How To Cancel DirecTV – 5 Simple Steps
DirecTV is a satellite service that provides you with all channels you want, including premium channels like HBO, NFL Sunday ticket and SHOWTIME. The DirecTV has a two-year subscription with second-year price hikes, and the company offers you’re a great variety of channels for family, sports addicts and movie buffs. One must have to budget wisely to install the service in their house.
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Cancelling the service is a more tangled process than installing it, but that’s where we come in. Today, we will tell you the most straightforward way by which you can cancel the DirecTV service and safe a lot of money.
Cancelling the service is a long way process which includes long holds and countless call transfers. It’s a long and expensive procedure so one must have time and patience to deal with it. But don’t be afraid because this piece of content will let you know, precisely what to do and what to say when cancelling the DirecTV service.
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There are different alternative ways to cancel the subscription, and by following these ways, you can save a lot of money too. So let’s dive in and find out what to do.
How To Cancel DirecTV – 5 Simple Steps
1.Collect the latest bill and account Information
Firstly you will be required to have the necessary PINS and account numbers from which your subscription is associated. If you are using the service before AT&T acquired it, then you need to dig deep, check emails and find the right information. After the merge, there are chances that they have updated you with any changed information that you might be unaware of. Let me assure you that, to avoid any further hassle, AT&T tried to make billing and processing of the same department. In the account displays panel, you can find your contact information like how much time of service is left.
2.The phone call
The second and most crucial step is to make sure that you are going to talk to the retention department because there is no way to cancel your subscription online or through an Email. Call to their main number ( i.e. 800.288.2020 or check the bill) or follow the menu and tell them that you won’t cancel the service. Don’t indulge yourself into technical support or billing or any other department, just say “cancel service” or else you will end up among infinite call transfer or heading up to departments. The direct phone number of DirecTV is 1-800-288-2020.
Make sure that your talking to the right person if not, ask the person you are talking, transferring the call to the retention. No one but retention centre can proceed with your service cancellation process. The timing of customer service centre is between 8 am and midnight EST, every day.
Phrases that might help
As you know, service providers always try to keep the customers in anyways, which leads to long conversations, and this makes it difficult for a customer to cancel the service. So to make the process simpler, here are some phrases that are very useful and make the cancellation process faster.
“Please connect the call to someone who can help me cancel my account”: This happens some time that you call isn’t connected to the one who can help you in cancelling your service. So after the call transfer, be ready to say that “Please connect the call to someone who can help me cancel my account.” This phrase will help you to get to the right person faster.
“I switched services”: This is a past tense phrase, which means that you are no longer in need of their services. By listening to this phrase that you have already switched your satellite services that customer support will speed up to proceed with the cancellation process. In case, they still ask that ‘what we can do to get you back?’ so just be ready to ignore such type of questions because now, you have already the satellite services.
“I’m moving and don’t want service anymore”: Thisphrase isn’t powerful enough but can help you get rid of the service. They will offer you to transfer and place the service to wherever you’re are moving. So just say that you are moving out of state or country to get rid of services. Most people say that they are leaving the country so that the customer services won’t offer you moving services options.
“I’m cutting the cord because I don’t need any TV services any longer”: This is the excuse customer service hear usually. By using this phrase, there are fewer chances that they will try to save the conversion or try to keep because you have already made your mind to cut the cord. This is the currently fastest and money-saving way by which you can cancel the DirecTV.
3. Stick to the point and be friendly on the call.
Who wants to lose his customers? Yes, no one like that. This is why DirecTV will offer you huge discounts, service transfers, they might offer NFL Sunday ticket, they can also offer you to switch the services to AT&T (it’s the same company). Basically, they will do their best to get you back to their services by even offering you a new contract at lower prices. If you want to get rid of their services, so be straight to the point. Make sure that you stay as calm and friendly as possible.
DirecTV is powerful more than you think, they can cancel the service before the mentioned date and still charge you. So, being friendly and calm to them helps in the process of cancellation.
4.Returning the DirecTV Equipment
If you think that cancelling subscription through call is enough so let me make you correct you that there are still things left to do. You need to return their equipment’s. They have still an advantage over you because you have the equipment. Make sure to return the equipment as soon as possible. The equipment includes remote, receivers and access cards. The good news is that you won’t have to return the satellite dish.
