DirecTV Installer Arrives, Poops, And Leaves, But Doesn't Install DirecTV
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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Comments:
Hey, at least he didn't top shelf them.
Meets, poops, and leaves?
That sux. I would of told him to turn on a fan.
Well, what do you expect when you hire this guy to install your satellite:
[www.toothpastefordinner.com]
Ew.
He spent 20 minutes in the bathroom? That's just... wow.
Did you at least send him a bill? Water, TP, electricity, and, just the privelege of using the toilet ain't free, you know!
If it was a cable company, they would pooped all over your house, then increased your rates.
(Sorry, a bit tired of the DirecTV commercials).
@Rock79: As a red-blooded American male who has a magazine collection in the bathroom, 20 minutes is not totally unheard of.
The pooping really is the cherry on the sundae, if you will. Masterful.
You can bitch and moan, but this is just par for the course- how big of a ladder did he need? It could be that she needed a really long ladder that the installers don't carry.
It happened to me- what can you do? None of your 3 major options (cable and the two DBS companies) are very good- and you'll find stories like this about all of them.
What is truly wrong is the gift he left...
I thought it was called an "Upper Tanker."
This truly sounds horrible..I've been a Directv customer for quite awhile. The last time I had an installer over (to convert to the new HD receiver) he was one of the nicest service techs I've ever had. He helped me solve another unrelated problem without any hassle or question. I think certainly Directv owes you an explanation and to rectify it but it seems like it's pretty much a crapshoot and just depends on the person that shows up. Obviously you got one that should be working somewhere else.
Well, when you have to go, you have to go. Did you want him to just leave, find another bathroom somewhere, and get lost again?
Does the dish have to be installed on a roof top or can it be installed on like a porch or some place lower ?
At least he didn't ask for a tip?
twenty minutes takin a crap? Musta had IBS.
You're lucky he didn't smear it on the walls
All these companies (DirecTV, cable, etc.) use independent installers, so it is a gamble. That said, I've had nothing but stellar service from the contractors who have come to set up my DirecTV in past years.
I wouldn't be so quick to blame this one on DirecTV just yet. As I'm sure everyone knows, DirecTV has its own professional installers but sometimes your job may be parcelled out to an independent subcontractor, and even the cable companies do the same thing. I have the feeling that Elizabeth may have run into one of these guys, but she didn't make that clear in her story. The problem is that there's no telling what you're getting into with these independent guys; some are extremely professional and knowledgeable (sometimes more than even the corporate installers), but then there are some *clowns* out there which I wouldn't even allow in my driveway, let alone inside my house. My satellite was installed by an independent but I was fortunate enough to have a real pro sent to my door. Some others I've known were not so lucky.
I will say, however, that DirecTV should be much more careful about which subcontractors they allow to operate in their name; after all, their own reputations are on the line (and this guy didn't do very much to help that situation). A visit or phone call to DirecTV's complaint department is certainly in order here (just don't forget to include the name of the contractor who botched your job).
Bah. 20 minutes is nothing!
GROSS. You didn't ask for smell-o-vision.
The driver getting lost reminded me of a conversation I once overheard in a McDonald's...a Comcast tech was on the phone with, presumably, a dispatcher or supervisor. In this conversation he explained that he did not get "lost" on the way to the client, he was "misplaced." Throughout the conversation he adamantly corrected the person on the other end of the phone any time the word "lost" was used. "Bob, I was not LOST, I was MISPLACED. For 45 minutes..."
DirectTV?? More like DirectBM.
@weakdome: I bow in simple, grateful awe at your comment. Seriously. It's so good that I request Consumerist begin weekly awards for best comment, just so other comments can be compared to your awesomeness every week.
And found lacking.
Frustrating for the rest of us, but worth it to see yours appear again, and again, and again.
(Ahem)
Well, in DirecTV's favor, the installer did use the toilet. He gets some points for that, right?
Did he at least flush?
And was there spray avalible in the bathroom?
20 minutes does seem to be slightly excessive. I think I would have been banging on the door asking for a courtesy flush at least.
I would say there's a problem with the water coming in the house and a plumber is coming later to fix it.
Come to think of it, Comcast did this to my girlfriend. So it looks like you'll get crappy service no matter where you go.
bathrooms are off limits to service people.
Don't care if you have IBS and you just ate Indian food. You will not be using my bathroom.
I wouldn't get D-TV after that.
