June 11, 2013
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DirecTV vs. Dish: The gloves are off
DirecTV vs. Dish
Recently I posted a modified version of the following on my Facebook page, and also on two FB groups to which I belong (including the Xangaforever group.)
Has anybody had experience with BOTH DirecTV and Dish television systems?
I've had DirecTV since 1996. (A year after the service was introduced.) On Sunday evening, June 2nd, the entire contents of my DVR, over 200 hours of programming, magically disappeared following a power outage. DVRs use hard drives, which can be corrupted. I immediately called DirecTV tech support with shaky hands. I was told there was nothing they could do for me. I'll have to input all my shows again. I told them it would be a good time for them to upgrade me to the "Genie" DVR, which records 5 shows at a time and has a 1TB hard drive. They'll do it, for $399.00. (They give the damn things away for free to new subscribers.) I "upgraded" to a 3D HD DVR in Dec. 2011, to take advantage of 3D programming which wasn't offered on my older "top of the line" DVR from 2009. I understand that technology changes, but as far as I'm concerned, longtime customers should have first chance at new offers in hardware, when the devices are blatantly advertised not only on the front page of the company website, but on the "personal ad feeds" throughout my google and yahoo (and Facebook) pages.
I spend roughly $100.00 a month for all premium programming, in HD. I rent their pay per view film offerings.
Following the meager customer service I was offered at DirecTV, I took a look at the Dish website. I'd heard a lot of negative feedback about Dish over the years, but there sure are a lot of folks in the mobile home estates where I live who have switched over. I look over the housetops and see more Dish than DirecTV dishes. And I see a lot of discarded DirecTV satellite dishes in their back yards! Looks like I can get the same programming for roughly the same price. ($119.00 a month including all premium channels) plus Dish will give me a Hopper DVR (which has more storage than DirecTV's Genie, records up to 6 programs at a time, and skips commercials entirely on selected programs.) and $30.00 off monthly programming for a year! They'll also throw in "Blockbuster Online" which is sort of like Netflix for three months, and it's $10.00 a month after that.
I'd heard Dish was unreliable, but looks like I can save money as a new subscriber, and DirecTV doesn't seem to care if I'm alive.
I posted this on all my FB groups and on my own wall, asking for any and all feedback. Any posts to DirecTV's FB page about problems seem to magically disappear as soon as I posted them. To be fair, there were as many folks who liked Dish as liked DirecTV. In 2013, both systems are pretty much "equal" as far as programming and support.I perused dozens of "comparison" articles on trade websites, (making sure they were written in 2013). I looked over message boards. I even found a FB group called 'DirecTV vs. Dish". Two "testimonials" on that site pretty much sold me on switching, since other longtime DirecTV subscribers were getting upset with their overall DirecTV experience. I gave DirecTV three chances to keep me as a customer. Besides calling on the Friday evening I lost my content, I called on Wednesday and this last Friday. I even asked for a 'loyalty' department. (Somebody on FB suggested that.) All I got was "sorry, we're sad to see you go."
Directv wouldn't upgrade my DVR to a Genie for free. They STILL wanted 400 bucks. (Only "gimme" was a $50.00 "credit".)
Dish has gotten a lot better in the past couple of years with more HD content, more channels, better customer service, and the "Hopper" which is an amazing DVR!
I told Directv on Friday night I was about to jump ship. I told them they would give me a free Genie as soon as I signed my two year contract with Dish. They didn't want to help. Sayonara.
My new Dish system was installed Saturday morning. It only took two technicians an hour and a half. DirecTV had to install their satellite dish in my yard, cause it was too big to put on the roof of an older mobile home like mine. Dish's dish is smaller, and it's mounted on the roof. I called Directv to cancel. I was told I could get the Genie for free NOW that I was cancelling. I told them I'd already given them three chances. And I was enjoying my new "Hopper".
I think perhaps the last guy I talked to at DirecTV will be fired, judging by the comments the "supervisor" imparted looking over my call log history. Even after the "supervisor" kept me on the phone for almost as long as the whole installation process for the Dish had taken (not entirely true but I told her that and also that my phone battery was going dead.)) I wasn't going to budge. "Send me a shipping container for the corrupted DVR." I told her. I'll pay my final bill using my Wells Fargo bill pay. What I heard next nearly caused a heart attack!
The kicker: I was told I was going to be charged $120.00 for "early cancellation" even though the DVR is probably corrupted. (And they don't even want their super large satellite dish back either. I can remember when I had to pay nearly $100.00 for those in the 90s.) I told this "supervisor" I was going to tell all my FB friends, AND everyone on my "popular blogging service" about how Directv really SUCKS. "What can you do to negate this charge nobody told me about back in 2011?" Nothing. Nada. She said they'd use the card I had on file to charge me this "hidden" charge (bear in mind the DVR might be BROKEN!) 20 days after my cancellation.
I just went to my account page on DirecTV. At least my monthly payment for June was magically reduced from $109.00 to $58.00.
Now I just have to cancel my debit card and get another from my bank (a headache, but easily done) so they don't have anything on file. I'll pay my last payment thru Wells Fargo bill pay.
