DirecTV was contacted by the reporter doing the story, and they made it clear they plan to continue the practice of pushing installers to hook up phone lines, because users who do so are more likely to order fee-based content and can be more easily tracked by DirecTV. Unfortunately, the article isn’t entirely clear whether it’s the contracting firm or DirecTV who was directly responsible for the fines or the directives to lie to customers. In order to enforce this, the company would fine installers any time a box was set up without a phone line connected. Technicians were told to tell users that it was required, or the device wouldn’t work - even though that’s false.
Apparently, a group of DirecTV technicians in Florida (who work for an outside contractor) have blown the whistle on the fact that the company set up incentives that forced them to lie to customers, in order to get people to hook their telephone lines up to the DirecTV boxes. The latest news story represents even more fun for the company. Second, they were fined for their advertising, which didn’t make clear certain blackout info and (of course) additional unexpected fees that subscribers would get. First, they were telemarketing to people on the Do Not Call list. Just a few months ago, though, we noted that the company was being fined for two different violations. Eventually, the company was forced to stop the program, as a court found obvious problems with the practice. It was a similar plan to the RIAA, where they made it clear that it was much cheaper to just pay up, rather than go to court and prove your innocence (even if you were innocent). You may recall a few years ago when they (before the RIAA figured out a similar scheme) sent around letters to anyone they suspected of using a smartcard reader (they got a list of buyers) demanding $3,500 or promising a lawsuit - even if there was no evidence that the smartcard reader was used to illegally access DirecTV signals.
While so much attention is paid to the recording industry for its sleazy practices, it’s surprising that DirecTV doesn’t get more attention for its practices.
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