# When selling Tivo, how do you transfer lifetime license?



## jauburn (May 18, 2006)

When selling a Tivo Series 2, how do you transfer the lifetime license? Thanks.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

Not a lot of detail, but it's on this tivo.com page:


> No TiVo service agreements are transferable, with the exception of Product Lifetime Service. You are responsible for complying with all the terms of your service agreement. If you cancel before the end of the commitment period, you may need to pay an early termination fee, or you may not receive a refund on a prepaid commitment. Refer to http://www.tivo.com/privacy and click the appropriate link to view the exact terms and conditions that apply to your agreement.
> 
> You can transfer your existing service agreement (with the exception of Product Lifetime Service) to another DVR at any time. See How Do I Transfer My TiVo Service to a New DVR? for instructions. If you want to cancel your service, contact Customer Support.
> 
> ...


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

The lifetime service stays with the box. I guess you would have to do nothing. However, you should still call TiVo customer support (maybe there is a link on the Manage My Account portion of TiVo's website) and have tham transfer "ownership" of the box to the new person.

IIRC..............


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

You would need to transfer if you wanted to use MRV on a new S2 lifetime. All you need to do is call the CSR and they will handle it right away. Have the new owner's name and e-mail address (to identify their account).


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## The Bird (Mar 31, 2001)

In order for the new owner to use manage my account for that TiVo or receive multi unit discounts on other TiVos they own, a transfer is necessary. As stated above, either you or the new owner must contact TiVo customer support by telephone only.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

jlb said:


> The lifetime service stays with the box. I guess you would have to do nothing. However, you should still call TiVo customer support (maybe there is a link on the Manage My Account portion of TiVo's website) and have tham transfer "ownership" of the box to the new person.
> 
> IIRC..............


I hate it when I sell an old TiVo to someone and they don't bother to move the TiVo to their own account. It still shows up on my account, cluttering it up. It even looks like I can schedule programming on the other person's TiVo. I wonder if that would actually work. 

One of the TiVos I sold many months ago was still showing up on my account, so a couple of weeks ago I renamed it "ISoldThisTiVo." I just logged on and noticed that the person finally transferred the TiVo to their own account.


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## alansplace (Apr 30, 2006)

JustAllie said:


> One of the TiVos I sold many months ago was still showing up on my account, so a couple of weeks ago I renamed it "ISoldThisTiVo." I just logged on and noticed that the person finally transferred the TiVo to their own account.


priceless!  
--
Alan


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

The best way is for the seller to call Tivo, provide the phone number and email address of the buyer and have it transferred to the new account.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

alansplace said:


> priceless!
> --
> Alan


That was actually my second effort to get him to transfer it.

The first thing I did was to use Online Scheduling to set up a season pass for The 700 Club.


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## alansplace (Apr 30, 2006)

alansplace said:


> priceless!
> --
> Alan





JustAllie said:


> That was actually my second effort to get him to transfer it.
> 
> The first thing I did was to use Online Scheduling to set up a season pass for The 700 Club.


wow & that didn't get his attention?!
--
Alan


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

JustAllie said:


> One of the TiVos I sold many months ago was still showing up on my account, so a couple of weeks ago I renamed it "ISoldThisTiVo." I just logged on and noticed that the person finally transferred the TiVo to their own account.


Most people wouldn't visit the system info page anyway, so changing the name probably doesn't mean much. I still have units in my account which were sold 1-1.5 years ago. I turned off the transfer and download options, but these people don't even care about them.


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

JustAllie said:


> That was actually my second effort to get him to transfer it.
> 
> The first thing I did was to use Online Scheduling to set up a season pass for The 700 Club.


That is the funniest thing I have read in a long time!!!!


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

alansplace said:


> wow & that didn't get his attention?!
> --
> Alan


Maybe he thought it was a weird TiVo glitch. I half expected him to show up here in the TCF Coffee House asking why his TiVo would suddenly create a season pass for The 700 Club.

But maybe he already had a season pass for The 700 Club.


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## alansplace (Apr 30, 2006)

JustAllie said:


> But maybe he already had a season pass for The 700 Club.


 ha ha ha
--
Alan


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## michael new (Jan 13, 2006)

So it is possible if one of my 3 Tivos crash I can transfer my lifetime? or is it only on a new machine I can transfer?What if I purchase say a dual tuner?


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

michael new said:


> So it is possible if one of my 3 Tivos crash I can transfer my lifetime? or is it only on a new machine I can transfer?What if I purchase say a dual tuner?


