Satellite TV - New customer vs existing customer

[bmac]

I've been a DirecTV customer for almost 10 years. I upgraded to the TIVO receiver when it became available. Have not yet upgraded to HD.

DirecTV has a mover's program whereby you give them a call with your new address and they come and install a new dish and cables. You move your old receivers and leave your old dish behind. No charge for this. A pretty good deal.

As we get are getting ready to move soon, I checked out the DirecTV web site. For new customers, they offer free dish and installation for up to 4 rooms. I think you can upgrade to HD DVR for free with a 2 year service agreement. The equipment belongs to DirecTV (They call it a lease) and you return the receivers to them when you terminate the agreement. Fair enough - you don't pay anything for the equipment so it is not unreasonable to return it if the service is cancelled.

I'm thinking now would be a good time to upgrade to HD. And, we have become spoiled with the TIVO features. So, I call them this evening to see what the deal would be if I upgraded to HD DVR at the new house. The answer is $499 and they own the equipment. This seems outrageous to me. A loyal customer for 10 years and they soak me for $500. I say soak because they are giving it away to new customers.

So, now I'm thinking about checking out Dish Network. They have 4 or 5 room free package for new customers. I'm not sure what the HD upgrade costs, but it may be worth checking it out. Another option is to have new DirecTV service installed in my wife's name. This, however, seems a little dishonest.

Another oddity I learned today. In the past, I have purchased my DirecTV receivers. When I first had the service installed, when I upgraded to TIVO and when I replaced the TIVO receiver with a new one when the remote to the original one was lost (a new TIVO receiver cost about the same as a universal remote with TIVO functions). The DVRs were purchased from Circuit City. Now, I see on the Circuit city website that all DirecTV receivers, whether standard def or HD, DVRs or HD DVRs are lease only. You pay the same that they used to charge before, only you don't own them.

This seems strange to me. Has anyone else experienced these things or am I misunderstanding DirecTV's price structure? I'm sure I could find the answer to my next question, if I searched the archives, but I didn't and I am too lazy to go back now. But, has anyone had both DirecTV and Dish Network? If so, can you comment on or compare the programming or picture quality of these 2 services?

Thanks for your help.

 

[MadReferee]

You might want to try and post your question at the link below. The DTV/TIVO community forums are always the first place one should go to get the most up to date and accurate info regarding DirecTV anf TIVO's offerings and policies.

Since the forums are extremely active you might have to search a little to get your answer but I am sure your questions has been asked and answered there.

DTV/TIVO community

Another very active DTV forum is DBSTalk. Your question has probably already been asked and answered here too. Here is the link.

DBSTalk DTV forum

 

[bmac]

Thanks, Mad.

 

[Freds]

I totally agree with you. I have Dish Network and they definitely cater to drawing in new customers rather than keeping existing ones happy. I checked into switching to Direct last year, possibly with the same offer you mentioned. On the phone the rep said I would be saving money over my current Dish hookup and have more TVs hooked up, but when the installer arrived with the four receivers he explained it a bit differently, so I called Direct again before he got started and there were a few charges the first sales rep had neglected to mention. I ended up sticking with Dish.

Yesterday I had my dish upgraded and now I receive my four local stations PLUS pay $3.00 less/month. That's right, less! If I hadn't called them and started questioning them on different packages I would have never known. I feel like they should owe me retroactive for when this became available.

 

[megotatractor]

Not your imagination. I have Dishnetwork. New customers get all the breaks and deals. existing members get screwed. I would seriously consider switching just to get the new member deal. I don't have Tivo but would love to get it. Dishnetwork has DVR -same as Tivo- but charge existing members an arm and leg to upgrade. On the other hand reading the small print on the directv agreement for the 4 reciever deal I see you have to either buy the equipment you don't use or pay service on those 4 rooms. I only need 1 reciever.

 

[sneaky_pete]

We have Dish Network too, and the only way you can get the good deals as an existing customer is to quit (close your account) and sign up brand-new all over again. A Dish Network customer "service" rep even told us to do that over the phone, after mildly badgering them about their existing customer policies, LOL. We did and it worked like a charm, with no more than a few days of no service between systems.

 

[NY_Yankees_Fan]

For all NY Yankees baseball fans, you know who you are... LOL, Dish does NOT carry the YES network, i.e. Yankee games. We had Dish and had to switch to Direct TV because of it when the Yankees went from MSG to YES.

We liked Dish especially the DRV, on Dish you push a button and it skips the commercial altogether. With Direct TV you can speed up the commercial BUT you still have to watch it. I HATE COMMERCIALS, so the few seconds it takes is very annoying.

 

[newcountry]

We were DishNetwork customers and loved them for 6 years until it came time to move and we needed to upgrade. It's both companies' policy to try to steal each other's customers by the enticement of free equipment.

We've since switched to DirecTV, even after the DishNetwork rep informed us to put the account under my wife's name or to just stop service for a few days, because of TiVo. There really is nothing like it. I've got two TiVo units, one stand-alone and one DirecTiVo.

I will say that DirecTV will allow you to add on one free receiver annually as an incentive to stay. I'll be grabbin one every year until I've got all my little spots wired up! Don't know if Dish has that offer.

 

[tlbuser]

Just went through the senario. After aking up my mind to switch to Direct, I called Dish to cancel. Then they offered me a "deal" to stay. The HD upgrade would only be $150.00 (insted of $499) if I continued my service.

Either one could care less about customer loyalty. I guess, as in all sales things, they make the "real money" upfront and couldn't really care less what they're selling to the consumer.

 

[Jagmandave]

I had a similar situation with Roadrunner, I called to cancel my account citing a competitors offer and they immediately changed my plan to a more expansive one, and for a little less money than the new guys offered.

I kinda understand why they don't offer to change unless you call them on it, why erode their earnings if they don't have to? But when it comes to losing you vs changing your plan, they should be willing to do that, after all your reduced but continued revenue stream has to be better than losing it all together.........