Direct TV -Unavoidable Late Payment Cost- Wagner, South Dakota

After a vacation of 5 weeks, we returned to find our Direct TV service disconnected for non-payment of our bill which would be Feb & Mar.  I paid our Jan bill on 1-3-11, and we departed on 1-26-11, leaving a postal order to have our 1st class mail forwarded to Leakey, TX.  Our mail was forwarded, but a bill from Direct T.V. was not received 'til the beginning of March.  It listed both the Feb & Mar amounts, so I wrote a check for the balance, and we mailed it on the way home (3 Mar 11). 

Today, when I called to ask about our T.V., Chardonnay, the Direct T.V. Operator, asked why I hadn't called when I didn't receive a Feb payment.  I told her I did not have the information.  Also, there was no Verizon service in the remote area where we were staying, & our cell phone is only Verizon.  I asked about an exception because we never miss a payment, & because of the unusual circumstances.  Chardonnay said there are no exceptions.

This does not seem to be good customer relations.  We could have had our service cut off during February, but we did not bother, so it seems to me that Direct T.V. benefited by our paying for service even when we were not home, and thus could make this small concession of restoring our service on good faith that the check was in the mail.