My sister Joannie also suffered an awful experience with DirecTV. She forwarded her thoughts to me to share:

I could not agree with you more. DirecTV is absolutely HORRIBLE. I have never had a worse customer service experience with any other company. I took off from work at 12:30pm this afternoon for an installation appointment that's been set for 2 weeks. At 2:00, some local technician calls to cancel b/c "they don't have any dishes in stock." If I had not been so furious, I would've started laughing that the installation service for satellite TV had run out of satellite dishes. And, for some reason could not give me any advance notice whatsoever. At 5:00pm, I was still on the phone trying to find someone that would give me any acceptable explanation without leaving me on hold for 20 minutes or hanging up on me. It was unbelievable. I would recommend that anyone considering DirecTV (even if it is a few dollars cheaper) reconsider.

That's pretty much how it works with DirecTV. They get your money, then they lock themselves in a fortress surrounded by a moat that can only be crossed by waiting on hold for about an hour, or in one case for me, two hours and eleven minutes. Then you yell at some people who transfer you to other people, again putting you on hold for a half hour at a time. And then, if they're sick of you, they just hang up on you and force you to start over, waiting on hold for an eternity to speak to an entirely different customer service rep.

Here's the trick. They never give you a direct line to anyone you speak to, so every time you call back you're starting from scratch. Every time you have to wait on hold and listen to cloying pop music for an hour, and punch in your phone number, then repeat that same phone number to the rep, then start your story over from the beginning...every time the cycle repeats, you feel yourself one circle deeper into Hell, your blood temperature rising accordingly. Dealing with DirecTV is like trying to play that Whack-a-Mole game, one that can't be beat. I managed to get a supervisor on the line just once, and he was an ass, threatening me with in a condescending tone before hanging up on me.

Having worked at Amazon.com, one of the most customer-friendly companies in the world, dealing with a company like DirecTV, which couldn't care less what their customers experience, is shocking. The Better Business Bureau rates DirecTV a CCC, translated as a "good" rating, but based on my experience with them this time I rate them as a D at best.