I’m still amazed at what I’ve been through today.  I’m hoping that this turns up in some searches, so people can see what they are in for.

I had been a Directv customer for about nine years. Due to the recent global economic collapse, I cancelled service in July. That went very smoothly. In June, I received an automated call that said that I would have to upgrade my receiver going forward, so knowing that I would have to do that anyway, it seemed like a good time to go without TV.

Things picked up for me, financially, about six weeks later. As it happens, I received an e-mail from Directv with an offer to sign back up. The subject of the mail was, “Come Back And Get Over 150 Channels For Only $29.99/mo For 12 Months.” That sounded like a good deal. They’d rather not have me go to Comcast, I was perfectly happy with them for years… this seemed like it would work.

The e-mail stated that I had to call a phone number to take advantage of this promotion. The promotional code was WBK7. I spoke with a CSR for about twenty minutes and we got everything taken care of. (Or so it seemed!) They were able to schedule a technician to arrive the next day.

The next day arrived, and the tech showed up on time. It’s at this point that I should describe my setup.

I have a single dish, attached to my house. The co-ax cable goes into a “flat” wire, which is placed between a screen window. The other end of the flat wire goes back into more co-ax cable, and then into the receiver.

The tech said that I needed a new flat wire. He said that would be $16. He also said that I would have to have a protection plan at $4 a month, indefinitely. Alternatively, he could drill a hole through my house and install it that way.

Well, that was totally unacceptable.  I’m fairly certain that he was going to try to drill through solid concrete, so that was out of the question. Furthermore, my setup had been perfectly adequate for years. There was no logical reason that they couldn’t use the existing flat wire.

The tech wouldn’t budge, so I got his supervisor on the phone. Directv contracts all this work out, so I was surprised to find that the supervisor wouldn’t budge. He wouldn’t authorize the tech to use the flat wire and he wouldn’t waive the moronic, monthly “protection fee.” I was amazed – if anyone reading this happens to know me in real life, I think it’s fair to say that I don’t get worked up or agitated about anything. The audacity of this clown really pissed me off.  I told the guy, “well, forget it then,” and he was totally happy to let this sale fall through.

After this, I called Directv proper. I got one of their CSRs on the phone, who realized that while the contractors couldn’t give a shit who does and doesn’t stick with Directv, the corporation itself did. He told the tech to go ahead and give me the new goddamn receiver. The tech had to confirm with his boss, however, and who knows what was said, because he came back down ready to do what I wanted them to do 40 minutes previous.

The tech gave me the new receiver, blah blah, everything was working.

At this point, I had no confidence that the rebate was going to happen. I went to directv.com and was told that my account was not eligible for a rebate! Well well well! The desperation was pretty transparent, and I guess I was just supposed to be relieved that service was working at all. I called Directv, and got an all-new, all-different CSR.

She told me that my account wasn’t eligible for a rebate, because I had not been away long enough. Of course, this wasn’t mentioned on the e-mail, wasn’t mentioned by the original CSR, wasn’t mentioned by anyone. I asked to speak with her supervisor.

Another 40 minutes passed, and all the while, the gal on the phone told me that nobody could do anything, that it was impossible for me to get this rebate, that the fourth law of thermodynamics involved me never getting this stupid rebate. At this point, it became personal. Not between me and her, but between me and Directv.

The supervisor never got on the phone with me, but did instruct the CSR to tell me the following:

– Tomorrow I am meant to logon to Directv’s website.
– At that point, I’ll see my rebate option show up.
– I can, at that point, get the goddamn rebate I was offered in the first place.

I’ve got zero faith that anything is going to be different tomorrow. I guess we’ll see! You read about horrible fucking customer service all the time, but it’s still a thing to go through it yourself. And I am totally motivated to stick with Directv forever. I honestly like what they offer, and having experienced their competitors when I originally moved out here, Jesus Christ, Directv is the best option. But they’ve got to fix this, this entire episode was a joke and I’d rather go with someone else than ever try to repeat this process again.

UPDATE: I logged into my account and checked their website just for the hell of it. As it turns out, I did not have to wait until tomorrow. The rebate link was there and worked. Halle-frigging-lujah.