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DirecTV to Pay $5 Million to Settle Probe

Dec 12, 2005  •  Post A Comment

DirecTV will pay $5 million to 22 states to settle a probe into the satellite operator’s marketing and advertising practices.

The agreement, which was reached with New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and announced Monday, wraps up an inquiry that began in March 2003 into a series of complaints from DirecTV subscribers. The subscribers’ issues included claims of poor reception, allegations that they did not receive channels that were promised and accusations that some customers were charged for canceling services during free programming offer periods that had not yet expired.

DirecTV also agreed to pay restitution to certain customers who were charged a fee for not activating DirecTV’s service in a timely way, did not receive all of the local channels they had expected to receive or were charged the cancellation fee during those free-offer periods.

In addition to New York, the states included in the settlement are Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and West Virginia.