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

Buying boxes

[digitalunity]

I particularly love the part about buying DirecTV from a Best Buy only to find out later that you don't really it.

Oh, and that you can't find a complete document outlining your rights and responsibilities in one place.

Even my credit card company does that...

Re:Buying boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure what you're talking about, I bought DirecTV from Best Buy and I the whole thing.

Re:Buying boxes

[Anonymous Coward]

Accidentally, of course.

Re:Buying boxes

[andyring]

Yeah, that REALLY pissed me off too. I thought I "bought" their high-end DVR when I forked over the cash at BestBuy. Not to mention it is not possible at the store to read the massive thing you sign when "buying" it. Then, several months later when I wanted to cancel because my 2-year term was up, I'm told I can't because I added a receiver. But I paid for it! I'll give it back to them if they want it, but no. I even threatened to nuke the credit card it's being billed to but was told my account would then go to collections. I used to really like DirecTV but now I will never, ever recommend them to anyone.

Re:Buying boxes

[paiute]

My mother-in-law, a DirecTV customer, died a year or so ago. My wife had such a hard time trying to terminate the account that she swears she will never do business with them and will do her best to discourage any of her friends from signing up with them.

DirecTV bought bad word of mouth for decades when all they had to do was to say that they were sorry for her loss, the account is cancelled, and here is your confirmation number. Have a nice day.

Re:Buying boxes

[turb]

We've had equally "interesting" experiences ....

1) We upgraded one of our boxes to the DirecTV DVR ... cost us a few hundred dollars as I recall... only to find out that unlike our own receiver(s) this upgrade wasn't owned by us but leased with a monthly charge for the lease no less. So I called them up indicating I wanted my old hardware back and to come and get the new box. They never returned the old hardware claiming, "well we're not sure where that went, would you like a movie channel free for a month?"

Bastards!

Time passes....

2) Our bill suddenly shows a "2nd" leased receiver charge... Do we have a 2nd receiver that is leased? No. As I indicated before I always bought our own hardware with the exception of the "upgrade" fiasco. Never mind this other supposedly leased receiver isn't even hooked up... took them the better part of an hour to finally get it. Granted I probably will be hooking that one back up again (and HR10-250) since the MPEG 4 tivo receiver STILL isn't out yet and their HD DVR really really sucks.

And hey while I'm bending your ear... the other thing that makes me see red is wrt their NFL sunday ticket. So I like football and the team I follow isn't always on the local channels since we're in a different market. Now everybody everywhere is shooting NFL football in HD. You think DirecTV Sunday Ticket would show you the game in HD? HA! Fork over another $99 on top of the already astronomical NFL Sunday Ticket price. Now I could understand the extra price back the "good ol days" before the switch over but we're well past that.

Pretty sad state of affairs....

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...

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!

Re:It's about time

[JWSmythe]

    A long time ago, they used to be good folks to deal with. That's gone down hill.

    I had bought a HDVR2 (Standard def TiVO receiver), which was their latest greatest at the time. They wanted to send someone out to install it, but I bought on a Friday night, and they couldn't schedule until Monday. No big deal there. I installed it myself that night. It worked well. Over a span of a few years, I bought a few other pieces of equipment. I think I only ever called once during that period for a repair, and the guy was at my house the next day to help. It was for a defective regular receiver for my girlfriend's kid's room.

    The last time I moved, the install went ok. It took a few extra days to get someone out. This was a big move for us, so I didn't have time to get on the roof and wire everything up. I also wanted the newer dish, which I could have bought online for a few bucks. It took them several days to show up. At the prior house, we had gotten the NFL sports package, but that was for a friend to watch. Since the friend wouldn't be watching, we didn't need it any more. "Sorry, you can't cancel at this time, you have to cancel in 3 months." I forgot, and on the 4th month I called and they said the same thing again. Perpetually trapped with an add-on package that I couldn't get rid of.

    Not too long after that, the signal started going. I'm fairly sure it was the multiplexer. I called them to come fix it. They scheduled for a week later. The guy never showed, so they rescheduled for another week later. (2 weeks, no service). The guy showed a day after the scheduled date, with a new DVR in hand. He said they had not scheduled for a repair, only a DVR upgrade. Huh? He couldn't do the repair, only the upgrade that I hadn't asked for. I spent an hour on the phone with DTV, and they finally scheduled a repair in two weeks. So, a month with no service. I called, told them to go screw themselves, and called a local wired provider, who was out the next day to do the install.

    I was fairly lucky, my pricing was fixed because I was grandfathered in. The "current" rate was much higher than what I was paying. A month or so after I cancelled, I started getting nasty calls from them saying I was late on my bill. It was a month of daily calls, where they asked for money, and I told them to go screw themselves. Ok, I was a little clearer on the phone, but that was the end of each conversation. They finally realized I wasn't going to give them anything, and they went away. It wasn't worth their time to call, since I had made it abundantly clear that I had cancelled, and wasn't going to pay them anything.

    Ya, they got pretty bad. It's really unfortunate, I liked their service. I was a customer for many years, and they managed to alienate me. Obviously, I'm not the only one.

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.

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.

Re:I had a bad experience with DirecTV DVR

[TheNinjaroach]

I had a much better experience with Dish. Sure, I didn't own any of the equipment but I didn't pay anything for it either. When the receiver broke, they replaced it without any trouble. When I moved houses they sent out a new installation crew free of charge. Eventually when I decided to cancel (TV isn't worth money..) they asked for my "LNBF" and the receiver, I said "Sure I'll send you the receiver, but you sent out a crew of three men to install that dish with the LNBF and if you want to have that you will need to send them back." So the account rep took note of the fact I wasn't going up three and a half stories to get their LNBF, I mailed back the receiver free of charge and that was the end of that. If I ever decide to pay for television again, I'm going nowhere but Dish.

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).

Re:Washington "State"

[Mantic]

Having lived in Washington ("State") for most of my life, it's practically necessary when traveling in foreign places. Every single time I didn't specify the "state" at the end, people would say "Oh! Washington. Where the white house is, right?" It's very annoying indeed to have to specify which Washington. It's even more annoying if you live in Vancouver, WA.

"I'm from Vancouver Washington."
"Oh, Canada? Cool."
"No, it's in the state Washington; just 6-7 hours south of Canada's Vancouver."
"Oh, where the White house is, fun!"
"Nevermind."

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).

The only "real fix"

[HogGeek]

The only "real" fix it to stop treating corporations like "humans". They are a company regardless of their filing.

Hold them responsible for their actions, and limit their ability to "pass on" the cost of their bad actions, so it truly affect their bottom line. They don't care when they get "caught"; They "apologize"; then raise their fees/charges/rates/... to cover the cost of the "infraction", then find a new way to screw the customer base. If they actually had to pay, then they would stop, or go out of business - either way the consumer "wins".

I don't have any evidence, but I'll bet the "lease" deal came out of the DTV hacking that was so prevalent in the not to distant past. If they own the equipment, they have more "rights".

It seems a lot of corporations use this cycle; Telecom, Cable/Satellite, ...

Re:Washington "State"

[Dutch Gun]

A common mistake, get over it. Or move where the rain doesn't make you so cranky.

The rain helps keep the Californians away. It's a feature, not a bug.