Rick's World

Well, it took 6 weeks, 3 failed appointments and way too many angry phone calls to DirecTV and Mastec, but I finally won, and got what I want. Today, Mastec came by and installed the DirecTV wiring in my computer room! Even better, they didn't charge me anything!

I had an appointment with them this past Saturday to have my cabling done. They were supposed to show up between 1 and 5pm. They never showed up. They never called. Nothing. This was the third time in a row that they had stood me up for an installation appointment with no explanation. I was so furious Saturday, I couldn't speak.

I called DirecTV this morning to complain. She looked over the notes of my installation request and noted that I had told them that they had already failed to show up twice before Saturday's appointment. I told them and they noted in the installation request that this past Saturday's appointment must not be missed. It was and I was angry. After explaining this to the DirecTV agent, as calmly as I could manage, she called Mastec immediately while I was on the phone. She proceeded to chew them out (in a very polite way) that they had repeatedly failed to perform the installation and that this was unacceptable. She even implied that they would be CHARGING Mastec for these failed installation. After bouncing back and forth between the national and two different local Mastec offices, I was told they would definately arrange an appointment for today. Now, I was at work at the time, so the typical 4 hour installation window was not acceptable, and I told them this. I said that they would have a 1 hour window to show up. No more. After a few more calls back and forth, I was finally able to arrange for them to arrive at my house at 4:30PM this afternoon. I usually get off of work at 6pm, but I left at 4pm, in order to make the appointment. I was called by the installer himself who said he was on the way to my house. I gave him directions and headed home.

At 4:30pm, the installer arrived. I wanted to get 4 plugs installed - 2 in each of the two bedrooms that don't already have DirecTV. I wanted to get all possible future cabling done today so I wouldn't have to worry about it. I was fully prepared to pay them for the installation. The installer who arrived was obviously new because he didn't know what he was doing. He ended up calling a senior installer who also showed up and helped out. Then a THIRD guy showed up and between the three of them they were able to get the cabling installed. It took several hours, but I now have two cables running in my home office and DirecTV works. They said they couldn't do the other 2 plugs, but that whenever I decided to add another receiver to that room, I could just call them and the installation would be included. They originally told me they would have to charge me $55.50 for the 2nd wire in the home office (since a normal installation is only 1 wire). I told them I was fine with paying that... It was already less than I was expecting. I was expecting about $80/cable. $160 total. Once they were done, they just packed up their things and left. They never charged me anything.

So now, once all is said and done, it took me 6 weeks, but now I have working DirecTV in my home office, it cost me nothing and in fact my DirecTV bill went DOWN by $10/month for the next year to compensate. It was long and frustrating, but I did come out ahead in the end.