AT&T Denies Refunds For DirecTV Now Customers, Despite the Service's Performance Issues (techcrunch.com) 88
A number of consumers report they're unable to get a refund for their subscription to AT&T's recently launched streaming service, DirecTV Now -- something they've requested after being unhappy with the new service's performance. From a report on TechCrunch: According to several postings on AT&T's official forums, customers found the only way to get help was through a hard-to-find chat feature, and when they asked the AT&T reps about refunds, the customers were told they were not offered. Writes one user with the handle EIUdrummerboy, after attempting to get a refund via chat, the rep told them specifically: "We do not currently have a policy in place to offer any refunds."
and my dsl $50 rebate never arrived either (Score:3, Insightful)
AT&T are pretty much just crooks
Ditch AT&T (Score:3)
Re: Ditch AT&T (Score:3)
ATT is gone, the company bearing the name today is southern bell company, SBC. ATT split itself up and sold all the pieces, SBC bought the name.
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ATT is gone, the company bearing the name today is southern bell company, SBC. ATT split itself up and sold all the pieces, SBC bought the name.
EXCUSE ME, but do not sully the name of Southern Bell so casually. AT&T as it currently exists is the renamed Southwestern Bell Company. SBC.
SBC was not the same as Southern Bell or BellSouth. BellSouth was almost a beloved company in its territory, far more liked than any of the other baby bells in their territories. Unfortunately BellSouth got bought by SBC and merged into the trainwreck of AT&T.
ALL blame for anything AT&T does deserves to be dumped in SBCs lap. But please leave South
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AKA Cingular, Cingular bought ATT wireless and the ATT name then promptly changed their name to ATT because Cingular had the absolutely worst reputation for customer service. Unfortunately they continued that level of customer service after the name change.
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ATT is gone, the company bearing the name today is southern bell company, SBC. ATT split itself up and sold all the pieces, SBC bought the name.
Someone else noted that you got the particular baby bell wrong, but seriously, how can you say "this isn't AT&T." It's a bunch of AT&T successor companies that merged back together.
"It's not the Empire, it's the First Order. Sure they've got stormtroopers, and TIE fighters, and Star Destroyers, and evil jedi/sith with their red lightsaber blades, and yeah, they've got an even bigger death star and they're blowing up planets, their Vader analog is running around with Vader's fucking head in his soc
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I thought everyone was phasing out flash and Silverlight
Everytime you click on the support chat button it prompts you to login even though you ARE logged in.
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DirecTV Now does not require Silverlight on IOS. It does not require Silverlight on android. It does not require Silverlight on my Fire TV.
I was an original SlingTV user and I can say the trouble they had early on was worse than what I'm seeing on DirecTV Now. Except for the first 2 days. That was horrible.
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You'd probably be better off with Kodi and a subscription to one of the IPTV services. Hundreds of channels for less than DTN costs.
Re: It's still version 1 (Score:2)
No, it sucks. Period. No DVR, can pause live TV on Fire Stick/TV but can't fast forward or rewind, error 40 almost every time you try to watch in the evening.. junk. I dropped it even with the promo pricing and just kept my PlayStation Vue service running. While Vue currently has less channels in their $35 package, I can stream on up to 5 devices at the same time AND IT WORKS. The fact it has working features that would be considered standard anymore while DTN doesn't is also a plus.
Don't let the shiny pric
FCC Complaint (Score:5, Informative)
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Also file a complaint with you state's AG office.
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Yup - I canceled within 20 minutes of signing up because it was pure trash. They refused to honor the 7 day cancel anytime free trial period. I had to file a charge back and then fight FedEx to take the fucking AppleTV (which I planned on selling) back to the sender.
DirecTV Now is shit, shit, shit, as are the assholes running the company.
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If that fails, I can't help but wonder if you can just hit them with a small claims lawsuit and they'd instantly roll over and cut you a check. Even if they won, it's likely to cost them more just to send somebody out to defend it in court than it would cost to just issue you a refund, especially if you live in a state where they don't offer fixed line service.
Re:FCC Complaint (Score:4, Informative)
This first, file the FCC complaint, and this is also why I pay for these services with my credit card. You can do a charge back and block them from further charges with a simple note to your credit card company. It costs AT&T $35 a pop plus all the involuntary refunds. If a few million users did this, it would definitely get some attention at very high levels. Enough charge backs and the vendor may also lose their accreditation with that credit card (i.e. Visa/MC/American Express) which is a huge deal for them.
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What are they going to get done in five days? [arstechnica.com]
I'm a maintence guy in an apartment building... (Score:5, Interesting)
in Seattle, and they sold quite a few customers that didn't have south-facing apartment in my two buildings. They knew damn well that anyone without a south facing apartment couldn't get DirectTV and even the people with south-facing apartments couldn't get it either due to a taller building to the south that was two stories taller than our own building couldn't either, but they still tried to hold them to a contract. Dial-up and ISDN are the fast connections we can get, but that didn't stop them from still trying to collect.
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I have a pretty large yard to the south, but that still isn't low enough to the horizon to get DirectTV so I'm stuck with ISDN and per minute charges.
Have you tried Exede internet?
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Now 47N is "so far north"?
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Now 47N is "so far north"?
Given that I originally hail from 70N, I see your point.
But here, the "so far north" is only with the perspective of being able to get decent transmissions from a satellite that sits above equator. Which you should be able to - the size of the dish and need to be able to aim it closer to the horizon increase as you go north, but at 47 degrees, it's still doable.
