Greg recommended DirecTV to his parents, and the company also had a pretty sweet deal going on at the time for new customers. They got NFL Sunday Ticket free for their first year! That sounds like a great deal to any rational person. Unfortunately, even though multiple sources told Greg’s parents that they would get the free football, nobody mentioned that the plan they were signing up for didn’t actually qualify them for the free NFL Sunday Ticket. Minor details, certainly.

My parents signed up with DirecTV on 7-13-12 based on my recommendations and DirecTVs offer at the time. I have been a longtime customer of DirecTV but after this, I am considering leaving but all that remains is Comcast.

A few weeks ago I learned my parents were misled by DirecTV phone representatives and the local DirecTV installers that hooked everything up. My parents like football and were told by the local installer and the phone sales rep that they would get NFL Sunday ticket by signing up (also it is in their Ad). When the NFL season started they thought they were doing something wrong when they did not get the channels but could not figure it out.

A few weeks ago they told me about it so I checked and explained that they were not subscribed and to call up DirecTV and explain what happend. DirecTV said sorry, too bad thanks for being a customer. My dad has the Ad still so I checked it, and the Ad also says in fine print that they have to buy CHOICE Extra to qualify. When signing up not one representative with DirecTV said that because they were not getting an appropriate level Choice Extra package that they would not get NFL Sunday ticket. Instead DirecTV continuously misled my parents in what I believe were sleazy tacticts targeting the elderly. So I am sending this to the Consumerist (maybe others have had the same experience) as I have tried emailing DirecTV as well and they refuse to do anything about it.

I even mentioned that The Consumerist already had a similar article (../../../..//2012/10/05/directv-gives-new-customer-free-sunday-ticket-takes-it-away-gives-it-back/) thinking that maybe DirecTV simply trained these people wrong on the offer but after the “service” so far, I doubt it was bad training. The Consumerist article above method of contact someone higher up resulted in a bounced email though.

Even in DirecTVs second email reply had no mention of the or warning stating “hey, some idiot at DirecTV signed you up wrong. No NFL sunday ticket for you!”.

I am never recommending DirecTV to anyone again. Lesson learned for me and sending this to The Consumerist in case more reports of elderly getting taken by DirecTV are reported.

To be fair, it sounds like this isn’t so much a case of DirecTV misleading senior citizens as just misleading customers.

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