DIRECTV Disconsolations

After the ‘Show me in writing!’ letter to DirecTV, I didn’t hear anything for awhile.  Then I started getting mail and telephone calls from CBE Group, Inc., a debt collection agency.  I responded to their first debt collection effort for DirecTV as follows:

CBE Group, Inc.
PO Box 2635
Waterloo, IA 50704-2635

Re: 05-009877016

Folks,

Yes, I do contest this bill and I refuse to pay it.  If this bill gets turned into any credit bureau I will launch a suit for defamation of character.  I have never not paid a legitimate bill in my life.

The situation is this:  I already had the Direct TV receivers and dish installed on my property, but the service had been turned off for a couple of months.  I phoned up to get the service turned back on after seeing an ad for $19.95 per month for the basic service, which is all that I required.  After first signing me up for this service, they came back and said that I was a day late and coerced me into a $37 per month deal where they forced several free movie channels full of sex and violence into my home for 3 months.  At the end of the 3 month period, I received a telephone message that I would start being billed about $60 per month (for the extra movie channels) unless I called in and switched my service back to ‘basic’.  No more than 5 minutes transpired between my hearing the phone message and having a Direct TV service representative on the phone.  We chatted for awhile, and his final words were that my new, adjusted back to ‘basic’ service would cost me about $27 per month, the extra $7 being for the extra receiver.  I agreed to this.

The next bill I got from Direct TV was for about $60.  I figured they had made a mistake that they would soon figure out, so I paid the agreed upon $27 and went about my business.  The next bill was for another $60 with the remainder of what I hadn’t paid before tacked on top of it.  Again I paid the agreed upon $27, but I wrote them a letter and asked them to adjust my bill to the agreed upon amount.  They did not do this, and made a very ineffectual and half-hearted attempt to contact me to discuss the matter that I had written to them about.  Again they sent me a bill that was getting so convoluted that I had no idea what they were trying to charge me for.  I wrote them a second letter about a month ago (enclosed) asking them to state to me in writing what I had defaulted on and that I would gladly pay it.  They responded by turning me over to you and by sending me a couple of empty boxes in which to send back my receivers, which will be done shortly - and with good riddance.

This whole problem may have something to do with this:  When we first got the equipment set up, I was up front from the beginning that this equipment would be shared between my main house and the 190 square foot shed that I live in, which is detached from the main house by about 50 feet or so.  The way I see it is that it is no different than a room-mate situation, me living in a detached bedroom.  The installer assured me that everything was fine and even gave me pointers on how to set up, offering to try to get me an extra 100 feet of cable to get the job done.  Without his generosity the job got done anyway, and everything went along fine for about 18 months with the service in the name of Kristin Laughlin, who was living in the main house at the time.  Now, I believe, Direct TV has figured out this arrangement, doesn’t like it, and rather than confront me with it, would rather make sweet deals to get me ‘on the hook’, then try to extort money from me by way of you.  It won’t happen.

I’ve had success in the past writing to Better Business Bureaus, TV stations and other services who look into the affairs of unscrupulous business people.  As I say, I was up front from the very beginning of my dealiings with Direct TV, and if they, or you, try to push this any further, I won’t hesitate to take this fight to its obvious conclusion.

Gee, do you think there is any connection between the mind-swill that is being forced into the American home via TV and what’s being called the ‘obesity epidemic’ (including children) in this country?

Yours truly,
[signed]
05-009877016

Bill Hardin
[address]