Dish and Direct TV

We were scammed by Direct TV because they used another "install" company who sent us to collections after we canceled. We owed $300 unfairly and they would not listen at all. VERY MEAN COMPANY!

It can really depends a lot on if you watch sports or not. Directv has the best sports programing around. It has channels that Dish does not. I don't like Dish, had horrible experience with them and had it for about 2 years. As soon as my contract was over I went back to Directv. (I had had Directv at another place) Directv also has more HD programming. I have had only good experiences when calling customer service where as I did not with Dish! hope tyhis helps

We have had Dish for several years and never had a problem with it or customer service. I got divorced and had DirectTV installed in my new house because they promised a low price for the first year. It took me calling every month for 6 months before they actually gave me the price the said because of "the way we bill". Customer service is terrible and watch their billing. Haven't had any problems with the service or equipment tho. Just watch your bills closely, they like to throw in charges and pass you off to someone else. Can't wait for the 2 years, that was supposed to be 1, to switch to Dish.

We used to have Dish a long time ago. They were okay, but I got very annoyed with their customer service when/if I'd call to change/add something, and finally we went with Comcast, which at the time was about the same price. Fast forward 5 years, and I am having Direct TV installed in my new home - today as a matter of fact, so while I can't speak to their quality I can say they had phenomenal customer service when I called. I was planning to go with Comcast, but they treated me like a turd the day of install, and suffice to say the install didn't go through. I was so mad I called DTV, and have since heard nothing but good things from people (almost all people anyhow). They claim to have the highest quality HD, and the most HD channels, and the best customer service. All claims though, not sure yet if that's fact. The installer has already called me this morning to give me an 'update' on when he'll be here (since they assigned me the typical 4 hour window), which is more than I can say for Comcast who made me suffer for all 4 of them.

If you do go with DTV, try to find someone with service to give you their account number and you and they will each receive $100 rebate/credit. I didn't know about this until after I'd ordered, but I'm going to see if I can still swing it. Go to their website and type 'refer a friend' in the search box, and you'll get the details. They are also offering $100 right now if you sign up for auto pay.

we had direct TV for a few years as someone else stated customer service was not very good. when it would go offline it was off for a while. we owned our satelite and they would charge us for rental fees and then not get them credited back for a while--the "all you need is a clear view of the southern sky" means no clouds at all if you are considering the internet...I wouldn't do that. I made them break that contract since they couldn't deliver the service. we use comcast now since it is finally in our area. I'm a lot happier--that was our experience with direct TV

We've had direcTV almost since it came out. Really like it, but the price is kinda ick. I have no premium channels and I pay like $72/month. I know that if you're a first time subscriber with either, they will give you like 3 months of some premium channels.

MIL has Dish and she likes it. My problem with Dish is the menu and guide aren't set up like DirecTV, which I'm used to.

However, am thinking of changing to Dish because they have been offering deals starting at $24/month!

We just switched from Comcast to Direct TV and have been really happy so far. Zero problems, great picture. My husband looked at both exhaustively and thought DirectTV was a better deal.

We've had Dish about a year and are very satisfied with it. The satellite occasionally (like twice a month for half an hour) goes out during bad mountain thunderstorms in the summer (we're at 9000 ft), but doesn't even go out during big snow storms for us. The guy who installed it for us was extremely polite and helpful, got it all set up and showed us how to use the remote. We've had absolutely no problems, and it's very reasonably priced.
My husband is a huge football fan, and I think he's been able to see every Broncos game this season with the sports package (I think only $5.00 extra), if that's a concern. :)

I have used Directv in California and here.

Be careful with DirectTV. We've had numerous people tell us that it was very difficult to cancel with them and the customer service was poor.

We've used Dish for about 4 years now. They've been great and we've had them out three times, once for initial installation and twice because we moved. We never had a problem until our last move where they tacked on $45 to our bill for hardware that we never got (or needed). We called and they took that off. But we also went through a week where we couldn't pay our bill on time and they treated it as we 'discontinued our service' saying we'd had it off for 75 days, and that we had to pay an extra $25 to turn it back on. My husband had to argue for quite some time with them about that. They said they'd remove the $25 fee since we'd only had it off for a week not 75 days, but then when our next bill came and it was still on there and we haven't been able to get them to remove it.

The only times we've had disruption to our satellite is when it's covered in snow. We have one satellite for four TV's. Two of them have the DVR and the other box is $5 a month. I love that I can use their website for most everything and not have to call them. The one thing we don't like is having to have the phone line connected to our DVR. This house we are in there is no phone jack anywhere near the TV so we are charged an extra $5 a month for not having it connected to the phone. There's some sort of box we can get instead of the phone line but it's $30 or $40 from Radio Shack and we haven't gotten around to getting it.

