I recognize that these pages I usually reserve for the latest outrage on the political or media front, but today I will digress to corporate America. The consolidation of corporations in specific areas has led to a dumbing down of the entrepreneurial spirit in this country. 30 years ago you could rationalize with a company, you could have a conversation. These dialogues always left you at the very least feeling as if someone had listened to you. You were treated as if you were the customer. When I was in undergraduate school as a business major I was taught the customer is always right. Unfortunately, those days are sadly behind us as mega-corporations and near-monopolies have changed the entire dynamic to now be that the policy is always right. Screw the customer. Employees at these mega-corporations do not have the intellectual capacity to reason. They have a script they must follow and policies that must be adhered to, no matter how completely stupid they are in light of the particular problem being presented to them.
Thus I present Direct TV to you. I do not think I am so special that this is somehow germane only to me. I am sure there are thousands of similar stories of corporate stupidity and arrogance. Direct TV is a near monopoly as the only other choice consumers have is the beloved cable company. This of course is your typical choice between hospital food and airline food. How does one decide? Anyway, I had been a loyal customer for several years of Direct TV and my tale goes like this...
Several months ago the box in my living room began pixelizing. I called for a service call and the representative sold me on a DVR box. The box would be free, but I would pay an additional $10 per month and would have to commit for one year. I said fine. The technician come out and hooked it up. When he left, the box in the bedroom went out completely. Because I work for a living, I can only have a technician come over on Saturday, so I have to wait another week for the next appointment. After the second appointment fixes the box in the bedroom, the box in the living room goes out. You guessed it, another week to wait, another technician appointment. After he fixes it and leaves, both boxes go out. So, basically I had been without service for over three weeks and when I call Direct TV for the fourth time. The representative is very flippant about having to send a technician out, like the hassle has been no big deal. I tell him I think I want to cancel my service. They transfer me to a very nice supervisor who completely understands and tells me quote, "don't worry about the commitment for the DVR, since that caused all these problems and you never used it anyway." In fact, because of the outages in service, Direct TV actually owed me a little over $30 for my troubles. I think fine, at least that's over, and I go on vacation.
Upon my return, a bill from Direct TV is waiting for me. The bill is for over $250, for canceling my commitment on the DVR that ruined my service and I never even used. To add insult to inconvenience, they are now claiming it was a two year commitment, not a one year commitment. Here is where the fun begins. Of course I call Direct TV, where every time I do, I have to tell the above story no less then four times before getting to someone who has a vague notion what they can do about it. That person tells me that all they can do is send an email to the billing disputes department, because I technically no longer have an account. I wait another three weeks to get a letter from Direct TV explaining to me the concept of canceling during a commitment. Despite the utter stupidity of taking three weeks to not even address the problem, I try one more time to call them and resolve the issue.
That was this morning, where after telling my story three times, I finally got a "supervisor." His name was Ryan, employee number U1511. You see the policy is Ryan can't give me his last name. Ryan insisted that the only way to "waive the commitment" was for me to write a dispute letter to that department. Never mind that the department is part of Direct TV, Ryan could not call them and explain because that wasn't "policy." Never mind that Ryan could not give me their phone number or transfer me, the policy was I had to write a letter. Never mind that I am not trying to "waive" anything, I am simply trying to get Direct TV to comply with what they had already stated. Logic no longer mattered in light of their "policy." Reason is out the window in light of the "policy." Instead of dealing with logical human beings I am reduced to bantering with robots reading a script. This is what it has come to in latter day America. This is what happens when near-monopolies are allowed free reign. There is no more customer service. There are only idiotic policies designed to break a company into parts that cannot communicate with each other, lest the right thing accidentally be done by the customer.
This policy clearly only has one purpose, to break the will of the customer. To break them down and have them not dispute billing. I tried to explain to Ryan that this article would follow if he did not make the correct business decision with this case, but like a parrot who has listened to a broken record too long, all he could say was that he had to follow his policy. Ok, no problem. Direct TV has their policy and thankfully, I have a bully pulpit. This problem is Direct TV's, not mine. It is their own ineptitude and ridiculously stupid policies that have led to a public display of their own idiocy. They have one option and one option only, clear my account and refund the money they owe me. I have tried to explain this for three months now with increasing frustration. They insisted that I had to write a letter disputing the charges. Instead, I have exercised my rights to write more than a letter. I am writing a wake up call to America. THIS is what you will inevitably deal with if you choose Direct TV. This level of incompetence. This level of apathy toward the customer. Policy over logic. Ryan over reason. I know the cable company is no great shakes but they define customer service when compared to the debacle that is Direct TV.
