I tried to find a thread directly related to DirecTV's service but was unsuccessful. Anyway DirecTV offer us a prime channel for being loyal customers. It was Showtime and unfortunately we never found ourselves watching it so I called to discontinue it before the 30 day period ended. We received our bill yesterday (Saturday) and I saw that there was a charge for that. No,no,no. A call to customer service was made immediately by Johnny which I took over after he kept asking what was it that he needs to say. Football boggles his brain when he is watching it. Anyway, the rep, Jamie, stated that it's the policy to charge if the service is cancelled before 30 days. I told her it's not right that the prime channel was offered to us for being loyal customers and be charged for cancelling it because we decided we didn't want it. From the tone of my voice she knew that I was upset and we received credit for the charge and explained the policy again and then she giggled. My thought was 'What is so funny?' She said, "When I heard, 'Give me the phone.' I said to myself 'Uh oh.'
I've had that happen so many times with AT&T Uverse. It's one of the tricks they use. With them they gave me a better deal each time I called and it always included 3 months of the movie channels which I never watched and then didn't know I was suppose to cancel or forgot. I had already told them at the start that I didn't want the movie channels but they said I have to because that's part of the pkg. grrrr I got a few huge bills and would have to spend the morning on the phone arguing and or crying to get it taken off. When I switched to Direct...I told them anytime I get a special deal I want it put on my records that as soon as it's done and I don't call I want it off! So far so good.
If it had been HBO we would have watched it for the whole 30 days. We used to have it but started cutting back on some of our expenses after I got laid off. I am open to offers like that but Showtime didn't really have any shows that I was interested in and the ones that I was interested in were at a cost. So now I know that being a DirecTV loyal customer also has it's drawbacks too.
Aarrggh ! ! That just reminded me that DirecTV also called a while back and told us we were getting all of the premium channels for the next few months, I think it was 3 months, but it might have only been for one month. In any case, Bobby never watches anything except the local channels and Fox News for the most part, and I don't watch any of it; so I had totally forgotten about it. As soon as I started to read @Von Jones post, I remembered, and said to myself that I better just call and cancel it right now before I forget about it again, and then I read the rest of her post about they were charging her for cancelling it, too ! I guess I will try @Chrissy Page's method and tell them not to give me the special deals. I so wish we didn't have to have any of it; but we are locked in for 2 years on this contract. I think that I saw that Fox News was now on Roku, or maybe Firestick, and I have seriously thought that it might be worth it to pay the cancellation fee to get out from under the monthly payments.
Make sure you also tell them that if they do give you the special deals, the minute they end you want them cancelled wether you call or not.
@Yvonne Smith, were the premium channels included in your package when you signed up? You can look at your account online and you should be able to cancel them as well. I'm not sure now how it works since AT&T and DirecTV have merged.
I still log on to my Uverse acct and nothing really has changed except it lists Direct TV in the bundle.
When we first signed up for DirecTV, they included the extra premium channels, which we didn't watch then, either. Naturally, I forgot that we even had them, and then the promotion ended and they charged us for them. I had to call and fuss and get the extra channels taken back off; but I think we still ended up having to pay for the first month that they charged us, since we had had the channels all that time, even though we never once looked at them. Now, they did the promotion again, @Von Jones , so this time I want to be sure and cancel it before we get charged. Personally, I would not even have any of it, and anything that I want to see, I can watch on my iPad. However, my sweet Bobby is addicted to the Fox News Channel, and watches it for hours every day, and we can only get that with either cable or satellite; so for now , we have to conatinue having the subscription. If if comes out with one of the devices, like Apple TV or Amazon Fire stick, then we can see about cancelling the satellite, and just using the device instead. Even though there is a cancellation fee, it should still be better than paying for the service each month.