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View Full Version : I've been on hold 53 minutes and counting


tivoknucklehead
10-09-2007, 05:52 PM
have two tivos, two lifetime plans. Get my Visa bill and see a 12.95 charge out of nowhere. talk to a billing rep who had no clue, now I'm on hold for a "specialist".
Its been so long I'm afraid to hang up now. This thread is for those thinking about calling customer service, this is nothing new here

bkdtv
10-09-2007, 05:57 PM
Did you transfer lifetime from a Series2 to a Series3? If so, you no longer have lifetime on the Series2 and will be charged starting one-year from the date of that transfer.

If you are no longer using that Series2, be sure to remove that Tivo from your account at Tivo.com. Login to Manage My Account.

greg_burns
10-09-2007, 06:00 PM
If you are no longer using that Series2, be sure to remove that Tivo from your account at Tivo.com. Login to Manage My Account.

Must be reading this wrong. Are you saying you can cancel service online?

tivoknucklehead
10-09-2007, 06:08 PM
Did you transfer lifetime from a Series2 to a Series3? If so, you no longer have lifetime on the Series2 and will be charged starting one-year from the date of that transfer.

If you are no longer using that Series2, be sure to remove that Tivo from your account at Tivo.com. Login to Manage My Account.

I did but I sold that old Tivo a year ago. by the way, I hung up after 65 minutes, absolutely absurd service

Chimpware
10-09-2007, 06:09 PM
have two tivos, two lifetime plans. Get my Visa bill and see a 12.95 charge out of nowhere. talk to a billing rep who had no clue, now I'm on hold for a "specialist".
Its been so long I'm afraid to hang up now. This thread is for those thinking about calling customer service, this is nothing new here

No where near the record :D

jgsx
10-09-2007, 06:17 PM
I noticed the same charge a few days ago. 12.95/month. I had transfered lifetime service from a S2 to my S3. I called Tivo customer service, hit 2, then 2 again. I was on hold for about 2 minutes before a rep answered. I gave her my phone number, she pulled up the account, and immediately knew what was going on. She put me on hold for about 1 minute, came back and said that she canceled service on the S2 and reversed the 12.95 charge. This was at noon eastern time. I don't know what happened to you.

tivoknucklehead
10-09-2007, 06:46 PM
I noticed the same charge a few days ago. 12.95/month. I had transfered lifetime service from a S2 to my S3. I called Tivo customer service, hit 2, then 2 again. I was on hold for about 2 minutes before a rep answered. I gave her my phone number, she pulled up the account, and immediately knew what was going on. She put me on hold for about 1 minute, came back and said that she canceled service on the S2 and reversed the 12.95 charge. This was at noon eastern time. I don't know what happened to you.


i'm on my 3rd rep, 110 minutes and counting, on hold again

jgsx
10-09-2007, 06:51 PM
i'm on my 3rd rep, 110 minutes and counting, on hold again

Why don't you just do what I did. Are you pretending not to know what the issue is with the rep?

Riverdome
10-09-2007, 07:19 PM
Why don't you just do what I did. Are you pretending not to know what the issue is with the rep?

ditto. Had the exact same "problem" and it was handled in less than 10 minutes.

jgsx
10-09-2007, 07:27 PM
Ok, just out of curiosity, I called to "confirm" that they fixed the issue.

I called 877-289-8486. Hit 2, 2, 2, entered phone #. It warned me that the hold time might be greater than 15 minutes. I got through to someone after a little over 10 minutes. I asked about the charge, then they said it was taken care of. My cell phone said I was on the phone for 11:13.

bkdtv
10-09-2007, 07:29 PM
Must be reading this wrong. Are you saying you can cancel service online?Brain fart.

You're right, he can't cancel online. But he can see online whether that S2 is still on his account.

tivoknucklehead
10-10-2007, 07:02 AM
Why don't you just do what I did. Are you pretending not to know what the issue is with the rep?


after a total of two hours on the phone it turns out they charged me $12.95 for a S2 I sold a year ago when I got my S3 and transferred my lifetime to it after the one year free service expired. They said they charged me because "I had a credit card on file" even though they knew I didn't own the unit and the credit card I had on file expired 5 years ago. They said they will credit this, but what a hassle this was :mad:

TexasAg
10-10-2007, 07:36 AM
even though they knew I didn't own the unit

How exactly did Tivo "know" you didn't own the old Tivo unit? Did you take the old Tivo unit off of your account? Did the new owner set up a new account in his name?

