Executive Email Carpet Bomb Pounds DirecTV Into Submission
Reader Jesse was having an awful time explaining a simple problem to DirecTV. Thankfully, the EECB (Executive Email Carpet Bomb) was just the thing.
Jesse says:
Random note: I was in a pretty infuriating situation with DirecTV last night, where, after they failed on four different occasions since August to fix my house’s faulty cable, I decided I wanted to cancel my account. I was informed that despite their repeated inability to get things working, which had to that point entailed endless hours of hassle dealing with DirecTV’s labyrinthine phone system (at one point last night, I was transferred six times during the same call–the sixth time to a dead line), I’d still have to pay a $180 early termination fee since my contract wasn’t up. Of course, if I wanted to contest this there happened to be no phone number I could call or email address I could write to. Nope. Of course, if I wanted to contest this there happened to be no phone number I could call or email address I could write to. Nope. I’d have to deliver to DirecTV via chariot a complaint note written on a papyrus scroll in squid ink. (Well, I’d have to send a snail-mail letter to some Colorado address–same difference).
No thanks. Instead, I turned to The Consumerist, which recommends Executive Email Carpet Bombs in instances like this. In an EECB, you email a company’s top-level executives to inform them of ongoing issues that the folks below them haven’t been able to address. I refreshed my memory about how to best write an EECP, snagged the email address of DirecTV’s CEO, Chase Carey, which The Consumerist had helpfully posted, and went to work.
I sent the email at midnight last night and a half hour ago got a call from Ronnie in the DirecTV president’s office. He immediately offered to waive the cancellation fee, and that was that.
The morals of the story: DirecTV sucks, other than some dude named Ronnie, who’s pretty cool, and The Consumerist is amazing since, at least in this instance, one of its tactics worked exactly as advertised.
Yes, the EECB doesn't always work — but sometimes, gloriously, it does. For more information about launching your own EECB, click here. If you need some TLC from DirecTV, here's their contact information.
All Hail The Consumerist [Pushback]
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Comments:
His letter is poorly written and riddled with mistakes. I would advise that next time he use some type of proofreading or preview for his letter.
Mustaches rides, $24.99 a month with 12-month commitment no equipment to buy early cancellation subject to $175 early termination charge.
Avilable Monday between 12 and 5.
That's weird that he just said "Ok, we'll waive the fee" instead of personally making sure someone fixed the service. They could've even thrown in 6 months of free programming or something. The cost of making that happen and making this guy a happy customer is less than losing him forever.
I recognized that mustache from a previous post. It's epic.
Using "pounds" and "Submission" in the same sentence is kinda... ugh.
I had to use the EECB on Direct TV that we had installed back in October. We ordered the service online (choice extra plus DVR for $39.00).
When our first bill came, they charged use full price for the package AND added the NFL Sunday Ticket package to our service.
We tried 3 times to have our package corrected by 3 different CSRs. Each time we would call, the CSR continuously pressured us NOT to cancel the NFL Sunday ticket package even though we repeatedly asked to have it removed. With each call, the CSR would claim our package was fixed to what we asked for in the first place. Several days later, we'd check our online account, and it would not be changed.
After the 3rd time on this merry-go-round, we placed the EECB stating what is wrong, and attached all documentation to what we ordered, who we spoke to, and how we were excessively up-sold the NFL Sunday Ticket.
Withing 1 hour, we received a phone call from the president's office. All of our problems were magically fixed AND we received 1 year service @ 50% discount PLUS the usual groveling apologies.
I have DirecTV at my house. No problems thus far. I don't really care about any of the channels, just as long as I can watch the hockey game and Discovery Channel. Along with certain guilty pleasures.......................... Fairly Oddparents (great adult humor is laced in that show. Seriously).
@downwithmonstercable: I agree, I would have expected some kind of "let's make this right" type of proposal before offering to just cancel sans fees.
Of course, you make that kind of offer to someone who has been trying to cancel for hours on end, and you might end up looking like a pushy jackass. Remember that AOL cancellation?
