DirecTV Sued By Washington State

thomst writes "A week ago, Rob McKenna, the Attorney General of Washington State, filed suit against DirecTV, alleging 16 counts of unfair, deceptive, and unethical business practices. The charges include failure to disclose important contract information (such as early termination fees, 'service maintenance' fees, and rebate terms), misrepresentation, 'negative option' billing, 'unconscionable enforcement of contract to which there has been no mutual consent,' failure to honor promotional offers, and 'imposing charges when no service has been provided.' The complaint is available online (PDF). MSNBC's Bob Sullivan states that McKenna's office received 375 complaints against DirecTV in the 11.5 months before he filed suit, and 59 additional complaints in the 24 hours immediately after the filing was announced. Sullivan's story also states, 'McKenna said he'd been working with DirecTV for months in an attempt to avoid a court battle, and he was surprised DirecTV refused to change its business practices voluntarily.'"

Comments

I had a bad experience with DirecTV DVR

[hansoloaf]

I had a DirecTV Tivo DVR that was working fine in Missouri. I moved to Vermont and brought it with me. However the model would not work in Vermont.

Directv would not allow me to continue to use the Tivo model so they forced me to obtain their free DVR product (crap). Didn't cost me anything so I had to agree to that.

Then the DVR product broke and I asked DirecTV to replace it. They did so no problem but extended my two year contract without informing me. About a year later when the contract was supposed to have expire, I called to negotiate a better deal including HD etc, only to be told that I have one more year left. After countless calls I learned that they extended this quietly because they "gave" me a replacement DVR.

So screw them, I paid the ETF and moved to Dish. Ever since DirecTV have been bombarding me with mails begging me to come back but I'm staying with Dish for two years.

Hope the states force DirecTV to stop these practices.

Re:I had a bad experience with DirecTV DVR

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Dish is even worse on leaving - you don't own any of the equipment, if you quit in February, they demand you climb up on the icy roof to get their lnb to ship back, and they threaten to charge not only the early termination fee - but the full cost of the equipment if its "damaged" in any way - meaning if they find a scratch, they'll hit your credit card- and better make sure the remotes are included.

Took a complaint to the BBB and countless calls to the escalated tech (which never returns calls - you have to catch them when they are off a call and in their seat).

I will never ever go with DTV, Dish, or comcast again. I'll take the netflix and stream the commercial free stuff to my tv instead.

Cheaper too.

Where does the surprise part come in

[dkleinsc]

he was surprised DirecTV refused to change its business practices voluntarily.

I'm not surprised DirecTV ignored him. The big corporate types are used to owning government, and tend to get blindsided by guys who take their job as AG to mean that they're supposed to enforce the laws of their state (e.g. pre-affair Eliot Spitzer).

Why have either?

[Temujin_12]

Why pay cable/satellite companies for TV in general? I've found that I'm perfectly happy with getting all of my TV online through iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, and various network's websites. Just pay for a good internet connection (which generally doesn't have such ridiculous terms and conditions) and stream. You can now even stream sports games from the internet (for a nominal cost from season to season).

The payment structures and contracts involved with cable/satellite TV just seem ridiculous and antiquated now.

And no, I haven't had any problems with bandwidth limits (just get the right package).

Re:It's about time

[Anonymous Coward]

DirectTV had been strong arming alleged theft of service cases to force many innocent people to pay large amounts and settle out of court. It's about time that they get busted for other strong arm tactics that they are doing to customers. This company has been extorting money for years. It's finally about time someone goes after them!

True statement. I was a target of DTV's "theft of service" racket 5 or so years ago.

They demanded a $4000 settlement because I had purchased a smart card programmer from a company that had been implicated in producing hacked DTV smart cards. That was the only "evidence" that they had, and in fact, I maintained a subscription with DTV for years prior (including subscribing to a lot of premium content).

I told them (via my lawyer) to go piss up a rope. They never filed suit.

FWIW, as bad as Comcast is, they're way better than DTV.

Re:Buying boxes

[QuantumRiff]

FYI, the NFL sets the prices for the DirectTV Sunday Ticket. Thats why its non-refundable too.. The same Group (NFL) is trying to force some cable companies to carry their channel on basic cable, and pay per month per subscriber for it, when its only real good a few months out of the year, unless you love to watch old recorded games...