Before you sign up with DirectTV, 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 DirectTV. Seriously.

We tried the “no TV route”. We tried the “watch TV on the internet” route. Not because we needed to save money, but we wanted to do without the TV…but it didn’t work and we needed to sign up for service. I looked at our local cable company, but they wanted a fortune for basic cable, and if I had wanted DVR service as well, then forget it – I would have had to have given them my first born child. So I check out DirectTV – the rates were great, the DVR service was cheap, the installation was free – everything looked great. The guy on the phone set everything up, told me my final price, the installation went smoothly and we were enjoying our first month of having TV in the house again…and then it all came crashing down when I got my first bill from them.

My $41.99 for 12 months is now $67.99 for 12 months…and they say I never got an offer for $41.99, so too bad.

I know the first thing anyone is going to ask – “Do you have it on paper?”…and no, I don’t. But when was the last time you called up the cable company to ask for a deal/discount/service set up and got anything in writing as to your deal? I have been paying for cable TV for 16 years now and not once have I gotten (or needed) anything in writing. You call up, they tell you the deal, you get the deal. Done. Finished. But not with DirectTV – with them you call up, get the deal, then they switch it and say it never existed. And that is exactly what happened with me and I am not too happy with it.

I asked the woman to prove that I had signed up for anything that would cost $67.99 and she couldn’t – they have nothing with my signature on it agreeing to this price. But on the other hand, I don’t have anything saying I should be paying $41.99 other than the two phone calls I had with reps when signing up. Are we, as consumers, supposed to record our phone calls now? After 45 minutes of arguing with the woman on the phone, I gave up – but only with them. I am now taking this to the next level, by filing complaints with the New Mexico Attorney General’s office, the Better Business Bureau, and anyone else I can find to complain to. And after a little digging, seems many people have similar complaints about DirectTV, so I know I am not alone nor wrong in this situation:

Consumer Affairs

DirectTV Idiocy

Pissed Consumer

Complaints Board

Rip-off Report

About.com

Don’t know where any of this is going to take me, but I am going to do my best to try to complain as much as possible and let as many people know about this bait and switch that DirectTV has going on. And to be fair, there are a ton of complaints against cable companies, but I never had one…and now I wish I had just gone with them in the first place as DirectTV has a contract you have to stay in. Has anyone else had an experience like this? Any advice? Would love to hear from you!

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