# Does anyone have contact details for Tivo - UK or US?



## DogmaLoki (May 1, 2004)

Hi,

Tivo overcharged me £20. I was told by Tivo customer services to write to Tivo Customer Services Ltd and given an address (basically Sky) to get the money back.

Well they didn't pay. I warned them if I had to ask them again there would be admin charges. Four letters, and now numerous admin charges, they own me quite a bit of money.

I need to take action against them... but looking into Companies House, I see Tivo Customer Services Ltd doesn't even exist.

So not only do they owe me money, they lied about the company's existence! That probably helps my claim though.

So does anyone have contact details for Tivo, UK or US, that I can write to?

Thanks in advance for any info!


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## Automan (Oct 29, 2000)

Tivo pulled out of the UK several years ago.

Customer Services in the UK from Day 1 in UK have been provided by Sky and still are.

Automan.


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## mikerr (Jun 2, 2005)

DogmaLoki said:


> I warned them if I had to ask them again there would be *admin charges*. Four letters, and now numerous admin charges, they owe me quite a bit of money.


Good luck with getting your own "admin charges"

Isn't £20 from your credit card (presumably 2 monthly charges after you've cancelled?)
and can't you charge that back?

I think you'd be better dealing with sky for the refund, as its they who operate subscriptons for the UK,
but FYI here's Tivo's details:

http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/260b4e2f89e1436b84524c6e6078b7d5/compdetails


> TIVO (UK) LIMITED
> 5 NEW STREET SQUARE
> LONDON
> EC4A 3TW


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## DogmaLoki (May 1, 2004)

AutoMan, but I don't know that I had a contract with Sky.

mikerr, I moved to debit card so wasn't protected sadly. 

Thanks for those details... I swear I didn't see that in the registry!

As to the fees... well it costs money to write letters, send them recorded post etc. If I warn them that if they don't pay there'll be charges, and they don't pay, then logically charges follow. Even the £20 back they overcharged would be a start though.

I did get just one reply from Sky saying they couldn't find my Sky subscription... when I had written to Tivo, and mentioned Tivo in the letter. They are numbskulls, always up to no good.

Thanks again for those details.


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## Trinitron (Jan 20, 2003)

DogmaLoki said:


> mikerr, I moved to debit card so wasn't protected sadly.


Is it a Visa debit card? Their chargeback process is the same as for credit cards.


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## DogmaLoki (May 1, 2004)

Trinitron said:


> Is it a Visa debit card? Their chargeback process is the same as for credit cards.


I've emailed my bank, will see what they say. Not sure if it's too late now. I trusted them to refund it, and of course now time's gone on.

Sky are a shambles, they really are. When I was a Sky customer I caught them doing something very shady... they gave me four months free as way of apology. I never want to deal with them again...!


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

DogmaLoki said:


> Ihen I was a Sky customer I caught them doing something very shady...


It wouldn't be the first time! Any chance you could say what it was?


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Have you tried emailing

```
[email][email protected][/email]
```
 (Sky CEO) with cc to

```
[email][email protected][/email]
```
 (finance director) and also to

```
[email][email protected][/email]
```
 An email to those addresses usually does the trick with kicking Sky in to taking the action that their congenitally unhelpful customer service staff in Livingston have failed to take

You might also want to try copying in this little lot at Tivo Inc as now that they are coming back to the UK (for the Virgin Tivo) they surely ought to be more interested in their reputation here:-


```
Tom Rogers CEO/President [email][email protected][/email]
Jim Barton Co-Founder [email][email protected][/email]
Joe Miller SVP Consumer Sales/Distribution [email][email protected][/email]
Mark Roberts SVP Consumer Products/Operations [email][email protected][/email]
Anna Brunette VP Controller & Treasurer [email][email protected][/email]
```


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## BrianHughes (Jan 21, 2001)

Hi Pete

I do think you should disguise those email addresses a bit eg "someone at tivo dot com" as if(when) they get harvested and a load of spam gets sent to them they'll be even less likely to read their emails.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

I was going to post something along the same lines, but a lot less subtle


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

BrianHughes said:


> Hi Pete
> 
> I do think you should disguise those email addresses a bit eg "someone at tivo dot com" as if(when) they get harvested and a load of spam gets sent to them they'll be even less likely to read their emails.


