I work hard and I love my job. I don’t often look at the checks I write every month going out to the water company, mortgage or my $400 a month payment to my credit union for my Acura MDX. But one month, I started looking at the creeping changes of my Dish Networks bill. It seemd to be creeping up $3 dollars a month for no reason.
My mom has the other service. She has DirecTV. She faxed over her bill to me and ironically, pointed out the same question. Why is her bill going up from $72.57 to $75.73?
Then she asked a question I was pondering about. Why did she all of a sudden lose the National Geographic channel and the Dog Whisperer channels? I remember her having them several months ago, but one day I visit my mom and I turn on the TV and I try to go to National Geographic and it’s just not there anymore.
There is a conspiracy here, because the same thing happened to me on Dish Networks. Biography, History Channel and others disappeared from my service, too.
Someone out there at either DirecTV or Dish Networks has to become a whistle blower on this issue. Because I’m friggin’ hopping mad at getting screwed like this.
When you call them up, demanding to know WHERE your two or three favorite channels are, you get an Indian or Pakastani person politely explaining to you that you never had those channels to begin with in your original programming line up. That makes me even more infuriated. They make it seem like your the idiot with a really bad memory.
Here’s my conspiracy theory: Dish Networks and DirecTV watch your TV watching habits. Today, you are at the basic package level 1. You have America’s Top Choice something… it’s 100 channels, and whether you like it or not, you have get Noggin, Nick at Nite, Disney, fifteen channels of ESPN, and more crap channels I never watch so I don’t want them, but rhe rub is you CAN’T remove them. So the two or three channles you DO watch are secretly taken away and stuck into the next higher package.
Eventually, you complain about the missing channels you used to watch, the firms make you feel like your memory is wrong and you end up paying extra for the next package upgrade. And then you get more channels of crap you don’t want to watch in order to get Biography or the History channel turned back on.
I am sick and friggin tired of HANNA MONTANA! I don’t EVER WATCH THESE CHANNELS. So why am I having to pay for them? Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhggg!!!!
Your advertising commercials on these channels never reach me, so I’m not going to be motivated to buy products and services on the channels I’m not watching. So why are you forcing these damned things down my throat? Someone has GOT to explain this one to me.
I want to watch 11 channels. That’s all. Eleven channels. Not 100. Not 500. Just 11.
I have friends, family and every colleague I speak with has their own line up of 10 to 15 channels they want to watch, too. Neither one of these satellite firms are listening.
Well it’s time to listen, because I am going to write a big fat check to the people who are going to start up Select Star. It is a new service and it’s going to be TV your way. No more having to buy channel packages. You want 11 channels, fine. You pay for 11 channels.
Who else out there is fed up with Dish Networks or DirecTV?
– Bart
September 4th, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Comcast does not show the CU/CSU game on their normal TV network! I am from Colorado, living in Colorado and want to watch Colorado football. But NO, there is only Illinois, Florida, you name it! Anything but Colorado playing on the TV located in Colorado. I have approx 100 channels that I pay for–most of which I do not watch and could care less about–and none of them are showing the game. All I want is to watch the CU game. I called customer service and they said I had to upgrade my TV service (costing $16 extra per month) to get the channel in my package that includes that football game. If I had normal TV—no cable—I would be able to watch the Colorado game! I’m infuriated! Seriously, what is the point of having cable when you don’t get the basic stuff. I’m watching Illinois right now while sitting in COLORADO!!!!!!!!
September 1st, 2010 at 2:00 pm
We’ve been pleased with Dish Network for the past five years. No complaints from Farmington, Utah.
September 1st, 2010 at 1:56 pm
On May 20, 2010, I turned in my box and quit Comcast service. I was told to expect my refund ( My bank account was drafted every month on the 14th. I was billed from 21st to 7th of the month, IN ADVANCE ,sooo I have paid for 18 days and all I want is my , MY money back.
I have talked to about 15 people ,(well, maybe just 10 ) they all had a different answer.
