In April 09 my DVR receiver went out, I had a good HD receiver that was installed with my system in January 09. The only way to contact them is one 800 number which takes at least 15 or 20 min of going thru there automated system no matter if it applies to your problem or not. This is so not a good way to treat your paying customers. After many many phone calls and them blaming my TV, being told the system is updating and I would have to call back after being on the phone with them for 1 hr, getting disconnected and put on hold, they shipped me another receiver not even close to being as nice as the first one. It did not work more calls and tries to get this receiver working, finally they sent a second receiver and it would not work. I said this is not going to work what are my options and they said I could purchase a service contract for $5.99 month and cancel after two months and get charged $10 cancellation fee or pay $45 for a service call. I purchased the service agreement (rip off) and they made an appointment. Tech showed up and said the receiver was not on my account so he could not swap it out and the only way to get it on the account was to activate it and it would not ever activate because it was the wrong receiver for my wiring. He spent 2 hrs on his cell phone trying to get his work order fixed so he could swap out the rec that they shipped to me. They just kept saying they knew I was shipped the receiver but it was not on my account as activated so they could not do anything. I kept calling after this trying to get someone to get this fixed and each one said they were going to escalate it to Mgr or the account will get updated only to find out that it still is not on the account and they can't do anything. Finally tech serv said they would write on work order to technician to replace the receiver and scheduled another apt Sunday 8:00 to 12:00 at 4:00 pm the tech called and is running behind and would be two more hours I ask him if he had a receiver and could he swap it and he first said he could update the WO and then said he would call back and I talked to him two more times and finally he could not. While I was waiting on the Tech to call me back another person called me to reschedule the apt and did not even know about me still talking to the Tech. One hand does not even know what the other is doing. Still not fixed and the next CS person told me he could not send me a box to send wrong rec back and if I did not send it back eventually I would be charged, CRAZY. I have sent emails and get a nice email thank you for contacting Direct TV no help never here again after 3 emails. Then all of a sudden I get a call and the man says he is going to send me a DVR that will work and call me back to see if I get a return box with it. I did receive the DVR and no return box. I called 800 # again and got a really helpful man who got it working and took all the numbers off my wrong rec and told me that the rec was on someone else's account and the card ID was on a different persons account must have gotten mixed up in recycling the receivers and cards and did not get wiped out. He took all information down and said he would send me a return box so I will not get charged for the receiver that is not on my account. This has been ridiculous and I have spent over 24 hrs total on the phone with different people at Direct from different states. I am under a contract so I can't do anything but put up with this until I can get out of this contract and go somewhere else for cable. I still have the wrong receiver and it remains to be seen if I will get to return it but if they try to charge me for this it is going to be bad. This was all their mess up and I should get free cable for at least a month for all the trouble and all they keep saying is I Am Sorry you have had this problem. I don't know if this is the norm but that is what happened to me. I could not get anyone high up that could help nor could I get anyone thru email. No way to get in contact with a Manager to help. I am paying a lot for this service and have been treated so badly and all I get is I'm Sorry!