# Dishonest, Fraudulent company STOLE $106 from me



## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Simple transaction, simple case of fraud.

I bought a second tivo and authorized the charge for $399 and tax to my credit card. The amount was correct in the shopping cart and checkout.

My receipt, emailed later that day showed they billed $499 and tax. Contacted tivo and was told the actual billing to my cc was $399 and not to worry. I checked with my cc and indeed the authorized amount was $426.

Get my cc statement and they actually billed $533. This was not authorized and has been reported to the cc as fraud. Its NOT a simple billing mistake as the bill was correct and accounting assured me the amount was correct. They then billed an amount to my cc that was not as agreed. FRAUD. Simple.

I will contact them again later today but seriously doubt they will resolve while online. If they turn off the tivo because of the billing dispute from the cc, the tivo goes back.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Fraud requires intent. Highly unlikely another other than human error involved here. Sounds like the charge was for a new Premiere with lifetime on an existing account and what you were trying to do was put lifetime on a box you already had and the first transaction went through first before the rep saw the error (which explains their comment)

Give it a couple days to work through the system. If there is still a problem, dispute with the credit card company.

Not exactly sure why the rant here - would you have posted if the mistake was in the other direction?


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Its fraud because there IS intent. The amount of the approved charge was for 426 and was shown on the internet commerce site and verified by a live agent. 426 is also what was authorized against the card with the bank.

They then charged the cc a different amount. Required a person to make the change intentionally. It is NOT just an error.

I will be on the phone with Tivo when they open at 7am PT and will report back how they handle the situation.

For the record, this WAS activation of a new tivo on an existing account. A very straightforward transaction that was completed fully within the internet commerce site and completed correctly. It was modified, contrary to what was authorized, after the fact.

Fraud is when one thing is agreed and something else was done intentionally. That is EXACTLY what has happened here. If I thought this was a one time incident, I would not have reported it here. There is a long history of Tivo's fraudulent billing and credit card transactions documented here on this site. I reported my case to add to the history and document the ongoing shady business practices.

Tivo needs to fix these problems with thier business systems. Its been going on far too long. Course, they likely programmed it themselves and it works about as well as other software they sell.


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## welestgw (Sep 17, 2008)

I think you're overreacting, you're complaining of fraud but you have yet to contact Tivo about the mistake. Call them and sort it out, it's much more likely to be a mistake then fraud, as you'd see a pattern of that on here.

If you call them and they deny any wrong doing, then chargeback the Tivo charge amount. That will get them to make some headway.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

Way to overreact. You should call the FBI.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Be interesting to see what happens after you talk to TiVo. But, no matter what you think, it's not fraud nor part of some grand plan. And you have nothing to show it was done intentionally. 

As for your allegations there are ongoing systemic problems with Tivo's ecommerce systems, there certainly isn't any evidence to support that, even anecdotally, here or anywhere else. 

One of the other posters was correct - you are over-reacting. If you are convinced that you aren't, cancel the sale, stop using the service of such a "corrupt" company, and walk away.


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## randyb359 (Jan 3, 2009)

never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence because it almost always is the later. What probably happened was someone saw the charge and thought it was wrong so the "fixed" it.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> 426 is also what was authorized against the card with the bank.


I don't think 'authorization' means what you think it means. They can authorize any amount they want, it's just to ensure that your credit card has sufficient funds before a transaction occurs. It's to protect the merchant, not you.

They probably made a mistake. Something went wrong between the time the order was placed (and authorized) and when it was executed. Call them up and they'll fix it.

(regardless, isn't it funny that in my experience such errors are almost always in the business' favor, and not the customer's favor?)


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## randyb359 (Jan 3, 2009)

smbaker said:


> I don't think 'authorization' means what you think it means. They can authorize any amount they want, it's just to ensure that your credit card has sufficient funds before a transaction occurs. It's to protect the merchant, not you.
> 
> They probably made a mistake. Something went wrong between the time the order was placed (and authorized) and when it was executed. Call them up and they'll fix it.
> 
> (regardless, isn't it funny that in my experience such errors are almost always in the business' favor, and not the customer's favor?)


