I like DirecTV. I don’t like being lied to. I also don’t like when a business is so large that it forgets how to communicate between departments and seniority levels. A lack of communication can cause the business to falter in its customer service and ultimately look either like employees are lying or that they don’t know something that should either be known or at least to know where to find the answer. Well what would you think if you had a problem with a service, called the appropriate support department and the person answering the phone doesn’t have the answer? What if that person’s boss doesn’t either. What if multiple attempts, speaking with a different region’s personnel, gets even more confusing when different and erroneous information is given? You might get a bit flustered, right? That is exactly what had happened to me last month. Let me explain what really happened, how the solution was found and what exactly went wrong along the way.
I have been a customer of DirecTV since last year, right around this time. I was happy to know that I could have a TV service that can go with me wherever I might end up moving. It’s a nice thing to know that you won’t have to give up a station you enjoy or need to learn a new channel lineup when relocating. I also had hoped to one day take advantage of NFL Sunday Ticket or NHL Center Ice when the budget could allow it, you know? So football season was somewhat enjoyable and hockey was pretty good too, but NHL coverage was limited to Versus, NHL Network and Comcast Sportsnet. January and February rolled around and the post-season was getting closer. I learned that coverage of the playoffs would be limited for my beloved Penguins. If they made it to the Stanley Cup Finals (which they did:-)) I would get the games on NBC, NHL and Versus. But the rest of the playoffs was not so promising. So I called DirecTV and inquired on their Sports Pack of Regional Sports Network(RSN) channels. I was happy to find out that I was eligible for FSN Pittsburgh and a slew of other RSN channels (i.e. MSG, MSG+, SUN, etc.)! I got all the hockey I wanted, mainly every Penguins game. But, things didn’t stay so nice for long.
This summer saw a power struggle between Comcast and DirecTV. Comcast owns Versus and the Philadelphia market for RSN channels. Now I live an hour and a half north of Philly and it is said to be on the fringe of the market. Parts of my county are considered in Philly and parts are out. Now I had heard that Comcast raised the price for Versus and had actually hiked it the most for DirecTV, Comcast’s largest contender. DirecTV refused to pay the higher than average price for the channel, so Comcast refused to source it and its other RSN channels. Well I noticed this all when DirecTV announced a free month of NHL Center Ice in October. I saw my beloved Penguins on FSN Pittsburgh, but not on the Center Ice broadcasts.
No big deal, right? Wrong. I learned that if your RSN (which mine was FSN Pittsburgh), that I was paying for through the Sports Pack, shows the game then it isn’t available (blacked out) on NHL Center Ice. NHL rules also say that ticket sales have no bearing on black out rules like they do for the NFL. Ok, fine. But what happens when DirecTV learns that the FCC changes the market rules and then changes what regions have control of what markets? Or even worse, what happens when their own database goes wonky!? Well, you get screwed.
So here is the wrinkle…. DirecTV has a database driven tool that lets customers verify their available RSN channels, based on the zip code of where you live. This database also powers how their broadcast system determines if an RSN game gets blacked out or not from the Premium NFL or NHL channels. Well, their tool no longer showed my zip code as having any RSN! So whether or not the game is shown on the RSN or Center Ice, I would never see it! I was paying for the RSN channels but since my zip code no longer has an associated RSN, I could watch everything but LIVE games on the channels! This isn’t the first time that there has been a problem with the tool’s database either (look here). This caused a bit of a stir for me since I had watched all the preseason games and even the first few regular season games. But it seemed odd to me that I lost the ability to watch the games on the RSN channel immediately after the free Center Ice promotion was over. Now remember that the promotion was given because of the whole Versus mess. But the new market laws also came into effect around the end of September too. So what do I do? I call the company and try to find out what changed?
The first call was taken by the office in the west, because of the time of day I called (9pm). They checked the zip code tool and said it was “odd” that I no longer showed having an RSN of any kind. I thought so too! Well they tried a few different things to determine if their system was messed up, or maybe my receiver was messed up. No dice. So I left it alone for a few days. Then it came to the next hockey game to be played on MSG+ instead of FSN Pittsburgh. No game. So I called the company back to inquire again. This time I got a person in the south and they told me it was because the game hadn’t sold out the arena within the 72 hour deadline and the channel could be blacked out because of that. Wrong! That rule doesn’t apply to the NHL. So the woman tried to resend the package information to my receivers, kinda like rebooting my service (as if it were day one). No deal there either. But then my service got turned off after I hung up the phone! So needless to say, I was getting a bit miffed at this point. I called back and got them turn it all back on again. Then the following day, I noticed the game was out again. But the basketball games were all on for the RSN channels. Wouldn’t those games be blacked out as well, because of the conflict with my zip code? Obviously not, since I called DirecTV AGAIN and got someone in New York (saturday afternoon) who said that they should be blacked out. So this person tried once again to “reboot” my service and said they would push the matter to a manager (finally!) and I would have a reply by Monday.
Monday came and went with no word. So I decided to email FSN Pittsburgh and ask them what was going on. I then found out that DirecTV owns FSN Pittsburgh and the entire state of PA should be getting the channel, except the Philly market….but what about me not having any RSN assigned to my zip code? Then I contacted the NHL directly, to find out what they knew about the markets and the blackout rules. I was told that my zipcode WAS considered to be in the Philly market, even though 1/4 mi. down the road shows a zip code with RSN info NOT in the Philly market. They also confirmed what I already knew about the blackout rules, ticket sales are not involved in any way for the NHL. Ok, so now I am beginning to think that DirecTV is not so nice about figuring out how they can get people to buy their NHL Center Ice channel. I mean it’s not too hard to imagine that a company might whet your appetite with a free month, then innocently have a problem with the zip code portion of their database. So I called the next afternoon, to find out what more, if anything, could be done. I had planned to ask them why we were getting movie channels for the last couple of days too. I figured that maybe they were trying to give me some free stuff because of the issues of the zip code tool. Nope that wasn’t it at all.
In the process of the many phone calls and the multiple “reboots”, my system was now being shown as having two sets of movie channels and Sports Packs assigned to it. That I was being charged for three days worth of double programming. The support person said that their system should not be allowed to do that, but it was obviously being done. The really odd thing was that the system should have been charging me three times for the Sports Pack and it wasn’t. Let me explain. My system was already running with the Sports Pack since March. This was after the 90-day promo period of getting the movie channels for free when you sign up. When the two other times that the support people had resent the info to my receivers, the billing portion of the process was charged twice. The channels weren’t for free because the original start date was from last year and my initial 90 days were gone awhile ago. So they resent the original codes for my service and the system automatically began charging me.
So I told the lady that I wanted to turn off the Sports Pack, since I wasn’t going to get the games anymore, and would take the Center Ice package. I asked if there was any way they could make an exception on the billing for it since they had screwed my account up so badly. Center Ice gets charged in four installments. I was hoping to have it spread out over the 12 months instead. She said she would do me one better than that. She cleared all the double fees and charges, turned off the Sports Pack, reversed the last month’s fee for the Sports Pack and then gave me the Center Ice package for 50% off! Not the worst thing that could have happened in the end, huh? But to this day, my zip code still has no RSN assigned to it.
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