Direct TV is a joke, I canceled my service to cut down on costs. My contract was already up so I didn't have to worry about that. I even sent all of my receivers back to them in a timely manner. I did still have a bill due that was not late. It was not due until October 12th. However, they decided to take money out of my account to pay the bill. I did not have auto draft either. I did pay online from time to time. They took different amounts of money 3 different times, which totaled the bill that I owed. This caused me to over draft severely. When I called to complain, They said they were not allowed to tell me when and how much money would be taken out of my account even though it was my account. I supposedly talked to a supervisor. I did learn my lesson of never paying for anything online ever again, which I have done for years and never had a problem like this. I have since canceled my card associated to the account. My bank told me they had several clients with the exact same problem. After seeing a pattern, they did refund all over draft fees which was greatly appreciated. My advice is don't pay anything online and use cash whenever possible.

BS Time Warner makes you sign a contract that has an early termination fee if you lock in the "low/advertised" rate. So in other news this story is bogus and is only helpful for the moron who doesn't read contracts they sign. What is the next article about, explaining that cell phones also have early termination fees, or did you already write that one.

I had a similar problem with DirecTV ,I kept a log of who I talked to and what time, I e-mailed the BBB with what I had, and in ten day's I was out of my contract. Bob Applegate Aberdeen, Oh.

They pulled this same thing on me after telling me there would be no cancellation fee. Our main problem was that we couldn't get DSS Installations, their repair contractor, to respond to our many phone requests for service. Finally we got sick of it and went with Time Warner. Another down side to satellite TV is when you really need it in severe weather situations, it goes out due to the atmosphere conditions. I receive issues also and had a terrible time convincing them it was a replacement for a defective receiver, not an upgrade. After threatening suit, they finally removed the $300 charge from our bill. They're terrible. I would never recommend DirectV to anyone. They're almost impossible to get hold of and their local service is lousy.

This exact thing has happened to me. My receiver keeps going out which i think should be THEIR problem and i pay the monthly protection fee, but every few months it goes out and to replace the receiver they say we have automatically renewed even though we did not know it. We were especially upset because we purchased the originals for hundreds of dollars and nothing in our original paper work said that if we paid for monthly service protection and then it went out we'd be stuck on a contract. We did not start with a contract but was converted to one without our knowing it when our receiver went out for the 8th time in less than 3 years. This sounds like this should be their problems not ours. We will not be renewing DirecTV as soon as our contract is up and they have lost us as a customer after 8 years.

Well, insight is not any better than directtv, they increase your bill constantly and if you have their phone service you will have dropped calls, and the cable goes out often..Insight cable sucks too.

The exact same thing happened to us!

and talented1 i agree after the 49th call I asked to speak to someone that spoke ENGLISH Dish is the worst for that nobody and speak a lick of English

I had an issue with Dish network where I could no longer get a signal they wer making me continue to pay even though I couldnt get service about 50 phone calls later they let me out of the contract but not without having to pay $66 where I live now you can't get cable so im stuck with them again in order to have tv yet another company out to screw the consumer!!

I've had many of the same issues. I called DirecTV in Feb 2009 for techical guidance on an "owner-owned: (not leased) DVR. The customer service representative indicated that the DVR was defective and that they would replace it for free if I paid a $20 shipping charge. I asked what was the catch and he said there wasn't one. Approximately two months after I received the replacement DVR, I was charged a $200 non-return fee for the DVR I OWNED. As I explained to customer service, no one ever asked me to return the broken DVR and there was not anything in the box indicating I needed to do so. I even recommended to Customer service to review the audio tape of my calls for proof. After weeks of calls to clear up the issue, a gentlemen in customer service agreed that it should be removed and he and his supervisor would fix the issue. By the way, he also informed me that this replacement DVR extended my contract for two years which I didn't know as well. Well, he didn't fix it and my service was terminated as a result. I was informed by customer service that I was given incorrect information, they would not remove the charge, and they did not believe I didn't know about returning the defective equipment (even though I told them all they had to do was listen to the phone conversations as proof). After 14 years of service with this company, I am VERY upset with their treatment of such a longstanding client. Even though I was forced to pay this ridiculous charge to keep them from trashing my credit. I have since filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and plan on doing the same with the OAG. Such a shame, too. I was one of their biggest fans up until this incident.