Brian,

I've now used the

```
and [uncode] business to try to alley your concerns but to be honest people as popular as this are going to be in endless spammers junk email lists already and the only protection is a decent spam blocking service like Ironport (used by Plusnet who my email accounts are with).

I am on the hitlists of numerous spammers due to my email address having been published on various websites (including that of Ofcom) but I no longer get any spam in my Inbox due to the Ironport spam filtration and most of it doesn't even get to my online Spam box (which I periodically review to whitelist anyone incorrectly classed as a spammer) as Ironport bounces back spam sent from known untrustworthy sending servers at the perimeter.

I don't think anyone these days won't tend to be using an ISP that doesn't automatically block most obvious spam.
```


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

I consider people like you, Pete77, to be almost as bad as the spammers themselves, since anti-spam software is never perfect, costs a fortune for industry to monitor, and the spam traffic still contributes to a drain on internet bandwidth. Before I changed my ISP, I had to check a list of 300 detected spam emails a day in case a genuine email had been caught.

All that will happen is that people will move to ex-directory addresses, and their original addresses will go unmonitored. Do you really think that busy executives are going to read their own mailboxes if they start filling-up with misguided emails from other than business contacts?

You're like a 'helpful' friend of mine who responds to every trick of the spammers to garnish genuine email addresses. He adds my email address to those chain-mail emails that go round, supplies my email address to websites that he thinks I might be interested in, and adds my visible email address into huge circulation lists of forwarded 'joke' emails, that end up on spammers lists.


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## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

To be helpful, information like those email addresses should have been sent via a PM.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I've now used the
> 
> ```
> and [uncode] business to try to alley your concerns...[/quote]
> ...


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## DogmaLoki (May 1, 2004)

Thanks Pete77 for those addresses, I'll consider emailing them.



mrtickle said:


> It wouldn't be the first time! Any chance you could say what it was?


Okay, a very long story summarised (still quite long!). This went on for about 3 - 4 months. I got multi room. They soon said one of the boxes wasn't dialing out. Went through usual checks with them (plugged in et al) and they said I'd need to get an engineer. I didn't buy this, as both boxes were reporting they were connected just fine.

I listened to the phone line as I triggered manual dial-backs from both boxes, and one was ringing through and working and the other was getting a 'line not working' noise -- so I swapped the viewing cards, and the behaviour reversed. The box that worked didn't, the one that didn't now did. It always worked this way, with one card being bad.

They refused to believe it. They said the cards did not control it. I said I swapped the cards, it was the card. Eventually this went on for many calls, and every single time the phone person insisted on the basic troubleshooting. Finally I did get one semi-helpful person who agreed to send an engineer out on the new box, thus it not costing me.

Engineer saw what I saw, confirmed it, requested a new card. Card didn't arrive. I called... I was told it wasn't the card, and I should check the box was plugged in etc. When I refused to go through the basic troubleshooting again, the Sky person put the phone down on me.

This was a couple of months, and during the process they were sending me letters threatening action for violating their terms and conditions due to the boxes not dialing out.

Eventually after much pestering at one point I did get one person to agree to send a card out. Hurrah! It didn't fixed it, I was gutted...

Then I had an idea... I recorded the dial tones that the boxes were making, and got software that translated the tones into numbers -- so I could see what numbers each card was dialing. They were two totally different numbers. I searched Google for the numbers, found a couple of posts with people talking about similar problems. Emailed a couple of people who had the same issue, one of those being phone engineer (he had the tech to analyse the tones as I did with software). One had just left Sky, the engineer said he'd been referred to second line support and they'd fixed it.