Hi M.,

We have had both services, and find that we like Dish a lot better. With DirecTV, we were starting to have problems with the service itself (dish was offline a lot), customer service was spotty at best (lots of service appointments that they didn't show up for and would then say we didn't have scheduled when we did), and price was steadily rising for the same channels - no premium stuff or anything. Also, we have the DVR on two TV's for less than half the cost of what it would have been with DirecTV, just because they didn't have the same technology that Dish has. With Dish, we have one box that will record and control two TV's. With DirecTV, we would have had to have two separate boxes and pay for having the two boxes with TiVo and it would have cost us a lot more. I don't know if that is the same today, as the last time I had talked to someone with DirecTV was a couple years ago and even he couldn't believe the price I was getting through Dish for DVR and said there was no way he could even come close to matching it - he even called his supervisor to check lol. Also, we are looking at getting another box for two other rooms in the house and it will only add $5 a month to our bill (with the DVR). Right now we pay around $55-60 a month for our service. The one plus I can think of for DirecTV is that they do have some channels that Dish doesn't offer, and some that Dish offers, but it is a higher level of service than what we pay for, so I have had to miss out (Fit TV for one - I miss that one a lot) ;(
Hope this helps!

We had Dish and loved it. Streaming Netflx is cheaper, so we had Dish turned off. The only big difference (besides price) is netflix doesn't carry sports.

We have directv and CAN NOT WAIT to get out of it!! It all started the day they came to install it in our brand new house with hardwood floors on a rainy day. The kid tracked mud in ALL OVER my house, took forever to get it done and finally called a friend to come and help him. When his friend showed up I asked him to take his shoes off and he hesitated and when he took them off he had BARE FEET in his wet muddy shoes- so then i had wet muddy bare foot prints all over my house! When they finally left they left behind boxes, bags, papers, a huge MESS. Then, we were told we would have a 1 year contract which meant we couldnt get out of it w/o paying 20/month for each month remaining on the contract- now suddenly that 1 year is 2 YEARS. We've had so many hidden costs come up that weren't explained to us in the beginning. Endless headaches with the rare occasions when we order pay-per-view. MANY times we have had to call up the company to have them reset our receiver because our local channels weren't working. AND they charge 5 dollars every time you call and want to talk to a customer service representative! To top it all off, back in december we get a bill for $500!!! (we bundle w/qwest for phone and internet too but it was directv that was outrageously priced) when we call them up they said, oh we've been behind on our billing (not our fault) and we've just decided to catch it up this month!! WHAT?!! SERIOUSLY?! Right at Christmas time no less. And there's nothing we could do. We've been constantly furious with that company and can't wait to get out of it and are strongly considering buying out. I don't know anything about Dish but have heard a lot of bad stories about directv. we're just going to go back to our standard cable w/ HBO. Really that's all we need!

We've had Direct TV in MN and in CO and haven't had any real problems. We have an antenna for when the satellite goes out - not a problem here in CO, but in MN it went out a lot during snow storms. We haven't had any major problems with customer service, but I know the main reason we went with Direct TV over Dish is the NFL package - we're Chargers fans and according to my hubby Direct TV is the only way to see them. Not sure if Dish offers anything like that now or not, but they didn't 3 years ago when we started with Direct TV.

We have DirecTV and really enjoy it. We've had very few problems, which have been few and far between over the years. If we changed it now, we'd get fewer channels for a lot more. And we don't bundle, as we can't stand Qwest!! We'll be sticking with DirecTV - haven't had any problems with our bill or customer service. Sorry Amanda had such a bad experience - maybe that's just a Wyoming thing.

I love my direct Tv and we ordered it thru Qwest, so my phone bill and direct tv bill all are all on 1 bill to pay.

We had Dish for about 3 years and decided to give Direct TV a try about 6 months ago because of their football package. I have to say I am very disapointed with DirectTV and will be switching back to Dish after the superbowl. Yes, they may have cheaper packages but everything else that you want extra (pay-per-view, etc) is a lot more expensive! We ordered a movie the other night and it was $5 extra bucks to order thru the phone when with Dish its only a $1. Also, DVR is only on one receiver unless you pay extra, with Dish every reciever in your house has it. If I were you, I would go with Dish...they are the better of the two and I think you would be very pleased with their service!

I've had both. Dish is better for skipping through commercials but direct allows two channel signals on asingle receiver (so you can record two shows at same time). both are good customer device. Dish may have changed some in last few years but that's the main difference I see. Check out on demand features too