Seeing that “Passions” is over and I really don’t have use for DirecTV anymore, I decided to cancel it. I had heard that they can charge a 200 some dollar cancellation fee, which if they tried to pull, I was going to argue with. Sorry but since they lured me and many other people into getting their service because of “Passions,” which they then canceled within six months, and then stretched the remaining episodes out to make people stick with them longer. On top of that half way through the year they then took away the channel “Passions” was on from their lowest cheapest package, forcing people to upgrade to 20 dollars MORE a month. So no I don’t think I should be out another 200 dollars.
So I called up and talked to one “Collin.” I informed him I wanted to cancel, he was sorry to see me go and asked why. I stated honestly that the only reason I had got DirecTV was because they picked up “Passions,” which they had canceled and was now over. He apparently knew exactly what I was talking about, as he mentioned he heard they just had a big auction of “Passions” memorabilia. I was at least thankful I was talking to someone who knew the show, but honestly I suspect a lot of people had been calling to cancel cause “Passions” was gone.
He asked if there was anything else I was unhappy with? I said no, then I made the mistake of saying “But within the month we expect to have Verizon FIOS available here and we wanted to get that.” This opened up the whole “We partner with Verizon, you can get high speed internet and keep our TV service.” I said yes, but that was DSL, we already have a cable modem which is faster, and we are looking to switch to the FIOS internet and TV. (We currently have Comcast, I’m actually annoyed by their service and the insane prices, FIOS packages give us more and cheaper, I didn’t tell him that).
Of course then it was . . . “Well what about FIOS TV do you feel is superior to our service?” I had said it was a better quality service all together and we can get everything in one package. I was made offers to stay, which included free upgrades to their HD service and was told DirecTV offered more HD channels than any other provider. Yeah, if you count 100+ sports channels I’ll never use. I was also told that the pictures with FIOS and DirecTV were both 100 percent digital, so there really would be no difference. Yeah, in theory. Too bad everyone I’ve talked to around us who has gotten both the FIOS Internet and/or TV rave about how superior they are to anything they’ve ever had before.
In the end he did cancel my service. He told me that I had already pre-paid through the end of the month, this wasn’t refundable. He also told me it could take 3 months for any other charges I was responsible for on the box (pay per view programs) to show up, so I could be billed for them. Not once did he mention any cancellation charge, and I intend to hold DirecTV to that. I did wonder if because I mentioned “Passions” if there was some wave of that charge, which would be the right thing to do if you ask me. So if I see a cancellation charge in some insane amount, I will be calling to complain. DirecTV’s official statement is you MAY have to pay a cancellation charge, it does not state how much of one or that you HAVE To. I expect to be informed of this charge and the amount before being allowed to cancel, to outweigh the price of the charge verses staying.
In the end what annoyed me more than anything was the amount of “No No Nos” I had to go through in order to cancel DirecTV. I knew before hand DirecTV had a bad reputation for this, up there with AOL. I get these companies obviously don’t want their subscribers to go, and that I expect to be offered some deal to stay. After all, I’m how they make their money. However how many times do I have to state “I just want to cancel it” before I’m allowed to do so? In trying to get me to stay with them, they just annoy me more and that’s what I remember.
In the end what is worse? Walking away from a service with the thought “Wow that was really easy to cancel” or “What a royal pain in the ass that was?” Hmmmm, if I ever needed one of those services again, which is always possible . . . you would think a company would rather have the customer leave NOT annoyed with them!
Good Luck with that. I hate DirecTV. 2007 around February I tried suspending my account because I was going to be away from my house for a couple of months, and this was after numerous phone calls due to billing and programming issues. They told me my bill was paid and that the account was suspended. I would have cancelled at this point, but did not want to pay the $300 cancellation fee. 2 weeks later I got boxes in the mail to send my receivers back, so I decided to just send them back and be done with it even though I hadn’t requested to cancel, because I was so fed up with them. I never did receive a bill, but in October I got a call from DTV’s collection agency calling to get my cancellation fee and the remaining balance on my account paid. I called DTV to find out what was going on, and apparently they had screwed up my billing again and I owed like $15, so instead of suspending my account, they cancelled for non-payment (it was like 2 weeks late when I got the boxes). They were very sorry for the mistake and apologized alot, but still made me either pay the fee or keep my DTV and this time my year contract had to start over. I argued for about 2 hours and then just gave up and got the stupid DTV with the base package (still $30) and come October, I am cancelling, never to return as a customer again. Okay…I feel better now =)
Something like this is what I’m afraid of happening lol. If they really cancel my account and don’t sneak any secret charges, I’ll be shocked honestly. I am expecting to have to call again with some issue.
It is because of that reason that I opted to not go with DirecTV. I hope it works out in your favor.
You mean it wasn’t Rajni in India?
Oh yuck…I just joined Directv in February. Of course I have the same “stuck with Directv for 2 years contract” I joined them mainly for the HD-DVR and HD channels.
I had a two year contract with Comcast that I cancelled for FiOS – so far I have yet to get a cancellation bill from them even though I was supposed to pay a fee. I believe they may waive it because we’ve tried to get some coverage through them that they could not accomodate and also because we were paying for an internet speed we did not receive. I hope to not see that bill! It was nice cancelling though b/c my husband just said we got FiOS and that was it. When they called again to ask if we would come back my husband asked if they planned to have as fast internet at FiOS and they said no and never called back. Good luck with getting FiOS Dustin, but please be careful as their salespeople are very bad liars and Verizon will not back up the offers they give you.