DirecTV Installer: Oh, Most People Don't Notice Our Stealth Warranty

Was it an error, or a sneaky upsell tactic? When Brandon’s grandfather moved, taking his DirecTV service along with him, he declined an extended warranty. The final paperwork for the installation included the unwanted warranty, however. When Brandon pointed this out, the installer noted that most people don’t notice this stealth warranty. Oh, yeah? Brandon declined again–so, of course, the warranty showed up on the next bill.

DirecTV has been a pain as far as the movers connection goes. My 83 year old grandfather recently moved and we need to get him all set up so we called up movers connection. An appointment was set and all was good. No one ever showed up… no one called… no one said anything.

Finally i jump on the phone and find out that they weren’t coming and had to reschedule. After many days without service a team of technicians showed up. They quickly installed the new dish and box. I was very impressed with their speed and capability… until it came to sign off on the project. The tech simply handed my grandfather a paper and said “sign here, here, and here”.

I quickly grabbed it from him and began reading. Part of the paper was signing off to enroll in a DirecTV Service Plan (warranty). I pointed this out to the tech and he just kind of laughed. I asked him if many people catch this and he said no.

I told him I wanted to opt out of it and decline the service. Sure enough the next month bill shows that we are paying $6 a month for the warranty. This is completely wrong. I am very upset over this.

There are a lot of great ways to beam your complaint to the highest and most helpful levels at DirecTV. You can tweet at them. You can try contacting executives. Recently, CEO Mike White has been very responsive to customers who e-mail him directly. The companywide e-mail format is firstname.lastname@directv.com, and you can figure out his address from there.

DirecTV CEO Answers Customer E-mail On A Saturday Evening, Promises Help

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.