Woman Dies Before TV Contract Ended, Gets Charged Early Termination Fee

Isabel Albright's life may have ended, but her satellite TV contract did not. 

Albright's family said that after her death at the ripe old age of 102 last December, they received a bill for an "early termination fee" for canceling her DirecTV subscription before the contract was officially up at her San Lorenzo, California, home. 

"Everything was fine until we went to disconnect and that's when all the surprises happened,'' her son-in-law John Manrique told WABC-TV.

"They told us ... we're going to charge you $160 for an early termination fee,'' he said. "She's gone. Nobody's living [here]. We're selling the house. You're going to tell us we have to keep the service at a house that's not ours?"

The family said DirecTV said they had to pay because the bill was in the name of Albright's daughter, Linda, who had been paying her mother's bills in her old age. 

After WABC-TV reached out to DirecTV about the story, the company said it would waive the termination fee and told the news station: "We have apologized to the family and resolved this."

RELATED STORIES