I am not sure that is true. We only hear about it when it is in the businesses favor. when I go through the supermarket checkout I have about as moany items over charge as undercharge. I never complain because i figure it all evens out. I know many people do complain about being overcharged. I never hear people complain they were undercharged.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I used to tell them if the price is higher or lower. But if it scans at a lower price they give it to you for that anyway so at a certain point there is no reason to bring the lower price to their attention.
So now I just mention if it scans at a higher price since they give you a dollar for each different product that happens to. Then I'll take that and buy a lottery ticket.

At least this is the case at the Wegmans I go to across the street from me.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

It's well past 7 am PT ...


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Once, I ***** a brick when I received my Visa bill and a sandwich ended up posting as $845 instead of $8.45.

Clearly an error, and I immediately called my cc company. I also stopped by the shop, where they were relieved that I came in to make the correction (I went there 3x per week). They knew through their close that there was a problem with the total amount they received, but once the data is provided to Visa, they could not pull it back to see whom to credit. Visa would not allow that to happen, and forced them to wait for me to complain.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

randyb359 said:


> I am not sure that is true. We only hear about it when it is in the businesses favor.


I'm speaking of my own experiences. I can't think of the last time a billing mistake was in my favor. I can easily think of instances when a billing mistake is in the company's favor. In fact, it currently happens monthly with my comcast bill despite my attempts to correct it.

I'm not talking of small instances where a clerk might hand you an extra nickle in change during a transaction. I'm talking of systematic billing errors by major companies. It's not that I think there's some major conspiracy here, but rather that there's little effort into correcting errors that are in the company's favor.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

jcthorne said:


> Its fraud because there IS intent. The amount of the approved charge was for 426 and was shown on the internet commerce site and verified by a live agent. 426 is also what was authorized against the card with the bank.
> 
> They then charged the cc a different amount. Required a person to make the change intentionally. It is NOT just an error.
> 
> ...


Ah come on, before you posted you should have attempted to resolved the issue with TiVo, I once got a $39 charge on my (on file with TiVo) credit card, as I only have lifetime TiVos the charge could not be for any TiVo service I had, I did not post that TiVo just took $39 from me, I called TiVo and they could see the charge but could not tell me why it happened, took about 3 days and i got a cr for the $39. Errors happen, and i don't think TiVos CEO gave orders to the CSR to screw any customers they could with extra charges.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> Its fraud because there IS intent. The amount of the approved charge was for 426 and was shown on the internet commerce site and verified by a live agent. 426 is also what was authorized against the card with the bank.


How is that intent? Intent requires motivation that translates into action. In this case, that motivation must either originate from policies at TiVo that encourage or require the employee to over-charge the customer, or else the individual employee responsible for the incorrect charge sought to gain personally from the transaction. If you suggest the latter, then how, exactly, would this individual obtain this revenue? If you are suggesting the former, then given the exposure a publicly traded company, do you really think Tivo, Inc would risk implementing a company-wide policy of imposing fraudulent charges?


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> How is that intent? Intent requires motivation that translates into action. In this case, that motivation must either originate from policies at TiVo that encourage or require the employee to over-charge the customer, or else the individual employee responsible for the incorrect charge sought to gain personally from the transaction. If you suggest the latter, then how, exactly, would this individual obtain this revenue? If you are suggesting the former, then given the exposure a publicly traded company, do you really think Tivo, Inc would risk implementing a company-wide policy of imposing fraudulent charges?


Another very likely possiblity falls in the category of negligence on the part of management, i.e., their policies and procedures are forumulated with good intent but training isn't sufficient that employees always do the right thing, and/or the policies are too complex to be easily followed even with training. This kind of problem easily can happen in any company. In cases where a lot of damage is done by the error (not the present case), a legal action may be required to establish liability of the company.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Nothing unusual about having an erroneous charge. I've probably had that happen at least once from any merchant I've frequented over the last 29 years of using credit cards. And that includes TiVo. When it happened with TiVo a call to customer service got it straightened out. Which is usually the case with any merchant.


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

It is way after 7:00. I'm just sayin'


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

randyb359 said:


> I never hear people complain they were undercharged.


