Why to Boycott Directv
Jan. 8th, 2003 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aIf you're using Directv for satellite internet or television services, you should seriously consider switching. Their ongoing DSL debacle has made it pretty clear that they don't give a damn about their customers, or about anything but their bottom line. Even if you're not using DSL, and they're not screwing you this time, they're making it pretty clear that they don't respect their customers much, when push comes to shove.
Today my home DSL went off. That's 8 days before Directv claimed it would go off, and a total of 4 days after I received notification. 4 days, as opposed to the 30 days notice they should have given on a month-to-month contract and the 90 days that they were claiming when they put out some press released in December (to the press, not to their customers, I should note).
Now, though I can definitely speculate about why the pricks dropped their DSL services even earlier than promised, I don't know for sure. It might be a network glitch; it might be a mistake in the slow takedown of their network; or it might be purposeful malice because they decided the lines were costing them too much money.
But, I can't know for sure because Directv has closed down all their customer support lines for their DSL. If you call, you're curtly told that your line will be up until January 16, and then hung up on. Of course, you'll be lucky to have gotten ahold of Directv at all, because their phone number mysteriously isn't listed on their web site anymore (I had to pull it out of my credit card records), and if you call you're as likely to get a busy signal as not.
So I've now got no customer support, a line that doesn't work, and no way to tell Directv that. Their promise of staying up until January 16 appears to be as fradulent as the date they put on their recent letters (December 16, which appears to be an attempt to pretend that they gave 30 days notice, though everyone I know received it on Saturday).
I've started to be a bit more boisterous asking around about class action lawsuits for this all. If Hughes, Directv's parent company, had wanted to get out of the DSL business because it was unprofitable, or not profitable enough, I could have understood that. However, to continuously give their customers short notice, then shorten it even more, to take their tech support lines down while they were still providing "service", to put out letters with clearly false dates for the apparent purpose of deception ... that all pisses me off.
That's unethical business practice, in my book, and companies need to learn that if they do that, they'll pay the consequences. I don't have time for a crusade, but I suspect there are enough people that are pissed off enough that I can find one to offer a little support to.
Today my home DSL went off. That's 8 days before Directv claimed it would go off, and a total of 4 days after I received notification. 4 days, as opposed to the 30 days notice they should have given on a month-to-month contract and the 90 days that they were claiming when they put out some press released in December (to the press, not to their customers, I should note).
Now, though I can definitely speculate about why the pricks dropped their DSL services even earlier than promised, I don't know for sure. It might be a network glitch; it might be a mistake in the slow takedown of their network; or it might be purposeful malice because they decided the lines were costing them too much money.
But, I can't know for sure because Directv has closed down all their customer support lines for their DSL. If you call, you're curtly told that your line will be up until January 16, and then hung up on. Of course, you'll be lucky to have gotten ahold of Directv at all, because their phone number mysteriously isn't listed on their web site anymore (I had to pull it out of my credit card records), and if you call you're as likely to get a busy signal as not.
So I've now got no customer support, a line that doesn't work, and no way to tell Directv that. Their promise of staying up until January 16 appears to be as fradulent as the date they put on their recent letters (December 16, which appears to be an attempt to pretend that they gave 30 days notice, though everyone I know received it on Saturday).
I've started to be a bit more boisterous asking around about class action lawsuits for this all. If Hughes, Directv's parent company, had wanted to get out of the DSL business because it was unprofitable, or not profitable enough, I could have understood that. However, to continuously give their customers short notice, then shorten it even more, to take their tech support lines down while they were still providing "service", to put out letters with clearly false dates for the apparent purpose of deception ... that all pisses me off.
That's unethical business practice, in my book, and companies need to learn that if they do that, they'll pay the consequences. I don't have time for a crusade, but I suspect there are enough people that are pissed off enough that I can find one to offer a little support to.