# Transfer of Lifetime



## ramtec (Nov 26, 2002)

ok finally given in on this - see my Motherboard Problems? thread. I therefore just purchased a 6022 off ebay without lifetime and was wondering if I can get the one that's on the 6021 transfered across? I know you can do this with one if the other party has told tivo they no longer have the tivo but I doubt this will be the case with this box because I think it was bought for ebay from a car boot!


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

You can try with customer services, other than that you may have to do a search on the database of deals and swap the service numbers between units yourself.


----------



## ramtec (Nov 26, 2002)

6022tivo said:


> You can try with customer services, other than that you may have to do a search on the database of deals and swap the service numbers between units yourself.


Thanks for the ultrafast response 6022tivo, can you let me know a bit more about the search on the database of deals and how I would go about this?


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ramtec said:


> ok finally given in on this - see my Motherboard Problems? thread. I therefore just purchased a 6022 off ebay without lifetime and was wondering if I can get the one that's on the 6021 transfered across?


I can't see you are going to have a problem asking Tivo customer services to do this for you if you explain that your current Lifetime subbed unit is broken and cannot be repaired.

You can ID yourself as the legitimate owner of the Lifetime subbed box via your name and address while they can see that the other box is account closed or never set up (from the Tivo service number) so they should accept there is nothing that needs protecting there or that could be stolen.

I would have thought they would only make an issue about transferring a sub from a Lifetime subbed model that had come from a car boot and for which the name and address of the original owner could not be specified.

My impression is that since Tivos cannot be repaired by Thomson any more that Tivo customer service is a good deal more flexible in this kind of situation. However as always it may depend on who you deal with there and could require you to either ask to speak to a supervisor or ring in at another time if you aren't successful the first time you call them.

I would imagine the other method specified for sub transfer might require a soldering iron and/or specialised equipment so I would avoid that method if at all possible.


----------



## ramtec (Nov 26, 2002)

6022tivo said:


> You can try with customer services, other than that you may have to do a search on the database of deals and swap the service numbers between units yourself.


Thanks again, you don't need to explain any further LOL


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ramtec said:


> Thanks again, you don't need to explain any further LOL


Does that mean you have achieved success with Tivo customer services or located the appropriate page on the database of deals?


----------



## ramtec (Nov 26, 2002)

due to it being Saturday no success with Tivo CS (are they open?) and haven't found the appropriate page on the database of deals but I now at least remember what the database of deals is.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

ramtec said:


> due to it being Saturday no success with Tivo CS (are they open?)


Yes. Sundays too I think


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> I would imagine the other method specified for sub transfer might require a soldering iron and/or specialised equipment so I would avoid that method if at all possible.


You imagine wrong.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

TCM2007 said:


> You imagine wrong.


Only a network card and bash access then it would seem. I suppose one can perhaps check this out further at www dot deal data base dot com slash forum (no spaces between deal data and base in the URL)


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ramtec said:


> due to it being Saturday no success with Tivo CS (are they open?) and haven't found the appropriate page on the database of deals but I now at least remember what the database of deals is.


9pm to 10pm at night usually seems to be a good time to get straight through or after only a minute or so.

At least 0870 calls only cost 1.5p per minute at the weekend, even if the queue is a long one.


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

If you ask Customer Services for a paid swap-out (an out-of-warranty swap for around £70), they won't be able to do it because they sold all of the replacement stock to Tivoland, etc. However, that does morally oblige them (in my view) to transfer the lifetime subscription, and I'm sure they normally do.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> If you ask Customer Services for a paid swap-out (an out-of-warranty swap for around £70), they won't be able to do it because they sold all of the replacement stock to Tivoland, etc. However, that does morally oblige them (in my view) to transfer the lifetime subscription, and I'm sure they normally do.


A previous conversation with Tivo some months ago confirmed they would transfer a sub from a broken Lifetime subbed Tivo to an unsubbed Tivo due to no longer being able to repair them. The only questionmark here though is whether not knowing the previous owner history of the unsubbed Tivo may cause a problem.

I doubt that it will as there is no possibility of disadvantaging the original owner of the unsubbed Tivo by making this Lifetime sub transfer. Conversely if you couldn't provide the name and address details and phone number of the donor dead Lifetime subbed Tivo then I'm quite sure they would refuse to go ahead with the transfer. This obviously needs to be so to stop people stealing Lifetime subs from Tivos advertised on Ebay where the Service Number has been displayed in the ad etc, etc.


----------



## TCM2007 (Dec 25, 2006)

Pete77 said:


> Only a network card and bash access then it would seem. I


Still half wrong!


----------



## ColinYounger (Aug 9, 2006)

Cripes! That's 'dangerous' information!