I've had the same Comcast tech for the past 4 years. I've only needed one 3 times, intitial move, one internet problem, and one conversion to HD but I got the same guy each time. Apparently I live in between him and the local office so I'm the first appointment whenever a tech needs to be at my house. He just comes right from his house in the morning. He's great, even put ends on a bunch of unfinished cables I had just for the hell of it.
Point is it's always a gamble.
@catcherintheeye: Uh, yeah, maybe 20 minutes is normal if your poopin in your own bathroom with your mags, but not when your working at someones house installing DirecTV!
@evslin: Hah! no shit
I once let a Rooms To Go delivery man use my restroom. He not only left the seat up (which had been down and closed), but also dripped urine on the floor and down the side of the bowl.
So, YES, it's OK to tell them no!
How about saying "no you can't use my restroom"
What annoyed me about her smell comment....of course poop smells...but them again women's poop and farts smell like flowers right?
The poop thing is unfortunate, but really, what was he supposed to do? If he had left to take a dump, this story would be "this guy came, messed up the installation, and on top of it all, left halfway through to drop a deuce, wasting even more of my day."
To be fair, he normally wouldn't need a ladder; it's just that his partner, Spider Man, called in sick. It had something to do with noxious fumes, or so I've heard.
I had terrible service with DirecTV a couple years back. When the (looked like) 19-year-old installer showed up, he told me right off the bat that he couldn't install on a stucco house. I asked why, if this was a known problem, the phone rep didn't ask me what kind of house I lived in when I scheduled the appt. In my part of town, almost all the houses are stucco, so obviously they would have dealt with this before. He apologized and said he'd mention it to his boss, I said don't worry about it, I'll call Customer Service directly. He asked me not to:
"You don't have to do that. If you call, they'll call me right away and tell me to install it anyway and my boss told me that if anyone tells me to install on a stucco house I should tell them I'm gonna kick them in the balls."
Nonetheless, I called immediately, and followed up with an email quoting this conversation.
So a second installer came out a few days later with a tripod (cost of $75), since they would have to install another way. He asked why the prior guy didn't just install on the roof. I said I didn't know. Then he notices I have an HDTV receiver and he says that the HD dishes are too big for a roof. So he tells me my only option is to install on MY FRONT LAWN. I agreed to this, without realizing how huge the dish was and how ridiculous it looked on my lawn. After he left, I notice I am missing about half the HD channels. I call again, they apologize that he left wihtout finishing programming. So we schedule a third appt. with a "Master Installer" to make sure it gets done right. He shows up and the first thing he asks is, "Why didn't they install on the roof?" He says that the HD dish is no bigger than the regular dish, and actually takes the time to go up on my roof and try to install. Turns out, the reception wasn't great, but neither of the other installers even bothered to check my roof. So he installed a tripod in my back yard, made sure all my HD came in and I finally had TV! DirecTV waived the tripod fee for my trouble. Not nearly enough considering I had to take 3 days off work for these visits.
Well, I guess a shitty job was promised and delivered. I blame the OP. :D
I love when people are disgusted by the "horrible stench of poo" as if "poo" isn't supposed to smell bad. Has there ever been "poo" that smelled good? Now that would be shocking! And those sprays never work. I frequently would drop a deuce in my friend's bathroom and they stocked "Cinnamon Sticks" air freshener. All it did was make the bathroom smell like Cinnamon "poo."
It isn't too shocking he didn't have a ladder. Don't most townhome communities restrict putting a dish on the roof? He probably thought he wouldn't need it. That, or he needed to continue his "poo" somewhere else and needed an excuse to leave.
This is the crappiest discussion I've ever seen here.
They are just trying to compete with Comcast for all the great publicity that Consumerist provides.
@weakdome: I've always referred to that as "top-tanking". Interesting to hear other variations.
Seriously, DirectTV is a horrible company for customer service, and having been a customer of both Comcast and DirectTV over the years, I can say that the latter makes the former look like Costco on the service scale. Any DirectTV CSR I've spoken with is not only lacking in basic knowledge about the companies products and services but also seemingly illiterate. I know Comcast is pretty crappy, but I would go back to them in a second if I had the choice (my current apt complex is satellite-only).
Did he flush?
![[www.toothpastefordinner.com]](http://www.toothpastefordinner.com/110702/pooping-at-work.gif){kind=link}
Next time put glue on the toilet seat. That way he won't be able to leave.