[yorkieusa]

This was on a local station last night I watch that is 25 miles from me.

4-State DirecTV customer says he was misled by ads saying the service carried all local networks
Updated: Jul 20, 2010 6:23 PM CDT
By KEVIN PHELPS

CHEROKEE COUNTY, KAN. - For the past month DirecTV has been advertising they have added local channels to their services. But new DirecTV customers like Cherokee County attorney John Bullard noticed two local stations are not available - CBS and FOX.

"Until we were flipping through channels and realized that we did not have CBS or FOX we didn't know that was going to happen," Bullard told us on Tuesday.

Bullard feels DirecTV has deceived him and has attempted to get an answer from DirecTV, but to no avail.

"Basically they always give the same response that they don't do refunds," Bullard says. "They are not very customer friendly in my mind. I think they have done misrepresentation as far as I'm concerned and I am definitely not happy with their service."

Bullard is not the only person to be misled by the advertisement.

KOAM General Manager Danny Thomas says this came to his attention when the advertisement was sent to local viewers encouraging them to switch to DirecTV.

"Virtually every contact I have had regarding the CBS and FOX located in the ads, they have completely misunderstood and we have to educate them," Thomas says.

The four local channels added are local affiliates for ABC, NBC, PBS and an out of town CW.

Danny Thomas contacted DirecTV right away after being notified of the ads that lead customers to believe they are also able to get CBS and FOX.

"I was told that it wasn't them that sent out the ads but another company and that they would notify that company to stop doing it, unfortunately, I have received several examples of ads since then," Thomas says.

Late Tuesday afternoon DirecTV gave KOAM this response:

"The flyers advertising a DirecTV offer including all four local stations received by some Joplin area residents contained boilerplate language about local channel availability that should have been revised for the local market.

We contacted the local independent dealer when we became aware of the ads and they were immediately removed from circulation.

We are also scrubbing our Joplin market direct mail list to be sure there are no other ads that incorrectly list the local CBS and FOX affiliates as being available via DirecTV in Joplin.

We apologize for the error and any confusion this may have caused."

KOAM General Manager Danny Thomas says as of right now KOAM and FOX 14 have been in negotiations for several months and will continue to work toward an agreement with DirecTV.