This thread is about transfering a lifetime subscribed Tivo's subscription from one owner to the next. It is not about transfering a lifetime subscription from one Tivo to another which can only be done under certain circumstances. Then it also seems to depend on the mood of the cs rep that you talk to when you call tivo.


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## megazone (Mar 3, 2002)

michael new said:


> So it is possible if one of my 3 Tivos crash I can transfer my lifetime? or is it only on a new machine I can transfer?What if I purchase say a dual tuner?


As the other post said, this thread is about transferring a box with lifetime to a new owner, not transferring lifetime between boxes for the same owner.

Lifetime is tied to a box. You cannot transfer lifetime to another box *except* if your box dies and you have it 'repaired' by TiVo or an authorized repair center. Most repairs are actually replacements and they transfer the lifetime to the replacement box. You cannot just go buy a new one and then transfer lifetime to it.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

JustAllie said:


> Maybe he thought it was a weird TiVo glitch. I half expected him to show up here in the TCF Coffee House asking why his TiVo would suddenly create a season pass for The 700 Club.
> 
> But maybe he already had a season pass for The 700 Club.


In college we had dust bunny nazis moving in behind us that came by the house periodically for 3 weeks straight and would complain about this or that to the landlord. We tried being nice and any reasonable demand like making sure our junk was out of the utility closet etc.. we agreed to of course but they started demanding we move the Stove out and cleaning behind it and so forth or they would charge the LandLord for it yada, yada. The landlord told us he was hoping they would just break the lease.

anyway they came by just as we were sitting down to a just delivered pizza and started in on their act again. We got rid of them after about 30 minutes, heated the pizza back up and then proceeded to watch the religious channels and sign up the address and phone number (they were anal enough to have already taken over the utilities) for all kinds of stuff. before we left the mail box was stuffed and the phone was ringing off the hook


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## TealShark (Jun 23, 2006)

jfh3 said:


> The best way is for the seller to call Tivo, provide the phone number and email address of the buyer and have it transferred to the new account.


I'm in sort of a reverse situation than this thread started... The S1 lifetime TiVo I acquired from a friend in a trade was purchased by him a couple of years ago via eBay. The ownership wasn't transferred and my buddy has no record of who he bought it from or how to contact him (old eBay account) so I have the box now but - obviously - Tivo CSRs can't transfer the box to me.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

TealShark said:


> Tivo CSRs can't transfer the box to me.


Did you already call? TiVo can contact the registered owner if needed.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

TealShark said:


> I'm in sort of a reverse situation than this thread started... The S1 lifetime TiVo I acquired from a friend in a trade was purchased by him a couple of years ago via eBay. The ownership wasn't transferred and my buddy has no record of who he bought it from or how to contact him (old eBay account) so I have the box now but - obviously - Tivo CSRs can't transfer the box to me.


Hopefully, it's not a grandfathered-S1 lifetime, or you could see it disappear.


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## TealShark (Jun 23, 2006)

jfh3 said:


> Hopefully, it's not a grandfathered-S1 lifetime, or you could see it disappear.


Thankfully it's a Sony SVR-2000, which if I understand correctly came out after the end of the grandfathering clause.



c3 said:


> Did you already call? TiVo can contact the registered owner if needed.


I did call when I first got it a couple of months ago and that's when the CSR told me I'd need to get the previous owner to sign off (figuratively) on the ownership transfer. I guess I was kind of hoping for a little clickety-clickety easy time instead of going through the hassles of contacting whomever the guy who originally sold it a while ago was.


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## mick66 (Oct 15, 2004)

You don't need previous owner information. Be a little assertive when you call cs and tell them what they are going to do rather than ask them if they can.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

JustAllie said:


> I hate it when I sell an old TiVo to someone and they don't bother to move the TiVo to their own account. It still shows up on my account, cluttering it up. It even looks like I can schedule programming on the other person's TiVo. I wonder if that would actually work.
> 
> One of the TiVos I sold many months ago was still showing up on my account, so a couple of weeks ago I renamed it "ISoldThisTiVo." I just logged on and noticed that the person finally transferred the TiVo to their own account.


Bumping this old thread...

Today I called TiVo customer support to transfer the lifetime service from an old TiVo to a new Series3 TiVo. The customer support guy said that "ISoldThisTiVo" is in fact _still_ listed on my TiVo account, and offered to transfer the lifetime from _that_ TiVo to my new Series3, because it's older than the TiVo I planned to use for this purpose.

