Directv Inc Cancellation charge $440! I canceled after only 2 months due to unacceptable performance El Segundo Nationwide

I left Dish in May after they removed Voom channels without warning. What a mistake! I went with Direct and I tried for 2 months to deal with multible problems with the Directv HR21 DVR receiver and got nowhere with customer service.They kept telling me I "must be doing something wrong" (I wasn't) and promised that "the next software release will fix everything" (It didn't). After waiting through 3 new software releases the freezing, delayed response, missed scheduled recordings, quirky menus, etc. were still there unimproved. It convinced me that this is a flawed design not just a minor software issue. So after 2 months I cancelled stating that Directv is not able to provide service as promised. I payed in full for those 2 months of lousy service and returned their receivers the same day. Afew days later I went in to take my name and info off the Directv site and found charges for "Early Termination Fee's of $367.00. Then in the email response from Directv the amount is now $440! So far I just get the stock answer as shown below in the thread

Discussion Thread
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Customer CPC - 08/04/2008 09:10 AM
I canceled my Directv sevice 7/28/08. I returned my receivers via directv pre-paid box 8/1/08. Yet there is an overdue balance showing on my bill. There should be $0 charges due. Please correct this and update me via email so I can close my Directv file. Thank you CPC






Response (Mechel J. - 100206889) - 08/04/2008 11:07 AM
Dear Mr. Carter,

Thanks for taking the time to write about your DIRECTV bill. I regret to see that you no longer have DIRECTV service. Allow me to assist you.

DIRECTV significantly discounts the price of equipment and installations so we ask you to keep your programming for at least 18 months for standard receivers / 2 years for DVR, HD, and HD-DVR receivers. If you cancel your service or do not maintain the minimum programming requirements we may charge an early cancellation fee.

I have reviewed your account and I see that you activated equipment on 5/28/2008 and at that time you agreed to a 24-months programming commitment. Since you did not maintain the minimum program requirements we have charged an early cancellation fee of $440 to your account. We feel that this fee is valid and we are unable to remove it.

For more information on programming commitments please visit our web site at directv.com/agreements.

I hope I was able to assist you with your billing concerns. Thanks again for writing.

Sincerely,

Mechel J
100206889
DIRECTV Customer Service

Dear Mechel J,

Let me start by saying that I am disappointed that this, my first experience with Directv, did not work out. It has been a troubling, frustrating time with considerable inconvenience for me and my family as we tried our best to make this work. Television is an important form of entertainment to me because I am disabled and spend many hours watching TV. I've become very familiar with SAT TV and DVR receivers. We were Dish Network customers for over 7 years and were early adopters of their first DVR then HD DVR receivers.

It was only after we recently became disgruntled over a combination of an increasing lack of response to repeated programming requests and other questions, lack of new HD programming and the manner in which the Voom channels were removed without warning or explanation, that we made the decision to leave Dish. Our options were Comcast and Direct. We found that in all the areas of signal quality, HD programming, DVR receiver capability/performance, and customer service Comcast had a terrible reputation so we chose Directv. We carefully considered this change and we were impressed with DirecTV's excellent HD programming and your latest HR21 DVR receiver specs. While the HR21 DVR was an unknown to us we assumed that Directv, having worked closely with TIVO based DVR designs all those years, would provide equal or even better quality and Performance than the Dish DVR receivers we were used to. Unfortunately this turned out NOT to be the case.

I've already outlined the many problems during my many conversations with the customer service agents during my attempts to use and enjoy Directv service. I won't repeat the details here because they are available to you in my customer notes. If you need additional details, I have pages of notes taken in the 2 months I was with Directv. It was frustrating that my questions never seemed to get resolved. The CS agents were unable to explain the failures and seemed to use the stock answers that I must be doing something wrong or that the next software release would fix the receiver problems. So I carefully reviewed the nuances of the HR21 operation with my family to eliminate any possibility of "Operator error" in our programming and use. After all this time and effort and after patiently waiting through 3 software updates the problems were still not fixed. I'm an Electrical Engineer and I understand the technology. It seems obvious to me that this HR21 receiver design is flawed. It appears that the system hardware resources are unable to handle the task load. The symptoms of freezing, delays between a button command and actual response, missing scheduled recording even though they were still in the "to do list" , recording blank space for the duration of a timer, even the scrolling screen saver being jerky, freezing, sometimes failing to restart all point to an overtaxed design. Frankly in my opinion it's not ready for release. In the industry it would be considered a Beta product. This relegates your customers to the role of Beta testers to debug the design. This is not what I agreed to and I decided to cancel the Service.

I summarized these many issues during my final cancellation call to Direct and when they mentioned this early cancellation fee my response was then and is now that I entered into an agreement to pay for a term of quality service provided by Directv. I did everything I could to fulfill my part of the agreement but Directv failed to fulfill their part of the contract, to provide the quality of service promised. I stated then I would pay for services received from 5/28/08 through the termination date 7/28/08 and I would return your equipment which I did on 8/1/08.

Now here again you are asking for early termination fees. I understand technical issues but failure to deliver performance as promised then attempting to collect on a technicality anyway is just bad business. Fraud might be too strong a term and it's difficult to prove intent, but in a competitive environment such as the SAT TV community, perception is everything. Technical failure is one thing but add heavy handed collection methods and possible fraud to the script and it's a story that can destroy credibility and damage reputation quickly. It causes existing customers to doubt their decision and turns potential customers away. It's the sort of thing that tends to spread like wildfire through the many chat rooms and SAT TV discussion forums that flourish across the web. Worse case it possibly gets the attention of the Attorneys General and/or s****.> I value my excellent credit standing and principles of fair practices and I will defend my decision to leave Directv due to lack of performance. However, my hope is that we can part amicably leaving open the possibility of future business. I also hope that my feedback, though negative, could be useful to DirecTV's Engineering team. I know through my own Engineering experience that it sometimes takes a critical mass of negative feedback to justify further investment in Engineering to correct a design and/or develop the next generation. I would be glad to speak directly to Engineering with specific observations and suggestions if you would find that useful.

Thank you for your time and fair consideration in this matter.

Regards,

CPC



Response (Catherine D. - 100179574) - 08/06/2008 08:28 PM
Dear Mr. Carter,

Thanks for writing.

DIRECTV significantly discounts the price of equipment and installations so we ask you to keep your programming for at least 18 months for standard receivers / 2 years for DVR, HD, and HD-DVR receivers. If you cancel your service or do not maintain the minimum programming requirements we may charge an early cancellation fee.

I have reviewed your account and I see that you activated equipment on 05/28/08 and at that time you agreed to a two year programming commitment. Since you did not maintain the minimum program requirements we have charged an early cancellation fee of $440.00 to your account. We feel that this fee is valid and we are unable to remove it.

For more information on programming commitments please visit our web site at directv.com/agreements.

Sincerely,

Catherine D.
Employee ID 100179574
DIRECTV Customer Service


Catherine D.

Rather than simply repeating the same response as before please escalate to the appropriate level of management for resolution.

Regards,

CPC

Cpc
Rohnert Park, California
U.S.A.

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