Ryan was kind enough to give me the address to send my dispute into. Next week they will receive correspondence from me, but it will be a link to this article. This article will stay up until Direct TV acts the way a company should act and corrects the problem they created and apologizes for their behavior.
It is time we remind corporate America who is in charge.
Anthony Wade, a contributing writer to opednews.com, is dedicated to educating the populace to the lies and abuses of the government. He is a 41-year-old independent writer from New York with political commentary articles seen on multiple websites. A Christian progressive and professional Rehabilitation Counselor working with the poor and disabled, Mr. Wade believes that you can have faith and hold elected officials accountable for lies and excess.
About a year ago, my wife and I decided that our old computer (a souped-up 486) was due for replacement, so we bought a pretty-high powered Dell, set it up and it was great. No problems. No complaints.
I'd tried to download a Flash program from Adobe. I tried a couple of times and although it said the download was complete, I couldn't get the application to run. In my naiveté, I decided to call Dell Support and see if they had any idea why this was happening. I spoke with a very nice young man who told me that it was likely a "permission" setting on the computer, and walked me through changing some stuff. He told me to reboot and the changes would take effect. When I did, it took about 10 minutes to boot the system. I knew something was wrong, so called Dell back and asked if someone could walk me back through the changes and put things back as they were. Nobody could.
"Looks like your hard drive crashed."
"My hard drive is fine. EVERYTHING was fine until the changes were made."
Next technician:
"Looks like your hard drive crashed."
"My hard drive is fine. EVERYTHING was fine until the changes were made."
(you must understand that with each call, I spent 30-40 minutes on hold for an available technician, then had to regurgitate all of the information.)
This started on a Saturday at about Noon, and by 9:00 PM, I was so frustrated and crazed that I just went to bed.
Sunday morning – 4:30 AM
"Looks like your hard drive crashed."
"My hard drive is fine. EVERYTHING was fine until the changes were made."
"You don't have software support. For me to do that, it will cost you $100 for 72 hours of support."
"Fine! Here's a credit card number. Just give me someone who can fix this!"
Mid-day, Sunday
"We'll send you a new hard drive and a technician to install it. I can make an appointment for Tuesday."
"My hard drive is fine. EVERYTHING was fine until the changes were made."
"As a last resort, I think we should re-format the hard drive, re-install, and see where that leads us. If the hard drive is bad, it won't reboot."
In two days, I spent 15 hours on the phone with Dell Support, finally reformatting my hard drive, re-installing all of the programs and guess what? Everything was fine!
When it was all done, the latest tech transferred me to her supervisor who politely asked for my comments regarding Dell Support. I can't print them here.
Then, a couple of days later, I received an email from Dell thanking me for using Dell Support, along with a transcript of the FIRST tech I spoke with who told me to change the settings!
On Tuesday, a Dell tech showed up at my door.
"I'm here to install a new hard drive."
"Great, I'll take the hard drive, but you're not touching my computer!"
by
Angelo (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 174 comments)
on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 12:15:27 PM
I have had absolutely horrible service from CompUSA. Maybe the guys at the stores are OK, but my Apple PowerBook can't be repaired at the store, and the place they send the laptops to is terrible.
Besides the usual struggle to find a tech support rep who can understand the problem and multiple calls while they tell me to try various software fixes for a laptop that fell off a desk, the repair people can't do the repairs properly. The first time they fixed it, they forgot to reattach the fan. Then I had to drive 250 miles to drop it off. I told them I needed it back by the time the semester started in 2 weeks. Two weeks later, they hadn't started fixing it because of some communication screwup between the laptop repair center and the store. I finally reached someone who promised to get it taken care of--and the next day he called me back, shouting at me about being a liar. Apparently, one of my calls to the store during a break in classes had been logged as being an in-person visit to the store. Therefore, even though I had plenty of witnesses that I was in my hometown, he insisted I had lied about not being a local customer of the store 250 miles away.
