Wow. So today I finally signed up with DirectTV and their HD DVR service. Little did I know that my biggest source of drama here would be with TiVo. Back in Jan of 2009, I had canceled TiVo after my original 2 year commitment was up and tried out the Cable company’s DVR option. After about a month of suffering, we decided to move back to our low def TiVo (having already tried the TiVo HD and found that neither TiVo nor our cable company could/would get the CableCARD solution to work). Well apparently when I signed up for TiVo’s special reduced rate of $12.95, they nailed me with a yearly commitment. Or so they say. My original documentation and emails on the matter indicate no such commitment. I do keep all of these things on hand for future reference.
So here we are. I call up TiVo today looking to cancel and they begin threatening a huge cancellation fee. I tell them that I’ve not under contract at which point they insist that I am. Then they tell me that it’ll cost $150 for me to break that contract. I am then put on hold and left to stew for a few minutes. By the time the rep comes back, I’ve got my original documentation and the reminder of what I would owe them under the contract handy. They then decided to reduce the cancellation fee to around $65.00, which would be the amount left on my contract. Then I essentially tell them to frak off and I’ll be more than happy to make their collection agency cry on the phone after I get the bank to deny the charges.
They respond with, “Oh but we can reduce your rate to 9.95 a month without a contract extension!” So if I just leave the service activated until February it will now only cost me $50 instead of $65 to effectively cancel the contract. So for now I’ve opted to take this approach. That way when I call back up next month to cancel, it’ll cost me less of my precious credit score to turn around and frak them up their asses. Of course they may just lower the rate again, which only means I’ll wait until the following month for another bout.
Screw TiVo. Screw the Cable Company for their shitty DVR service too. At this rate, I really hope DirecTV’s service is that damn good, because otherwise I’m going to be up the creek without a paddle when it comes to DVR service. I may just end up building my own Media Center or MythTV box.
What a bunch of drama. TV really shouldn’t be this hard people.