This is an important step in the cancellation of their service. If you don’t return their equipment’s they will keep charging you and add the costs in your deactivating fees and this can leave you in great trouble.
Fortunately, the returning procedure is quite straight forward. Note that, you can’t just take the equipment to the AT&T store. They will send you prepaid box, and you’ll have to fill it up by equipment and then return the box to the post office or have it picked up by them.
5.Confirm your cancellation
So, this is a final and most important step to confirm your cancellation, because sometimes the DirecTV agents make mistakes. If you think you are done with cancellation procedure, there are chances that the agents might put you in the wrong system entry.
Fortunately, there is one easy solution to avoid this blunder, and that is, to call the agent and make it confirm that you have successfully cancelled the DirecTV. Once you are done with the above procedure, call them again and confirm the details. Ask them if they receive the equipment.
Or if there any balance unpaid or you can also ask them about any early termination fees. It’s a tedious way but it’s the easiest way to make sure that you are fully done with whole cancellation procedure.
Things to know before you make the cancellation call.
It’s good to know these things before you make the cancellation call.
- You must be the owner of the account:
Your name will appear on your bill so the person calling for cancellation must be the owner of the account. Unfortunately, if the account owner has died, then the person who is calling in exchange for him and wants to cancel the services must explain the situation carefully or identify their self. They might also need to provide some proof like mails then you can easily the transfer the account if you want.
- You can’t cancel the subscription through immediately on holidays:
You can’t just cancel the DirecTV between the holidays, and even if you do it, then don’t expect the procedures to be in action till next business days. In short, if you want cancellation of service, then you must inform the agents when there are a couple of business days left before holidays.
- Don’t accept a temporary account suspension if you don’t need it:
What temporary blockage do is, it suspendsyour accounts so you can save some money. If you aremovingout of the country, don’t accept the suspension go for the permanent cancellation. Don’t get convinced by suspension when permanent cancellation is what you need.
- Not all services are available, every time:
You all would be pretty sure that contacts of customer’s services sometimes lie about what services are available. They lie about how TV services are like, how it works; they don’t mention the hidden charges in the cancellation in the service or how the service will be cancelled. Just remember you can’t believe what just heard. We are sure by following our procedure and phrases you can easily get cancellation of services.
What are the hidden charges or penalties of cancellation of the service?
The hidden charges we talked about is the sudden cancellation fees for DirecTV. The service of DirecTV is quite cagey when it comes to terms of payments.
If you cancel the subscription before the contract’s end, then you will need to pay $15 and possibly $15 more if you weren’t keeping up your minimum programming requirements with the package you’ve chosen.
Then secondly there is a deactivation fee, and here the things get worse. This fees start with an initial rate of $20 and then doubles every month. So if you want to cancel the contract after the sixth month of the service then you will have to pay $120 plus $15 and other charges will sum it up to more than $150, which doesn’t sound well.
We have heard there is a way which many people get the DirecTV to waive the early cancellation fee. If you have a family member, you bought the subscription, and they’ve passed away, only in this condition they DirecTV will waive the early cancellation fees.
If you are using the DirecTV service from a long time that you experience their increase in rate, then there are chances that DirecTV will waive your early cancellation fee. They usually increase the rates at the end of the year, in November or December. These are two ways by which one can avoid a cancellation penalty.
Unfortunately, there is not any other way to cancel the subscription without penalty. If you want to call to customers, you can call and argue to them about the fees, but it’s a trap and now you are trapped you will have to pay the deactivation fees anyhow. If you find any mistake in billing or services, don’t be shy to ask for an explanation, it sometimes happens that they might charge you with some extra money mistakenly.
Conclusion
DirecTV is very catchy about the money, so if you return the equipment after 21 days or if the equipment is damaged then you will need to pay $45 for each standard DirecTV receiver, genie mini, HD receiver and $135 for each DVR, HD DVR and Genie HD DVR.
So make sure that you return the equipment promptly or else you’ll have to pay for all the equipment. And according to your agreement they DirecTV reserve the right to charge this fees on your credit or debit card. While the good thing is you won’t have to return the satellite dish, so try to make it fit into the boxes.
If you are happy with the service but rates are what makes you sad then tell us, and we will connect you the websites that help in negotiating the rates with DirecTV without losing any services.