Here’s a follow-up to my adventures in obtaining HDTV service.

I got Verizon FiOS hooked up the other day to join my FiOS broadband and home phone service. It’s glorious. The HD DVR is even multi-room, meaning I can record a show and watch it on any other TV in the house with a receiver.

Anyway, my standard procedure is to not cancel my old service until I’m sure the new service is ok. Since it’s ok I called to cancel DirecTV yesterday.

When I called, they immediately went into the hard sell to keep me, asking me why I was leaving and offering to cut me a deal to stick with them. First they offered to sell me the HD DVR for $99 instead of $199. When I told them Verizon gave me one for free DirecTV offered theirs to me for free. Then they offered me a year of HD service free. Additionally, I was told that I would not have to switch to a new programming package even though the one I had was obsolete, which was something I wasn’t allowed to do previously.

That just pissed me off. They wouldn’t do shit for me when I just wanted to upgrade, but once I made the decision to upgrade through another service they got awfully generous in order to keep me.

Needless to say, it didn’t work. I told the guy on the phone I was getting angry and that his pitch was too little too late and to please cancel my service, which he did.

Companies need to stop treating their good customers like crap and hook them up as much as they do new ones. While I’m sure DirecTV will have no problem finding a warm body to replace me, if they were smart they would have added that body to mine and not had any need to replace me. Idiots.