DIRECTV Disconsolations

VICTORY! 4:30 p.m, November 14, 2007

If you haven’t yet responded to the email sent to you, please don’t do so now.  I got a call at the time and date above from the DirecTV office in Oklahoma and talked to Chris F., Rep ID 400604, who informed me that they had reviewed my account and decided to credit it with $119.26, bringing the balance to $0.   He said nothing about sending hard copy documentation to this effect, but I will follow up on this later.

To those of you who responded per direction to the email sent to you, thank you very much.  After a year and a half struggling with these folks, you helped me cure the problem in a little over 1 day.  Please note what a powerful use of the Internet this was, and don’t hesitate to call on me if you ever find yourself in a similar predicament. 

Modern society has tended to separate us as individuals and sometimes this can be taken advantage of.  There are still ways of banding together though, to fight back, not as a mob, but as a group of individuals with the common goal of being dealt with fairly and honestly.  This technique that took me a year and a half to think of is ‘open source’, so please feel free to use it yourself.

Thanks again,

Bill Hardin

[All writing below is now irrelevent, but will remain as is for the time being for demonstration purposes]

It would be nice to find a way for the individual to fight back against corporate wrong doing, wouldn’t it?

My original intent for this page was just to get DirecTV off my back, but now I have taken on the loftier purpose of creating a format for any individual to obtain justice from corporate coercion.  This format is:

1. The email you have received
2. Your viewing of this page
3. Your copying and pasting the suggested message contained in the email to the provided email addresses
4. Forwarding the entire email on to interested friends and acquaintences

The desired effect would be a show of solidarity of concerned individuals, by way of a deluge of emails to the offending corporation, to force it to acknowledge the freedoms and rights of individuals to be dealt with fairly and honestly.

The conning, tricking, cajoling, coercing, and sometimes brutal psychic bludgeoning of the individual by the corporation into a life of inauthenticity and mediocrity is usually so subtle that it is hard to perceive.  DirecTV, however, has been curiously brazen and arrogant in their deceitful and dishonest dealings with me. Nor am I the only one; don’t miss the ‘Other Complaints’ link on the left to vicariously experience the extreme aggravation DirecTV has visited upon 15 (at last count) lives other than my own.

I present my grievance in Web log fashion to invite comments (by clicking on the [Comments (n)] link at the bottom-right of the page).  Any and all comments will be allowed (pending lenient approval).  And please don’t forget to respond to the email you were originally sent if you want to be able to fight back yourself at some future date.

Follow the links on the left for the documentation in chronological order, and the links on the right for philosophical reference and comic relief.  You are urged to watch the free Google video, The Corporation, from the link on the right, if you watch nothing else in this section

Because the documentation is somewhat tedious, repititious, and boring, I present a concise statement of my grievance below: 

• • 2003 (about)  I had DirecTV equipment installed and hooked up with assurances by the DirecTV installation man that there was no problem sharing the connection with the main house and the little separated shack on the property where I lived.  There are 2 witnesses other than myself to this event.
  • 2005 (about)  The tenants who signed up for the service moved out of the main house and the DirecTV account, which was in their name, was dropped for a few months, but the equipment remained.
  • 2006 (February)  I phoned DirecTV and restarted the account in my name.  I phoned in during their mass advertising campaign for basic service for $19.95 per month.  They agreed to this deal, took all my information, but right before the phone call ended, they told me I had called in a day too late, but that they could sign me up for the ‘Total Choice’ (Orwellian double-speak) package for 3 months, which included all channels and 3 free movie channels.  I was very unhappy with this deceptive turn of events, but because they assured me that I could go back to the basic service after this period, my tenant and I agreed to sign up, and did.
  • 2006 (May)  I received a phone message that my ‘Total Choice’ package time period was up.  Within 5 minutes I had a DirecTV representative on the phone.  I stopped the ‘Total Choice’ package and renegotiated back down to the basic service plus about a $5 charge for the extra receiver, plus tax, for a total of about $27 per month.  The same day, or at least the very next, the extra channels were stopped.  I have 2 other witnesses to these events.
  • 2006 (June)  I receive a bill from DirecTV for $50.80.  I let this go at the time, paying the $27 I agreed to, and waiting for the next bill, which would surely reflect the deal I had made with DirecTV.
  • 2006 (July)  I receive a bill for $79.62 - the balance I didn’t pay on the June bill plus another $50.80.  At this time I paid another $27 and wrote them a letter requesting them to adjust my bill to the agreed $27 per month amount.
  • 2006 (August)  I get a bill for $104.36.  Again I pay the agreed upon $27 and wonder what is taking their bookkeeping department so long.
  • 2006 (September)  I am cut off from the service and begin to get late notices and hear from bill collectors.  Between this date and February, 2007, I write several letters and have several phone conversations with both DirecTV and various bill collectors.  Both agencies continue to try to bully $119.26 out of me, denying that they ever made a deal with me for $27 per month and have no record of the ‘Total Choice’ packaged being dropped.
  • 2007 (February)  I initiated a complaint against DirecTV through the Better Business Bureau.  I heard nothing from DirecTV or any bill collectors for about 6 months and thought I was done with this nonsense.
  • 2007 (August)  I receive another letter from a different bill collection agency threatening to destroy my credit if I don’t pay up.
  • 2007 (August)  I initiate this Web log to start a public dialog.

This is my position:  I know what I heard from the DirecTV installation man, and I have 2 witnesses that heard the same thing - that there was no problem sharing the connection between the main house and the 200 square foot guest house (detached bedroom, really) that I live in.  I also know what I heard from the DirecTV phone representative when I phoned to change my service back to the basic - $27 per month total, with no hidden charges - and I have 2 other witnesses that can attest to this phone call that I made and the $27 per month deal I told them I had made.

I share a phone line and Internet connection with tenants (or room mates) on this property that I own outright with the well wishes of the agencies that provide them.  If DirecTV has some policy that restricts me from doing what I please on my own property with the 2 receivers I rented (which was their final argument in the BBB complaint), then all they had to do was tell me in the beginning, and I could have told them to be on their way.  I have been up front and straight forward from the beginning with DirecTV.  I am not lying about dropping the ‘Total Choice’ package or the $27 per month price I negotiated with the DirecTV phone representative.

 I would like to know how this particular corporation has grown so bold as to out-and-out call me a liar and continue to bully and harrass me for about a year and a half in their beady-eyed effort to extort money from me that I never agreed to pay.

If you have any ideas on this matter, please use the [Comments(n)] link below-right to express them.

Bill Hardin