Hardcore Pornography on The History Channel, courtesy of DirecTV

[lumis]

I was hoping to watch the 3rd installment of "Russia Land of the Tsars" this morning on the History Channel, I even set it to record on my DirecTV + DVR, but for some reason it was just a black screen, but channel banner indicated it was recording. Finding this odd I went to another room with an old RCA receiver, flipped over to channel 269 only to find that for some reason one of the "Spice" pornography channels was showing. Never one to pass up some free porn I watched, after a short while the screen went black again, a bit later we had a large DirecTV logo filling up the screen, shortly afterwards the program came on. So I went back to the room I was originally in, still a black screen and nothing is recording.

It's fun to catch these screwups, it would have been funnier to catch it on my DVR. Too bad though.

Maybe I should call and act outraged, make up a story about how I wanted my (non-existant) son to watch this program, but insteaed DirecTV is showing hardcore porno, I might get a few months of free service.

[dafoe]

Maybe I should call and act outraged, make up a story about how I wanted my (non-existant) son to watch this program, but insteaed DirecTV is showing hardcore porno, I might get a few months of free service.

I wouldn't count on it

When I first signed up with them I was putting 80 plus hours a week in at work (new business). I wanted to have everything setup in time for football (huge fan) so I took time off that I really couldn't afford to wait around for the installation tech- close to eight hours. They never showed. Never even called any of my phone numbers to say they weren't coming. Then they pulled the same shit again. The third time, I paid somebody to wait for me.

When I called to complain, I never even got so much as an apology. They offered to give me free HBO for few months. If I wanted HBO I would have bought it They finally agreed to take $ 5 off my bill for 6 months A whopping $30 I figured it was better than nothing.

When they changed the cards I never got a notice. I just turned on my TV one day and it wouldn't work. Then there was some weird problem related to that. I forget.

Also, they updated my credit card info one year even though the old credit card had not yet expired. I hadn't activated the new one yet. When the imaginary/inactive card was rejected, they tried to charge me a late fee.


I haven't found them to be all that customer friendly or competent. But their product beats the hell out of cable so I stick with them.

But even beyond the moral issues, is it really worth your time to spend 20 minutes on the phone to get a couple of freebies? I seriously doubt, no, I would be willing to bet that you will not get one month free- let alone three. Maybe the compensation is somehow proportional to your outrage. Maybe if you put on a good enough show they will give you your 3 free months of cable. But are you really willing to ruin somebody's day just to steal a few months of cable? If the answer is yes, that is pretty low.

Just be glad you got to see some free porn and leave it at that.

[lumis]

I never called them, it was just a random thought. The thread was created more to call attention to this oddity than complain about what happened. The most annoying part was not having it recorded to my DVR and missing the first few minutes of the program.

As far as DirecTV's customer service, you have to be really firm with them. A relative of mine recently sought my advice on purchasing an HDTV, knowing they had DirecTV service I suggested they also take advantge of being able to get a free DirecTV HD receiever (for OTA reception). It was basically free, $200 + $200 MIRB. After mailing in the MIRB she received a notice saying she would not receive the rebate because she failed to qualify for it.

I called on her behalf, pretending to be her husband, and they explained to me that you cannot get the MIRB if you dont' have HD service, even though that was not mentioned anywhere in the fine print. They tried offering me a few months of free service to HBO or Showtime, I declined and threatened to cancel the serivce (a bluff), after being on hold for a few minutes they relented and credited the account with $200, which in my relavtives case is 2 months of service.

A few months after this incident I subscribed to DirecTV, kicking Dish Network to the curb. I've been pretty happy with my service, but I did note that my relative I previously mentioned was the referrer. She was supposed to receive $50, after about 20 minutes of dealing with DirecTV they eventually credited her account.

DirecTV is very sly when it comes to their customers, you can't be willing to accept "no" as an answer from them. But I imagine a lot of their customers don't have the time or patience to deal with them, or they're just pushover and take "no" as an answer.

[Conquest10]

I'm glad I'm on cable and never have to deal with all the mind games and attempted rip-offs.

A similar thing happened to me the other day (the channel thing not the CS), not porn though. It was like 3 in the morning and I was watching Discovery HD. The screen went black then returned. It was not Discovery though. It had switched with Comcast SportsNet. About 15 minutes later it switched back. Really weird. I guess they were testing something because we're supposed to be getting a couple of more HD channels pretty soon.