TexasCHLforum.com

After Jeremy Beach's Black Forest home burned to the ground Tuesday, leaving him with little more than the clothes on his back, he started making calls to cancel the trash pickup, utilities, and other services for a house that no longer exists.

Most of those providers were understanding, he said. Then he got to DirecTV.

http://gazette.com/article/1502291" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This is typical of companies that grow so big that the people in charge don't have any direct contact with their customers. These companies generate procedures, protocols and rules that are given to the employees so that they are not required or allowed to think or make decisions.

Like the article says, the insurance should pay for this. He did not own the equipment, so I don't think the company is responsible for the loss. If the man had leased a car, would we expect lessor to just chalk it up as a loss and not expect insurance to pay for it? I do think DirectTV could of handled the whole situation better by being more empathetic to the customer.

They should work something out in the contract to account for disasters such as this. The negative publicity from something like this will obviously cost them more than $400.00. They will end up just passing all the cost of covering theses issues to the rest of their customers though. Then we can complain about how people at DirctTV are socialist.

ss1088 wrote:Like the article says, the insurance should pay for this. He did not own the equipment, so I don't think the company is responsible for the loss. If the man had leased a car, would we expect lessor to just chalk it up as a loss and not expect insurance to pay for it? I do think DirectTV could of handled the whole situation better by being more empathetic to the customer.

They should work something out in the contract to account for disasters such as this. The negative publicity from something like this will obviously cost them more than $400.00. They will end up just passing all the cost of covering theses issues to the rest of their customers though. Then we can complain about how people at DirctTV are socialist.

Or then again, they could have done like Comcast and others. Fact is what you pay to "rent" the equipment from these companies far exceeds the cost of the equipment. That $400 equipment most probably cost then significantly less than $400 and had been paid several times over.

Many companies write off such losses. During the Waldo Canyon fire, the Pikes Peak Library District told people not to worry about books lost in the fire. Same with Comcast and CenturyLink with destroyed equipment.

WildBill wrote:This is typical of companies that grow so big that the people in charge don't have any direct contact with their customers. These companies generate procedures, protocols and rules that are given to the employees so that they are not required or allowed to think or make decisions.

There are usually several causes:

1. The lawyers have told the company management to control employees in some conditions to avoid lawsuits. There was a guy who patented something to do with the term "call center" and made a practice of litigating company with centralized units that accepted customer contacts who attempted to use that term.
2. There are governmental regulations for how things have to be done. One of the worst is the mortgage industry. Many of the procedures and protocols are directly a result of governmental edicts.
3. It is cheaper to hire employees who don't have to think. So the company management teams try to simplify everything and make a "one size fits all " approach that doesn't require thinking. Most of the time, it doesn't work.

I've been a DirecTV customer for more than 10 years. I like their service but hate dealing with them. They definitely follow #3 above and seem to work hard at getting arrogant non-thinkers. I don't ever want to deal with the humans at DirecTV. I had a problem with a leased box. They sent me a new one and told me to scrape the old one locally. So much for those boxes having residual value.

Not sure when this forum became anti business.
The guy will file a claim with his insurance for the equipment and will be reimbursed for it but instead of paying what he agreed to contractually, he wants to pocket the money. Sounds like an Obama program to me.

From the DIRECTV website:

Does DIRECTV provide aid for customers impacted by natural disasters?

DIRECTV has policies in place to assist customers who are impacted by natural disasters. If you live in a declared disaster area, we'll work with you to find a solution that best fits your needs. Options available include:

Account cancellation - If service cannot be restored at your home due to the damage from a natural disaster, we will cancel your account, and waive any fees associated with the inability to return equipment, along with any remaining agreement on the account.
Account suspension - If you are without power for an extended period, we will suspend your account until power and services can be restored.
No-cost service calls - If service can be restored at your home, we will send a technician at no cost to ensure the dish is properly aligned and to fix any technical issues.
Equipment - If your equipment was damaged by a natural disaster, we will waive equipment replacement costs if you continue your DIRECTV service.
If you are a customer that has been affected, please contact 1-800-531-5000 so we can remedy your situation immediately

http://support.directv.com/app/answers/ ... -disasters" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

So, just in case the customer does not have insurance, there are other options available to him/her. Of course the customer may not know this since he/she does not have a computer to look at their website since everything was consumed in the fire. DIRECTV needs to do a better job of training their employees. If they had done so, the employee would have known about this policy and would have made for a better and more sympathetic solution to the customer's plight. And this all hinges on whether or not the fire and the area it was in is declared a disaster.

tomtexan wrote:And this all hinges on whether or not the fire and the area it was in is declared a disaster.

I'm sure it will be, Colorado was blue in the last election.