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Other than a screenshot, today’s update has little to do with Battletech.  Instead, I will rant about experiences with DirectTV.

On February 9th, my roommate and I got DirectTV setup, to be bundled into our Qwest phone and DSL service.  The installation guy showed up when he was supposed to and got everything set up the way it’s supposed to be.  We have the HD DVR in the living room and a standard-def receiver in the basement so we have something to watch when we’re reloading.  A few days later, we got the paper in the mail to detail the installation, listing the dish we alread had $0.00, the standard receiver $0.00, the HD DVR $199.00, the instant rebate $0.00, installation, delivery and taxes $0.00.  Total cost: $0.00

For a week, all was good.  Then last night, I get a phone call, a recording stating that they haven’t received payment yet and a reminder that we need to pay the bill within five days to avoid late fees.  wtf?  We go online to see what’s going on and find the front page lists us owing $84.27.  wtf?  When we look at “View All Orders”, we find a statement that reflects the paper will we received in the mail.  But, if we look at “Activity Since Last Bill”, it looks very different:

This morning, I started by calling Qwest to verify where our DirectTV bill is going to come from, them or DirectTV.  He stated that when everything gets finalized, the DirectTV part will be included as part of our Qwest bill.  The guy was very cool, explained everything from the Qwest end and asked me about work, being familiar with Cabelas.  At the end, he suggested I speak with DirectTV, just to make sure there isn’t any confusion on their end.  I gave DirectTV a call and got a recording.  When it asks to explain what I’m having problems with, it doesn’t understand “I want a human being” but it does know that “I have questions about my bill” means “I want a human being” and transfers me to a representative with an accent. So, I start describing the above, pointing out that I’m not having any problem with the DirectTV service, I just want to clarify the bill and make sure we’ve not been billed twice or for something that we don’t have.  The phone goes silent.  I wait a minute and say “I just want to make sure the bill is right.”  Silence…  The representative then asks, “Do you still have the error message on screen?”  I explain that I don’t really have an error message.  Service is fine, I’m calling from work and just need to figure out the billing records.  Silence…     She then asked “Have you tried unplugging the receiver and plugging it back in?”  Silence…    I didn’t know what to say at that so I just hung up.  We’ll give it a shot again tonight after work.