Installer Gone Wild

[Natron44]

I'm guessing this is not good PR.

 

[charper1]

This really has ZERO reason to be in the DirecTV specific threads...


"When you pay someone to do work at your home, you don't expect to have to watch their every move."

WRONG



""My initial thought was ... I absolutely don't want to believe it. You know, I'm like, it's a DIRECTV person"

WRONG


"WCCO-TV contacted DIRECTV and in a written statement the company said it's "... working to get to the bottom of the issue."

Good for DirecTV even though its not their fault that a contract company hired a thief and likely failed to do a good background check or drug test either.

 

[bateau980]

This is sad. Yet another reason I watch any installer and am uncomfortable when I have the Apartment Maintenance guys come out. She's going to have a tough time since she's going to have to watch her credit report as well.

 

[Natron44]

This really has ZERO reason to be in the DirecTV specific threads...

Agreed - I wasn't paying attention to the fact I was in the HD forum when I posted this. My apologies.

 

[mojosat]

There was an even worse instance a few years back about a satellite installer molesting a couples 8 year old daughter. It just goes to show how stupid people really are. While I am sure 99 percent of service folks are pretty honest, it is just never a good idea to leave a stranger alone in your house with your valuables let alone your children. We just made a move to our new house and I actually caught one of the movers trying to put a few dvds that had spilled out of a broken box down his pants. He was fired on the spot by the supervisor and my moving cost was instantly reduced by half.

 

[charper1]

Yep, both instances of lazy companies that refuse to do any leg-work for hiring people and lazy homeowners that in the end can't see any fault of their own and want to lay blame.

AND a person in the end that has no pride for themselves or any respect for the rule of law.

 

[shmeff]

It always amazes me when I need to tell a customer to put their money wad away.

 

[chadzx11]

It always amazes me when I need to tell a customer to put their money wad away.

I agree. I moved out a dresser in a kids room and found a wad once. I went and got the lady of the house. I didn't touch it. The outside bill was a 20, and this was a high school kid. I figured he was dealing drugs (why else would he hide it under the dresser?) and I fully expected to get blamed for stealing it. This was a roll of cash at least and inch thick.

 

[digiblur]

Nothing against the installers here but I don't let folks like this in the house period. You never know who they are or what they are doing. I have a digital cellular monitored alarm system for protection but I still don't let them in. I don't care what kind of neighborhood it is.

You never know what they are scoping out in your house.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Yea, and watch the lady find out a few days later she loaned the laptop to a friend!

My installer got accused 2 times of stealing from a customer and in every case the customer only had themselves to blame.

1) I had a little old lady try to claim my installer stole her credit card after he left. Turns out she found it a few days later.

2) The second issue I had was with my installer taking a few thousand dollars in cash in a safe in the closet he was running wires through. The lady called the police, and just as they showed up the huspand came home from work and had the money on him.

The huspand took the money from the safe before work because he knew he would have people working on his house!

 

[Dwrecked]

Read the article, just a lady accusing someone of stealing her computer. Doesn't say any charges were filed nor was anyone convicted of theft. Probably just a customer who wanted a free laptop. Anyone can accuse anyone of anything these days but that doesn't make it true. Unfortunately, ini most cases, the accused is considered guilty until proven innocent.

 

[FromPartsUnknown]

I don't mind letting the installer in, or anything like that. I just make sure they know I'm watching. I suppose that if there was someone contemplating ripping me off they'd decide against it cause I'm 6'9, 350 pounds and it's clear stepping into my house that I'm a professional wrestler.

 

[Claude Greiner]

Unless your an installer, you would never believe that the amount of customers who let installers have unlimited access throughout their entire home without supervision.

Then you got the customers who follow you around the entire Job, some are a pain in the ass while others are nice to have around because they can strike up a nice conversation and make the Job go faster!

Me for example can never imagine letting anyone into my bedroom to fix my persoanal computer, television or phone!

I had Comcast out the other month, and the farthest I would let the installer get was the basement to hook up the new modem to my existing network and on my computer in my 1st floor office to verify the computer got online and he was out the door!

 

[Jared Twomey]

As an installer.... I don't know how many times people have just left the door unlocked for me to come do the work in their house while they are at work, school, ect. And the weird thing is... its normally the people with the most money that care the less.
I like to consider myself a pretty trustworthy person, and have yet to have a person accuse me of anything *knock on wood*.

 

[digiblur]

Negative on that... If I heard "I'm going to store...I'll be right back." when I was installing something at customer's house I'd instantly say. "Be sure and lock up because I'm leaving before you. Let me know when you want to reschedule."

 

[rotohead]

The media/press has some responsibility in these kind of stories, IMO...I've seen plenty of this kind of reporting, that in retrospect was very shallow and was proven to be erroneous w/o any correction or clarification.

 

[hrbib21]

This DOES reflect on D*. Whether you like it or not, it does. They are representing the company so in the end, D* will be held responsible. When I make a service call, I'm calling D* not the local contractor so since D* is sending the person out, it falls on their shoulders. The folks on this forum know that it is a local contractor and not D*'s fault directly, but the general public does not.

Having said that, leaving a stranger alone in your house even for a second is unbelievably stupid. Also, the media reports half-truths and lies all the time so we cannot just take this news story at face value. Like it was said above, somebody else might have taken her computer since she wasn't there and didn't actually see who took it.

 

[vegassatellite]

I would say this is hearsay at this point. No mention of having called the cops. If I realized a tech had stolen my laptop right away, I would be calling the police with a description of the tech and the vehicle and the number to the company he worked for. In this case, it's Premier. So, if the cops call Premier and say "Where is this guy?" They give the police the next site address the guy is going to and the police go and check his vehicle, find the laptop, pictures in the laptop easily confirm it belongs to the woman, he goes down. All in a day's work. At the least, the media should have found out if she had filed a report before airing the story.

There's another thread in the Dish discussions where a tech is dealing with a bogus theft claim from a woman in low-income housing alleging he stole a $6,000 ring. Yeah right!

 

[kb7oeb]

Then you got the customers who follow you around the entire Job, some are a pain in the ass while others are nice to have around because they can strike up a nice conversation and make the Job go faster!

I'm like that, I hover over anyone working in or around my house. That even includes the roto rooter guy that I had to call out once.

 

[vegassatellite]

I'm like that, I hover over anyone working in or around my house. That even includes the roto rooter guy that I had to call out once.

I usually put those types of customers to work.