----------



## ramtec (Nov 26, 2002)

Just to clarify. The lifetime sub box (6021) was from ebay as well as the recently purchased one without. The one I initially bought with the lifetime has, I believe, a memory fault so it shows corruption on the screen talked about in my thread titled "Motherboard Problems?".

So I do not know the owner details of the lifetime


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

ramtec said:


> So I do not know the owner details of the lifetime


Then Tivo customer service will not agree to transfer the sub for you. Your only option will be the black arts methods available at the Database of Deals and which we may not discuss here.


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

TCM2007 said:


> Still half wrong!


Yep, the first half.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

6022tivo said:


> Yep, the first half.


I imagine moving a Lifetime sub would not be that easy on a Series 2 or 3 unit.

So if you try selling your Tivo on Ebay and someone asks you for your Tivo Service number to check the Lifetime sub exists you risk having it stolen from you it would now appear?


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

Very much, I also know of a handfull of people who have the same lifetime service number on more than one unit. 

You would of thought both units dialing in every 24 hours would trigger some sort of event on the servers, but they have been doing this for years with no problem. 

You are correct S2 S3, can not be done, maybe another reason why the S1 was discontinued in the UK


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

I think the S1 was discontinued in the UK purely because Tivo wasn't making enough money and/or selling enough units.

On the other hand one of the principal featurs of the S2 Tivo compared to the S1 unit is simpler design and cheaper construction costs but also sigificantly greater resistance to hacking that could lose Tivo money.

With respect to a unit that dials in more than once in 24 hours being considered a duplicate if that was a serious worry then clearly Colin's new hack to force a daily call at the same time could not be recommended...................


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> With respect to a unit that dials in more than once in 24 hours being considered a duplicate if that was a serious worry then clearly Colin's new hack to force a daily call at the same time could not be recommended...................


I know of a couple of service numbers that would appear to dial in a couple of times a day, so I don't think tivo inc are too bothered, in fact, I don't think they can do anything about it.

They could close the accounts, but if you brought one from ebay, you could/may not be able to prove that you own that service number.

After buying a lifetime from ebay, always check the service number on the rear is intact and matches that in the system info, if it does not, then you have a cloned unit (which will work, but not what you paid for?)


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

6022tivo said:


> I know of a couple of service numbers that would appear to dial in a couple of times a day


I wonder how exactly you happen to know of those two Tivo units.


----------



## iankb (Oct 9, 2000)

It would be very easy to add a check in the daily call to spot re-use of the same serial number.

e.g. Simply take a note of the pattern of the recordings, and the MFS block numbers that have been allocated to each recording. If a significant proportion of the recordings that are over a few days old were to disappear and reappear between calls, that would be pretty damning evidence. Given the fact that there is no defragmentation applied to the MFS filesystem, a change of block numbers for the same recording would be an absolute indication of fraud.

In fact, checking the MFS block numbers might not even be necessary, since it wouldn't make sense to record the same programmes on two TiVos if they belonged to the same user.

Since they already have the option to capture the information about recordings on each daily call, they could obviously spot fraudulent use quite easily. Whether they have already, and have decided not to act upon it, is anybody's guess. Anyway, if they bother to read this thread, they might now decide it's worth a check.


----------



## 6022tivo (Oct 29, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I wonder how exactly you happen to know of those two Tivo units.


Not mine, one was a lifetime from when I brought it, the other was a ebay.

I only found this other info out from a friend who brought a ebay tivo with a scrubbed out service info on the back.

A quick ebay contact info retrieval and a phone call confirm all and my friend got a partial credit back, that is how I found out how easy it is to do, all of 20 seconds.

He is still using it to be fair, but what can he do??. He does not know the original number, and I would imagine the Tivo/Sky helpline would not have a clue on how to proceed as they would probably deny this could be possible.


----------



## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Pete77 said:


> I think the S1 was discontinued in the UK purely because Tivo wasn't making enough money and/or selling enough units.


Actually, if I recall, it was Thompson that pulled out of the deal to make the hardware.


----------



## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

iankb said:


> Anyway, if they bother to read this thread, they might now decide it's worth a check.


For a run out product with fast declining sales numbers (in terms of monthly subs revenues)? Also a product with no one at Tivo Inc directly responsible for it as a main part of their portfolio.

Tivo neither have anyone who is interested enough or has enough time to even bother to look into such a thing. Especially when the UK customer support is done by Sky who are totally clueless about such issues.

I suppose if they were to review this issue and deal with it for the far greater number of US Tivo S1 models with Lifetime subs in circulation then it might perhaps indeed also catch offenders located in the UK as a by product.

However I very much doubt that any of that is going to in fact take place.


----------