@OmniZero: Hah, my little brother watched Fairly Oddparents. I see what you mean about the humor, but that's sort of like saying Shrek is full of adult humor.
In other words, it's true, but there are much better places to get adult humor. Check out Arrested Development, for starters.
@fonetek: Yeah, the post could benefit from, I dunno, a 2-minute proofreading. At one point he writes the same exact sentence twice in a row.
@Rhayader: Oh I know of Arrested Development. The thing about Fairly Oddparents is the goofiness to it. Sometimes after dealing with people's crap all day you just wanna sit down, get out of reality, and watch a cartoon. Remember Looney Toons? Full of awesome. Tom and Jerry is good too.
I had a similar issue with DirecTV. I was a happy customer for a couple of years. Then I upgraded to HD. It never worked right. It would pixellate, black out for 3-7 seconds at a time, and give of the occasional raspy metal-on-metal-on-wolverine sound.
After 9 months, 3 or 4 technician visits, and countless phone calls, I told them to shove it, and canceled.
They tried to hit me with a termination fee, based on a new 2-year agreement when upgrading to HD.
I sent them a letter (to the Colorado address, it wasn't as hard as the OP claims), stating that they failed to uphold their end of the contract, and never provided a watchable HD service, despite my giving them 9 months to do so. I would not pay the termination fee, and if they tried to collect it, I would pursue my rights under the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Furthermore, they owed me $38 in account credits.
The following week, I got a check in the mail from them, for the balance of my account.
@fonetek: Dear Jesse, I was going to waive the termination fee until I saw all the grammatical errors in your letter, sorry.
Sincerely,
Ronnie @ DirecTV
WTF? - Who cares, he got what he needed, find something better to do than proofread
@OmniZero: Hey, I'm the last guy to hate on cartoons. Futurama is the best ever, but I always like a blast of nostalgia when I catch a Jetsons or Scooby Doo or something.
@fonetek: When I sent a nastygram to Wachovia I was so paranoid about misspellings and poor grammar that I had three people review it. I highly doubt they would've denied my allegations if I had misspelled them, however.
@OmniZero: when I babysat that was always one show I didn't mind watching with the kids...that, Jimmy Neutron and Dexter's Laboratory were definitely my top 3.
I think that the problem is that the CSRs who process cancellations can't be trusted to waive fees. It seems like anyone who writes in or pursues the issue gets treated fairly. It just shows that you should never simply take no as an answer.
@OmniZero:
I love that show. It's so freaking funny.
Also Spongebob, Jimmy Neutron, The Mighty B, and the live action shows iCarly and Drake and Josh. Nickelodeon is great. Very relaxing and way better than watching the news.
And my DTV is going great so far.
@verucalise: Oh you are not by any means.
"There's good news and bad news"
"What's the good news?"
"I named my nickel Phillip!"
"And the bad news?"
"It's a girl nickel!"
Why do you need a technician to fix a broken cable?
Am I missing the part where DirectTV did anything wrong? The original poster is upset because DirectTV requires a hard copy complaint before they will wave the early termination fee. That is not unreasonable.
The original poster is acting like a baby.
@pjstevens77: You're right, the grammatical structure of his email likely wasn't a deciding factor in getting the fee waived. Still though, it's better to present oneself in an intelligent light, which is hard to do with a letter full of mistakes.
That being said, as far as I can tell we have not seen the actual substance of the email. What Jesse sent to Consumerist seems to be a re-telling of the story, and not a copy of the email he sent to DirecTV. So for all we know, the email looked liked it came from a Rhodes Scholar.
I'm surprised he didn't offer to fix it before he waved the fee with no questions.
So he only emailed the CEO?
That's less of a carpet bombing and more of a surgical strike.
@OmniZero: Yeah man, Futurama doesn't come close to getting the credit it deserves. While the movies haven't been quite as consistently amazing, the show's original run was one of the most unique and intelligent shows ever produced. While it never had the same mass appeal as the Simpsons in its heyday, I think Futurama is Matt Groening's crowning achievement.