Um... I don't own that TiVo anymore. It would be rude to "steal" the lifetime out from under the guy who bought the TiVo from me two years ago. I said no. He couldn't even remove the TiVo from my account because he didn't know who to transfer it to!

Anyway, it's just an object lesson -- don't forget to transfer any TiVos you buy into your own TiVo account, or the previous owner might someday have the option of stealing your lifetime service out from under you! 

Meanwhile, I rummaged through some very old e-mails and think I found the contact info for the buyer. I think I'll just call TiVo myself to transfer the machine to his name. I don't think he'll ever do it himself.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

JustAllie said:


> The customer support guy said that "ISoldThisTiVo" is in fact _still_ listed on my TiVo account


Didn't you use the online scheduling trick?


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

c3 said:


> Didn't you use the online scheduling trick?


Yep.

Should I try it again?


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## Einselen (Apr 25, 2006)

JustAllie said:


> Yep.
> 
> Should I try it again?


Who is the new owner? If it is some macho guy then do some Queer Eye or ANTM (Americas Next Top Model). If it is some fancy uppity up snob then maybe do some Hogan Knows Best or something like that. Haha


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

The new owner is some guy named Patel in Houston, Texas. 

There's no way for me to tell what kind of TV he watches.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

JustAllie said:


> There's no way for me to tell what kind of TV he watches.


When you start flooding his TiVo with programming you'll be told the title of any program he's scheduled that interferes with a programming request you submit.


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## rbreding (Dec 12, 2004)

JustAllie said:


> The new owner is some guy named Patel in Houston, Texas.
> 
> There's no way for me to tell what kind of TV he watches.


I believe Patel is Pakistani....I have known some Patel's

Subscribe him to the Food channel with something about MEAT.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

JustAllie said:


> The new owner is some guy named Patel in Houston, Texas.
> 
> There's no way for me to tell what kind of TV he watches.


rename it "Patel call 877-367-8486

If that does not make him think twice, nothing will!!


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Unfortunately, renaming the unit would not do much. How many times do people go to the system menu to look at the DVR name?


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## JYoung (Jan 16, 2002)

JustAllie said:


> The new owner is some guy named Patel in Houston, Texas.


Is he in the hotel business?


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## islander (Sep 15, 2002)

Patel is to India what Jones is to America.


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## JustAllie (Jan 5, 2002)

That's odd... I could have sworn I used online scheduling for this TiVo before, but now when I try to do it, I get an error message saying that it's only available for Series2 TiVos.

Maybe the one I set up some months ago to record every episode of _The 700 Club_ was a Series2 machines that I had sold.

Anyway, I'll call TiVo (when it's not a holiday anymore) and have them transfer this TiVo into Mr. Patel's account.


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## m_jonis (Jan 3, 2002)

JustAllie said:


> Bumping this old thread...
> 
> Today I called TiVo customer support to transfer the lifetime service from an old TiVo to a new Series3 TiVo. The customer support guy said that "ISoldThisTiVo" is in fact _still_ listed on my TiVo account, and offered to transfer the lifetime from _that_ TiVo to my new Series3, because it's older than the TiVo I planned to use for this purpose.
> 
> ...


Even if the new owner does "transfer" the information it will ALWAYS showo up under your account and you'll be able to see whatever they named it.

Apparently Tivo is incapable of "deleting" that piece of information from that particular database, so it'll ALWAYS show up there.

I sold two Tivo's like that and ended up spending numerous hours on the phone with Tivo only for the CSR to finally "find out" that the information being displayed in the "manage your account" is in a diff. database and it cannot be changed apparently (which is stupid, IMO).


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## TiVoEvan74 (Sep 11, 2004)

Yeah, I'm in a similar boat as to a sold unit showing up in my account screen. It's been a year. I have no access to it--DVR prefs only shows my units. When I called TiVo today, they did confirm that it's under his account (so it appears under two owners!). 

They didn't say they'd remove the unit from my screen--and I didn't push it after bringing it up. I saw potential screw ups--their deleting the wrong one, transferring another one to him, etc.

Let sleeping dogs lie is my motto. (Of course, why TiVo has such an accounting system and why they didn't aggressively respond is a whole nother issue!)

You could really spook someone out by programming shows on their TiVo! Especially as they wouldn't be under Suggestions! They really would believe that a gremlin had taken over their TiVo!


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