DIRECTV is going under fire for the terms of their early cancellation fees. If you are a Dish Network customer, consider yourself lucky that you are not in the same boat as some DIRECTV consumers.The satellite TV provider requires that consumers sign a two-year commitment when they sign up for new service. There used to be a 12-month commitment with standard equipment, but that was upgraded to an 18-month commitment and soon after that raised to two-years. Now, every customer who signs up for DIRECTV must sign a two-year agreement, regardless of his or her equipment or programming. If a consumer tries to cancel DIRECTV before the two years are up, the company will assign a financial penalty of $20 per month for every month that still remains on the consumer’s agreement.Because of this, DIRECTV has drawn much criticism from consumers and is now the target of a class action lawsuit and legislation from two New York state legislators. Many subscribers have complained that the early cancellation policy is hidden in small print in the agreement. The two New York state legislators have checked these claims and agreed that these claims are correct. As a result, they have introduced a bill that would require cable and satellite companies to disclose the cancellation fees in the same font size as the service's sales price.Another complaint is that DIRECTV often 're-starts' the two-year commitment clock if it replaces a defective set-top. A DIRECTV spokesman told the Times: â€If it’s a broken receiver, we don’t turn the clock back. There has been some administrative errors where a customer service agent will accidentally start the clock again on the two-year commitment.†However, one aspect of the â€re-starting of the commitment†is true: if you upgrade to advanced equipment such as a DVR or HD receiver, DIRECTV restarts the two-year commitment every time you do so. Better Business Bureau has reported having received more than 30,000 complaints about DIRECTV’s cancellation policy. As a result, the BBB has changed DIRECTV's rating from a "B" to "no rating." Several cable and satellite rivals are rated an "A" or "B."In a related development, a group of California consumers have filed a class action lawsuit against DIRECTV, saying the company "unlawfully" removed money from their bank accounts and credit card accounts without their knowledge when they tried to cancel their subscriptions. By: Frank Bilotta
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