Process for Selling TiVo and Transfering Lifetime

You call TiVo customer service and tell them you have sold a box on your account and want to authorize the transfer of ownership to the new owner. You tell them the TSN of the box and usually they'll ask you the new owner's name, and then they will give you a case number that you give to the new owner. Once the new owner receives the box, they call TiVo customer service and give TiVo the case number and their account info and the box gets transferred over. It's a relatively quick and painless process.

 

Correct, although I suspect the new owner can get by with just their name as long as you have advised TiVo of it. But the case number may speed up the process, so why not do that also?

 

Following the above process Re: obtaining and sending the transfer case number, there’s no reason the ownership transfer couldn’t be completed before you take the box offline at your place, and I’m not sure it couldn’t be completed while the box is in transit (i.e. before the box is brought online at its destination).

 

Fun fact: some people who buy used lifetime TiVos are quite happy just leaving the box on your account; this happened to me once. The box continues to function just fine and I suspect they don't even know or care what functions they are missing on tivo.com. Every so often I set a season pass for some random show for them but they seem totally oblivious!

 

You could have some fun with that . . . record some really random shows to populate their what's on list.

 

As long as the new owner requests it, and after the previous owner has informed TiVo of it. I assume the new owner would have to know the TSN also.

 

This is why before I sell TiVos, I always call up TiVo support and transfer them off my main TiVo account to a second TiVo account in my name. I don't want a bunch of boxes I've sold off still hanging around on my main account because the new owners don't move them to their own account.

 

I did that to my brother-in-law to get him to finish the transfer. He seemed quite happy with my choices, unfortunately.

 

An especially good idea given the 12 device limit.

 

So he said. (Deletions are fast and easy.).

 

I sold one with Lifetime (I think it was purchased via TiVo and never placed in service but I could have used it... it's been a while) and alerted TiVo to the transfer however many months later I found out the new owner purchased an extended warranty and it was charged to my credit card. TiVo admitted to the "mistake" and stated for whatever reason when it was updated they didn't remove my credit card. After a bit they refunded the charge and all was well...

 

I bought a Premiere from someone here maybe two years ago with lifetime. Met him and did the deal. Some how Tivo screwed it pretty good and he had access to my tivo.com or maybe my credit card was on his account. I forget exactly what. He did have access to my card for sure. It got straightened out and I knew the guy I bought it from wasn't going to do anything shady.