I ordered some “big-ticket” pay-per-views a few months ago. The first one was $34.95 in Feb., and the second one was $49.95 in March. I have yet to get billed for either one. When I check my purchases on-screen, it shows that I did order and receive the programs.
What takes so long for DirecTv to bill me? Will I get hit with both of them in the same month. That will be one damn expensive bill.
Do you have your receiver connected to a (working) phone line?
I had the same situation when I was a DirecTV subscriber (I dropped them when it became apparent that they were to be assimilated by the Murdoch collective). The movies—two, IIRC—appeared on the next bill after I noticed that the phone line was disconnected and plugged it back in.
The items may be in your receiver’s memory, waiting to be transmitted to the mothership.
It’s connected to the phone line.
Like Otto said, The only way I know this can happen is if your unit does not transmit. The same thing happened to my bro in law and he wound up getting a $400 bill once the “call” was finally completed.
Is there somewhere you can check in your settings to see when you last succesful call was completed? I think there is, but don’t remember offhand how to do it.
I work for cable TV and have seen this with our converter boxes; although they don’t use a phone line, they use the return path of the cable plant. We have a controller in one location that handles the pay-per-view purchases for multiple billing systems in this state, and sometimes we get duplicate MAC addresses on that controller (because more than one billing system has entered the same piece of equipment into the system–like when boxes are transferred from one system to another). The controller doesn’t know who to bill when it comes across these duplicates, so it bills no one–but the boxe continually attempts to send it’s purchases over and over again until they are billed. Eventually someone cleans out the duplicate MAC addresses, and then the purchases go through. This can go on for months at a time in rare cases–but when the duplicates finally get cleaned up, the boxes get charged for all the PPV the customer thought they were getting for free, sometimes for months at a time.
Jplacer, if the phone line is hooked up and functional, my guess is that the modem is fried in your IRD. Lightning strikes are notorious for knocking out cheap modems.
DTV usually sets a limit of something like $200 for PPV, so if your purchases reach that limit, you’ll no longer be able to buy PPV until you successfully complete a call.
I’d suggest calling them up and politely requesting a new free receiver and deferred billing. If that doesn’t work, threaten to move to Dish Network.
BTW, the PPV purchases are stored on your access card, not the receiver itself, so a new receiver won’t help you get out of paying for the events. Not that you would attempt something dishonest, as such.