I have gone back into the supermarket when I realized I was *vastly* undercharged (about $10). IIRC, the club card *did* have the right (discounted) price, even though the cash register seemed to be showing the wrong price during the purchase.. so the cashier was manually "correcting" the price. (BTW, I am not over-emphasizing vastly to imply that I wouldn't go back for a minor undercharge.)

I realized the problem after the purchase and went back to the customer service desk. They said don't bother, though I'm not sure if they really have that power (though I guess they do, since they have given me back money other times when I was overcharged.. though much less money in those cases).


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

WhiskeyTango said:


> Way to overreact. You should call the FBI.


Reminds me of


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## LoadStar (Jul 24, 2001)

WhiskeyTango said:


> Way to overreact. You should call the FBI.


Why stop at the FBI? Call the FTC! Call the US Attorney General's office! Call the White House!


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## yoheidiho (Mar 31, 2011)

Is it 7:00 yet?


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

daveak said:


> It is way after 7:00. I'm just sayin'





yoheidiho said:


> Is it 7:00 yet?


Foolish forum readers, he said:



jcthorne said:


> I will be on the phone with Tivo when they open at 7am PT and will report back how they handle the situation.


While he stipulated a time on when he would call Tivo, he did not say when he would report his findings! Perhaps he went on vacation, and will announce his plan in a couple of weeks.


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## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

lessd said:


> took about 3 days and i got a cr for the $39.


That's pretty good.

I've been to places that refund you in "6-8 weeks". And no, it's not a rebate - it was for service that was cancelled and refunded. That really sucks. 3 days? That's normal credit card processing time (a charge can take up to 3 days from when it's charged to when it's posted on your bill.).


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

Worf said:


> That's pretty good.
> 
> I've been to places that refund you in "6-8 weeks". And no, it's not a rebate - it was for service that was cancelled and refunded. That really sucks. 3 days? That's normal credit card processing time (a charge can take up to 3 days from when it's charged to when it's posted on your bill.).


The card I have does show (online) the temporary charges posted to the card before they become permanent charges/cr. In TiVo case I saw the temporary cr. of the $39 in 3 days, it did take another 3 or four days to show up on the permanent part of the card.


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## daveak (Mar 23, 2009)

smbaker said:


> Foolish forum readers, he said:
> 
> While he stipulated a time on when he would call Tivo, he did not say when he would report his findings! Perhaps he went on vacation, and will announce his plan in a couple of weeks.


How'd you know I was a foolish forum reader?  I just assumed (and you know what that gets you) he would be back to report his progress as pointedly as he reported his problem.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

daveak said:


> How'd you know I was a foolish forum reader?  I just assumed (and you know what that gets you) he would be back to report his progress as pointedly as he reported his problem.


Only foolish forum readers assume! The non-foolish ones never assume!!


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

You fool!

I assume, anyway...


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## mec1991 (Nov 5, 2004)

Wonder if he has called TexasGrillChef for his lawyer's phone number.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

smbaker said:


> Foolish forum readers, he said:
> 
> While he stipulated a time on when he would call Tivo, he did not say when he would report his findings! Perhaps he went on vacation, and will announce his plan in a couple of weeks.


Maybe he's still on hold?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

smbaker said:


> ...
> 
> (regardless, isn't it funny that in my experience such errors are almost always in the business' favor, and not the customer's favor?)


I own my own business. Being paranoid of the IRS my partner am I are anal and religiously enter ever credit card receipt into quickbooks within a day or two of the transaction.

I can tell you that on average once every 2 months a legit charge never shows up on the statement despite having the paper receipt in hand. It amazes me. More often then not its a gasoline station but it happens all over. We let them sit till the end of the year then "clean them out".

We're not even that big and just a service business so only have 3-5 pages of transactions each month. It's not like we have thousands.

Which reminds me- I have a customer with about 5,000 fleet vehicles. I once had a project to analyze fuel usage, cost, and efficiency. so I received a giant spreadsheet with tens of thousands of transactions. a fleet that big gets automated data with number of gallons and price per gal reported on their cards. Again once I sorted it I would up with pages and pages of obviously wrong transactions. Things like supposedly premium gas sold for pennies a gallon and the like.

