My husband and I decided to move in to bigger place with two bathrooms, a two-car garage, and in a better neighborhood. We chose the place and after what seemed like an endless two-three days, we finally moved everything out of the old place and in to the new. On May 31, I contacted all of the utilities, informing them to be turned off here and turned on there and so forth. When I contacted the cable company, they told me the earliest they could make the switch was June 9. I thought that was completely ridiculous, and decided to contact some other service providers to see what I could do....boy, did that turn out to be a major mistake!
I checked out DirecTv online. We had their service before and thought it was great, just a little too pricey, so we turned it off. We really missed that NFL Sunday Ticket, and when I saw they were now offering it free (so long as you signed up for one of the higher-end packages), I just couldn't pass it up. By the time it was all said and done, I had arranged to have two HD-DVRs, one HD receiver, and one standard receiver. I proceeded to the next page, only to discover the earliest a tech could come install the equipment was June 10. Guess the joke was on me. Anyway, $160 later, I was prepared to be totally enthralled by my new HD DirecTv. Ugh...if I only knew...
So June 10th rolls around and my hubby hangs out, waiting for the installer to show up. He, who introduces himself as Jeff, calls to say he is running behind and he will not make it between 8am and noon as originally stated. He showed up in the late afternoon; and my hubby being the sweetie he is fed him and gave him lots to drink (as this is Oklahoma and it's always hot outside lol). Many hours later, he is STILL at our house...still trying to install the equipment. At this point, he has the livingroom and one of the bedrooms hooked up. He claimed to be having a problem (which he explained to my husband as our "being screwed") with the splitter between two of the bedrooms. By now it's almost 10 pm and it's getting ridiculous. Jeff agrees to return another day to try to fix the "screwed" problem....
The next day is Saturday, followed by Sunday of course, so my hubby tells Jeff he can come back on Monday. Jeff agrees and claims he will be there "first thing" to get this wrapped up. Monday, June 13, my poor son, who is on summer vacation, is tasked with staying home to wait for Jeff. Noon rolls around, and there's no Jeff. He finally calls later to explain he was on a job that took longer than he thought and he will have to push it to tomorrow - but he will make sure he is there between 8 am and noon.
Tuesday, June 14 - once again, my son is chained to the house, waiting for this tech to show up so we may enjoy all the glory of 257 television channels - some in HD. At 1 pm I arrive at the house to discover Jeff has not only failed to appear, but he hasn't even called this time to explain himself. My poor child says he's starving, so I call Jeff to find out what's going on. Jeff said (once again) that he's being held up by another job, but he should be there around 3pm. I take my poor, starving child to lunch, then drop him off and back to work I go. I come home at 5 pm only to discover that Jeff has not appeared...AGAIN. He also has not called - AGAIN. My hubby gives him a call to find out what's going on, and Jeff gives his song and dance about a job that's taking much longer than he expected (we know it's taking him so long because the man moves like molasses) so he's going to have to send us one of his "other guys" to finish the job. Jeff promises this "other guy" will arrive "first thing in the morning."
Wednesday, June 15 - My son is once again left to wait for a DTV technician. Neither the "other guy" or Jeff shows up by the time I come home at noon for lunch. My son is frustrated with having to stay home all day, every day, on his summer vacation; and I'm frustrated because I've been almost two weeks without ANY kind of service. It usually takes quite a bit to get me worked up, but now I'm tired of getting the run-around. I call DirecTv customer care to complain. Customer Care assures me they will send me a new technician, and this individual will be there "first thing in the morning." Yeah, I haven't heard that one before. I tell Customer Service it's been almost a week now, and I am leaving town on Friday so SOMEONE needs to make it to my house ASAP. I'm told that I will be contacted by a supervisor and the install will be scheduled at MY convenience. Based on this info, I set my son free to hang with his friends. Shortly after, I get a call from the "new" tech, Kevin. Kevin apologizes and tells me he had no idea he was supposed to be at my home first thing in the morning, or he would have been there. He then says he will call when he is ready to come over. I figured that should work, because either my son or my hubby could be home. Unfortunately, Kevin calls me at 4 pm (while I'm still at work) and says he is at my home. No one is there. Geez... I tell Kevin to move on to his next job and check back when he's done. Later that evening, I get a call from Kevin, who tells me the job is taking longer than he expected and he won't be able to make it today. Hmmm....no surprise there, huh? Then he tells me he will be by (you guessed it) "first thing in the morning."
