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DirecTV Now - Avoid the Price Increase

Juicy Box

Juicy Box

macrumors 604
Original poster
Sep 23, 2014
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8,961
BLUF:
If you do not like the price increases with DirecTV Now plans, call them and complain, you might be offered a good deal to keep you as a customer.


Long story:
I am paying for a DirecTV Now since last summer when I signed up for the free ATV4K deal.

I originally signed up for the service to assist my parents when they cut the cord. While I pay for the service, I never actually use it, just my parents do. The "Live a Little" plan was $35 until Oct 2018 when it was increased to $40.

Now with the recent price increase (another $10), I planned on switching my parents to Sling unless I was able to keep my rate with DirecTV Now.

I had trouble finding an actually phone number for customer support for DirecTV Now, but I did find a live chat for customer service. I told them the situation, let them know that I planned on switching unless I could get my plan lowered, and the rep offered me a $10 a month discount for three months.

I thanked the rep, but told them that I would still switch to Sling before the 3 month period because of the increase, and they offered to make the discount permanent.

I accepted.

If anyone is getting an increase, it might be worth contacting them to try to reduce your sub price.
 
I have been offered deals from dtn from chat support, which they never honored. I ended up dropping them and going to sling. Keep an eye on your bills.
 
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Interesting. I think they're losing a lot of business over the price hike, and now so soon after that, they have to contend with customers angry about the threat of losing the Viacom channels.

With PS Vue, which we had before DirecTV Now, they had a carriage dispute with Viacom, and Sony eventually decided to drop those channels altogether. I don't see that happening with DTVN, but who knows.

We're grandfathered on the DTVN Go Big plan now, but I've been thinking about switching to Philo ($16/mo) or Sling ($30 for the channels we'd need).
 
vertical smile said:
I had trouble finding an actually phone number for customer support for DirecTV Now,
Click to expand...

Satellite DirecTV was the best cable class service in the industry. They had the best support, the best DVR, the most channels. The customer came first. After AT&T took over the cost cutting began. Customer service is now terrible, even if you can find the phone number. They put full screen pay per view advertisements in the screen saver - that's ~5 feet of advertising in your living room. That put me over the edge and I am reluctantly switching to gigabit Comcast 4 play to get more service for less cost. Comcast does have ads on their screen saver, but they are not intrusive.

What you are experiencing demonstrates how AT&T is destroying what was a great product. They did the same for grandfathered data plans. With all of the new video providers, including maybe Apple, I'd look for another service that puts the customer first. AT&T never will.

The prognosis is not good for HBO.
 
RickGrimes said:
Pass. If DirecTv is in the name. They get no business from me.
Click to expand...
Then why do you feel the need to read the thread and comment? Just to be irritating?
[doublepost=1553191169][/doublepost]
vertical smile said:
BLUF:
If you do not like the price increases with DirecTV Now plans, call them and complain, you might be offered a good deal to keep you as a customer.
Click to expand...
I can't even find a way to get into chat with them. How pathetic...

I looked at Sling, but by the time we add in a few channels we often watch, the cost is the same.
 
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Beachguy said:
I can't even find a way to get into chat with them. How pathetic...
Click to expand...
I can't remember how I did it.

I may have used the "assistant", and clicked on options to activate a live chat. Or, maybe it linked me to an at&t website that had a live chat on it.

When I get home, I will try to remember to check it out again, and I will post it here.

But, you are correct, it was not a straight-forward, easy thing to do.
 
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I have been getting DirecTV Now for almost nothing since my wife is an AT&T employee. When I first got it a year ago I was excited. But several things have frustrated me more and more. You cannot pause and rewind live TV. The sign in credentials stopped working on ESPN3 and a number of other apps, the resolution is often terrible on mobile even when you have fast wifi or LTE, the AppleTV app is ok-ish, but it has terrible buffering when you to 15 second skip forward on the DVR (really the DVR is bad).
So, even though DirecTV Now is almost free for me, I have switched to YouTubeTV. I was reluctant, because I think the normal YouTube interface is not good, but there is no resemblance. YouTubeTV solves every problem I listed above. It is much better. It doesn't have HBO, but you get that free with AT&T wireless anyway. I highly recommend ditching DirectVNow and trying YouTubeTV. It's not even close.
Now let's see what Apple has to offer today.
 
Directv and Comcast both do the teaser rate with built in price hikes and hoping you don't complain.. at which point they lower the price to match new subscribers. I hate that ****. If Apple offered a one price for all plan I'll jump to it to avoid having to call those ******s every year to get back a reasonable rate.
 
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Beachguy said:
can't even find a way to get into chat with them. How pathetic...
Click to expand...

vertical smile said:
When I get home, I will try to remember to check it out again, and I will post it here.
Click to expand...

Sorry about taking so long, I actually forgot to look into it.