The amount of incompetence or broken systems is sad.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

We will agree to disagree on the intent and fraud. To me, it was simple. They represented and verified via independant review one charge and then without change or authorization took more from my account than agreed.

I did spend quite a long time on hold and waiting for 'approval by a supervisor' Took over an hour all together. I have not reported back until now as its STILL unresolved. They promised a credit 'In a few days' I do not know your definition of few but the credit still has not shown up on the account. Perhaps eventually. The charge was there within minutes. I have no doubt I will have to call back again and waste more time resolving this. 

As I stated before, the reason I reported it was that many such cases of opprotunistic and questionable 'errors' have been reported here in the past. If there are errors in the ecommerce system, this was one more data point to have it fixed. There was no misunderstanding it was just done wrong after the fact. The Tivo fan base, of which I am usually a part, sees this through different colored lenses than I did as the recipient.


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## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

If you want to see fraud, it's coming soon. I read where there's a bumper crop of flood damaged cars with washed titles this year thanks to midwest flooding and Hurricane Irene.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

There was no fraud and no money was stolen but let's not let facts get in the way of a good whining rant. There was possibly a mistake made, that happens, no question, but based on the nonsense thread title and tone of the whining, I am not sure that happened either.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Chris Gerhard said:


> There was no fraud and no money was stolen but let's not let facts get in the way of a good whining rant. There was possibly a mistake made, that happens, no question, but based on the nonsense thread title and tone of the whining, I am not sure that happened either.


When a company knowingly removes funds from MY account that was not authorized by me or my agent, that is theft. Plain and simple. There may be reasons or 'mistakes' that led to it, but its still theft. Tivo took funds from my account to thiers that did not belong to them.

The fact that it is taking far longer to recitfy the wrong than necessary is proof Tivo has the morals to allow the pattern of deciept to continue. The funds still have not been returned.

Hopefully they can be coerced into giving it back without too much more time lost. 'Mistake' or 'fraud' I will leave to legal teams to argue the definition. It was still wrong and meets the definition of theft as put forth long before our current legal system was started.


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## GameGuru (Dec 12, 2003)

Do I think Tivo is an evil company and intentionally "stole" money from you? No. Do I think companies who make mistakes take too long to fix the problem on average? Yes. They can take our money in an instant, it doesn't take days to remove it from our account and go to theirs. But when we are supposed to get a credit back we should allow them 3-5 days to do this? In essence we are floating them an interest free loan as they are getting the benefit of our money for free because of a mistake. This isn't right, if you can take my money within seconds of me hitting SUBMIT then it should come back just as fast.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

jcthorne said:


> When a company knowingly removes funds from MY account that was not authorized by me or my agent, that is theft. Plain and simple. There may be reasons or 'mistakes' that led to it, but its still theft. Tivo took funds from my account to thiers that did not belong to them.
> 
> The fact that it is taking far longer to recitfy the wrong than necessary is proof Tivo has the morals to allow the pattern of deciept to continue. The funds still have not been returned.
> 
> Hopefully they can be coerced into giving it back without too much more time lost. 'Mistake' or 'fraud' I will leave to legal teams to argue the definition. It was still wrong and meets the definition of theft as put forth long before our current legal system was started.


Dispute the charge with your credit card company and be done with it. As soon as you file the dispute with the cc company, they will give you a provisional credit, pending final resolution. They will deal with TiVo.

You clearly have some other agenda here and are making a mountain out of a molehill, or more likely, an ant hill.