I have been told : yes, I see where you have a refund coming, that is not my department, I will call over there and someone from that office will call you and you can expect a check. I can see you have called several times, I can also see a check has been cut for you, but it will take 6 to 8 weeks for you to receive it.( I nearly lost it on that one ). I will call you back when that department calls me back with an answer. That was yesterday…. I called back today. Willie says (yesterday ) he is not allowed to give me his last name…. He promised if I called back, I could talk to him…. Nobody will let me talk to him…. Did they kill him ?
The latest person I talked to today, told me my problem is being researched because she says my file shows I do not have a refund coming…. it takes several days to research this !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am afraid I lost it again !
What fun they must be having… causing good Christian old ladies to say things they should not even know how to say !!!!!!!!
COMCAST MUST DIE , BUT THEY WON’T BECAUSE THEY HAVE COLLECTED ENOUGH REFUNDS TO KEEP THEM GOING, EVEN IF EVERYONE CLOSES THEIR ACCOUNT .
$38.00 does not seem like much and in todays world, it is not…. but it is MY $38.00.
They sure took it in a timely manner. GRRRRRRRR !!!!!
August 10th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
Thank you for creating this website. I have starting a petition on my facebook account to have all friends and family who HATE comcast to add a post to my original message. I contacted Comcast several times about the issues that I have been having and every time I get transferred at least 2 times and even several times had the phone disconnect.
The representative had promised me a certain package deal, which I specifically stated that I needed Nick Jr. for my daughter, which is her favorite channel. She said its included and of course when the tech comes out he says that I have to upgrade and pay and additional $10 a month. I called back about and had no response. Also I was suppose to get Showtime included for a year, but they started to charge me 15.95 and then add a discount of 10.00. So they were actually charging me 5.95 for something I didnt ask for.
On on phone call, the rep told me that $10 is nothing and asked me why I couldn’t afford that if it was important to me. $10 or $1000 whats the difference, I was promised something at a certain price and thats not what I got. BTW $10 is a lot of money to a lot of people, especially monthly.
Anyways, I could go on for days and days like everyone else. Just spread the word. F*&K COMCAST!
August 9th, 2010 at 6:15 am
We have been a customer of Directv for 14 years. We have changed boxes out due to the boxes becoming old and inefficient. In September of 2009 we added an additional box that records. Recently the new box was not working and I had to call Directv. I was greeted by someone that spoke broken English. He directed me to disconnect all of the wires in the back of my tv as well as the the hookup from the wall. My tv is in an armoir and is extremely heavy. I had to push the armoir away from the wall to get behind the tv to disconnect everything. The Directv representative was difficult to understand. I asked him where he was located and he said Oklahoma. I am sure he was located in India. I asked him what he would do if he was speaking to an 80 year old woman. He did not respond. I told him that b/c of the treatment we were going to find another service. We switched to AT&T U Verse. When I called Directv to cancel the service I was greeted by someone who said did you call us for prices on our bundles. I responded by did you send me offers on your bundles? Bottom line is they said they would charge me $260.00 for an early cancellation fee for the box received in September 2009. This is how Directv treats their customers of 14 years. It made me realize that I no longer want to do business with Directv even more and further that I will never return to them as a customer.
April 26th, 2010 at 12:28 pm
A new TV company will be launching this summer that will allow customers to “Pick your own lineup” so you don’t end up paying for a bunch of channels you don’t watch. If you want to, you can buy a traditional lineup too. The company is called Nuclius IPTV and the website is http://nucliusIPTV.net
Don’t confuse this with free IPTV. This is HD IPTV with a legit lineup and some really cool features!
January 9th, 2010 at 11:24 am
Wow, reading these stories makes me so glad I dropped Comcast for constantly going up, constant tricks with my payments, and sudden, inexplicable outages that they would never admit to. It simply wasn’t worth it and caused more frustration than I was willing to put up with. I thought about going to Direct TV, but even before I started researching them, I had the feeling I’d just be switching one greedy corporation for another. So now I do without cable and just have the internet. The only thing I watched on cable anyway was the news. Much simpler now. Best decision I ever made.
Boycott companies that treat you like crap. Tell your friends what they did. Be willing to sacrifice to save yourself the headache, or nothing will ever change. And don’t listen to cable employees/reps ( for any corporation, really) who try to appease you with an attitude that you should just sit back and take it or just stop complaining about their service. They need you, not the other way around.