Thursday, June 16 - Kevin never shows. At least this time, my poor child is not stuck home all day - my hubby hung around to wait in the afteroon and set my son free. Like I said, Kevin never shows...instead, it's Jeff (ugh). Before I go too far into this particular visit, let me tell you that we had a pretty severe thunderstorm roll through Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I recall hearing the thunder and seeing the lightning flashes around 5 am. However, by the time Jeff-the-useless-technician appeared around 5 pm, that storm was long gone. It is also important to note that both the 27" television in my room, the Sony 5.1 5-disc changer surround sound system in the livingroom, and both DirecTv HD DVRs were working perfectly in the morning before I left for work AND they were working just fine in the afternoon when Jeff arrived. However, by the time Jeff left our house, none of those items worked any more...oh yeah, and he tried to blame that on the thunderstorm. He said something about the electric charge from a lightning strike being contained in the dish until he turned it off and then turned it back on. Sounds like pretty high-tech stuff, huh? Oh...and ANOTHER side note, we were leaving first thing in the morning to head to Illinois and meet our daughter's future in-laws, so we did NOT have time to deal with this stuff!! So, after Jeff tried to blame the thunderstorm, he calls up DirecTv and says we need two new receivers because the "electrical storm" had taken out the others. He promises he will have them to us on Tuesday.
Thursday night one of the HD DVRs begins working again, so my hubby hooks up the tv (and the new blu ray player and new surround sound system he bought to replace the ones Jeff destroyed) and he notices that his brand new, 55" Sony tv is starting to flicker. It scared the heck out of both of us, so we disconnect everything Jeff hooked up, give up, and go to bed.
On Friday, June 17, we had to forget all our DirecTv troubles and head on down (or up, in this case) the road to our daugher's house. We choose to stick our heads in the sand and forget about this mess until we get back.
Fast-forward to Tuesday, June 21 when we get back from Illinois. I contact DirecTv Customer Care (again). I speak with Tiffany. Tiffany is very pleasant and apologetic, but pretty useless. She tells me she has to forward me to their "damage claims" department, so then I speak with Debbie. Debbie is much more helpful, and also apologetic. She gives me all the information I need to file my claim for the tv and surround sound system. She tells me she is going to "escalate" my claim (whatever that means), and she's going to make sure I do NOT get Jeff again; since I made it VERY clear I did not want that man touching ANY of my electronics EVER again. I asked Debbie about the fact that since I ordered the service, I have not been able to use it and according to my account, I am going to be charged almost $70 on June 24. Debbie tells me she can't help me with that, but she will transfer me to Jennifer. Jennifer assures me, once again, that Jeff will not be coming to my home. She agrees to remove charges from June 10 through June 22 off my bill. She then tells me I will have a new technician come to my home. I thank her and hang up. Around 4 pm, I get a call from Jeff (who, by the way, was supposed to be here in the morning to bring two new HD DVRs to replace the ones he destroyed on the 16th). Jeff asked me if I was ready for him to drop off the new DVRs and install them. I'm extremely confused. Jeff is NOT supposed to come to my home. Debbie AND Jennifer assured me he would not be coming to my home. What the heck is happening here??? I immediately contact DirecTV Customer Care AGAIN. I get to speak with the ill-mannered and not very helpful Kari or Kay or whatever (I couldn't understand her). She argues with me until I lose my cool and tell her that perhaps DTV should not only reimburse me for the equipment their horrible technician broke, but also my original $160 AND then just cancel the whole darn thing because they are in breach of contract. Obviously she's heard this before (and what does that say about DirecTv???), because it didn't phase her a bit. She simply stated that all she could do was escalate the service call to a local technician and any property damage needed to go through the property damage department. She then passed me off to the SIXTH DirecTV person (not counting Jeff) that I have spoken to today. This time I get Ken. Ken is very apologetic and friendly. I feel sorry for Ken that I'm being a little rude, but I'm so frustrated at this point, I just want to tell them what they can do with their service.... Ken told me he was ensuring that Jeff would not be returning to my home. He said Jeff is aware that if he gets the call, he needs to send someone else. Supposedly, I was to receive a phone call from the "home office" within 30 minutes. That was around 4 pm. It's almost 6 pm now. I haven't heard from anyone...
At the end of the day, I'm still in the same boat I was in this morning. I have no service. My 27" tv is fried. My Sony 5.1 5-disc surround sound is fried. My DirecTV HD DVRs are fried (well, one is...I'm actually afraid to use the one that came back on after the surround sound connected to it was fried). I'm out $160 for equipment I can't use, and I owe a $70 bill on the 24th of June. Oh yeah, and if I want to cancel this "service," it will cost me an additional $480. Oh what a happy day....
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