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## randyb359 (Jan 3, 2009)

when i bought my premier xl the day the new pricing started i told them I tried to order it the day before but could not get through so they agreed to sell it at the old price. I was charged the new price immidiatly. It took about a week for the credit for the difference to show up


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## randyb359 (Jan 3, 2009)

jcthorne said:


> When a company knowingly removes funds from MY account that was not authorized by me or my agent, that is theft. Plain and simple. There may be reasons or 'mistakes' that led to it, but its still theft. Tivo took funds from my account to thiers that did not belong to them.
> 
> The fact that it is taking far longer to recitfy the wrong than necessary is proof Tivo has the morals to allow the pattern of deciept to continue. The funds still have not been returned.
> 
> Hopefully they can be coerced into giving it back without too much more time lost. 'Mistake' or 'fraud' I will leave to legal teams to argue the definition. It was still wrong and meets the definition of theft as put forth long before our current legal system was started.


from Merriam Webster dictionary
theft
a : the act of stealing; specifically : the felonious taking and removing of personal property with intent to deprive the rightful owner of it

there is no intent so it is not theft. It is a mistake. If they fail to correct it then it would become theft. So it is neither fraud or theft.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

Regardless of the semantics of "theft", "fraud", "mistake", etc., this is definitely unacceptable behavior on the part of TiVo, most likely falling in the category of careless negligence. Such carelessness and negligence very rarely occur in the process of making sure the company gets *payments due them*, of course.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

Without knowing exactly what the CSR did, it's pretty hard to even chalk this up to negligence.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

randyb359 said:


> there is no intent so it is not theft.


Without more detail, we have no idea whether or not there was intent. Unlikely, but not impossible.



jcthorne said:


> There may be reasons or 'mistakes' that led to it, but its still theft.


A mistake is by definition not a theft.

Now, you do have a legitimate beef if Tivo takes a long time to process the credit. Unfortunately, "3 days" is pretty darn good if they actually do as promised. I've had to wait weeks to get refunds before from other companies.

You also have legitimate beef about the time spent on hold trying to rectify the situation. I do think many companies provide bad billing service on purpose, in the hopes that customers will eventually give up trying to pursue an issue and accept a continuation of charges. Take for example how one can easily activate a Tivo online, but it requires a phone call and discussion with a CSR to deactivate a Tivo. Nothing illegal about it, but it's annoying nonetheless.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

jfh3 said:


> Dispute the charge with your credit card company and be done with it. As soon as you file the dispute with the cc company, they will give you a provisional credit, pending final resolution. They will deal with TiVo.
> 
> You clearly have some other agenda here and are making a mountain out of a molehill, or more likely, an ant hill.


In the first post the OP stated he reported it to the cc company as fraud. Is there a significant distinction between that and "disputing" the charge?

There have been a number of posts about problems with TiVo charges and the OP stated he wanted to add to that record so others would be aware. Why do you need to see an ulterior motive beyond that?


jfh3 said:


> Without knowing exactly what the CSR did, it's pretty hard to even chalk this up to negligence.


There is enough information in the OP's posts to conclude that TiVo has been negligent, or worse. Unless you simply believe he is lying.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Visa (or whoever is the card provider) has certain checks that do not allow for immediate action on the part of the vendor. A few day delay is a part of those protections, as is the inability of a vendor to go back through their records to provide a credit once the day has closed- thus putting some onus on the customer is part of the credit card company's process.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

dlfl said:


> In the first post the OP stated he reported it to the cc company as fraud. Is there a significant distinction between that and "disputing" the charge?


Absolutely. If I suspect fraud, I cancel a card. If there is a billing error or what is essentially a duplicate charge (as appears to be the case here), I dispute the charge, assuming it has actually posted to my account and does not just show up as an authorization or pending charge.

Every company that takes credit cards eventually has a similar situation. Without evidence that there is a larger, systemic issue unique to TiVo (for which you or the OP have provided no evidence), this OP's post is either "fear mongering" or venting.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

jrtroo said:


> Visa (or whoever is the card provider) has certain checks that do not allow for immediate action on the part of the vendor. A few day delay is a part of those protections, as is the inability of a vendor to go back through their records to provide a credit once the day has closed- thus putting some onus on the customer is part of the credit card company's process.


Excellent point. +1


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

dlfl said:


> In the first post the OP stated he reported it to the cc company as fraud. Is there a significant distinction between that and "disputing" the charge?.........





jfh3 said:


> Absolutely. If I suspect fraud, I cancel a card. If there is a billing error or what is essentially a duplicate charge (as appears to be the case here), I dispute the charge, assuming it has actually posted to my account and does not just show up as an authorization or pending charge.
> .........


