DirecTV is allowing at least some customers to cancel subscriptions to its Sunday Ticket package of NFL games and obtain refunds, if they cite players' national anthem protests as the reason for discontinuing service, customer service representatives said Tuesday.
Under Sunday Ticket's regular policy, refunds are not to be given once the season is underway. But the representatives said they are making exceptions this season -- which began in September -- because of the controversy over the protests, in which players kneel or link arms during the national anthem.
Spokesmen for DirecTV-parent AT&T Inc. (T) and the National Football League declined to comment.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Friday September 29 2017, @04:23PM (5 children)
Fucking hell this is uncharitable bullshit.
So they complained to the company and the company agreed to alter the contract. What exactly is the problem there? Seems like consumer demand won the day here, and that's a good thing. It's not "whining" to go up to a clerk and say "hey, this box of serial had political symbolism in it and that's not cool with me, I'd like a refund for it", and then getting a refund because the clerk or manager decided that it's reasonable to expect that the manufacturer wouldn't sneakily insert political messages in your fucking breakfast.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Friday September 29 2017, @05:14PM (4 children)
Because it's a double-standard, that's why.
Honestly, I'm not bothered that a bunch of conservative morons convinced their cableco, somehow, to give them a refund even though the contract they willingly signed didn't allow for it at this date. The company has every right to follow the contract to the letter and not give a refund, but it also has every right to set aside the contract and let them out of it with no penalty (probably so they could score points for good customer service etc.).
What irks me is that, if the tables were turned and this was a controversy over some issue that liberals were mad about, and they demanded a refund even though they had gone over the can't-back-out date, the stupid conservatives would all be citing contract terms and calling them "snowflakes" and telling them their concerns were stupid, and that the company shouldn't set aside the contract for these "losers", and they'll criticize the company for letting them out of the contract.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @05:30PM (2 children)
Amazingly my original post was equivocating the two groups, but conservatives still couldn't handle it. I think liberals just won the "who is a bigger snowflake" contest :D
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
No, your argument is just patently stupid.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 29 2017, @07:16PM
Nah, I own the patent on stupidity and licensed it to the GOP. I have since retired to my private island. #jealousy
(Score: 3, Insightful) by tfried on Saturday September 30 2017, @05:51AM
I think their calculation is actually pretty simple: The point of the whiners isn't that they really want to cancel their subscription, the point of the whiners is to try to put pressure on the NFL to censor the players. In offering the refund they simply turn that around: Why, if it's so important to you, why don't you just go away? Some whiners will do just that, but most others really aren't subscribed in the first place, while those that are will come to realize that they actually subscribed for the football, not for the anthem (besides, that kneeing is not an entirely novel phenomenon, anyway).