After subscribing to TIVO service for 6 1/2 years, my TIVO box crashed. No repair service was available, as the box was no longer in production. No concession was offered; I would have to buy a new box for around $400. I cancelled the service and switched to Comcast on 2/20/2011. The TIVO rep told me he would give me 2 months free service to "think about it" in case I didn't like Comcast. I said I would get I would get back to him if I wanted to reconsider. TIVO resumed debiting my account for April and May. I called demanding a refund for both months, because I was being charged for a service for which I had no equipment to use. I was offered to "meet in the middle" with a one month refund, not two. This is really poor customer relations, on both the equipment replacement and the billing issue. I wouldn't deal with this company again if they were my only choice available.

There is a web site for customers to contact the CEO of TiVo Inc. who are not satisfied with the assistance provided by the customer service department. I wrote the attached letter to the CEO this past Sunday and have not received an answer. I am currently looking for other disgruntled customers who are interested in filing a class action suit against TiVo for dishonest billing practices. I have spoken to a few lawyer friends and there are grounds to challenge the terms and conditions they site gives them the right to keep money for services they know they did not render. My next step is to contact some of the more outspoken, highly visible consumer advocates to see if they would be interested in championing the suit. My first call or email will be to Clark Howard. If you are interested, please reply to this thread. I am in the process of setting up a dedicated Blog towards the effort. I don't know about you, but I would rather let a judge decide whether Big Money companies like TiVo has the right to keep my money. I am not willing to take their word for it.
I AM SICK AND TIRED OF BIG MONEY GETTING AWAY WITH TAKING OURS, COUNTING ON 99% OF US NOT EVEN BOTHERING TO FIGHT BACK! WELL HERE IS YOUR CHANCE!

Good Evening Mr. Rogers:

I had the extreme misfortune to speak with one of your supervisors regarding this situation. I believe her name was Jessica. She lacked compassion and if that wasn't bad enough, she was darn right rude.
The situation related to customer service was as follows:
I moved in Nov 2009. My new location and service does not support TIVO Service. I loved my TiVo and before I learned that I would not be able to install it in my new home, I actually went out and purchased a wireless TIVO Adapter for more than $40. I had 3 different technicians come to my home to try to get it hooked up again and they were all unsuccessful. When it was apparent that I would not be able to activate my TIVO, I cancelled my service. Here in lies my problem. In my efforts to go green I went paperless on all my credit card statements. And also in my efforts to reduce my debt, I stopped using credit except for one card. Unfortunately it was not the card that the TIVO service was continuing to be billed on. Because of the relatively small amount that TIVO charges monthly and the balance on that credit card, I did not realize that my card was continued to be charged. It wasn't until, the credit card company reduced my available credit and increased my interest rate that I called them. In my conversations with them, I stated that I had not used the card in well over a year. to which they replied what about the monthly TiVo charges. Considering the situation, I was alarmed to say the least. The agent that I was speaking with advised me to contact the company to request that the charges be reversed. They, as did I, thought that given the fact that I had requested cancellation and that it was an error would reverse the charges. Particularly since it would also be apparent that my TIVO service had never been activated since the day of my move in November 2009.

When I called TIVO, the first agent that I spoke with was what I had come to expect from TIVO Customer Service. He was empathetic and kind and genuinely tried to help me, but because of the amount of time and therefore charges incurred, he was not authorized to extend that size credit amount. which is when his supervisor Jessica became involved. She informed me quite rudely, that I was not entitled to any refund what-so-ever and that it was my own fault for not checking to make sure that the charges had stopped. She informed me that according to company policy, I had 90 days to dispute charges and that I was well past that time. When I asked to speak to someone else to plead my case, she informed me that they would not tell me anything different. That company policy is company policy. And that I had agreed to the terms and conditions when I first purchased my TIVO service.

I have since read thru the several pages of terms and conditions and found the paragraph in which the 90 day term policy is stated. Frankly, I find it completely unfair that something of such importance would be buried several pages into the terms and conditions. It is almost as if the company did it intentionally. Betting the odds that most people/customers would not read the entire terms and conditions before clicking on the "I Agree" button. I admit that if it were part of your terms and conditions when I purchased the service, I did not see it, so...

