DirecTV Tirade !!!

Direct TV needs to be drawn and quartered. These lowlife scum sucking headache inducing vermin have the worst customer service and lack of internal communication of any company I have ever seen in my entire life.

Let me tell you a story:

Last week I purchase their $200 Hi-Def DVR (that the cable company gives you for free) ahead of my TV because I knew that I had to schedule installation of a new satellite dish. I scheduled the installation for this past Monday morning between 8-12. My wife took off from work to make sure she could be here for the install. So I get a call at 7 am from Mark saying that the DVR didn't come in and could I reschedule? Sure I said but this time I want a specific time because you are now inconveniencing me... Oh Sir we will have someone there at 8 am on Wednesday. It will only take 30-45 minutes and we will have you all set to go. With that information in mind I decided to take and hour or two off from work and my wife and I sent out invitations to about 30-40 people telling them to come and see the Super Bowl this Sunday on our new Hi-Def TV.

Wednesday morning gets here and no truck at 8 am. No problem probably got stuck in traffic. Once it got to be 9:15 I gave the tech Mark a call. He acted surprised that no one was here to install and said he would call me "right back". OK I am still not mad. Things happen right?

It gets to be 10 am and no return call. I call Mark back and get his voicemail. He is screening his calls. So I call Direct TV customer service. They say that my appointment is with an outfit called MasTec an independent contractor and it is for between 8-12. NOT what I was told by Mark. So I now call MasTec and after being on hold for 15 minutes I get a supervisor named Ken. Ken apologises for Mark telling me something wrong and tells me he will call the right tech and then he will call me right back. By now it's 10:30. I hear nothing until 11:30 when the tech, Paul who is supposed to be doing my install today calls me to tell me that he does not have a DVR for me and I will have to call DirecTV to reschedule. WHAT ??? WHAT??? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? I just sat here for almost 4 hours for this? No Sir you are coming to my house and there will be HDTV here TODAY !!!

I call MasTec back and finally track down the supervisor Ken and of course he is oblivious. What? Why would anyone say that to me? Let me see if I can find a DVR for you and give you a call back. Uh Sir you are the first person who told me earlier today that you would call me back but has not. 2 questions for you Ken? First, if you have no DVRs (including the one I paid $200 for a WEEK ago) then why didn't you tell me that to begin with and second why on earth do your techs keeping re-scheduling people to sit around and wait for these non-existent DVRs on SUPER BOWL week? I explained to him in no uncertain terms that there would be no re-schedule and my house would have HDTV today. It's bought and paid for and we have sat around TWICE waiting for this to be installed and now we have 40 people coming in 4 days to watch the biggest football game of the year. There will be no reschedule as today is already shot you will be here today. He is going to "see what he can do"

I then wait around until about 12:15 and get a call from Chris who claims to be the "real" supervisor. Chris informs me that he has located the last DVR and cancelled my second tech Paul and now is going to send Greg right over. I tell him where I live and he promises that Greg will be there within the hour depending on traffic. Greg then gives me a call to say that he has a stop to make but has my equipment and will call me when he is en route from that stop to get my address.

I sit around until 1:45 waiting for Greg to call beck because I stupidly forgot to get his number but he finally calls to say that he is now en route. I ask from where. Hwy 51 in Charlotte a good hours drive from my home in Kannapolis even with a little traffic. At this point after having dealt with 3 techs, 2 supervisors, and 3 cust service people just today all to get something done that has been promised to me twice I have had it. But since Greg promises that he is coming with my DVR I don't holler at him.

Greg finally gets there about 4 pm due in part to his GPS not leading him to my house properly and in the course of putting up my new dish he cuts out my cable internet access... I am about to scream. Could this get any worse? Maybe. It turns out from my conversation with Greg that the main reason that all of this happened with the missing DVRs is that MasTec fired the "DVR Lady" who orders such things so that the techs have them to install in customer's homes. When did they fire the DVR Lady? Oh a couple of weeks ago...has anyone been hired to replace the DVR lady? Nope. When did I actually have HDTV at my house available for viewing? 6:45 pm more than 10 hours after this was promised to me. Why was Greg the one who ended up coming to do my install? Because he is apprently MasTec's version of Mariano Rivera who comes in to finish the job when the customer is heated up... I say this because Greg is from New York and is a big Yankee fan.

Here is the moral to all of this and it stinks to say this because I generally consider myself pretty easy going but the moral of this story is that you have to hollar and hollar long and loud and to many people in order for companies not to take advantage of you and give you what you paid for and they promised to begin with.

Oh and to steal a line from something Mt. Cat once told me.... I wouldn't recommend DirectTV to a stray dog.

-Doc