Directv dicks, movie, WoW, new neighbors….
I am normally very mild mannered, to a fault sometimes. I accept some things I shouldn’t but if I flip the switch I can be a pretty damn stubborn SOB. Such was the case regarding my DirecTV upgrade on Friday. The email I fired off to them should explain:
Subject: Lies, terrible experience
Details: I contacted customer support last Thurday July 21st with a simple question. I currently only have the DirecTV Sunday ticket and PPV on my package currently. I asked if I could add my Fort Myers locals ONLY. At first the woman I spoke to said no but then told me to wait a minute and said she would check on something. After a few minutes she came back and said that since I had been a customer since 2000 and I had the expensive Sunday Ticket package, she would be able to add on just the locals for an additional 6 dollars a month. Great! She said in order to receive the locals I would need to upgrade my dish and she transferred me to another department where they told me I needed a new dish AND and new receiver. Normally there would be a 50 dollar charge for this but again, since I was an old customer, they said I would only be charged 15 dollars shipping. That sounded great and I hung up very happy that directv would be willing to accomodate my needs to only receive the locals on my satellite.
Fast forward to today. I took off half the day from work because I was told the installer would not arrive until sometime between 1 and 5. He arrived at 4:58 but that was fine, he was a nice guy and installed the equipment quickly and properly. He calls up DirecTv to activate the new receiver and then hands the phone to me saying they had to talk to me. The rep asked me what package I wanted and I told him I was just adding the locals to my existing service. He said “You can’t do that” I told him that I was told by another directv rep that I indeed could and they were making an exception for me due to my long history with the company and the fact that I had the Sunday ticket. I asked him to check my account notes regarding it and he said he didn’t see anything about letting me have just the locals. I then asked to talk to his supervisor “Shakeesha” I quickly explained again to her what the deal was. I said the entire upgrade/swap out transaction was initiated based on the fact that I was told that I could just add locals to my service, I told her I took off from work for the install and how it was very frustrating to be getting the run around after I was told in no uncertain terms what I should be getting. Shakeesha was very robotic in her responses. “I’m sorry you were told incorrect information, I can not add locals without you buying a basic package” She repeated this over and over, oblivious to how ridiculous the situation was that directv has nobody to blame for but themselves. She offered no compromise, no offers to figure out what was going on. She just kept repeating the same line over and over, obviously not caring at all about how your company screwed up.
I asked to talk to her supervisor and she put me on hold for 4 or 5 minutes. Then she comes back and says the supervisor is busy, they will call you back in 24-48 hours, again in her cold, robotic tone. I told her that wasn’t good enough since the installer had to wait for the receiver to be activated until he could leave. I finally tired of her and told her to just activate it as it was.
The bottomline is directv has wasted my time, caused me to take off from work and lied to me about what they were going to do for me and offered nothing up in compensation besides “Tough….” I think that is terrible and unexcuseable in an environment where there are so many entertainment options. I would appreciate it if someone responded to me ASAP either by email (duf@duf.net) or by phone at 239-xxx-xxxx to explain to me how your company is ok with treating customers, especially long time loyal customers like this.
Sincerely,
Shawn Duffey
The letter doesn’t quite capture my heated exchange with Shakeesha, she was a total moron. When I sent the email I didn’t really expect any results from it and had resigned myself to just keeping my exisiting programming. However later the next day I got this:
Dear Mr. Duffey,
Thank you for writing. We are sorry for the frustration. Because we appreciate you as a customer, we have added the local channels a la carte to your account. Please understand that any other changes to the account would require that you subscribe to a base package such as TOTAL CHOICE. Thanks again for writing and stay tuned to DIRECTV.com for the latest news and information about our services.
Sincerely,
Matthew
DIRECTV Customer Service
Wow it actually worked, I was proud my rant actually worked and hoped Shakeesha was getting reprimanded for being a non-thinking boob. However in the meantime I got a letter from Directv thanking me for upgrading and outlining how I would be charged 68 bucks for the new dish and 5 bucks for a month for a 2nd receiver. WTF? I was told it would be just the shipping charges of 15 bucks and no mention of paying for a second receiver was ever brought up or agreed to by me. Another email is in the pipeline. Directv seems to have an issue correctly processing orders.
I did a lot of work around the house this weekend. On Saturday while Ali was running a Pampered Chef show I was out in the yard sweating buckets loading up the new garden with dirt, tilling it in and reattaching the fence. Damn it was hot. I also cleaned, ran the steam cleaner throughout the majority of the house, weeded and helped mow the grass.
Speaking of weeds, I hate them. Bent over awkwardly in the hot, humid Florida air while the blood rushes to your head and the gnats buzz your face is more than a bit unenjoyable. Since I have been living at the house I have tried various methods to control weeds. First I simply tried to keep mulch over the landscaped areas. This worked for a bit but then the weeds would just start poking through the mulch. Then I tried laying down some of the black plastic weed block and mulching on top. The plastic would start to break down and again wonderful weeds would appear. So then I redid all the areas, I laid down INDUSTRIAL weed block fabric with a fresh layer of mulch. Well once again, the mulch has weeds throughout it. What is happening is the mulch gets compacted and wet from all the summer rain and becomes almost dirt like itself, allowing weeds to grow in the mulch ON TOP of the fabric. It is maddening.
On Saturday night we went out to dinner with our old neighbors. They sold their house and moved a couple hours north. The new neighbors started to move in Monday. It seemed quite odd to see different people going into that house since we have had 4 years of knowing a different reality. Ali waved to them as she was on the tractor but I was in the pool and made no effort to make myself visible for greetings. It’s just too weird right now. I’m sure they are nice and all, I just am not ready to jump in with two feet. I heard they have 2 dogs, Nicki will be crazy.
We saw Fantastic 4 yesterday at a matinee. We figured a weekday matinee, it should be just us in the theater. Wrong, it was probably half full, very surprising. I enjoyed the movie, it was good not great. The biggest problem was the climactic final battle wasn’t very climactic at all and was over before you knew it. Michael Chicklis (spelling) was the best part of the movie as The Thing stole the show for me. Jessica Alba did look outstanding but her powers weren’t all that exciting. I would put this about on par with War of the Worlds from an enjoyment factor.
I still have been playing WoW more than I like to admit. I just obtained two very expensive in game items that I have been working towards for 3 weeks or so. The 2 items cost me over 1500 gold which is a huge amount of cash. It is a bit scary that I plan out my time in Warcraft like I plan out other daily activities. Play it if you dare and you will understand.