DirecTV - return equipment

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
If any satellite company is on the ropes it's Dish.
They no longer use their obsolete satellites but lease from DirecTV.
DirecTV being owned by AT&T will likely be folded\absorbed completely into AT&T and the name will go away when 5G becomes more widespread. except for rural areas not served by 5G.
My dish will go away and it will be all cellular.
 
They might could play dirty, if you try and send it back through The UPS store; do they require a Return Authorization Number?
I did get an email from them after I cancelled stating that I would be receiving a letter in the mail with an RA number. That letter never came. It was only when I inquired about it so i could get rid of the pile of equipment that I found out they didn't want it back, and in fact refused to take it back.
 
Good thread to read. I am an original DirecTV customer since 1996. Living in Pacifica at the time, the cable company was terrible, always going out. I was watching a commercial for DirecTV about TV with no underground wires, ooh boy, I'm in.
In my years of occasional issues, DirecTV had the best customer service and AT&T the worst. When they merged I did not get rid of my DirecTV account in fear of ATT service, but I caved a few years ago because it was cheaper. AT&T/DirecTV customer service remains better than I had expected.
My wife occasionally calls them and threatens moving to another service and they always throw in something and lower the price a little.
I have had new equipment or a new transponder at the dish, and if a tech comes, they always take any equipment they swap. I have had some rare occasions where they tell me to keep the old equipment.
For me DirecTV overall is really good, I do wheel and deal with them and seems every year I get NFL Ticket for reduced or free.
They don't (only a phone app) have a voice control remote which I find odd. There 4K content keeps improving, watching the Superbowl this year in 4K was cool.
 
Sounds like a great time to cut the cord. If the OTA channels aren't enough, there's always Roku. I cut the cord in 1999 and will never pay for programming again. It isn't worth it. Amazon Prime and an antenna are all I need.
 
Good thread to read. I am an original DirecTV customer since 1996. Living in Pacifica at the time, the cable company was terrible, always going out. I was watching a commercial for DirecTV about TV with no underground wires, ooh boy, I'm in.
In my years of occasional issues, DirecTV had the best customer service and AT&T the worst. When they merged I did not get rid of my DirecTV account in fear of ATT service, but I caved a few years ago because it was cheaper. AT&T/DirecTV customer service remains better than I had expected.
My wife occasionally calls them and threatens moving to another service and they always throw in something and lower the price a little.
I have had new equipment or a new transponder at the dish, and if a tech comes, they always take any equipment they swap. I have had some rare occasions where they tell me to keep the old equipment.
For me DirecTV overall is really good, I do wheel and deal with them and seems every year I get NFL Ticket for reduced or free.
They don't (only a phone app) have a voice control remote which I find odd. There 4K content keeps improving, watching the Superbowl this year in 4K was cool.
Funny how folks have different experiences.
I know Dish also never wanted their roof Dish antenna back. I’ve noticed those types of antennas all over the neighborhood and I’d bet many are no longer used.

I had pretty good service actually when I had Dish with a partnership with AT&T; but then got a much better deal with U-Verse DSL. The AT&T customer service is inconsistent at best (they really hate sending someone out for a service call, when my box went out - they get hotter than hell, probably due to cheap parts somehow.). But, the U-Verse has worked pretty well, only thing is the price keeps inching upwards.
The whole video content delivery industry keeps getting fragmented with stuff like Apple, Disney + & CBS All Access etc. etc.
I also use a Roku to access stuff like Amazon Prime Video (but they need to make Amazon Music available), Netflix & Disney+ ( because I have to have my Mandalorian!)
*edit- also the new YouTube Music is replacing Google Music (I have a lot of my CD music loaded on there) and that needs to be included on Roku.
What would really get me to use the Roku more is if the Tidal app could utilize Atmos sound. Or better yet an Involve stereo encoded Radio App, could be awesome :cool:
 
Last edited:
Sounds like a great time to cut the cord. If the OTA channels aren't enough, there's always Roku. I cut the cord in 1999 and will never pay for programming again. It isn't worth it. Amazon Prime and an antenna are all I need.
Same. The previous owners of my house had Dish, I just replaced the dish with a OTA antenna and reused the coax wiring in the house. Now I just need to figure out what the heck to do with the dish and converter box.
 
