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January 27, 2005
I hate threatening people...
When we moved out of our house in CA, I called DirecTV and suspended our account through January - figuring we'd have moved in by then and it wouldn't be a problem. I had been meaning to call them to schedule installation at the new place for a few days, and today a bill arrived - seems they'd started billing us again in the middle of the month (despite our not having equipment hooked up).
So I called and got bounced around three times before getting a fellow on the phone who could handle the installation request, and I told him I had suspended the account, but that they had started billing again, and I asked him to reverse the twenty-odd dollar charge they had collected mid-month.
He confirmed that their records showed that I had suspended the account through 1/1, and I thought I had said "through January," which would mean 1/31. I agreed with him that there was some miscommunication, and didn't think it would be a big deal, but his response was:
"I'm sorry sir, there's nothing I can do about that - we told you when billing would resume."
Something about his tone rubbed me the wrong way - so I responded
"Look, we can get into a pissing war about who's calender was accurate - but the bottom line is you can take care of my problem or you can lose a customer - what's it going to be."
After that he was all please and thank you - and strangely enough it took him about 2 minutes to reverse charges that a moment ago he couldn't do anything about.
Sensible fellow.
The rest of the phone call went without incident - but he did mention that they have a new PVR coming out, to be demo'd at "a trade show" that will "blow TiVo out of the water." I'm waiting, skeptically. As long as my TiVo continues to be supported, I'm not concerned.
In the mean time he offered to sell me another TiVo for $99, which I almost took him up on, despite only having one TV. I thought better of it, though - while the ability to record four shows simultaneously seems amusing - I'm pretty sure it's overkill in every sense of the word...
Posted by dberger at January 27, 2005 7:00 PM