# Ebay Tivos Not able to activate



## vector1701 (Nov 15, 2004)

Here is the deal, I bought 4 Direct TV-Tivos off Ebay over a year or two ago after the announcement that Dtivos were going to be phased out. Well, after moving and unpacking all these units I called DTV and they said 2 were clear and 2 were from accounts in bad standing, therefore I could not activate them. The question is, can I do anything about it? Or can I just keep them or sell them for parts?

Gracias,
Patrick


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

This has come up before. They're good for parts only, excluding the motherboard which is worthless.


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## huggybear (Apr 11, 2008)

I think there's a lesson to be learned here. If you're buying a used Tivo get the serial number and ensure yourself the account is in good standing prior to buying. I bought mine from eBay and it's all good.

Marc


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## rock_doctor (Oct 22, 2000)

You should be able to activate the two clear units and the two other keep for parts. Hope you did not pay too much for them. We all have multiple units in the closet to scavenge for parts. You now have two...


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## codespy (Jan 7, 2006)

Or swap te RID chip if you are good with a soldering gun.


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## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

I know the issue has been argued to death, but I still fail to understand why Directv ties the unpaid account to the unit and not to the account owner. Seems like a good business decision would be to release the hold on the unit so they could begin to collect money on it again.. ah well.


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## ebonovic (Jul 24, 2001)

Dkerr24 said:


> I know the issue has been argued to death, but I still fail to understand why Directv ties the unpaid account to the unit and not to the account owner. Seems like a good business decision would be to release the hold on the unit so they could begin to collect money on it again.. ah well.


Default on my account payment....

Create a new account, with the same equipment... under a different name...
Ect...

While the vast majority of people are honest... the bad-apples have caused issues.


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## Dkerr24 (Oct 29, 2004)

I see the logic, Earl... too bad it has to be that way for the honest customers.


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## dtvtivouser_9292 (May 15, 2004)

They can't use the access card for this?


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

No - a replacement access card is too easy to get.


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## SLOmike (Feb 1, 2002)

Would it be possible to pay off the old DirecTV bill to allow the hardware to be used again?

Assuming it is closer to $100 than to $2000.00.

-Mike


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

Good question. Theoretically, you'd think this could work, but I have to wonder if it's worth the expense. If it was more than $50 I'd walk away. You may find that DirecTV has no process to have you pay someone else's past-due balance and they'd prefer you to get a new non-TiVo box anyway. It would be interesting for the OP to pose this question to DirecTV and see what the answer is.


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## GuidoTKP (Feb 22, 2004)

stevel said:


> You may find that DirecTV has no process to have you pay someone else's past-due balance and they'd prefer you to get a new non-TiVo box anyway. It would be interesting for the OP to pose this question to DirecTV and see what the answer is.


Anyone in the Billing dept. can process the payment for the op on any account, it doesnt have to be there own account, they just have to be willing to make the payment for the deadbeat that decided he didnt need to pay his balance.


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## dtvtivouser_9292 (May 15, 2004)

I guess I had thought the access card was like a SIM chip in cell phones, apparently not...


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## MagnoliaFan (Jan 4, 2004)

Here's a question, what should I do with 2 DTV Tivos I no longer need? Don't care about parts, etc. One is SD, one is an HD 250. I was thinking of selling via eBay or Craigslist without the access cards, but this thread makes me wonder if it's worth the possible headache in the future if someone tries to highjack my old accounts or identity.

Is there an area here on the TivoCommuntiy for buying and selling?


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## litzdog911 (Oct 18, 2002)

MagnoliaFan said:


> Here's a question, what should I do with 2 DTV Tivos I no longer need? Don't care about parts, etc. One is SD, one is an HD 250. I was thinking of selling via eBay or Craigslist without the access cards, but this thread makes me wonder if it's worth the possible headache in the future if someone tries to highjack my old accounts or identity.
> 
> Is there an area here on the TivoCommuntiy for buying and selling?


If you own the equipment and it's not leased from DirecTV, and you properly deactivate them from your DirecTV account, then there's very little risk to you selling them via eBay or Craigslist. Don't include the access card. And be prepared to provide prospective buyers with the "Receiver ID Number" from your equipment so that they can verify with DirecTV that they'll be able to activate it on their account. Providing that information will not let anyone hijack your account.


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## MagnoliaFan (Jan 4, 2004)

Thanks. I wasn't going to include the cards, though it seems that a lot of the auctions do include them. Seems fishy to me since DTV will send you a new card and I thought that topic we aren't supposed to discuss was no longer an issue.