Same. The previous owners of my house had Dish, I just replaced the dish with a OTA antenna and reused the coax wiring in the house. Now I just need to figure out what the heck to do with the dish and converter box.
I’ve had OTA antenna (large outside) for years now; I do see a boost in picture quality from the cable/ Dish services because they must be using compression for bandwidth. I do believe the new 5G (real not faux) will change everything. There’s also the new OTA ATSC 3.0 coming for UHD and will even go up to 8K.
https://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/atsc-3-0-ota-broadcast-standard-4k-dolby-atmos/
 
Good thread to read. I am an original DirecTV customer since 1996. Living in Pacifica at the time, the cable company was terrible, always going out. I was watching a commercial for DirecTV about TV with no underground wires, ooh boy, I'm in.
In my years of occasional issues, DirecTV had the best customer service and AT&T the worst. When they merged I did not get rid of my DirecTV account in fear of ATT service, but I caved a few years ago because it was cheaper. AT&T/DirecTV customer service remains better than I had expected.
My wife occasionally calls them and threatens moving to another service and they always throw in something and lower the price a little.
I have had new equipment or a new transponder at the dish, and if a tech comes, they always take any equipment they swap. I have had some rare occasions where they tell me to keep the old equipment.
For me DirecTV overall is really good, I do wheel and deal with them and seems every year I get NFL Ticket for reduced or free.
They don't (only a phone app) have a voice control remote which I find odd. There 4K content keeps improving, watching the Superbowl this year in 4K was cool.

I loved Directv before AT&T got involved...they always gave me credits if I had any problem and they actually fixed things....when I used to follow the NFL....DTV was the best around with Sunday Ticket...I knew it was going to go downhill when I called about a technical problem after AT&T took over and the tech guy tells me they have been trying to fix a problem for 6 months and can't fix it 🤭 then that website they have now looks like a teenager set it up...they are obsessed with "integration" of all their assets...it's not easy to get someone to talk to and then you have to hope they can speak English well enough so you can understand them....
 
Just a thought Gene. You can recycle that Direct TV dish by panning for gold in the Pacific Northwest!


See the source image

THERE'S GOLD IN THEM THERE HILLS🏵
 
Years & years ago I had Dish because analog cable was pretty bad back then. I liked getting big city chs like Chicago & LA but disliked having to put a big Winegard 'tenna on the roof for local. I also noticed as time went on that dish seemed to have best quality only on prime time. Late night had some pixel artifacts & strangely enough way bad pixelation on fade outs.

Eventually cable was the 1st to go HD & I switched back. We have only one TV on cable at present. the upstairs family set. My projector downstairs has an OTA ATSC tuner for the 2>3 times a year I want to watch it.

At one time TV & internet was not so tied together. I think in my Dish days I had DSL. But really if there is any other choice I don't know why anyone would go the Dish/Direct TV/DSL route.

1601482643349.png


I quite happy with the DL speed but as you can see upload is much slower. That, and as I said cost, is why I will switch to Google soon with fast up/down speeds.
 
