Pacific Palisades residents Tracey and David Price have been paying Direct TV for the last six months, even though they haven’t had service since January 2025. They have tried to have the service stopped and money refunded but without success. They have now filed a complaint with the California Public Utilities Commission and shared it with Circling the News and Councilmember Traci Park’s office.
After evacuating their home on Charm Acres on January 7 during the Palisades Fire, they called to cancel DirectTV services on January 10, 2025. The customer service representative suggested that they suspend service to October 2025, which they did.
They wrote on the Utilities Commission form that when they suspended service, they had no idea the fire would continue to burn for weeks and destroy more than 7,000 structures.
They still have not returned to their home, but in October 2025, DirectTV started charging them. Prior to the fire their usual monthly charges were between $155 and $170 a month, now they are being charged $311.
The Prices have tried to call DirectTV at least six times to resolve the matter.
“They provide zero detail of why the charges doubled and what we are paying for,” the couple said and added that they had requested a record of account charges for the past two years mailed to their temporary address. But DirectTV said it couldn’t do that.
The couple tried to hand deliver a letter of appeal to the customer service department in El Segundo.
There, they were told by a guard that no one actually works at the facility, that all employees work from home and “if you do not leave the premises, I will call the police, have you escorted off the property and arrested.”
DirectTV refused to refund charges to the Price’s credit card. The couple contacted their bank, ordered new credit cards and changed the autopay accounts.
The Prices wrote that there had to be other fire survivors that had been unjustly charged for services they never received. “Any charges to Palisades Fire survivors should be refunded or waived due to this being the LARGEST NATURAL DISASTER in our country’s history,” they wrote.