It’s hard to fit everything you need to do into an average day, but this ingenious DirecTV installer found a way to show up late to his appointments, take a break for lunch, and drop the kids off at the pool—all before 5pm! Now if only he’ll remember to bring a ladder with him the next time so he can actually complete the installation.
Elizabeth writes:
After having a horrible experience with Comcast when I moved to my new home, I decided that I would go ahead and give DirecTV a try. So I called up customer service to have someone come to set it up. I should have hung up from the first service person I talked to. I requested to have one HDTV receiver and two standard receivers installed in my home. Customer service kept telling me that I was a previous customer and still owned one of their boxes. (As it turns out, when I was in college, a roommate got us DirecTV and put me on the account – we returned the boxes three years ago, but apparently no one ever updated the system.) After explaining to three different people that I have not had a Directv receiver in my possession in three years, one man finally understood the situation and arranged to have someone come on Tuesday, June 17th at noon with two standard receivers and one HD receiver.
Tuesday arrived and that morning I received a call from the “professional installer” to let me know he anticipated he would be running behind schedule and would be there at 12:30. At 12:30, he calls to let me know that he needs lunch so he will be there at 1. One rolls around and he is not there, 1:30 rolls around and still not there. 2 PM he calls to let me know he is lost and needs directions. I provide him with directions to my townhome and he arrives – with only the standard def receivers. He then tells me that they were not ordered. Not ordered? How is that possible, I KNOW I requested an HDTV receiver for our brand new plasma tv? He claims DirecTV told him that we had one from three years ago. WHAT? I didn’t even know what HDTV was three years ago – I was a measly poor college student with a tv from 1994. I explain the situation and he says there is nothing he can do, but he would install the other two.
So here is where things go horribly wrong. He asks to use the bathroom. I hesitated, because I am very protective of my cleanly home – but thought I had to be gracious. After being in there for twenty minutes – he emerged with the most horrible stench of poo escaping throughout my home. In an attempt to disguise my disgust I started explaining all the locations of the televisions. He asked if I got an okay from my association (because I live in a townhome) and I explained that the association rules approves Comcast and DirecTV for cable. He then tells me that he had to leave because he didn’t have a ladder and wasn’t going to be able to install anything today. WHAT? A satellite installer doesn’t have a ladder?
So now I have taken a half day off work and have no cable.
Hope you can post my story so more people will stay away from this terrible customer service. And maybe you have some advice for how to file a meaningful complaint with DirecTV. Last I checked, professional installation didn’t mean your home turned into a rest stop for the installer to unload in.
Many thanks and thank you for your stellar web site.
We think DirecTV has misunderstood what “having a duty to your customers” means. Ha ha, get it?
Elizabeth, try contacting the CEO of DirecTV. Here’s an example of a success story from another customer who was having trouble with installation, and here’s the CEO’s contact information. If you need more tips on how to get your problem resolved, try our “Ultimate Consumerist Guide to Fighting Back.”
Update: Elizabeth wrote back to us:
I called DirecTV last night and complained and they told me that they were sorry but that all they could do was send someone else to my house. I am hesitant to let them come. What is the etiquette for letting service technicians use your restroom? Can you say no? You should also write something on that topic!
We don’t know if there’s an consistent etiquette for that sort of thing. Commenters, what do you think? Is it okay to just say “No”?
(Photo: iLoveButter)
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Silly Consumer, I blame you
You should just make your own cable/satellite, it costs less per serving than the national chains or find your own hole-in-the-wall cable/satellite provider and support them instead. Or why don’t you let directv check your receipt? Civil rights, who needs them? And you should have given him better directions and then given him a tip, access to your fridge, the deed to your house, some buried treasure and your first born kid.
Serves you right for posting to a pro-consumer website
[/idiot]
Here is the phone # for the “Office of the president” as they answer when you call. 1-800-666-4388. I had a huge ordeal w/this company. I actually emailed the CEO and 2 hours later I get a call from a rep. He gave me this # so good luck!
Perhaps his lunch made him sick, and he really needed to use the bathroom, and then left right afterwards because he didn’t want to have to do that to her bathroom again.
Just one of the many reasons I don’t bother with Cable.
Did you remember to tip him? LOL
Sorry to hear you had a bad run in with DirecTV, I’m willing to bet that if you call, discuss it politely with a service rep they’ll make it better. Sounds like your installer probably was NOT a direcTV employee.. but a subcontractor.
In your defense, it sounds like he did a terrible job all the way around and someone should be held accountable for it. In his defense, there is nothing worse than suddenly finding yourself in a panicky sweat and needing to cleanse yourself of an inner demon that you had no idea was about to appear. I’m guessing he probably didn’t want to bomb your harbor any more than you wanted it bombed, but he may have found himself in a position of needing to swallow some pride. He may have been in there for 20 minutes doing nothing by trying to fan the stink out. If he comes back, I don’t think anyone, including him, would think you were a bad person to deny him a second chance at the can though.
You know, I’ve had my share of problems with DirecTV (absolute refusal to repair a dish that was installed improperly/facing the wrong direction; Service disappears completely in a drizzle; ETC), so I sympathize.