The upside. Dish is pretty great. I'm fairly tech savvy, but I've already "learned" the Hopper machine, interface, and the remote. The picture is just as sharp as Directv. Full 1080p when broadcast. The Hopper records the whole block of "prime time" programs each night, so I will be able to "catch up" on those episodes of favorite shows I lost (including final season episodes for at least four series.) when they are rebroadcast. One thing Dish DOESN'T tell you on their advertising is that the "commercial skip" feature is NOT included on ALL prime time network programming. Actually very few programs that I saw in my "prime time unlimited" block of programming allowed the skip feature.
Of course this past weekend the weather sucked almost as much as my recent customer service experience with DirecTV. If it's nice next weekend, I won't even be watching TV, I'll be out of the house!
DirecTV vs. Dish: The Winner? Dish.
(for now, at least...)
Posted: June 10, 2013 7:47 AM
Comments (10)
I hear these companies are always like this, nice to the new potential customers, ignore the old ones. Might as well jump ship every couple of years
We have a cabin on a lake in Downeast Maine - really out in the boonies. We'll be there from the end of this month until mid-October.
I signed up with Dish many years ago- 20? And have found satisfactory service for most of the time. a couple of times our cabin moved and I had to re-aim but they have been very reliable. For a while I used a satellite Internet connection also. That (Bluesky inc.) was a real fiasco and nowhere near as dependable as Dish. I do not, however, have any of the recording services - just the direct feed dish. The only problem has been getting them to suspend service for eight months of the year - we have the same problem with the post office. I've figured out how to manage both
For internet I use Verizon's 4G wireless modem up there. Works great - I can see their tower on the hill across the lake. Here in Florida, I use Comcast for both TV and internet - very very fast.
Direct TV gets lot of their income from their great sports lineup. Dish lost a lot of money due to pirated boxes and I believe even OJ got caught with one. I suppose you like HBO and other certain channels? I happen to like the Animal planet network, Discovery, history channel and Tru Tv.
A lot of people like the Roku like box and get netflicks and Hulu plus. It depends on the person and what type of stuff they watch.
I believe you get good reception from the Television antenna. If you can see mount baldy you can get good local channels for "free". The antenna that I bought at Frys cost around $60 (for TV signals less than 30 miles away)
we gave up cable and/or satelite when I quit working and use netflixs and dramafever for most of our media entertainment. Netflixs cost us $9 a month and we pay $35 a year for Dramafever (the cost of that has gone up to $100 a year but I am grandfathered in since I've been there from the beginning and they are keeping the promises they made to me! We just weren't watching too much when we had cable and Netflixs is adding stuff every month that we wanted- even newer stuff. But it really irritates me when they don't take care of the customers they have... why would they think they should keep you? And I'd fight the charge too! Dispute it with your bank and make them at least work for it! Good luck!
We also use media center and record everything so we can skip commercials!
@MrTrololo - Eduard, Too bad they don't take a page from the industrial wholesale market. I not only have a lot of the same customers I've had for 1/4 of a century, when an engineer or designer moves from one company to another, he'll probably start sending me requests for quotations on new projects for the new potential client. Our small company has been around for 60 years and has never needed to adverstise, since we're known in the industry as a vendor our clients can trust to give them the best product at the best price.
@tychecat - Dick, Internet is finally pretty much okay and I've still got about four months to go on my "introductory" price for AT&T Uverse. I was having lots of problems with them last year, before I upgraded, and got all the way up to one of their vice presidents before receiving satisfaction. I was surprised to find that Dish was Echostar, selling satellite systems back in the days when the dish had to move to track the satellites.@PPhilip - Philip, I got a price increase in January, pretty much tied into the fact I was "paying" for some of those sports channels I never watch! It's interesting that one of the channels Dish didn't carry was MGM HD, but now that TCM is in HD, that's pretty much a moot point. I was a Netflix charter subscriber in 2002 and dumped them when they "tiered" their subscription model (essentially charging me for the streaming service, which was bundled in my early packages.) Dish owns Blockbuster, and they have a streaming service, which I'll probably cancel as soon as my 3 months free period is over. The selection for both Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Blockbuster, is pretty meager. I still have my Roku. As an early adopter, I have lots of antiquated hardware around the house. Thought I'd hook up the old Roku the other day, and it "told" me I needed more RAM in order to stream the latest channels. @jerjonji - Jeri, Recently I took a vacation in my late boss's mountain cabin, and although I was pretty busy vacationing all day, one evening I decided to check out their TV (mainly cause it was a 46" Samsung and I wanted to see the picture, which is sweet. A 70" Samsung is in my future, and I use a 32" as a computer monitor!) I've had DVRs since the first TiVo back in 1999, and not being able to fast forward or pause the TV was quite unsettling!
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Hey just wanted to give you a quick heads up. The words in your post seem to be running off the screen in Ie.
I'm not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with web browser compatibility
but I figured I'd post to let you know. The design and style look great though!
Hope you get the issue fixed soon. Many thanks
An intriguing discussion is worth comment. I do think that you need to write more
about this issue, it may not be a taboo subject but generally folks don't
talk about these issues. To the next! All the best!!
First of all I want to say wonderful blog! I had a quick question in which I'd like
to ask if you do not mind. I was curious to know how you center yourself and clear your mind
prior to writing. I've had a tough time clearing my mind in getting my thoughts out there.
I do enjoy writing however it just seems like the first 10 to 15
minutes tend to be wasted just trying to figure out how to begin. Any ideas or hints?
Thanks!