Mr. Cinema

So I'm renewed again for Sunday Ticket. My statement gets created on the 24th each month. They have made their first charge on my acct, at $49.99. However, I received an email from them a couple days later letting me know I'm signed up for auto-renewal and that my account will be charged $44.99 for 6 payments.

I emailed CS and they responded saying my charge was correct. The early bird deal is 6 payments at $49.99. Regular price is 7 payments at $44.99.

Um.....

Anyone else get the email I did with those terms? I replied with a copy of what the email says.

I would call, but my voice is very hoarse from allergies. Do they have a fax number as well?

Mr. Cinema

Well, things got better. I managed to call and get out what my email said. Level 1 guy was useless, as most of them are, so I was transferred to the people who give the discounts. I explained again the issue, and the girl says she can offer me $20 off for 6 months on the Sunday Ticket plan. Uh, I'll take that.

Might be worth calling in and saying you can't afford the ST deal and they may give you the same offer I got. I would have been happy getting the rate I was supposed to get, but I'll definitely welcome this discount.

JakeNeff

The good thing about DirecTV is you can almost always get discounts. The bad thing is that they are incredibly inconsistent with what they'll offer. I called a few weeks ago and they flat out said they couldn't discount my Sunday Ticket, but instead they made my DVR service free for 6 months and my HD service free for 12 months. That works.

Mr. Cinema

My discount just got applied to my acct, so I'm very happy now.

Yes, they are random on the discounts. I had 2 $10 off discounts that ended in June. Called back, but they couldn't offer anything. Then a week later, I got $10 off for the sports channels.

Deftones

FWIW, I've got ST free or nearly free the past 3 years. I just canceled it for the upcoming season, though. With the Red Zone channel coming and the fact they want to charge for online content, it is not worth it. I'll live with the Red Zone in the morning and my local team's games in the afternoon.

Red Dog

How did you get RZC standalone? I know some are getting it and some aren't - no rhyme or reason to it.

Deftones

Not the ST Red Zone channel. The NFL Network one. That is supposed to go live on DirecTV before the season starts. At least that's what I'm hearing.

Red Dog

Where did you hear that? There's no discussion of that in the dbstalk.com forum.

JakeNeff

Sure there is. http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=177934

Red Dog

That's discussion of people trying to get the ST version of RZC as a standalone, which as I said before, is hit or miss.

JakeNeff

With a cursory view of the thread, I thought it was rather vague which RedZone channel they were getting. Maybe I missed where it specifically stated it was the ST version. I think it's rather ridiculous that there are 2 channels w/ essentially the same content and the same name, but they are different channels.

Bill Needle

Can you sign up for ST well into the season and get a pro-rated price? I've only gotten it before because my team is not local, but we get a lot of the games anyway. This season, something like the first 10 games should be on locally, but after that most will not be. So could I cancel now, and then sign up in week 10 for say half price?

Plus if I call to cancel who knows what bone they may throw me. For bargaining purposes it would be nice to know can go to the mattresses with them if necessary as opposed to the "I was kinda thinking about maybe canceling" which might only get you a few bucks. For instance, the other day I called a CC company because they posted their hefty annual fee (first year was waived). It's a card I don't really need but got for all of the massive sign up benefits, so when I got transferred to the retention person I simply said "Let's please just skip to the part where either you waive my fee or I cancel the card." He started the spiel anyway so I repeated myself. He then stammered, "Uh, well I have to go through the other screens to get there, hold on!" and in less than a minute my fee was waived. I thanked him for not wasting a lot of my time and that was that. Save the reindeer games for the next guy.

Xander

My question is how the F to I talk to a real person? I go round and round on their stupid automated line and after 10 minutes still wasn't talking to a rep. Grrrrrrr!

Red Dog

Say cancel at the first prompt - that takes you to a CSR the quickest.

JakeNeff

Use www.gethuman.com to find out quickest number to call and how to get through to a human.

Xander

Thanks!

pyro383

I called into the cancel service option, explained that I can't swing ST this year and need to cancel as I just received it on my bill. Came back with $20 off and would that work. Sure but what about the online thing, he threw that in also.

Xander

Damn I forgot about the online thing. Anyway, called into the automated line and said "cancellation" was the reason I was calling. Got through to a person in about 15 seconds. Told him that I probably needed to cancel Sunday Ticket and he offered a $20 per payment discount, which makes it 6 payments of $30. That's cheaper than I paid last year so I said yes.

Red Dog

On my 3rd attempt (1st attempt I was offered 6 x $10 off and I refused, 2nd attempt I was offered $120 off if I paid lump-sum, which I accepted, but never posted and they refused to post when I subsequently called back and then refused to offer me anything) I was offered $150 off Sunday Ticket (I paid lump-sum and was credited lump-sum). This time I was smart enough to check my account online while I was on the phone to make sure it posted.

Classic DTV CSR roulette. The idiots ended up losing $30 because of their refusal to post what they previously offered.

Phod

I got Red Zone without paying for Sunday Ticket. I've had Sunday Ticket 10 years in a row but find myself just watching Red Zone every Sunday so I got them to just give me Red Zone for free.

Worth doing if you are like me.

Red Dog

I'm curious as to how you did it. Seems like everyone had a different story.

Phod

Well, I mentioned how people were getting it and how I only watch RZ and don't want to pay $300 for one channel. They said they couldn't do it but would offer me $120 off ST. I basically said no thanks and hung up and tried again.

The second person said the same thing so I asked to speak to a supervisor. I was on hold a few minutes and when he came back, he said "When I took Sunday Ticket off of your account, I noticed that we can offer you only Red Zone at no charge." He mentioned something about it being a promotion and it would likely not be in effect next year.

I checked online at my account and it says "Red Zone 2010 Charge $0.00" on my bill.

Hopefully it will work out fine Give it a go!