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## Rhughes (Jan 14, 2001)

huggybear said:


> I think there's a lesson to be learned here. If you're buying a used Tivo get the serial number and ensure yourself the account is in good standing prior to buying. I bought mine from eBay and it's all good.
> 
> Marc


That usually works. However, It didn't work for me. The seller shipped a different unit than the one he showed in the pictures. He advertised it as parts only, so I was stuck. Seemed like a lousy thing to do anyway. It was a really nice clean unit. When I called Direct the only thing they would tell me was that I couldn't activate the unit. I got passed along the chain 3 or 4 times before someone would tell me that it was in collections. It all seemed very mysterious.


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## macizcool (Jul 15, 2007)

I don't think you would be able to pay the account off because DirecTV will not discuss anything about the account that is in bad standing. I went through this same thing and they could not tell me anything.


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## cowboys2002 (Jun 15, 2001)

Dkerr24 said:


> I see the logic, Earl... too bad it has to be that way for the honest customers.


Plus what others have said, directv want us to move away from the combo boxes with Tivo and into their leased boxes anyway. This way, they can lock us into 2 year contracts.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

dtvtivouser_9292 said:


> I guess I had thought the access card was like a SIM chip in cell phones, apparently not...


Nope, unlike a phone, part of the security identity is in the receiver, and the card is married to it.


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## SLOmike (Feb 1, 2002)

Rhughes said:


> The seller shipped a different unit than the one he showed in the pictures. He advertised it as parts only, so I was stuck.


Unless the listing specifically said that the unit in the picture was not the unit you would get, you should be able to get your money back on eBay. Parts only doesn't get them out of having to deliver the item they listed.


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## Rhughes (Jan 14, 2001)

SLOmike said:


> Unless the listing specifically said that the unit in the picture was not the unit you would get, you should be able to get your money back on eBay. Parts only doesn't get them out of having to deliver the item they listed.


This was an eletronics surplus dealer near Dallas. I wrote to them, but never heard back. They probably had a bunch of them and just used one for the pictures. What was irritating was the closeup picture of the serial number, which I used to verify with DirecTV. I know I could have made noise with Ebay or PayPal, but I paid so little for it, it wasn't worth the hassle.


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## stevel (Aug 23, 2000)

tamaracusa12 said:


> Btw Can you actually Buy the new Directv equipment brand new and not have it be a lease. I would really hate to give a gift That 1. Cant be used IE ebay ones(possibly) Or 2. One that has to be given back


You can't buy current boxes to own, unless you're willing to pay a LOT more, and then - what's the benefit? Satellite receivers are not useful without service, and the boxes are almost given away nowadays. Also, a leased receiver will be replaced at minimal cost, whereas you may not get such benefit for an owned receiver.

If you want to give someone the gift of DirecTV service, you can do so - that's more than a physical box.

I've never understood the cellphone ads promoting them as gifts, as the recipient still has to pay for service...


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## gcaxp (May 31, 2008)

I ran into (basically) the same situation, and after some serious digging, was able to get things working.

I purchased a Series 2 DirecTV Tivo from someone on Ebay to replace my old Series 1 machine, only to find the hard drive kaput. However, not one to give up easily, I installed a new drive with a new image from DVRupgrade (InstantCake), but when I tried to activate the receiver, I was told that I couldn't because the machine was linked to an account with a past due balance. After expressing my utter disbelief to the CSR at the rediculousness (is that a word?) of this logic (kind of like being told by Shell that I can't fill up on gas in the car I just bought because the last person who owned it still owes on their Shell gas card), I figured I'd dig a bit online for a solution.

I found a solution that worked perfectly for my situation. Check out dswallow's posting on 2/5/2006 (posting #13 here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=285577) for a way to get around this problem. Now, I suppose this only works if you're swapping one DirecTV Tivo unit for another, but since that's all I had, that's all I can accurately verify. I hope this helps.

Now to see if I can get the Zipper hack working so I can access my receiver through my network!


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## bengalfreak (Oct 20, 2002)

gcaxp said:


> I found a solution that worked perfectly for my situation. Check out dswallow's posting on 2/5/2006 (posting #13 here: http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=285577) for a way to get around this problem. Now, I suppose this only works if you're swapping one DirecTV Tivo unit for another, but since that's all I had, that's all I can accurately verify. I hope this helps.


That also only works if the Tivo being added to your account is a non-RID Tivo.


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## rvfrueh (Nov 12, 2003)

bengalfreak said:


> That also only works if the Tivo being added to your account is a non-RID Tivo.


Which are RID versus non-RID?


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## T1V0 (Jun 14, 2006)

rvfrueh said:


> Which are RID versus non-RID?


All Series 1 dtivo's do not have RID numbers. The Phillips DSR7000, Hughes HDVR2, and RCA DVR39 also do not have RID numbers. All other Series 2 dtivo's have them.


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