A customer reports "fraud" concerning a charge and yet the cc company would not consider the charge to have been disputed? Come on ... that doesn't pass the laugh test!


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

If you disputed the charge with your credit card company and TiVo refunds you, you will of just caused more of a headache having to deal with the outcome of that. When TiVo (or any company) refunds money on a credit card, it will take several days for the charge to go through.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

dlfl said:


> A customer reports "fraud" concerning a charge and yet the cc company would not consider the charge to have been disputed? Come on ... that doesn't pass the laugh test!


Go back and read it again. You asked if there was a difference. Of course I would expect the company to consider something reported as fraud to be disputed, but generally what the card holder thinks is irrelevant.

Trust me, if the card issuer thought it was fraud, the card would already be cancelled.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

dlfl said:


> In the first post the OP stated he reported it to the cc company as fraud. Is there a significant distinction between that and "disputing" the charge?
> 
> There have been a number of posts about problems with TiVo charges and the OP stated he wanted to add to that record so others would be aware. Why do you need to see an ulterior motive beyond that?
> 
> There is enough information in the OP's posts to conclude that TiVo has been negligent, or worse. Unless you simply believe he is lying.


I did dispute the charge. When doing so, Bank of America asks a few more questions. Once it is determined the nature of the dispute is that the vendor has charged an amount greater than shown on the receipt, it is BofA that called it a 'fraudulent' charge in its summery and follow up emails to me.

BofA did get to the bottom of this Friday evening and the credits now show on the account from tivo and the temp credit reveresed. The BofA rep also confirmed that this issue cost tivo an additional $25 fee.

My 'agenda' was only to add to the list of reports of this sort of behaviour on the part of Tivo do document the trend so that others may be aware. I am not leaving tivo over it but that does not mean I have to be supportive of bad business practices.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

rainwater said:


> If you disputed the charge with your credit card company and TiVo refunds you, you will of just caused more of a headache having to deal with the outcome of that. When TiVo (or any company) refunds money on a credit card, it will take several days for the charge to go through.


No, the credit shows up as a pending transaction within minutes just as does a charge. It is tivo's delay, not BofA.

There was no additional headache. In fact, perhaps I should have just reported it to BofA and never bothered with tivo. Would have been far easier on my part. Going to Tivo first was my attempt to save them the cost of the chargeback and do the right thing to correct an 'error'. They delayed, and made the problem worse rather than deal with it immeadiatly. Now they suffered the chargeback fee.

Its done. At least I think it is. Lets move on.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

jcthorne said:


> No, the credit shows up as a pending transaction within minutes just as does a charge. It is tivo's delay, not BofA.
> 
> There was no additional headache. In fact, perhaps I should have just reported it to BofA and never bothered with tivo. Would have been far easier on my part. Going to Tivo first was my attempt to save them the cost of the chargeback and do the right thing to correct an 'error'. They delayed, and made the problem worse rather than deal with it immeadiatly. Now they suffered the chargeback fee.
> 
> Its done. At least I think it is. Lets move on.


You said you got TiVo to refund the difference. If your credit card company reversed the charge, then when TiVo's refund goes through, they will charge you again to get their costs back. You never ask for a refund and dispute the charge. That results in the company being charged twice.

And of course the credit card company can do a credit faster than an outside company. TiVo has probably already finished the process of refunding the money to your card. It just takes time to go through.


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

jcthorne said:


> There was no additional headache. In fact, perhaps I should have just reported it to BofA and never bothered with tivo. Would have been far easier on my part.


Having had to go through a chargeback process with a Merchant once before (and ultimately won!), it was not a simple process. It took writing a letter documenting the problem, reading their letter refuting my letter, and writing a response. The whole process took a couple of months to get my money back.

It sounds like your experience was much less work than mine. Perhaps things have improved.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I've never had to write any lettters with American Express. Although they do investigate it for up to 30 days.


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## Rob Helmerichs (Oct 17, 2000)

smbaker said:


> It sounds like your experience was much less work than mine. Perhaps things have improved.


Depends on the merchant. I know Amazon will just issue the credit as soon as they know it's due. I've had other people (usually small merchants) where it takes forever.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

jcthorne said:


> No, the credit shows up as a pending transaction within minutes just as does a charge. It is tivo's delay, not BofA.
> ....