But there are certain points at which basic human etiquette or, depending on how badly someone needs to blow a deuce, compassion takes precedence over all else. It borders on severe character flaw that you would even ask if it’s cool to block access to the Eye of Neptune in an emergency situation.
Poo stinks-granted, at varying levels of offensiveness. Maybe the guy was nervous. I’m sure he wasn’t proud of being late or forgetting a ladder. Sometimes you just lend a hand to fellow man with a clothespin and a smile.
The Comcast installer peed all over the toilet, left the seat up (in a house with 2 girls), and didn’t wash his hands. Still, I’d take him over the Direct TV guy any day.
If it were me I would let the guy use the bathroom. I wouldn’t want the guy that has the fate of my TV service in his hands to be pissed off at me.
@annab: Did he also rifle through the medicine cabinet?
So what did you end up doing? Staying with DirecTV, switching back to
Comcast or go with another provider?
I cant evern get a credit card, from anyone that doesn’t want to charge me obnoxious fees, or a secured card…
I guess you got some shitty service from Direct TV huh.
Get it? Like the deuce he dropped in your tarlet was shit and he was a service person. Get it.
Just to drop a note here, Comcast techs can, and have been fired for using the bathroom of a customer. Reasoning? If the toilet is to stop up, or any damage is caused to the bathroom itself then Comcast is at fault.
Previous roommate is a Comcast CommTech I (installation technician). Hes actually one of the good-hearted techs out there. Hes had to put up with receivers covered in rat shit, being attacked by dogs in houses, children throwing food and crap at him (seeing his toolbelt caked in shit personally).
Anywho, Comcast techs can cause a lot of problems, but damn do they deal with a lot of shit themselves (har har har)
@AtomicPlayboy: “I’ve always referred to that as “top-tanking”.”
That’s too literal, why not just call it “Crapping in the Water Tank of the Toilet”? Upper-decker is much better when telling a story, like this one.
Friend: Dude, that party last night was pretty good.
ME: Yeah, but the girl that lived there was kind of uptight.
Friend: No, she’s OK, she just seemed upset last night, I’ve known her for quite a while.
ME: Oh, is she a friend?
Friend: Yeah, she’s actually quite nice.
ME: uh-oh
Friend: What.
ME: I don’t think I can go back there, I left her an upper-decker.
True Story.
Did they flush ?
When I worked for Firedog, there was a rule that in-home techs were not to use customer’s bathrooms. They were to go out of their way to find a convenience store at a gas station BEFORE an appointment.
When I worked for Firedog, there was a rule that in home techs were not to
use customer’s bathrooms. They were to go out of their way to find a
convenience store at a gas station BEFORE an appointment.
News Monitor fodder for sure.
@emich27: I would agree that there is probably no poo that smells lovely, but there is a definite spectrum of stinkiness. Some people – depending on their diet or just their natural body chemistry – have far worse smelling droppings than others. Plus, I think perhaps the OP also meant to show that the guy obviously didn’t give a courtesy flush.
As far as techs using the bathroom, hmmm…I’m very germaphobic and don’t like the idea of strangers using my bathroom (especially guys…sorry dudes, you’re more likely to sprinkle). However, I would feel kind of rude saying no. A friend of mine used to close her bathroom door and say that her boyfriend was in the tub…I suppose that could work.
@A.W.E.S.O.M.-O:
I gotta agree… letting people use your toilet in case of emergency is the basest human kindness. All of you who are advocating against this strike me as petty and vindictive… and if he’d left to find a different one, the original poster would’ve just complained about that.
Sure, this guy had major intestinal issues. I’m betting he didn’t choose for this to happen to him.
And also sure, he did a bad job, but that’s a totally separate issue.
I’m betting y’all never offer installers/workers/whatever drinks or snacks, either?
Obligatory Penny Arcade link:
[www.penny-arcade.com]
Cleanly?
And why would someone crap in the tank?
Can’t. Stop. Giggling.
So very wrong. So very immature. I think I would have laughed the laugh of the horrified right in his face after he came out of the bathroom. I have a problem laughing in situations that involve poop.
Shit Happens…
i take 20 minute poops all the time. usually i bring a magazine and it just takes a while to squeeze everything out
@MyPetFly: It’s a funny prank. As a rule, if a party ran out of beer, you generally left the party holder an upper-decker for his transgression.
Then maybe he’ll think about the quantity of beer he should be providing as he fishes a turd out of his water tank.
Wow, that’s terrible. I tried to get DirecTV once, and the installer never showed. I was pretty pissed, and canceled the installation. But at least I didn’t have THIS happen! Yikes!
He sure didn’t install anything, but he did lay some cable.
@testsicles: Frat? Republican? Out of curiosity.
I had something similar happen to me a few years ago. The guy came over to test the air quality in my house, uses my restroom without asking, takes a dump, then DOESN’T FLUSH! What’s wrong with people?!??!
@Trai_Dep: Neither, but it sounds like you’re hankering for an upper decker yourself.
I actually had a pretty good experience with DirectTV. Though the installer was contracted and not a DirectTV employee. And when I had TimeWarner cable installed the TimeWarner employed installed told me the cable box was HD-DVR…which it wasn’t.
