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

[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....

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."