I am a former customer of DirecTV. My name is Robert France. The account was in my wife, Heidi France's name. We have been trying for months to resolve a situation with some fees that DirecTV, and now a collection agency, The CBE group say that we owe. I have made cals to various people at DirecTV on various dates and explained the situation. Each time, we are assured it will be taken care of. This is my story.
In Novenber of 2007 we noticed that DirecTV was offering a new service which allowed you to play interactive games on your television through your DirecTV service. At that time, we had been DirecTV customers since May of 2005, or for about two and one-half years. When I called to ask about adding this feature to our account, I was told that the Tivo box we had in out living room was an older model that would not accommodate this game feature. The customer service representative offered to send us a box that would allow us to use this feature, so we signed up for it via that phone call. I was NOT told that by doing so, we were accepting a brand new annual contract. She did actually tell me that if we wanted to have a service call to have someone hook up the old Tivo box we had used for the 2 1/2 years on a different television upstairs, that THAT service call and hookup would constitute our acceptance of a new annual contract.
Within the next week, however, we discovered that AT&T offered a new service call AT&T U-Verse. After investigating, we decided to switch to this AT&T service for out television and Internet needs. We had the AT&T U-Verse hooked up, then called DirecTV to cancel our service. No one mentioned when I called to cancel service anything about any "early cancellation fees." It was only later when I saw the bill online for over $300.00 that I called to ask about it that I was told I was being charged this cancellation fee. I did of course return the new DVR box, which we had only used for about 2 weeks. We also returned the original Tivo box we had used for 2 1/2 years. Since that time, I called and spoke with a DirecTV Customer Service Rep in November, a Supervisor in December, and then a Resolution Specialist in January. Each time I speak with one of your people I am assured that the fees will be taken off our bill, due to the circumstances.
I do NOT believe we should be liable for these "early cancellation fees" because:
1) We were NOT told we were being put to a brand new contract when I called about the game service.
2) We could not play the game service without a new box, otherwise you would have been selling me a service I couldn't possibly utilize.
3) We were told that if we had the older Tivo box hooked up at a different TV it would neam a new contract, we did NOT have that done.
4) We only used the new box for 2 weeks and returned it in new condition, and again, we were not told anything about a contract
I am more than willing to pay a reasonable pro-rated amount for that last month of service, but I do not feel we should be liable for a $300.00 plus "early annual cancellation fee."
Please help us to resolve this matter.
Thank you,
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