BACK IN AUGUST WHEN THE “STATION” FIRE roared through Los Angeles County, more than 70 homes were destroyed, most of them reduced to nothing more than ashes.  Several of them were satellite tv customers of the leading service DirectTV, a large corporation that apparently needs to work a bit harder on their customer relations policies.

Following the fire, DirectTV started charging the fire victims for the cost of their satellite receivers that are technically property of the service provider.  David Lazarus of the Los Angeles Times tells:

Ken Gray lost everything in August when his two-bedroom cabin burned to the ground in the devastating Station fire, the largest blaze in recorded Los Angeles County history.

The last thing he figured he needed to worry about were the two satellite-TV receivers consumed by the flames.

DirecTV had other ideas. The company deducted $279.87 from Gray’s bank account to cover the cost of its burned-to-a-crisp boxes, plus taxes.

“It’s hard to believe,” Gray, 63, told me. “What I’d like to do is take a shovel full of ashes from my cabin and dump it on their desk. They can have their receivers back.”

Ken Gray surveys his entertainment center in this
L. A. Times photo by Jordan Grout

Following the destruction, Gray did the responsible thing and called DirectTV to tell them what happened and why he was canceling his account.  Then after seeing that his bank account had been charged, he called customer service.  Lazarus continues:

“They said it was a non-return fee for my two satellite boxes,” Gray recalled. “They said it wasn’t negotiable.”

He asked to speak with a supervisor and got the same response. In fact, Gray said, he was told that DirecTV was actually doing him a favor. He said the supervisor claimed he could have been billed as much as $400 for allowing his receivers to be roasted.

Now that they’ve been exposed by the Times, though, DirectTV has gone into damage-control and backed off charging the disaster victims for their failure to return their boxes.  Mr. Gray has had his funds returned to his account and the company is claiming to be taking measures to prevent this (publicity nightmare?) from happening again.  You can read the entire STORY HERE.