Update: After months of fighting with DirecTV, we finally received one of our Refer-a-Friend credits. Unfortunately, we are moving in a few weeks and will not be able to have DirecTV in our new apartment home. When it is all said and done, we will see $10 of the $100 worth of credits we were suppose to receive. Fortunately for us, the two friends we referred to DirecTV are still our friends.
You've heard the ads before "Friends don't let friends watch cable" by DirecTV. Well, they seem to have gotten it wrong. Friends don't let friends watch DirecTV! And friends definitely don't refer friends to DirecTV. But wait, don't they give you and your friend $50 for referrals? That's what they want you to think. It is actually a scam to get more customers. DirecTV does not pay the referral bonus as they promise and after talking with customer service this evening, they never intended to pay it!
Here's the deal. I signed up for DirecTV almost two years ago because the customer serivce at Comcast was horrible right after the took over for Adelphia. At the time DirecTV had an offer that if you referred your friends, you and your friend received a $50 credit on you bill. The credit was promised to be paid $10/month for 5 months.
This past November, a good friend of ours moved into a house they had just finished building. Because the development was brand new, Comcast was taking their own sweet time installing the necessary equipment. I recommended to my friend that he should get DirecTV. I told him about the referral plan and after several days of thinking it over, he decided to have DirecTV installed. When he called to have his new service installed, he gave them my account number as he was suppose to and the installer told him that we would both receive the $50 credit in about 4 - 6 weeks. Here it has been FOUR MONTHS and neither of us have recieved our credit. My friend called at eight weeks to find out why we weren't receiving the credit and he was told by customer service that they did not have record of the referral. They said we would not be getting the credit.
About that same time, another friend of ours asked me about DirecTV because they knew we had gotten it some time ago. Figuring that the referral bonus from my first friend was a simple problem that would be resolved quickly, I referred my second friend to DirecTV. They had their DirecTV installed in February and like our first friend, they provided my account number when they called for the initial installation of their service. They were told the same 4 - 6 weeks before the credit would appear. It has been TWO MONTHS since our second friend signed up and again, neither of us has received the referral credit.
This evening, I called to see what was going on and I was told by customer service that they had no record of me referring either friend and that none of us would be getting any referral credits.
It is obvious to me that they do not care about their customers and I would like to apologize to our two friends. If I had known that DirecTV would treat its customers this way, I never would have gotten my friends mixed up with a company like this. Unlike DirecTV, I value and respect my friends. I would never knowing turn them onto a scam. Because of the economy, both of our friends switched because they were going to be saving money. Like us, they need every little bit of help stretching the budget as far as they can.
To that I say, it is DirecTV's loss. Not only will they lose me as a customer when my comittment is up next month, but studies have shown that scorned customers tell more people about their bad experiences than satisfied customers tell about theirs. This blog post is my second negative review of DirecTV in less than an hour. I have already posted a review of DirecTV on Viewpoints.com and I plan to post others. I may not be able to do much, but with the world wide web, the audience has definitely gotten bigger.
So for all those DirecTV subscribers, please don't jeopordize your friendships by referring your friends to satellite. Friends don't let friends watch DirecTV!
13 years ago
5 comments:
That is really crappy. I hadn't received my bill yet (since I am assuming it's in the mail that we have had held for a week) and was going to check it out. What a crock. I'll be sure to tell everyone I know too.
We don't hold it against you, it's not your fault that most businesses are only looking out for themselves. It's the American way!
I RECOMMEND YOU CALL BACK DIRECTV AND SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR! WE DID THE $100 REFER A FRIEND OFFER & CALLED THE NUMBER ON THE OFFER (1-888-530-3932). NOW DIRECTV SAYS WE'RE NOT ELIGIBLE BECAUSE MY FRIEND CALLED THE WRONG NUMBER, WHICH SHOULD HAVE BEEN 1-866-443-8869. HEY .. BUT I STILL HAVE THE COUPON! SO HAD TO CALL DIRECTV AND SPEAK TO CUSTOMER RESOLUTION SUPERVISOR & HAD TO FAX THEM MY COUPON. GEE ... I THOUGHT THIS WAS A ONE TIME ERROR ... BUT LOOKS LIKE THEY DO THIS TOO OFTEN! I GOT MY $100 CREDIT. STICK BY YOUR RIGHTS AND CALL DIRECTV BACK IF YOUSTILL HAVE YOUR COUPON!!
I definitely recommend not dealing with directv. My first dealing with them ended in them stealing my tivo. I took them to small claims court and got the price of my tivo back. Then somehow I fell for them offering me what I thought was a great deal to come back. They would give me service for one year for $29.99/month for one year, free starz, showtime, hbo, ect., and a free h-d dvr upgrade. However when their technician came out to install my service he installed the wrong dvr. He installed a standard def. h-d dvr, when obviously I had a h-d t.v. on the wall. I called their customer service to let them know that he installed the wrong equip., and their response was to tell me they could send them out with the right one, but I would have to pay for it since I signed the paper saying they installed my equip. correctly. Can you believe that crap, like I am suppose to know what their equip. is suppose to look like. So I canceled my service with them, and now they keep sending me a bill for $400.00, and they sent it to collections. So, now I am going to have to take them to court again for not fulfilling their contract with me. Do not deal with directv, you will regret it.
THE SO_CALLED UPGRADE STINKS!!!!
We have had Directv for several years. We owned our own tivo box and had two units in bedrooms. We rented one and owned the other. They kept calling about an "upgrade" of our equipment. They convinced my spouse our equipment was obsolete and needed to be upgraded.
First, in the "work-orders" was a new contract for two years that was not mentioned anywhere. This after being a LOYAL customer for more than 5 years. We tried to cancel just two hours after it was installed and got basically laughed at.
They did not put the sattelite in the same place, They put it on the roof and left the junky old ones sticking on my house. Now I am going to have to PAY someone to come and remove the two of them. (One was for local.)
Also the new units do not work as well as the old ones and we lost a lot of features as well.
They also want you to plug your phone into it so they can keep up with who calls you.
Suggestions are gone replaced by pay movies at $5.99 each.
It now takes 3 steps to do what could be done in one. In your recorded stuff you have to go back and forth to do everything. No more scrolling through the episodes.
There is a buffer on only one channel. No more switching back and forth.
No wish list for upcoming programs in the future. Only for the two weeks in the guide.
Directv is now a ripoff. I would not wish it on my worst enemy.
The friend referral worked for me when I signed up. Also my co-worker signed up recently and got a $100 discount. Feel free to use my account # if you do not have a friend that has direct tv. It is account # 51312525. My name is Eric Bede (in case they ask). Good luck!
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