Is DirecTV guilty of “false advertising”?

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Question: We recently ordered DirectTV service based on information received from the company’s sales team that turned out to be wrong. We think DirecTV is guilty of false advertising.

A representative told us our reception would be good, if not better, than Comcast Cable. This is not true. We had Comcast before we got DirectTV, so we know this for sure. We have a high-end television for which we paid $5,000. Our picture quality was greatly reduced with DirectTV.

I was also told we would have all the same HD channels I had with cable. Not true. We couldn’t get certain channels, including WCCO.

We canceled our service immediately. We were not informed during any of our conversations that we didn’t have a right to cancel our service if we were dissatisfied. Yet now we are being charged a $460 Early Cancellation Fee. Under the circumstances, I don’t believe the fee is fair. Can you help? — Caren Rickert, Osseo, Minn.

Answer: You switched to DirecTV after talking with a company representative. In that conversation, all of the terms and conditions of your purchase weren’t disclosed, and they couldn’t have been disclosed.

DirecTV sent you a confirmation letter after you placed your order. The letter explained the Early Cancellation Fee, which is a penalty for not completing a 24 month agreement. DirecTV agreed to credit you $20 for your first month, but billed you for the rest. That’s a steep price to pay.

To avoid an unpleasant surprise like this, you might have done a little research before placing your order. DirecTV’s terms are clearly disclosed on its website. The $480 fee is revealed in its equipment lease addendum. Neither of these documents are light reading or even easy to find on the DirecTV site. It wouldn’t surprise me if your agreement letter glossed over this little fee, too.

Minnesota state law has a three-day cooling off period for home solicitation sales, but even if this had qualified as a home solicitation, you were past the three-day mark. A check with DirecTV reveals no record of any technical support call to the company, so the first time it says it heard from you was when you phoned it to cancel your service.

The only leg you had to stand on was the fact that DirecTV promised you a service it couldn’t deliver, and that’s gotta count for something.

I contacted the company on your behalf and relayed your disappointment with its service. A representative circled back with you and agreed to credit half the cost of the Early Cancellation Fee. Even though DirecTV believes its cancellation fee is valid, it agreed to “close the book” on your concerns and meet you halfway. You accepted the refund.

Is DirecTV guilty of "false advertising"?

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  • Ed Boston

    Just because one media conglomerate has unethical business practice in reporting news, all media providers are unethical? Is that what you are saying? I really hope not because that type of logic fails on so many levels.

  • jim6555

    I’m just saying that Murdoch Enterprises a/k/a Fox News and a whole lot of newspapers throughout the world is a shady company. That was shown in the scandal last summer when it was learned that the London newspapers of Fox were hacking into the telephone conversations of British political leaders and members of the Royal Family. there is evidence that police investigators were bribed to look the other way. I’m certainly not saying that all media behaves like Fox. They are in a class by themselves.

  • Ed Boston

    So in other words, your comment had absolutely no bearing on the discussion and was just an off topic rant of your personal dislike of Murdock?

  • james

    I’ve been
    MUCH happier with DISH than I ever was with DTV. Yes, each company has
    their own price guarantees, promos and contract stipulations, but with DISH the
    QUALITY and technology far outweigh anything I ever had with DTV. I
    especially like my free DISH Remote Access app; with the app, and my Sling
    Adapter I can take all my live TV with me anywhere I go. It works on
    tablets, phones and more, and includes Android devices as well as iOS. I
    work late hours at DISH, so having my TV with me on the go is a huge bonus! DirecTV likes to do a lot of ‘bait-and-switching’,
    but everything is crystal clear with DISH.

  • jim6555

    No Ed, I believe that my comments have a legitimate bearing on the subject because we are dealing with a corporate culture that survives by twisting the truth. I didn’t used to have a personal dislike of Murdock. I do dislike people and corporations who lie to me. For a very short time, I was a Direct-TV customer. I live in Tampa, Florida where we get some very heavy rainstorms. When signing up, I expressed a concern to the sales person that an acquaintance who had Dish Network told me that whenever heavy rain clouds moved in, he would lose the satellite signal. The salesperson assured me that Direct TV had “newer technology” and their customers did not experience this problem. The first Sunday that I had the service, I was watching a football game, heard thunder outside and within a couple of minutes, lost the satellite signal. I missed almost the entire second half of the game. The following morning, I called Direct-TV and told them that I was cancelling. At the time, there was a 14 day window for cancellations and I didn’t have to pay a penalty. It was a real pain in the butt staying home waiting for the technician to pick up the equipment and get the dish off my roof. I then had to wait for the cable company technician to reconnect our cable service. That’s the real story behind my gripe with Direct-TV.

  • http://www.facebook.com/CarverFarrow Carver Clark Farrow

    I’d agree with you if DirectTv were somehow subsidizing the equipment ( a la cell companies) or in some way giving you value by remaining with them for a longer period of time.

    I would point out that once your contract is up, i.e. the subsidized period, you can change cell carrier willy nilly.

  • Ed Boston

    No, your first post was nothing but a personal rant against Murdock and nothing to do with the subject. It wasn’t until your third post, trying to justify your first, you finally tied something in with DirecTV.

  • http://www.bytehead.org/blog/ Bryan “bytehead” Price

    Comcast customer here. I have to say, that most of the people that I’ve known that have tried DirecTV or DISH Network have gone back to Comcast. The ones that have stayed so far only have standard definition TVs. Just like me :) (soon to change, one way or another). And even some of those that went satellite still retained their Comcast cable for Internet.

    And for that reason alone, I refuse to even think about satellite TV.

  • katestr

    All e-product purchases are fraught with compatibility
    issues. The buyer appears to be somewhat naive about e-delivery contracts or disingenuous
    in order to shed personal accountability for making an uniformed decision.

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