Re-activating Tivo from a previous owner's account

[MarknDC]

Hi all,
I bought a Tivo from a guy on e-bay and it worked fine for the first couple months. I thought it had been activated for a lifetime but then I got a message saying that the credit card had expired and to please put in a new credit card number.

When I went to do that, I found that the Tivo was still in the previous owner's name so I couldn't put in my own credit card number. When I tried to just activate it in my own name it said "Ooops, this Tivo has already been activated."

The support guy on the phone said unless I could give the original owner's name and/or e-mail address I couldn't be let into the account to change the credit card. I don't know the guy's name and of course he doesn't respond to my e-mails.

The support guy also said if I let the Tivo go into deactivation for a week, it would basically reset itself and let me reactivate in my own name. Today has been a week and so far it still says the Tivo is in the other guy's name.

Has any one else encountered this issue and have you actually been able to put it in your own name? I see a lot of Tivos on ebay so I can't believe I am the only one who has ever run into this or that once you buy a Tivo it can never be transferred... any thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
MarknDC

[funtoupgrade]

It all depends on whether the subscription has a cancellation clause or not. If not, you can get a supervisor at TiVo to cancel the subscription. The supervisor can see you have been calling in from your zip. If there is a cancellation fee then you have to wait until that subscription runs it's course. Have done this many times.