In AT&T’s latest effort to save money, they have stopped sending out boxes and call tags for returned Directv equipment. Now all you have to do is take the equipment to a UPS store and they will box it and ship it back to Directv. What some big corporate guy, living in a large metropolitan area, didn’t bother to consider, not everyone has a UPS store near them. The closest one to me is an hour and a half. And my customer that wants the boxes returned is 10 hours away and getting confused relaying info back and forth.

I’m guiding everyone I can away from Directv now.

I'm with you. Nightmares getting someone on the phone, nightmares getting someone to show up, 50/50 whether they will go on the roof or not, long delays on power up/menus/responsiveness, voltage issues with HDMI, etc.

Aside from the fact that I have a UPS store ten minutes away at a place I drive past on a regular basis, I'm done with ATT. I dumped them in August and they keep sending bills. OTOH, Spectrum is giving them a run for their money, so that's great- I don't like change, anyway. I wish all providers sucked equally.

The only complaint I’ve had with Dish has been caused by AT&T (losing HBO). I make changes in the app and it’s all painless.

This just keeps getting worse!

The client sent me the emails he had with instructions. I called the phone number listed on the email. I got someone, at a call center in Charlotte, explained the problem, he said he can’t help. He’s AT&T and has to send me to DTV. Then I get someone in India who tells me the account is an AT&T account # and I have to speak to AT&T. So I get transferred back to AT&T. This time though it’s someone in India. And this one can’t help unless I have the four digit password on the account. The account is canceled. The service is cut off. It’s not like I’m going to rack up OnDemand charges.

I've been a DirecTV fan for years. But when I saw the first AT&T logo appear it made my skin crawl. All the problems you're experiencing, plus the price is crazy high.

That said, I still prefer DirecTV to cable (Comcast in my area)

Have you looked at Youtube TV? - All the channels for $40 - It sounds like a better value for the client...

As a customer of almost 20 years now they have screwed with my billing, had to set up an AT&T account (as will all of my clients), slowed down even their most current boxes to the point where the lag is unbearable and are just all around screwing things up.

I wonder if they are going to pull a corporate suicide move with the Directv customer base and just make everything so unbearably shitty that they don't have to bother migrating them over to the AT&T platform.
My guess is they will. The numbers probably point to that as being the best financial move. Sure they will lose customers but that loss is probably less then the cost of keeping the platform up and running correctly.

While an utterly loathesome corporation to deal with (personal experience), I am thinking about looking into Dish as an alternative for both myself and my clients.

AT&T seems to attract and hire upper management that are somehow able to create working and dealing atmospheres that offend even the nicest people. Witness my gf, who worked phones in the commercial section. They had rules like "you can't hang up on a customer" and "you cannot leave late for your break." Rules like "if you put a customer on hold, you must go back on the phone every two minutes to assure them they haven't been dropped" along with "no, you can't call someone to get that answer, you have to go to _______ who is a 90 second walk from your desk." Oh, yeah, in addition to "you can't hang up on a customer," "you cannot clock out late."

Why any company would encourage policies that will alienate both staff and customers is way way beyond me. And I've been reading "malicious compliance" at reddit. I still don't believe it!

I have a feeling that the bride and I will be dumping DTV this year, and going strictly to off air and streaming with Amazon and maybe one other like Netflix, and free stuff that comes in online with the laptop mirrored to the system.

What channels we would lose aren't a big deal anyway.

If you think Directv is bad, try their business internet. Placed initial order in March, now in January it still isn't complete. And this is in the heart of silicon valley, 1/10 of a mile from Apple HQ. I can't express how bad their customer service is.

AT&T was more than a year late at supplying internet to the USC University Village just north of the USC campus.