I phoned up, they gave me the same crap about checking it was plugged in (they seriously did this EVERY time) until I asked about second line support. They said they'd pass on my request. Next day, the dial outs were working. I called up to enquire what happened -- they said there was no record of my call, or my request for second line support. Ha. Conspiracy!

So after all these months, I sent them a huge complaint letter, told them how they continually told me it wasn't the card, continually said I'd have to pay for engineers or a new box, how they ignored the original engineer's report they'd ignored and then sent them print outs of my analysis of their phone calls as the proof of the numbers.

They gave me four months free as an apology, but I consider their behaviour to be criminal because it was extortion. What people would have the tenacity to do what I did, record and analyse phone tones etc? They pray on the vulnerable, and want to push engineer costs on people, and they are scum for that.


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

DogmaLoki said:


> they are scum for that.


Hear Hear...slighty harsh, but....Hear Hear


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## OzSat (Feb 15, 2001)

I have found with Sky and Virgin - it is often down to who you speak to and (not being racist or anything) once you get an overseas operator your chances of a fix are much less.

I don't think it is because there don't have the correct FAQ - but I think they (or some of them) are instructed that they must NOT pass the call up the chain.

I've been told on occasions to call back in 24 hours if the problem is still there.

On one occasion with Virgin I managed to get to the next level of support in the UK - but even though the details were on my account calling back to this second level for continued support of the same problem was prevented as the initial telephone operator would not forward on the call.

VM have their own newsgroup support service - which I and Carl use. My own experience is that the service is much better then their 'phone support.


I'm in the lucky position that I have contacts in most of the big broadcast companies - although I always start by calls as a regular customer - and only use my contacts when I hit a wall. But I've had to do it a few times with Sky and VM.


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## DogmaLoki (May 1, 2004)

Sounds like they're bad like the NTL days. At the risk of sounding like I hate every provider, I had loads of trouble with NTL too. They took two months to install my cable modem, and they drilled through my drainpipe and took months to fix that. They charged me stuff after I'd left them, all sorts of things. But they were more a hassle... if I badgered them, they fixed it EVENTUALLY. Whereas Sky created a problem and were trying to punish me for it and make me pay money. So different kinds of annoying.

I will return to NTL... well... Virgin next year when I move, due to Tivo. I'm hoping it'll be easier this time.


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## martink0646 (Feb 8, 2005)

DogmaLoki said:


> Sounds like they're bad like the NTL days. At the risk of sounding like I hate every provider, I had loads of trouble with NTL too. They took two months to install my cable modem, and they drilled through my drainpipe and took months to fix that. They charged me stuff after I'd left them, all sorts of things. But they were more a hassle... if I badgered them, they fixed it EVENTUALLY. Whereas Sky created a problem and were trying to punish me for it and make me pay money. So different kinds of annoying.
> 
> I will return to NTL... well... Virgin next year when I move, due to Tivo. I'm hoping it'll be easier this time.


When I was with NTL, I got so frustrated with the hassle of payment every month, again, another long story, I actually prepaid for a year so I didn't have to go through the purgatory that was their CS!!!

Martin


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

What was wrong with DD; or are you saying that's what went wrong?


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## mrtickle (Aug 26, 2001)

Thanks for posting the story. Sounds typical of Sky; I had a similar (but not as bad) chain of problems and ignored calls with a faulty Digibox. I now always keep a log of date/time/name of whoever I speak to with companies. It's very useful to be able to interrupt where appropriate and (politely) rattle off the history, eg "I spoke to Susan last week and she said <this>, then I spoke to Gerald yesterday and he promised <that> - which you are now contradicting - so I'm afraid I don't believe you: either put me back through to Gerald please because he was helpful, or your supervisor immediately". It really throws them when you have so much detail at your fingertips and works wonders! Also I make sure use their name when saying goodbye at the end of the call, and remind them that I've made notes.

(But not with Sky - for them I have to do everything in writing. They can't be trusted on the telephone.)


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