@fonetek: Uhhh, the letter he sent to Consumerist isn't the letter he sent in his EECB, I'm guessing. I don't see the letter he sent anywhere. I mean, bad grammar is no fun anytime, but I'm pretty sure this is NOT the letter he sent, grammar police.
I can't believe they hate puppies.
I tried everything short of an EECB to get my cancellation fee waived but those pieces of garbage at DirecTV wouldn't hear any of it. It is too bad DirecTV is such a terrible company because the service they offer is actually the best cable/satellite I've ever had.
@downwithmonstercable: Maybe. Not all customers are profitable, so they probably decided it was much easier to let him leave quietly.
@ultimatecardsfan: Agreed, nowhere within the posting does it state that this is the letter he sent. In fact, it sounds like he's explaining this to us. Unfortunately, a bunch of readers seem to just like to blame the OP/complainant.
Bad customer service from Direct TV. Just another reason to detest the Atlanta Braves!
Sounds like a proper success, except the derision at sending snail-mail.
Sending a paper letter should always be your first reaction to any dispute. Get their mailing address, draft up a quick letter describing the disputed charge and why, then mail it off. Certified mail is best if only to ensure they got it, but it's not always necessary. You don't need to follow up on the letter itself, just treat it as the opening jab in the fight.
After that's done, start making calls. Get a living being on the phone and discuss your options with them, letting them know you've sent a dispute by mail. What you're looking for is not to get them to say "ok," but to get them to send you their response in writing, just like you sent to them. Now you'll have to climb the ladder of service that culminates with the EECB (well, really the topmost rung is a lawsuit, but that's ultra-last resort).
Don't sneer at the snail-mail. It is your best tool to exercise your rights.
@chrisjames: I'm not disagreeing with you, but I wish that weren't so.
When people actually read and respond to email, it becomes a very powerful tool for tracking the back-and-forth progression of any sort of inquiry or dispute. Everything is time stamped, and you can even request read receipts if you want to. All for free.
Of course, the problem is that an email is likely to languish in an unread inbox forever.
@the Goat: Writing a regular letter leaves no trail. Email and phone calls do. If they say "well, hey, we never heard from you", you can say "bullshit, I called you at 9:17 pm from my phone and talked for 38 minutes. By the way, your muzak blows."
@Murph: That was my initial question. They're not holding up their end of the contract by actually providing workable service. Why does the customer owe a termination fee? All too often, we let that ominous-sounding "Early Termination Fee" hold us back from that final demand to cancel service. I'm glad this finally worked out for him.
DirectTV - evil
Dish/AT&T - eviler
Comcast - evilist
So, if those are your only viable options, what's a guy to do? Lesser of all evils I'm afraid :-(
My neighbor is 80 years old and deaf and has DirectTV. He was lured in when it was cheaper than Time Warner Cable, but when all was said and done it was the same price. Now he has constant problems with the closed captions not working or the box resetting. They replaced his box, and continued charging him for the old one (he has two TVs and was paying for 3 boxes). I examined his bill and noticed the error 6 months later. DirectTV would not credit him for their error all at once, they are doing it over 4 months. When I call in to a DirectTV CSR with a problem, they give up and say they don't know what to do, but they don't want to roll a truck right away and they won't let him out of his 2 year contract. My Time Warner Cable works, every day without fail, for years. The last time they rolled a truck the guy was 20 minutes late and hurried through the fix so he could do another appointment. Of course they had to roll another truck a few days later because he missed something.
DirectTV sucks and they have no sympathy for a deaf, elderly Korean War veteran whose only entertainment is watching TV with closed captions. As soon as his 2 years is up, he is switching back to cable.
@cccdude: agreed lol...i hate comcast....
1st they bought out my favorite tech channel, techtv, turned that into g4tv which still sucks majorly.
Then they just keep finding ways to make costs go higher rather than a simple average rate...
Ok, what is up with that guy's mustache?