So which is worse? TimeWarner’s metaphorical poop, or DirectTV’s literal poop?
Dude, if you’re a guest at a party, you should bring enough booze for you and your crew. And if it’s a girl that’s giving the party, you should be a bit… Nicer.
I thought those were universal party rules.
Sorry about getting the guess wrong, though. I apologize.
@Trai_Dep: Really? If someone invites you to a party and says they have beer and then you pay for some beer and you look and he has like two crappy cases for 40 some people? He’s getting an upper decker. And I don’t discriminate so same thing for women.
Now, at fancy wine and cheese party I wouldn’t do such a thing.
I beg to differ. Since POOP is the EXACT SAME THING as Direct TV. You got what you ordered.
I beg to differ, since POOP is the EXACT SAME THING (tests prove) as Direct TV. She got what she ordered
Wonder if that guy still works for Direct2. I wouldnt bother with them after that. Hopefully they dont send her a bill for the box they think she has.
Hey now, this DirecTV tech was only following the very advice set forth by a comment on this very website.
Also, @weakdome: amazing.
Should you let the installer use your bathroom? Sure! Just insist that they complete whatever installation/repair they’ve showed up for BEFORE using the bathroom.
C’mon. Drop the kids off at the pool is a highly racist comment, degrading black and indian people. I thought Consumerist had more tact than this. We all know the proper term to use is pinching off a loaf.
maybe I’m the minority, but I can’t shit in someone else’s/public restroom. Hotel rooms are different because at the time I’m there I consider it to be “my place”. But the only restroom at work is public, so I don’t even shit there. Am I the only one with my own set of shitting guidelines?
obtw, If I do ever have to shit in a public restroom, and I’ll avoid it at all costs, there must be a barrier of t.p. between me and anything in the stall. That is after I clean it the best I can.
@dualityshift: Or you could use the ever popular, “Taking The Browns to the Superbowl.”
@testsicles: Remind me to only invite you to my BYOB parties. And you can’t ever use my bathroom, you can pee on the lawn.
Seriously. I’m not gonna have someone come over, drink all my beer for free, and then shit in my tank when I didn’t buy enough.
~*Anyway*~ The DirecTV tech was unacceptable. It doesn’t matter if you’re “not feeling well” You can still leave and find somewhere else to go poo. Don’t use your customers bathroom, especially for that. Let’s not even mention the fact that he was what, an hour and a half late? 2 hours? That wasn’t enough time to go poo?
That and the customer service over the phone was bad too. Thanks for the story, I’m certainly not gonna go with direcTV. Thank GOD I don’t have to have Comcast. Astound cable FTW!
I used to locksmith for a fair-sized local company, and we were discouraged, but not forbidden, from using a residential customer’s bathroom. The boss understood that sometimes, you have to go during a job, but wanted us to try to avoid it lest someone accuse us of trying to steal their prescription drugs or something.
The few times I had an emergency pee crop up on me, the customer was courteous enough to allow me to use the bathroom. I’d never, ever use a customer’s bathroom for more than that, though, because I am a girly girl and I would be super deeply embarrassed if I’d left an odiferous cloud floating in the bathroom behind me on a job.
@HIV 2 Elway: Top shelf? It’s called an “Upper Deck”
I had a similar issue with Comcast recently. Tech arrived with no badge or I.D. dressed in a thugged out street clothes. He asked to use the bathroom and emerged 15 minutes later and went back out to his truck.
Half an hour passes and he comes in with the cable box and modem. He asks for a glass of water… Now I am starting to get annoyed. Next he has my pull out my TV, no problem since I would rather move it than have this idiot do it. Then he proceeds to tell me how to hook up the cable, literally step by step and expects me to follow. I asked if he was serious and he said “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be? Just give me a hand.” In order to get him out of my house and stop wasting my time (we are at 1 hour now) I help connect the cable and power wires to the splitter, TV and modem.
He leaves again to his truck, this time driving away and coming back 15 minutes later leaving me to install the Comcast internet service on my laptop. He comes back in takes a roll of paper towels from the shelf tears off a few and wipes his head off since he is sweating all over the place. Back to my computer he sees an error and accuses me of messing it up (the app is literally clicking a “Next” button) He called tech support, another 20 minutes go by to find out the modem MAC was never linked to my account.
After that he has me watch a intro video on the On Demand saying I must watch it all the way through or the box won’t work while he is watch Basketball videos on my laptop much longer than to ensure the connect is active.
Finally he leaves and I realize I was given the wrong cable package. Fucking epic.
Why would one even consider a ‘no’ an improper response? By God it is YOUR house or apartment. To say ‘yes’ is up to your grace as an individual.
@arl84: Shit, man, I’m not an animal. If you invite me to a party and its BYOB, i’ve got no problem. If you tell me to come over because you’re having a beer party and all you have is a Coors Light party ball, well, you’re getting upper decked.
DirecTV sued their own customers, they are a terrible company. They’ve lost a multitude of business from me after trying to extort a $3500 settlement out of me. Now I tell people every chance I get to stay far away from them.