In 10 years, we might have had 3 for about 10 seconds.

But back to DirecTV's customer service. The DirecTV "supervisor" wouldn't give me his name or even DirecTV employee number, and then hung up on me! After over an hour of service! Once I cool down, I'm going to write a level-headed complaint on their website.

I don't have my own talk show to flog DirecTV's name repeatedly, so this is my best recourse. It's just the worst when they clearly have no intention to make you happy, or at least empathize. They just don't care if the customer is content by the end of the call.

So that's my rant about the customer service for DirecTV. When we switched to the dish, I vividly remember this lady sitting behind a counter for Comcast with a line of people out her door with their cable boxes in hand. She looked at us, with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and said in her gravely voice, "You'll be back. You'll ALLL be back." She was a real crusty cracker. Today was the first time I even had a fleeting thought of this option.

Once more... DirecTV

Any other brutal customer service stories out there?

 

[Tina]

.

That is awful Mike ! ... I don't think I have experienced such horrible customer service before, but the closest I've had to put up with is, having people from China serving as waiter or waitresses who cannot speak one word of English ! ... Where I live, companies have no choice but to recruit from abroad as there are not enough manpower to fill job vacancies. So Non-Chinese speaking folks like me have to put up with them ! ... I'm getting used to it though ...



..... :help

 

[jasoncran]

trying fixing a pay problem with the national guard and call dfas(defense finance accounting and services). I had money taken out and i wanted to know where it was going as i didnt authorise it nor was i notified.
i called aafes they told me call dfas. dfas when i called them said that aafes is taking money. but aafes said no we arent.

i finally got the answer but that was rather irritating. and both of them are GOVT agencies.

 

[Lewis]

Just went back to Direct TV yesterday, leaving Comcast because the bill just going up and up. Comcast is a Philadelphia company that is one of the most greedy companies in the world. They milk you out of thousands of dollars, and there service is not that good. Also I have noticed that Direct TV has more Christian TV than the last time that I had them. And the sports is better like watching about 5 games at one time, it is just better, than Comcast. Now as for the customer service that varies from service office to service office. I even had Dish TV at one time.

 

[PouringRain]

We switched from DirecTV to Dish, because of problems with DirectTV. Like you, Mike, they also would call us up rudely and slam down the phone on us. It must be something they teach their customer services employees to do in their training. They would call up demanding to speak to a certain name in the household and when we said that person is not available, can we take a message, they'd just slam the phone down. We had other problems also, like with the billing as you mentioned. We did not want to set up automatic payment and they kept trying to make us do it. And finally, we were unable to get any network stations in our area! We had to apply for waivers to try and get the network stations, and all were refused except for PBS-- which we then had to pay extra for.

 

[jasoncran]

We switched from DirecTV to Dish, because of problems with DirectTV. Like you, Mike, they also would call us up rudely and slam down the phone on us. It must be something they teach their customer services employees to do in their training. They would call up demanding to speak to a certain name in the household and when we said that person is not available, can we take a message, they'd just slam the phone down. We had other problems also, like with the billing as you mentioned. We did not want to set up automatic payment and they kept trying to make us do it. And finally, we were unable to get any network stations in our area! We had to apply for waivers to try and get the network stations, and all were refused except for PBS-- which we then had to pay extra for.

pay extra for PBS. thats ironic.

 

[stovebolts]

I'm laughing cause we can only get DirectTV or Dish where I'm at... and I don't even know which one I'm on

But anyway, I've never trusted automatic withdrawal with any company, especially Sprint.. yeah, Sprint.... don't even get me going... Did I say Sprint? let alone Direct TV. Yeah, it's a pain to log into my bank account each month and electronically send most of my bills off manually, but at least I maintain control of who gets what, how much they get and when they get it. :waving

 

[coffeeelover]

I love direct tv. You can set up auto withdrawal on their web site, and also change and delete old account info instantly. Why would you do it by snail mail? You also get a discount for going paperless.

 

[Mike]

I love direct tv. You can set up auto withdrawal on their web site, and also change and delete old account info instantly. Why would you do it by snail mail? You also get a discount for going paperless.

THAT is part of my issue with their "customer service". In talking to about 5 people over the course of 45 days, no one told me I could do it on line. The last supervisor I spoke to only told me to send another forum in the mail. I refused, saying I didn't want another few cycles to go through and get dinged when they bill the wrong account. That ended up with him hanging up on me. It wasn't until I called the complaint line that I was told about doing it on line, and I did it. The previous people said I couldn't do it on line because this was a bank account as opposed to a credit card. :bigfrown

I actually love the product. DirecTV is great, and I have no intention to return to cable. It is very reliable, and I've only had to call a few times. All the bonuses that Lewis talks about are true. When we had Comcast, we saw our rates going up all the time. Besides adding a few features such as high def and TiVo, our rates haven't changed at all in 10 years! I was bagging on their customer service, not the product.

I just get so frustrated when a person on the other end of the line is not trying to satisfy me and solve the problem. All to often, they're only interested in doing the minimum and getting me off the phone.

And I didn't mean to make this about DirecTV. I bolded their name all over my first post just to make my point about their CS after my experience. So my point was the low level of true customer service out there, and to ask about other members' bad experiences with any company.

And it doesn't help when they have a thick Indian accent, and say their name is Dave or Peter or John. I know that's not your name, and I know where my call is being routed!

 

[Mike]

I meant to add, with several friends in IT that lost their jobs to exporting them to the other side of the globe and my personal experience, I.T. stands for "itain't in America!"

 

[PouringRain]

I'm laughing cause we can only get DirectTV or Dish where I'm at... and I don't even know which one I'm on

Ditto here...... those are our only two choices here..... but I know which one we have.

 

[mcorton]

We got rid of Diredt TV after a number of bad experiences. The most noticable was we paid for High Def and complained that we couldn't see the difference. They insisted it was just our imagination. A few monts later we moved and they cam out to hook it up and foundout the HD was never hooked up right so we weren't getting the HD we were paying for. When we asked for a refund or credit we were told we should have complained sooner. DUHHHHH! The next time we moved, since there was already a faulty dish there, theyu wanted to charge us a service fee even though they say they will provide a new dish for free. WE switched and have never looked back.