The 2-3 day delays are the credit card processors not the merchant. They likely takenthe mmoney out of tivo,s account that night but take a few days to get it to where it ultimitely goes. Each bank in the chain stalls for a day or 2.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

Btw, unless you notified TiVo that you were disputing the charge with your credit card company, if you requested TiVo refund your money, then it is possible TiVo can notify your credit card company of fraud by you.


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## dlfl (Jul 6, 2006)

One thing this thread has illustrated is that when there are delays (or "clearing times") for transactions by financial institutions they happen a lot more often to the disadvantage of the customer than of the institutions. It's kind of like Doctor's being late for your appointment and you always having to wait for the cable guy. It doesn't cut the other way! Is this what they mean by "unsymmetric warfare" ?


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

dlfl said:


> One thing this thread has illustrated is that when there are delays (or "clearing times") for transactions by financial institutions they happen a lot more often to the disadvantage of the customer than of the institutions. It's kind of like Doctor's being late for your appointment and you always having to wait for the cable guy. It doesn't cut the other way! Is this what they mean by "unsymmetric warfare" ?


totally true- and folks should understand in this instance that "customer" is both the consumer buying the product and the merchant selling the product. The merchant gets hosed by the float just as much as the buyer and in some ways more so.

consumer buys the box for X and has card charged almost immediately, the merchant gets x-% days later.

merchant refunds consumer and has Y + fees removed from their account probably that evening, the consumer gets Y days later.

If the merchant catches the mistake the same day and can undo it then it's not so bad. But it you miss the mistake and catch it the following day you wind up getting charged two sets of fees on he same overcharge (discount percentage on the original sale and then transaction fees on the credit). The merchant doesn't get the discount percentage refunded or anything.

It's crazy that in this day and age the banks still are allowed days of float when everything is handled electronically. Even checks are scanned and converted to electronic transactions frequently now-a-days.

Tivo messed up and it's good the OP caught them and made them fix it, but tivo got plenty of punishment from the fees involved. If the OP created a chargeback (not clear from above) it's even more money and then Tivo gets assessed 'demerits'  for having a charge back which can cause their standing to decline and ALL their fees to go up.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

I have seen credit card mistakes both ways, my favor and the merchant's favor, but I don't recall either being more common. It is up to us, if we use a credit card, to be meticulous, pay attention and catch mistakes. Mistakes I have caught have been very rare but I have seen some in my lifetime. I have been a TiVo customer since October 2000 and haven't had a single mistake made with my account as far as billing, but I haven't had many transactions with the company.

I don't know what the OP purchased, I didn't see that mentioned but it must have been a lifetime subscription, normal full price is $499 and discounted price is $399. I can say absolutely without any reservation, I would not assume a charge of $499 was the result of fraud and would not start a thread alleging fraud and theft. I have no idea why anybody would start such an idiotic thread if that is what happened, I would just follow up and get it fixed, very simple and won't even take much time. If that was the worst thing that happened to me that day, I would consider it a very good day overall.

If the transaction was TiVo Premiere plus lifetime subscription for $399, I have no idea how he got that deal.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

Chris Gerhard said:


> I don't know what the OP purchased, I didn't see that mentioned but it must have been a lifetime subscription, normal full price is $499 and discounted price is $399. I can say absolutely without any reservation, I would not assume a charge of $499 was the result of fraud and would not start a thread alleging fraud and theft. I have no idea why anybody would start such an idiotic thread if that is what happened, I would just follow up and get it fixed, very simple and won't even take much time. If that was the worst thing that happened to me that day, I would consider it a very good day overall.
> 
> If the transaction was TiVo Premiere plus lifetime subscription for $399, I have no idea how he got that deal.


You obviously did not read my post before calling me an idiot.

I very clearly said I bought a Premiere and then went to tivo online to subscribe it. The transaction was for EXACTLY $426. I have the receipt.

Tivo charged 530 to my card after the fact. It was a simple online transaction. As stated in my post. But don't let facts get in your way of calling folks names.


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