Boo to TiVo for cancellation process

I'm sorry, but you're ranting about having to spend 30 minutes on the phone to cancel your service??? I've had plenty of other subscriptions with various companies where I had to wait an hour or more. As for lack of online canceling, you're experience is EXACTLY why companies like TiVo require you to call. They don't want people to cancel off-the-cuff and hope to convince you to stay. That's hardly a TiVo-only practice. I don't know of any cable, satellite, or phone company that has online cancellation.

 

Welcome to the Hotel California.

 

He's not canceling his service. His upgrading his old TiVo to a NEW one. They totally should've allowed him to complete the transaction online..

 

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Man, this thread and others I've read in the past make me hope I NEVER have to call Tivo.

 

Meet the new boss,
Same as the old boss

 

If he's not cancelling, why is he complaining about the cancellation process?

 

Why do you have to cancel the S2?

 

That would be Tivo Inc. in 2001 not 2007...

Y-ASK

 

I cannot stand this kind of logic!

OP, your problem isn't legit because someone else once had to wait longer for something else. Also, other companies do this, and sometimes worse, so TiVo isn't at fault.

 

It's not a logic argument; it's a perspective argument. I frankly don't see anything bad that TiVo did.

He spent 30 minutes total to cancel his service. Yes, it's annoying but definitely not unusual in the tech subscription business.

He couldn't cancel online. This is common business practice to avoid people canceling on a whim.

They tried to offer him bonus months to keep the box subscribed. What's wrong with that? Again, this is common business practice. TiVo would be stupid NOT to offer specials to keep customers subscribed.

I know we all like to think of TiVo as a different kind of company, but they have shareholders just like any other public company. Their goal is to make a profit, first and foremost. I agree that their CSR need A LOT of improvement in customer relations (and their hold times do need to come down), but I am not going to fault them for doing common sense business practices.

 

Get AOL then try to cancel it, and TiVo will look real good for their cancellation policy. (this was true a year or two ago with AOL I do not know what it is like now)

 

AOL's cancellation policies just cost it a $3,000,000.00 settlement. Who'll be next in CT's AG Blumenthal's cross hairs?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070711/ap_on_hi_te/aol_settlement

ETA: Actually, it's $3M to the states plus refunds to customers who continued to be charged after trying to cancel.

 

Bad, perhaps not.

Stupid, yes. They have you call in to attpempt to save then make you wait on hold 30 minutes before giving you the save pitch. Perhaps they should have a cancel option on the menu that will put the caller to the front of the queue so there will be a chance for a save. I don't know who'd stay with a company that just made them hold for 30 minutes???

When I'm on hold I always vision a group of employee's betting how long I will hold before I hang up. After twenty minutes or so they think, "well this nut won't hang up so somebody better answer".

 

+1
I've had that exact same vision!

 

He's totally cancelling his Series2 service.
They totally have done it this way for years.
If they totally allowed you to cancel TiVo service online people would be calling TiVo to say - I must have done something wrong at your website, my TiVo service is totally gone. They would rant on the phone to the TiVo Rep. and here about how totally stupid it is to have an option to totally cancel online.

 

He had service before, he has service now. He's UPGRADING not canceling. It's NOT the same thing. When he activates his NEW Series 3 on his EXISTING account, all it would have to do is simply ASK him if he is REPLACING a current TiVo or adding an ADDITIONAL TiVo! It's not as complicated as you are making it. They don't need to allow you to cancel online (even though there's nothing wrong with that, why would that be a stupid option?? Why would anyone complain about an option to cancel online? ).

When you buy a new cell phone, do you end up with two services, one of which you have to cancel??

 

This is not really a fair comparison. If the OP had transfered his current S2 subscription to the S3, then your question fits, and he wouldn't have needed to cancel his S2 service separately. What he did is more like someone that activates a phone with a different phone number and then have to separately cancel the service to the old phone.

 

Could the OP have used the change service number option to avoid the cancel hassle and having to purchase new service on the Series3? I've not used it myself due to Lifetime but I thought you could move service between non lifetime units online.