Next she informed me that the owners of the channel were in a dispute with Direct TV, and they were working to try to get it resolved. Relieved to finally get a straight answer after nearly an hour of trying, I said, “Okay, thank-you. That explains it. If this isn’t resolved soon, you will be hearing from me.”

Well, it isn’t resolved, and I still don’t have News Mix. So today I called customer service again. This time, after arguing with the Direct YV bot, I was told that a live agent would pick up the phone in “approximately 1 minute.” Ten minutes later (Direct TV has the worst holding music in world history, a scratchy, lugubrious flute solo that repeats after 8 bars and makes “It’s a Small World” seem like Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony by comparison), a voice again said my wait time was “approximately 1 minute.” After another 10, the voice said that my wait time was FIVE minutes.

This panicked me. If the wait time was getting longer the longer I waited, then eventually it would say, “Your wait time is approximately forever!” But in another ten minutes, an agent did pick up.

So I went through the whole story again. He put me on hold—oh-oh! Would I die of natural causes waiting this time?—but came back to tell me that News Mix was no longer in my package, and if I wanted it, I would have to “upgrade” to a more expensive package.

How many customers, do you think, fall for that BS? I hate to do it, but I played the “I’m a lawyer ” card.

“Oh no you don’t,” I said. “You can’t do that. This is basic contract law. You promised me specific channels and I relied on that promise to pay for a package including News Mix. And I am still paying for it. Direct TV can’t just say ‘We’ve decided that you have to pay us more for what we’ve already agreed to provide you for an agreed upon price.’That’s clear-cut breach of contract. Do you want a class action suit? No, if I’m not getting News Mix. then I want to know what you will do to compensate me.”

And bam, without even taking a breath, he said, “I am authorized to offer you two months of the Cinemax movie package free of charge as compensation for the missing News Mix channel.” That was fine with me. Two months of Cinemax is worth 40 bucks. I’d take that to never be able to watch MSNow for life.

Still, I was reminded how companies and their unethical lawyers routinely abuse the trust of their customers when they can get away with it. Someone who had no concept of how contracts work might respond to the news that the service had removed a channel that it was obligated to provide by assuming they weren’t being jerked around, and just accepting what they were told.

This is profoundly depressing. Again, societies are based on trust. In a healthy, ethical society, one should not have to be a lawyer to avoid being cheated.

We do not have a healthy society.