@maltboy1: What was your issue? I fully acknowledge I have an ETF, but I'm sick of losing reception when it rains and U-Verse just moved into the neighborhood...

They eventually caved when I refused to pay for their mistake.

My favorite moment of the entirely too-long experience was when I suggested to the DirecTV customer advocacy person that most companies would honor an employee's mistake and make sure the same mistake doesn't happen again. She told me that DirecTV is not like other companies.

Worst customer advocacy ever.

The lesson is never believe anything a DirecTV representative tells you. S/he could be misinformed and costing you $$.

Long story short, it turned out to be a problem with the LNB output. With no signal, the receivers sort of went braindead.

I had to spring for parts to fix it myself because DTV said my repair call would take five days, and that's WITH maintenance. Feh.

Trouble-shot it myself, found a local supplier who had the same LNB in stock (not easy given it's an old Phase 3 dish) and went to a VERY seedy office park where I had to pay cash for the part. But it fixed the problem and got my TVs working again right away. No five day wait.

Honestly the worst part of this was having to call DTV: the stupid menu system is maddening. If you already know what the problem is, you still have to sit through all sorts of BS before it will let you talk to someone. And if you need to cancel the service call, you gotta jump menu hoops for that too.

I've been a DTV customer for almost 10 years but I was SO ready to just call Dish and say "hook me up!" and get all new hardware and be done with it.

they can sometimes help if you have problems related to the installation or repair of your system. if you have billing or programming problems you gotta call DTV 800 531 5000

How come my embeds never work? :-(

Mentioning Girl Scouts always makes me want to post this. That's me on the right, c. 1968. Oh yeah!

I was able to settle an early termination fee dispute with DirecTV by using this information a while back. That was after I had been turned away by about a dozen other customer service reps.

You do know that Chase Carey is no longer with DirecTV. He recently took a position with Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. as Deputy Chairman, President and Chief Operating Officer.

He went over to the Dark Side.