DIRECTV sent me a FREE reconditioned receiver to replace the one that is 3 years old and is not working correctly. It was their idea and they said it wouldn’t cost me anything so I went for it. They coached me over the phone for 30 minutes in an attempt to correct the problem with my old one but determined that it was broken so they wanted to send me a new one.

I agreed as long as it had an optical output for Dolby Digital and the employee assured me that it would.

The new one arrived, but it did not have Dolbly digital. I called them and was told to either send it back (at my cost) or have it activated or they would charge me $155. I said that I wouldn’t pay it because I did not agree to this. I was then threatened and told that my service would be shut off if I didn’t do one or the other.

I was also advised that if I activated it then I would then be committed to another year of service and that ANY change in my service would cause this to become in effect! WHAT THE…??

Boneheads. Definately boneheads.