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I understand that some high-rise building sitting south of you might shadow you, specially if you live in the lower floors, but to me, as an European, it seems already weird that you have to resort to satellite internet in a city. I read in other comments of people still on dialup in freaking Seattle, and that frankly scares me. Is it possible that there's not market even for a DSL operator, let alone fiber? In Seattle?
Re: I'm a maintence guy in an apartment building. (Score:2)
Satellite TV can work just fine in Seattle... you just need a bigger dish if a dinky 18" round or 30" toroidal dish won't do the job for you.
Re: I'm a maintence guy in an apartment building (Score:2)
(and/or... you might need to put the dish on top of a pole if you're on the low side of a hill. Yes, you CAN do that with a dish, just like you can do it with a terrestrial antenna).
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But that would require a professional installation. And DirecTV only offers free "professional" installation.
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Re:I'm a maintence guy in an apartment building...
That is fortuitous. I'm in 310. The garage disposer is on the fritz and the heeter is out intermittently.
This is by design (Score:4, Insightful)
However, AT&T also knows that any punishment is likely to be a slap on the wrist and an order to comply in the future and is deemed an acceptable expense, and possibly lesser than the expense to set it up right, and respect customers.
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This, of course, has absolutely nothing to do with "many countries", because AT&T does business in one. You can go away now.
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This of course runs afoul of many countries consumer protection laws. And, any corporation this size has enough funds and legal staff to know this. It also has the ability to set up proper policies before launching a service. Even when rushing to be third to market.
However, AT&T also knows that any punishment is likely to be a slap on the wrist and an order to comply in the future and is deemed an acceptable expense, and possibly lesser than the expense to set it up right, and respect customers.
So? It only matters if it runs afoul of one country's consumer protections laws: the US. AT&T doesn't sell Directv Now outside the US so while it's nice other countries have better consumer protection laws, it really doesn't apply to this situation at all.
Gave it up before trial was over (Score:2)
We don't care. (Score:3)
We don't care. We don't have to. We're the Phone Company. [jt.org]
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v... [youtube.com]
I hope I can spell "Epiphany" (Score:4, Funny)
As a business owner, it had never occurred to me to present such a clever argument.
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As a business owner, it had never occurred to me to present such a clever argument.
I can't wait to use that one on the next person that asks for a refund..."Gee whiz, we'd love to give you your money back but we just never came up with a way to do it...sorry!"
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I'm sorry, we gave our last refund to the previous caller.
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I'm sorry, we gave our last refund to the previous caller.
Reminds me of the Alaska Jack's company slogan: "We cheat the other guy and pass the savings on to you!"
We were all duped. (Score:2)
Simpsons quote (Score:3)
I tried to return my season ticket, but they wouldn't give me my money back. They said THEY wanted it.
--Lenny
As with everything in life a Simpsons quote captures the heart of the issue. AT&T will say that they *can't* give you your money back, but in reality it just boils down to the fact that they want to have your money more than they want you to have it.
don't buy stuff on Day 1 (Score:4, Interesting)
it's 2017 and stupid people still pre-order expensive electronics without seeing it in the store, pre-order games that don't work cause of bugs or service issues for weeks at a time and now they sign up for streaming services at release without seeing other people's experience
you get what you deserve
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As someone who preordered $900 worth of shit after taxes, for the Switch, I completely agree.
Credit card chargeback. (Score:5, Informative)
Go to your card provider (Visa/MC/Discover/Amex) and tell them to remove the charge because the service was not rendered and/or the charge was improper.
They will.
Once AT&T starts getting a lot of chargebacks, they will do something about it.
I had this sort of thing happen do me years back in NYC with Verizon. I called to cancel, was given a confirmation # and everything, and was still billed again the next month. When called again, furious, the manager I was escalated to said that they could not offer a refund because they did not have that policy. I said I don't care about policy, give me a refund, and he said there was literally no way for him to do that in the system and suggested (of course) that I accept the service for a month, since I'd already paid for it, and then if I didn't want it next month, I could call and cancel [n.b. AGAIN] then.
I hung up on him, dialed Visa, and had them charge it back. Of course THAT got Verizon's attention and a day or two later I was called by retention or some similar department to offer me a discount if I would stay on, along with a lot of apology garbage.
I told them I'd rather eat a bug.
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What are you going to do when the collect agency starts calling?
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Go to your card provider (Visa/MC/Discover/Amex) and tell them to remove the charge because the service was not rendered and/or the charge was improper.
They will.
Actually that was how things work. But I'm not so sure that this is how things are any more with credit card companies. And I speak from personal experience.
Things definitely did work that way in the past, but they changed after the "Great Recession". I never lost a dispute until the Great Recession happened. Short version - I bought 2 airline tickets on a small foreign carrier and through various circumstances could not make the trip. I called the carrier and asked for a credit against a futu
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you know what AT&T / DirecTV dont tell custome (Score:2)
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Streaming sucks (Score:1)
Class action needed (Score:2)
AT&T has lousy customer support? (Score:2)
Now that you know I'm being honest, we're talking about a phone company that doesn't even know it's own phone numbers. I can't tell you how many times their business support people have transferred me to non-existent internal phone lines, leaving me to call back and go through it all again.
Repeat (Score:2)
From article:
Another, who tried to cancel their 7-day free trial was denied a refund even though they cancelled within a week. (The rep told them they had to cancel by 7 PM EST, and the customer was on central time, making them an hour late).
...and this, ATT, is why having globalized and outsourced call centers, with machine making decisions that Humans can't override costs, more money than just fucking paying people to do a job and make rational decisions in customer service.