Good thread to read. I am an original DirecTV customer since 1996. Living in Pacifica at the time, the cable company was terrible, always going out. I was watching a commercial for DirecTV about TV with no underground wires, ooh boy, I'm in.
In my years of occasional issues, DirecTV had the best customer service and AT&T the worst. When they merged I did not get rid of my DirecTV account in fear of ATT service, but I caved a few years ago because it was cheaper. AT&T/DirecTV customer service remains better than I had expected.
My wife occasionally calls them and threatens moving to another service and they always throw in something and lower the price a little.
I have had new equipment or a new transponder at the dish, and if a tech comes, they always take any equipment they swap. I have had some rare occasions where they tell me to keep the old equipment.
For me DirecTV overall is really good, I do wheel and deal with them and seems every year I get NFL Ticket for reduced or free.
They don't (only a phone app) have a voice control remote which I find odd. There 4K content keeps improving, watching the Superbowl this year in 4K was cool.
Yes. I bought my first dish at WalMart and set it up. Finally AT&T smelled it up to much for me. Then when I moved to Dish, they wouldn' t let Dish be an HBO provider. Out here where we live there is no cable, there IS fiber down every pig trail installed under the "broadband America" initiative. They gave it to Windstream who refuse to provide me with fiber, and the fastest I can get (double twisted pair ADSL) thankfully is good enough to stream.
 
Just bring the equipment to the UPS store. You don't need anything else. The UPS store person does it all the time and will answer your questions.
 
Sounds like a great time to cut the cord. If the OTA channels aren't enough, there's always Roku. I cut the cord in 1999 and will never pay for programming again. It isn't worth it. Amazon Prime and an antenna are all I need.
That's where I'm at now. Roku TV and an antenna. Hulu is my most used app.
 
So, long and short of it. We canceled our DirecTV and switched to Dish. We only had DirecTV for 1.4 years. So, pretty up to date equipment. 3 wifi devices for 3 TV's and a big tower control center that fed those 3 boxes.

We had little, if any directive from DTV as to how to return this equipment. Go online, not really a lot of info...finally, call them. They tell us we can get rid of ALL of the equipment any way we see fit.

Huh? Never, from any other provider has that happened. Always, send a box, return equipment. We drilled the lady, said, your website says we will be charged if we don't return equipment within 21 days ( I think that's what it said) of cancellation. She just laughed and said, do not worry.

Anyone else cancel lately and have new equipment that they supposedly do not want returned? Why am I paranoid??
So, long and short of it. We canceled our DirecTV and switched to Dish. We only had DirecTV for 1.4 years. So, pretty up to date equipment. 3 wifi devices for 3 TV's and a big tower control center that fed those 3 boxes.

We had little, if any directive from DTV as to how to return this equipment. Go online, not really a lot of info...finally, call them. They tell us we can get rid of ALL of the equipment any way we see fit.

Huh? Never, from any other provider has that happened. Always, send a box, return equipment. We drilled the lady, said, your website says we will be charged if we don't return equipment within 21 days ( I think that's what it said) of cancellation. She just laughed and said, do not worry.

Anyone else cancel lately and have new equipment that they supposedly do not want returned? Why am I paranoid??
I had an Directv tuner go bad a few years ago, they sent me a new one and told me to dispose of the old one any way I wanted. I took it to the local dump and put it in the electronics pile. I remember thinking it was strange, and kind of felt like they were not being good stewards of their gear AND then environment.
 
To return your DirecTV equipment, you just bring it to any UPS Store. They scan each piece and give you a receipt then they take care of packing it up and shipping it back with no cost to you. Pretty simple...


Actually I think it might be FedEx unless things changed - I canceled about 3 years back after say 17 years with them - I got a lot of bad advice from calling.....anything from we will send you a box and prepaid postage to send back to your equipment is old so no need. I double checked on some ATT forums, which I can not find now which went over exactly what to do even if they tell you not to.........I had some old receivers and a couple of semi old.........turns out for some reason they wanted the semi old back, but no one on the phones knew that........I took them to a FedEx store - they scanned and gave me a receipt. Never heard anything back

On those forums there are some horror stories of Directv telling peeps do not worry, but then they get a bill for un returned equipment a year later and have no problem sending them to collections.

If I can find the forums again I will let you know...........the questions were answered by ATT techs so they knew what they were talking about.
 
  • Like
Reactions: GOS
Back
Top