Welcome to the DIRECTV Community Forums

New to the Community? Visit the Community How-To and Guidelines to get started.

New Member

 • 

1 Message

Wednesday, June 10th, 2020 2:47 AM

Closed

identify technician

A man came to my house today saying he worked for DirectTV and wanted to know if my signal was ok because several of my neighbors have been complaining. This man had no lanyard, no uniform, and drove a dark brown sedan with tinted black windows. I ignored his knock at the door bc I figured it was another package delivery guy but my daughter observed him through our small window walking around our cars parked across the small street, talking on his phone and continuously looking back at our house, staring at it, staring at my husband’s truck and my daughter’s car, standing in between them and hanging around, looking back at our house while on the phone. We then figured this man was someone related to our HOA and was calling the police over our cars being parked wrong, or something. The man was short, dressed in street clothes (white, golf type hat, shorts, white shoes, white polo with some striped coloring), with a tattoo on his leg. Given that my male neighbor recently tried to attack me over parking, I told my daughter not to go outside, to wait and see if the police showed up and told us to move our cars and we’d worry about it then. I then went upstairs to spy on the guy. Eventually, he left the area across the street where our cars are parked, after looking at the tires, the license plate, in the bed of the truck, and starting messing around in the passenger side of his dark brown sedan with tinted black windows. While I was observing him, I witnessed him take either his hand or a hand plus an object and shove it in the waistband area of his pants, after looking back and forth several times, up and down the street, to be sure no one was watching. He also, again, had looked back up toward the windows of my house. I swore his actions bore resemblance to someone stuffing a gun in their waistband, maybe he was just adjusting his junk, idk, but it made my blood run cold as I watched him doing that. He then spied my dad coming out from doing yard work and made a beeline for him, identifying himself as a DirectTV man and asking if our signal was ok as he had spied the satellite on our roof and several neighbors had complained about their service. My dad hollered in the door to my daughter, who then hollered to me, asking if our signal was ok. I said yes and I heard the man cheerfully say, “alright then, have a nice day,” or whatever. His partner apparently joined him, they got in the sedan with black windows and drove away. I think I’ve seen that car parked near my house before. We live on a quiet street with a lot of new homes. My question or comment is wondering if this sounds like normal protocol or if I should report it to the police? I have read of scams with this type of thing before. The man did not wear clothing or drive a vehicle that indicated the term DirectTV anywhere or in any way. In the case that he wasn’t shoving a gun into his waistband, even if this man was just scratching his junk, how unprofessional!! DirectTV needs to make sure it’s servicemen act more legitimate than this man did. And if he wasn’t working for them, I need to know so I can call the police!

ACE - Expert

 • 

21K Messages

5 years ago

Most likely not a DTV employee as the sat signal covers the entire country so if there was a problem all DTV customers will be affected. They where casing the neighborhood for something.

(edited)

Employee

 • 

144 Messages

5 years ago

Not normal at all, and I would definitely report it to authorities. DirecTV can not have signal issues that span an entire neighborhood. Any DirecTV "outage" would occur on a national level. Also, DirecTV does not send technicians door to door to check with customers regarding their signal levels and all technicians working in an official capacity are in uniform and carry identification.

New Member

 • 

1 Message

thank you, filing a police report tomorrow.

New Member

 • 

18 Messages

Learned several years ago. If something is suspicious, don't wait to see if it really is. Call the authorities asap. They are trained. That's their job, not your's. Chances are, they would've gotten there, before those guys left, and you would know whats up.

New Member

 • 

1 Message

It's always easy to assume the right thing to do, but in the real circumstance, the issue took place in 10 minutes flat. No cop could've arrived in that amount of time. That's exactly why I observe, to gain knowledge for future reference and also why I was trying to reach out to a real DirectTV employee for help, to be sure this was unusual as I have no idea how signal issues/ technicians operate. And also why I keep more than one loaded gun handy.

ACE - Expert

 • 

22.9K Messages

5 years ago

DirecTV does not have door to door people. At best those are 3rd party sales agents who send orders to other companies.

No lanyard or public form of ID is concerning, though they may keep their employee credentials in their pocket and should produce on being asked. But the question about the signal was a huge red flag. A signal issue would happen more at a national level, or regional if dealing with RSNs or local channels. Either a bad sales agent saying anything to scam a new sale or worse someone pretending to be a sales agent. A police report sounds like the right thing to do here.

For situation like this, or even definitely legitimate sales people, door cams have certainly become quite useful.

ACE - Teacher

 • 

1.6K Messages

Any soliciting, w/o an authorized badge, get their name and call police.

HR44-700, 2 clients, Video Bridge Wireless / ATT Internet / Ultimate Pkg

Denon AVR / HT Rm w 5.1 Sound / 2 mini QLED TV's.

Satellite Help:  Quick fixes & troubleshooting | DIRECTV Support 

 

Award for Community Excellence Achiever*
*I am not a DIRECTV employee, and the views and opinions expressed on this forum are purely my own. Any product claim, statistic, quote, or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer, provider, or party.

New Member

 • 

1 Message

@Juniper We are finally going to install cameras, yes.

New Member

 • 

1 Message

@Juniper Also, no, I do not answer the door to even get names to call police. I think I've seen that car parked there before so now that I understand these men are shady, I will call the next time I see it, plus take pictures. Hard to do exactly the right thing, in the space of 10 minutes, when caught off guard, busy with normal routine like cooking dinner.


NEED HELP?