If You Thought that Comcast was Sick, Look at the

If You Thought that Comcast was Sick, Look at the Direct Satellite TV Companies

Nobody has ever liked cable in the past 20 years; at first people couldn't wait to get it, but once they did, did they ever hate the way they had to pay for channels they didn't watch, and the way the cable guy would keep them waiting should there be a complaint. There is survey after survey that says that about 60% of all cable TV subscribers in America are terribly unsatisfied with their subscriptions, and the rest are not too happy either. Why, if you go by what the American Customer Satisfaction Index says, people hate Comcast even more than they hate the IRS. If the general idea about cable was a positive one, they wouldn't have made that Jim Carrey movie, or that episode in Seinfeld where Kramer decides to give the cable guy the run around for a change. People always thought direct satellite TV, if they could afford it one day, would pull them out of the sick relationship they had with the Comcast or Warner. Now that people are able to afford a dish without too much trouble, are they much more satisfied than before? If you thought so, perhaps you're not really familiar with how unkind life tends to be.

The state of Washington has just taken DirecTV the direct satellite TV programming company to court for all manner of usual and unusual manipulative tricks played on their customers, not very different from what Comcast does. In fact, the Attorney General, the one who is prosecuting the case, has even said that the rot runs so deep in the way DirecTV systematically milks its customers, that it looks like thievery was their entire business model. In an interview, that official says he had to look hard to find a rule or two that they hadn't used from the cheating copybook . So what is it that the friendly folks over at DirecTV do and how did it all start? It all started with a bunch of consumer complaints against DirecTV that came after intense advertising they put out to try to sell a new channel to new customers at an affordable $29.99 a month. They just tell you enough to get you to sign a two-year contract at that price. And at the end of the first year, when you discover that they are hiking the fee, you can quit for the bargain price of just $480 in fines. And this is just one of more than a dozen accusations against them in the lawsuit.

Here are some of the other beauties in this direct satellite TV company's service plans. The fine print in their advertising is unreadable, so fine is the print. If you don't pay their bill by an automatic method, you pay a fine. If you take on a channel on free trial, they enroll you for paid subscription at the end of the trial whether you want it or not. And no matter how hard you try, you can't find them giving you all the rules in one sheet, or one place. You'll find one rule printed on the store receipt, a couple on the website, a couple on the contract you signed, and so on. Apparently the official term for this kind of dealing is called layering. So there you have it; and you thought if you do not have a cable running to your house, you would certainly have a far more flexible arrangement. Of course DirecTV denies it all; the state of California isn't buying it and is suing this poor direct satellite TV company too. It looks like those entertainment providers have a great deal of imagination when it comes to ruining it.