Have you read your DIRECTV Customer Agreement? No matter how hard they try, they don’t make it easy to understand. In fact they don’t make it terribly easy to find, unless you use the exact words “customer agreement.” (Luckily, I found it for you here.) There’s a fair bit of legalese, but also it’s not as bad as you think. But, as complete as it is, it doesn’t really tell you everything you need to know. Here are some things that you ought to know about DIRECTV service. Most of them are common sense but it’s worth saying every so often.
Thou Shalt Not:
1. Use the DIRECTV Service anywhere but where you say you are going to.
DIRECTV Service is not meant to be used anywhere but your “service address.” If you plan on taking your receivers somewhere else (like a winter cabin or summer house) you can call DIRECTV and they can change the service address.
2. Leave DIRECTV before your commitment is up.
As a new customer you signed an agreement saying you’ll keep the service for two full years. If you want to get out of it before that, you will end up paying a large “early termination fee.”
3. Open or modify your receivers or DVRs.
DIRECTV receivers are leased equipment and your lease agreement doesn’t give you the right to open them. If you are looking for a hard drive upgrade, use the eSATA port on the DVR instead of opening it.
4. Share DIRECTV Service with friends, neighbors, or anyone else outside the home.
DIRECTV will most certainly find out sooner or later if you are running a cable from a neighbor’s dish or if you’re letting them run a cable from you. If you are connected to the internet, they will easily figure it out.
5. Bring a receiver from home into your business.
This is something DIRECTV takes very seriously because of the agreements they sign with content providers. Using a residential receiver in a public place is a big problem and when they find out it can be a big fine.
6. Charge money to provide DIRECTV service to others (unless…)
As a regular customer, you can’t re-sell your DIRECTV service under any circumstances. This includes providing DIRECTV service in a house or apartment you are renting to someone else. However… If you want to do this, contact our commercial department at 888-233-7563 because there are commercial programs we can help you with.
7. Block the vent holes of your receivers.
Your receiver will fail very quickly if its ventilation holes are blocked. Don’t put a receiver in a drawer or a closed cabinet. When the receiver does fail, they will be able to tell why.
8. Move an access card from one receiver to another.
First of all it probably won’t work anyway. But doing so is considered fraud and even if it works for a short time, it will stop working quickly and if your receivers are connected to the internet, they’ll know.
9. Sue DIRECTV because you don’t like the customer agreement.
Right or wrong, part of the customer agreement says that you’ll go for arbitration rather than the courtroom. Hopefully it never comes to that.
10. Try to sell a receiver on eBay.
The DIRECTV receivers are leased, and the receiver’s ID and the access card are registered to you. If you try to sell it on eBay the buyer won’t be able to activate it and DIRECTV will know where he got it from.
Need more information? Ask the experts!
If you want any sort of help or support for your DIRECTV equipment, don’t just call the DIRECTV call center. Those folks work hard and they can probably help with the easy stuff. But then again, you can probably find answers to the easy stuff with a Google search. That might even be how you found this article.
When you need real support, call the technicians at Solid Signal. We don’t have script readers. We have real professionals in our Novi, Michigan call center. We’re here to take care of you during East Coast business hours. Just call 888-233-7563 and get things started! If it’s after hours, fill out the form below and we’ll get back to you, usually within one business day.