I am asking you as head of TIVO or whomever you designate to handle this in your executive staff, to please reverse the charges that TIVO charged me after I cancelled my account. If you will not, I respectfully request, proof that I agreed to "terms and conditions" that included that obscure policy that entitles TIVO to keep money for services that I never received. Secondly, I will need the date of the initial cancellation and any related account records. Because I tried several times to set it up, the cancellation request wasn't placed in November or December 2009. To my best recollection it was sometime in early January 2010.

I have spoken to several people about this and all agree that this policy is unfair and should be reported, so that others may be warned. Because I strongly believe that I am entitled to a refund and because of the shabby way that the supervisor Jessica handled the situation, I do not intend to just let this go. It may not seem like a lot of money to you, but it is to me. I am a single woman struggling to make ends meet. And although it may have been foolish of me not to have checked to make sure that the TIVO company had carried out my request, I am not so foolish that I would not do whatever I could to get the error corrected. Since my last contact with TIVO, I have done some online research. As a systems analyst, I am Tec savvy and will employ any and all resources available to me.

But when I came across the web site that encourages people who were not satisfied with the customer service they had received to contact the CEO, I decided to plead my case with you one last time. I truly hope that you will be able to help me resolve this without me having to turn into a prolific writer on the subject.

I am cutting and pasting the text from the cancellation email I received from the evil Jessica below. My contact information was updated on my TIVO account even though it was never able to be activated. I even checked the support forums every few months to see if anyone had resolved the connection problem. In truth, I still hope to someday have my TIVO service restored, because I was a big TiVo fan.

Thank you for your time and patience. I hope to hear from you soon.

I signed up for TIVO and then found it impossible to install on my system. Took hours on the phone trying to reach them withoout success. I have been charged fdor several months without receiving any service. Then my credit card went stale dated and I thought that woluld be an end to it - but instead they said they had cut off service (which is what I wanted), place my account with a colelction agency and charge me a $200 early cancellation fee.

Ther seems to be no way to contact them buy email - which seems to be intentional so you cannot commujnicate and they can continue to bill.

Does anyone know how to contact them by email?

When I purchased my Tivo boxes I was assured that my privacy settings would be respected. I told them how I wanted them set and was assured again that they would be. To my surprise about 6 months later I learned that when you initially set up your Tivo box it automaticly sets you up for a less restricting privacy setting then you were originally told it would be. When I called to find out what happened I was told that I could have easily reset my privacy to the strictest setting by going to messages/settings at the time I set up my box. I pointed out that their were no such instructions to do this at time of set up or after. I was told that I should have known. I found out that Tivo's position on this is that the customer should have known to do this even though nowhere in the set up does it even suggest the customer had this option.
I then found out that if I did choose to the more restrictive option so that my information is not shared and that I would no longer receive advertising that Tivo sells to marketers I would not be able to receive a good portion of programming or updates to my Tivo sets. They cleverly mixed in the items you need or want to keep your Tivo box running smoothly and up to date with their marketing. This way if you choose to opt out your kinda screwed!
I have contacted their support area, but with no help from them at all I requested to speak to their executive relations team. I called them and emailed them on June 30th and was told someone from there privacy dpt. will call me. It is now July 9, and I have not heard a peep from them.
Conclusion: If you are set on purchasing Tivo products and do not care about privacy issues then go for it. If you have concerns about doing business with a company that has decided to take a turn for the worst by being dishonest and not only wanting to make money off of the merchandise and service they sell you, but also demand that they continue making money off you by utilizing your private information such as what you watch when you watch it and any and all information they can gather about you personally for marketing purposes, please feel free to call them.
But don't forget they decided to punish any customer that feels they have the right to protect their own privacy by preventing customers from receiving important updates and information about the programming by connecting these functions with there privacy/marketing settings.
Also as a side not Tivo is passe now. Cox, dish, ect. ect. and all such companies now provide you with DVR's that are as good or better then what Tivo has. You can save thousands of dollars by not going with Tivo and keep your personal information private.

I called TIVO to cancel there service coonectiong to FIOS, but that I would be moving to a new location which did not have FIOS. At that time I might use TIVO. The lady said I would recieve three months free service if I reconnected at new location, but after three months they started billing me. I have not moved still use HD FIOS and billed for TIVO for a service that is not connected. They are able to tell if the service is connected, try and connect a box, without calling them it does not work.