As some of you may recall, a few weeks ago I wrote about how DirecTV pulled a bait and switch on the service at my house. After about 45 minutes on the phone with customer service I finally gave up trying to plead my case which was that the offer I had signed up for was for $41.99 for 12 months but that I was being charged $67.99 for 12 months”¦and they said I never got an offer for $41.99, so too bad for me. Nice job, DirecTV, way to care about your paying customers. Oh how I longed for the days of cable TV at that point, which I had had zero problems with since the beginning of time. But I digress. So what’s the issue with DirecTV customer service now? I am going on my third receiver that has not worked correctly in only two months that I have had their service, I have not had TV in 7 days because of it, they still don’t seem to care that a brand new customer is having any problems, and they were so kind to offer a whole $10 credit. Yippee! Ah shucks DirecTV, you are too kind.

Today I was on the phone with them for 1 hour and 42 minutes. Yep, over an hour and a half. I talked to a rep who had no idea what she was doing, would not transfer me to a supervisor even though I repeatedly asked to be connected to one, and then when I finally got mad enough for her to do it, she was in the background talking smack to the supervisor. Seriously? What is this, 8th grade? And you know what I got resolved? Nothing – and they are sending yet another receiver to my house…which should be here in 3 days. And then I get to call them back, go through this whole thing again, and probably have this one be broken too. So instead of them just sending a truck out to my house, they are wasting everyone’s time – especially mine, now that I have spent over 3 hours total on the phone with DirecTV. This company has the absolute worst customer service of any company I have ever dealt with. I would rather stab myself in the eye while buying a new car at MSRP then deal with these people anymore.

At this point, I am starting to think that it would be worth paying the exorbitant cancellation fee just to set my mind at ease. I will warn you one more time as I did last time –

Before you sign up with DirecTV, please stop and look for an alternative way to get your television fix. Even if you have to go sit in Circuit City at primetime to watch your favorite shows, do that instead of signing an agreement with DirecTV. Seriously.

Oh, and it turns out that it’s not only DirecTV; Dish Network has terrible customer service too!