Not So Direct TV

I had an interesting interaction with them over the weekend. Actually it was Sunday. I’d been having some problems with the remote that I use. In part because it is so old and also I was pretty sure the batteries needed to be changed.

Finally, Sunday morning it gave out. I decided to change the batteries and hope that would fix the problem. Easier said than done. The first battery came out fine. The second one was another matter entirely. I couldn’t get it to budge. Finally I had to take a kitchen knife and pry the thing out. I figured that I’d probably wrecked the thing but thought to put in new batteries anyway. I was right it did not work.

Luckily, at least I thought at the time, I had a spare remote. About the only thing I could do with it was change the station. So I accessed the menu and attempted to program the remote. There were six different codes. I could get none of them to work.

I called DirecTV trying to get some help. The first guy I talked to was not very helpful. Here’s an example. He asked me to read him the model number of the remote so he could look it up. But he failed to tell me where I would find the number. I had to ask. The bottom line from this guy was I could spend $15 to get another remote sent to me or a technician could come out and program the remote for $50. I said thanks but no thanks.

I thought about what the guy had said and decided to call back with a couple of additional questions. This person from DirecTV was a little better. When she asked me which remote I had she told be where to find the number in the upper left hand corner. We did the same thing with the codes to no avail. She questioned if this remote had come with my HD receiver because usually a different model comes with an HD receiver. The bottom line couldn’t get the thing to work.

But I also learned this. DirecTV could not guarantee that the remote (if they sent me a new one) sent me would work with the my TV. They could not guarantee that if someone came out that they could get the remote to work with the my TV. Seems that they should guarantee that they would give you a remote that would work with your TV. Otherwise how does on put this it makes no sense to keep DirecTV.

The women agreed to send me another remote. She said she would credit my account $5 for three months so it wouldn’t cost me anything. She said it would come FedEx and take three or four business days. Well I got the thing yesterday. I followed the instructions sent with the remote. First two codes didn’t work. But in the third time lucky of third times the charm code three worked.

At least now I have a remote that works.