The Ride Home

I just called and ordered us DirectTV. I’m nervous because I’ve never had satellite TV before (and I had to sign a fucking two-year contract), but I can’t imagine it could be worse than our experience with Comcast lately. Actually, I’m sure it could be. As an eternal cynic, I know it can always be worse.

But ever since Ian and I switched over to digital cable with Comcast a few months ago, we’ve had nothing but trouble. First, it was the phone tech giving me one price for the digital basic + HD + DVR and getting to the service center to pick up the receiver and finding out it was a different price. It was cheaper and included Showtime (which we didn’t even want but were basically forced to get included in the package), so I made sure to ask if I called and canceled Showtime BEFORE the three-month promotion period I wouldn’t be charged the full amount for the past three months. I was told no, go ahead and cancel whenever you want.

Well, last month our first post-Showtime promotion bill shows up and it’s $180. That’s about $60 more than it should have been. So I call, and the guy tells me that because I called and canceled Showtime a month before the promotion was up, they took back my credit. I told him that not only did I ask when I signed up for the promotion WHICH I DIDN’T WANT IN THE FIRST PLACE if this would happen and was told “Oh no, cancel whenever you want,” when I actually called to cancel I asked the woman who was helping me if it was OK and she said sure, of course, cancel whenever you want.

Well this guy cops a ‘tude and tells me that I got the wrong info and while it’s their fault, they aren’t going to do anything. I think it was at this point that I unleashed a bunch of F bombs on him and asked to talk to his supervisor. He puts me on hold and comes back and says he looked in the notes and realized the woman who helped me cancel Showtime worked in his department, so he asked her about me. And get this: She says that even though it’s not written down in the notes, and she probably helps thousands of people every single fucking day, SHE REMEMBERS ME AND REMEMBERS TELLING ME I WOULD HAVE TO PAY A PENALTY.

Ok, first of all that’s just fucking ridiculous that she would remember me. It’s also ridiculous to think that a customer who is already pissed off is going to say, “Oh yeah, now I remember being told I would have to pay another $60 to cancel a FREE SERVICE early.”

So I unleashed seven kinds of other F bombs on the guy, say just cancel the service, and all of a sudden he can fix it. I just have to add back Showtime for another month and pay $14.99 and they’ll credit me the $60. At this point I’m so pissed off (and cannot afford a $180 cable bill) so I say fine, whatever you want to call it. I mean, a $45 credit is better than nothing. So he adjusts the bill and tells me I can’t cancel Showtime until Jan. 9, 2009, and to call back on that day or later.

Well today I get home from a party and get the cable bill and low and fucking behold, it’s $180 again. That $60 credit they were supposed to put back on there because I had added Showtime? Not there. Well, I mean it was ON THE BILL it just wasn’t subtracted from the total.

So I call, and the guy’s like yeah I don’t know what’s going on and I don’t really understand the previous notes, but you have to pay this $180 bill even though like three other people have told you it should be $130 (which is still ridiculous, even factoring in $49 a month for Internet). So I get really exasperated and tell him that I’m tired of no one there knowing what’s going on, and people signing me up for “promotions” that end up costing me more in the long run, or that I can talk to three different reps in the same day and get three different prices and service plans.

So I started asking about canceling my service, and all of a sudden, dude’s like, Oh well I can add you back on the Showtime promotion again and give you the credit back! And I’m like, dude you just told me that didn’t make sense and I had to pay for your other rep’s mistake.

I told him to keep his fucking promotion, and I was going to call back later in the week to cancel cable. I got online, compared DishTV to DirectTV and decided that DirectTV was the better value (same number of HD and regular channels—plus the local and local HD channels and no extra charge—for about 60 percent of the price), and called to set up service. No equipment/installation/activation charges. When we move, they’ll transfer the service for free.

They come out Jan. 24 between 8 and 12 to set it up. They could have been here sooner, but I wanted Saturday installation.

So while we’re waiting for DirectTV to come out, Ian said he’s fine with going down the street to our friend’s house to watch any football or basketball for the next couple weeks, thanks to some friends we’re getting two Netflix movies at a time now, and we have pretty much every gaming system under the sun.

I think we’ll be OK for a few weeks without TV. In fact, I’m kind of curious to see how the hippies do it.