What kind of customer service department calls customers back to call them liars?! And then starts making fun of the customer when she tries to clear up a misunderstanding? The counterpeople at CompUSA seem pleasant, but I'm never buying anything from them again, even when I'm not out in the boondocks.
by
khedges1 (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 19 comments)
on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 7:15:45 PM
There ought to be a law against companies making it so hard to get reasonable treatment. Then again, there ought to be laws that strongly discourage companies from getting too big.
by
Rob Kall (805 articles, 3917 quicklinks, 331 diaries, 1697 comments)
on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 3:25:37 PM
We happen to live in an anti-thetical system. We're a democracy that, at least in theory, allows for equality to/for all. We also hava a capitalistic economic philosophy, which is essentialy a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. The logical end of capitalism is monopoly, so we outlawed that! :)
by
Angelo (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 7 diaries, 174 comments)
on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 4:31:36 PM
In the future when you do and install if they ask you to drop your resolution, do as the say not as you want, and a dell system I'm not going there with you, because more than likely your mother board is not up-gradable with an overclocked processor. At least that's what I've been told about dell system. I wouldn't really no.
by
Fred F (1 articles, 1 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 361 comments)
on Saturday, January 6, 2007 at 3:44:03 PM
I can identify with you. I had DirectTV for less than a year awhile back & found the service much to be desired -- not as dramatic as your situation, but annoying enough to quit & go back to cable. I find Comcast cable service, not the cost, is actually, surprisingly, pretty good.
I guess we've been conditioned not to expect good, or even give a passing grade, to most companies in the service department. I know I have & tend to Google for ways to get around all of the inane ways they can get you to endlessly repeat your tale of woe.
Anyway, good luck. I'm glad you put this out there.
Take care, Diane
[ Diane's News Clips /DIARY ]
by
Diane's News Clips (16 articles, 0 quicklinks, 241 diaries, 31 comments)
on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at 8:37:26 AM
I had somewhat similar problems with our local cable company, U.S. Cable out of Texas, and researched my options which amounted to either Dish Network or Direct TV. The prices are similar for both sat providers, but I decided on Dish Network for the simple fact that Direct TV is owned by Rupert Murdoch who owns FOX News and a plethora of other media outlets. For the last 3 years our Dish Network service has been excellent! I have nothing to gain by plugging their service, unless you give me your address and want me to send you the "Club Dish" card that saves us both money. LOL But, seriously look into Dish Network. As someone who posts and reads OpEd News you would probably really enjoy some of the programming on Free Speech TV and Link TV which I am not sure if Direct TV even offers.
by
JohnNmissouri (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 40 comments)
on Sunday, January 7, 2007 at 5:23:41 PM
You're dead right about monopolistic business entities' "policies" which preclude rational discourse, pretty much condemn customers to automated responses for at least the first 2 or 3 levels and ultimately refuse to consider sane solutions. NetBank did the same to me when I retired in Japan. Prior to retirement, they promised in writing to transmit a percentage of my US govt. pension to my Saga Bank branch in Fukuoka. After spending about $400,000 to buy a lot and build a new house, NetBank reneged and refused to make the allotment to my local Japanese bank they'd promised. When I e-mailed copies of their promise, they said the unilateral policy change of which I was never informed was the result of something like "changing conditions" and that I had no recourse. I eventually ended up losing $100,000 selling our house and moving back to the States in order to receive my US govt. pension. NetBank couldn't have cared less.
The sad fact is that more and more US corporate entities conduct themselves the same way: with rude, incompetent personnel who no longer care about customer concerns. A woman author living in Utah just posted a piece about Southwest Airlines' pretty much similar service which made her family's Mexican vacation a nightmare. I've also seen this on other American carriers, having flown between the US & Japan many times. It's the corporatocracy refered to by the author of The Memoirs of an Economic Hitman.
by
L. RETZACK (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 41 comments)
on Monday, January 8, 2007 at 12:27:22 AM
13 comments
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