Maybe Not so Idiotic

You may remember my post last week about new HD DVR service and such that I really shouldn't have done and how stupid it was of me to take the offer. I assumed that I was "locked in" because it all came with a 2 year agreement and there's something like $480 for an early termination fee. Not fun at all.

Well, after talking to a couple of savvy friends, I started to look into it a bit more to see if there was a 30 day satisfaction guarantee or anything. I spend quite a bit of time last night looking on the DirecTV website reading the boring legal documents most of us usually just ignore. Even after that, my question wasn't fully answered; it was still vague, so I ended up e-mailing them with my question.

Their response was still vague, but one single sentence seemed to give me the backing I needed: "Please know, that all sales are final, once the service and your equipment is activated." The key words in that sentence are once the service and your equipment is activated. I have new equipment ordered, but it's not scheduled to be delivered and installed until Thursday. In addition, looking up my account online, there's nothing there about my new service. So I figured, what do I have to lose, and called them up.

After arguing w/ the automated telephone system , I was able to cancel the not-yet-activated services & equipment with no penalty. After that, I was re-directed and canceled my whole service! I'm so thankful that God's giving me the chance to get out of the mistake I made. That doesn't always happen and He's being incredibly gracious.

This marks a new point in my life: the first time in my memory that I haven't had TV service of some kind (cable, sattelite, etc). From now until I'm in a different place finacially, it'll just be the local network channels that I can get using my antenna (granted, its still HD, so its not bad TV, its just not much of it).

This post is already too long (as most of these end up being), so I won't go into it now, but maybe in a few days I'll post something on one of the big reasons I decided to give up the TV. As for now, I'm going to cut my hair and take a shower, while enjoying the weather dropping below 60 degrees tonight for the first time in too long!