If you sold your old Tivo unit, the new owner took your year of free service (which he couldn't technically do under the terms of the transfer offer), and no one told Tivo about it, you can't really complain.

Dark Helmet
10-10-2007, 07:37 AM
after a total of two hours on the phone it turns out they charged me $12.95 for a S2 I sold a year ago when I got my S3 and transferred my lifetime to it after the one year free service expired. They said they charged me because "I had a credit card on file" even though they knew I didn't own the unit and the credit card I had on file expired 5 years ago. They said they will credit this, but what a hassle this was :mad:

Dude, it could have been a LOT WORSE.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=344276

TexasAg
10-10-2007, 08:00 AM
Are you pretending not to know what the issue is with the rep?

My guess (and the OP can correct me if I'm wrong) - the OP sold the old Tivo unit that had a free year's service due to the lifetime transfer. This violated the terms of the lifetime transfer offer, which said the year of free service could not be transferred. The new owner did not transfer the old Tivo unit to his account since that would have eliminated the year of free service. This also likely explains why it took so long with this particular caller.

As for me, I cancelled service on my old Tivo unit about two weeks before the free year ended. The CSR fell all over himself trying to get me to take $6.95/month for an old Tivo unit I'd never use, but it took less than 15 minutes to get everything squared away.

jgsx
10-10-2007, 08:46 AM
after a total of two hours on the phone it turns out they charged me $12.95 for a S2 I sold a year ago when I got my S3 and transferred my lifetime to it after the one year free service expired. They said they charged me because "I had a credit card on file" even though they knew I didn't own the unit and the credit card I had on file expired 5 years ago. They said they will credit this, but what a hassle this was :mad:

I knew it was coming at some point, so I wasn't surprised when I saw the charge. Tivo made it very clear that they would automatically start charging for the S2 service after one year. They read that statement when the lifetime was transfered from S2 to S3.

Narf54321
10-10-2007, 09:40 AM
I knew it was coming at some point, so I wasn't surprised when I saw the charge. Tivo made it very clear that they would automatically start charging for the S2 service after one year. They read that statement when the lifetime was transfered from S2 to S3.

I wouldn't say they made it very clear. All the advertising I remember was about transferring your Lifetime sub over to a new S3, and letting your S2 operate for another year for "free".

What they deliberately obfuscated was that they were actually enrolling your old unit into a regular (recurring) subscription - likely to try and boost their subscription numbers to shareholders. I'd say most people didn't catch word of the automatic renewal billing crap until after we spent money on the S3 box and then contacted Tivo to actually do the transfer.

Seems pretty greedy and anti-customer to hold onto your credit info, and then make the customer wait in a phone queue just to cancel an old box they already replaced.

SMB-IL
10-10-2007, 12:52 PM
My $12.95 charge came in last Saturday. I called and it took about 30 minutes to get through it all -- although they answered in less than five minutes. I had given my Series 2 to my brother and we transferred the unit to his account about two months ago. My $12.95 charge was charged to a different Series 2 that doesn't even exist anymore. So, when they lost the original Series 2 from my account, they transferred the one-year free to the only other non-lifetime unit on my account. My rep also tried to sell me the continuation at $6.95 per month even after I told him twice that I owned one TV and one TiVo.

No, nothing at customer service has changed.

cwoody222
10-10-2007, 01:56 PM
I called yesterday, the first day I was to be billed for my transferred service. I called around 11am EST and got thru with less than 5 minutes of hold time. Whole call took less than 10 minutes.

HomeUser
10-10-2007, 03:13 PM
I think they have it under control now. I received satisfactory results with a single call that took about 20 Minutes, thanks to all the early callers :)

tivoknucklehead
10-11-2007, 09:32 AM
How exactly did Tivo "know" you didn't own the old Tivo unit? Did you take the old Tivo unit off of your account? Did the new owner set up a new account in his name?

If you sold your old Tivo unit, the new owner took your year of free service (which he couldn't technically do under the terms of the transfer offer), and no one told Tivo about it, you can't really complain.


yes, they took it off my account last year, it did not appear on the website under my account, and I specificly told them last year I sold it. And if they would have solved it in 10 minutes I would haven't made any big deal out of it, but it took 2 hours on the phone, 90 minutes being on hold


the main thing I learned here is when my current S2 needs upgraded its going in the trash, it wasn't worth the aggravation for the $50 I sold the old one for. I had an ordeal a year ago when they transferred my lifetime off of my old S2 from the wrong Tivo that took me months to get sorted out. I really don't like Tivo's customer service as much as I like my S3