There isn't a straightforward way of getting to the live chat as far as I can tell, but this will get you there:

1. Go to directvnow.com

2. Click "SIGN IN" in the upper-right hand corner and then sign in using your username and password

3. Click the gear for settings up top, then click on "Account Details"

4. Towards the bottom, under the section of "Need help?" there is a button called "Chat available", which might take a few seconds to appear after the page loads. Click it once it appears

5. This will take you to the automated "Virtual Assistant", type "I would like to discuss the price increase"

6. The Virtual Assistant will ask for your first name, enter it, and you will be connected to a Live Agent.


If anyone has a better way, please post it.
 
mark34 said:
I have been getting DirecTV Now for almost nothing since my wife is an AT&T employee. When I first got it a year ago I was excited. But several things have frustrated me more and more. You cannot pause and rewind live TV. The sign in credentials stopped working on ESPN3 and a number of other apps, the resolution is often terrible on mobile even when you have fast wifi or LTE, the AppleTV app is ok-ish, but it has terrible buffering when you to 15 second skip forward on the DVR (really the DVR is bad).
So, even though DirecTV Now is almost free for me, I have switched to YouTubeTV. I was reluctant, because I think the normal YouTube interface is not good, but there is no resemblance. YouTubeTV solves every problem I listed above. It is much better. It doesn't have HBO, but you get that free with AT&T wireless anyway. I highly recommend ditching DirectVNow and trying YouTubeTV. It's not even close.
Now let's see what Apple has to offer today.
Click to expand...

This is exactly what I plan on doing before my DTV Now plan renews next month (and going to YouTube TV). If I didn't have frequent DVR issues and could rewind live TV, I would probably take the OP's advise and reach out to customer support. But I've just about had it with DTV Now. Had it not been for the $5/month access to HBO, I would definitely regret switching from PS Vue.

EDIT: As an update, I went through the motions of cancelling Directv Now via their web site. I clicked cancel and the next page took me a coupon where if I clicked it, I'd get $10 off for three months.

So a bit similar to what the OP got. I'm not sure if everyone will get this coupon though when they attempt to cancel.
 
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I contacted their chat and after speaking with the first rep who pretty much just told me which plan I had and that the rate would be increasing $10, I asked to speak to a supervisor. She was a bit more helpful, but still refused to help keep the cost down outside of a 1 month only $10 discount, she even went so far as to offer to cancel my account while she still had it pulled up. AT&T doesn't seem to care about losing customers over this price hike, but I hope they lose enough that it hurts them.
 
nburwell said:
EDIT: As an update, I went through the motions of cancelling Directv Now via their web site. I clicked cancel and the next page took me a coupon where if I clicked it, I'd get $10 off for three months.
Click to expand...

Good to know.

Chough said:
I contacted their chat and after speaking with the first rep who pretty much just told me which plan I had and that the rate would be increasing $10, I asked to speak to a supervisor. She was a bit more helpful, but still refused to help keep the cost down outside of a 1 month only $10 discount, she even went so far as to offer to cancel my account while she still had it pulled up. AT&T doesn't seem to care about losing customers over this price hike, but I hope they lose enough that it hurts them.
Click to expand...

See @nburwell post above, it might work for you too.
 
vertical smile said:
I can't remember how I did it.

I may have used the "assistant", and clicked on options to activate a live chat. Or, maybe it linked me to an at&t website that had a live chat on it.

When I get home, I will try to remember to check it out again, and I will post it here.

But, you are correct, it was not a straight-forward, easy thing to do.
Click to expand...


If you want human interaction for customer support as a Direct TV Now customer, call in to the new sales line. Real people answer those phones.
[doublepost=1554224294][/doublepost]
Chough said:
I contacted their chat and after speaking with the first rep who pretty much just told me which plan I had and that the rate would be increasing $10, I asked to speak to a supervisor. She was a bit more helpful, but still refused to help keep the cost down outside of a 1 month only $10 discount, she even went so far as to offer to cancel my account while she still had it pulled up. AT&T doesn't seem to care about losing customers over this price hike, but I hope they lose enough that it hurts them.
Click to expand...

This is the problem with AT&T and all the tech behemoths: the only thing that hurts them is a drop in the stock price, and that's really hard to do. Apple had to miss iDevice sales by $1 billion in order for it to register on its stock price; customers leaving - even in large numbers - won't move the needle enough to force a course correction.
 
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rayward said:
If you want human interaction for customer support as a Direct TV Now customer, call in to the new sales line. Real people answer those phones.
Click to expand...

Do you have the number? I had trouble finding it.
 
I just cancelled my account using the chat assistant, took about 5 minutes. I was a customer from day 1, Nov. of 2016, with the promised "go big" plan for $35 for as long as the account was kept open. First the $5 increase last year for the crap dvr that I don't want and now $10 increase. Adios att
 
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I did the chat with them a few weeks back and I was offered $10 off for the next 3 months. Credit was applied right away for first month. I will have to revisit in two months or start looking at Sling or Philo TV.
 
Looks like predicted price increase starting next month for original Go Big. Edit: decided likely to keep it as the competition isn't as good for channel choices and cost (as much as I dislike the increase).
 
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So the price goes up and will no longer have NFL Sunday ticket.

More money. Less content. Winning strategy AT&T.
 
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