For the last two year, I was staying with Shaw Direct waiting for a new PVR to be released, being told by CS that it was coming soon everytime I called them. Finally it's here and I was very happy to be one of the first who pre-order the receiver in late July.

I am already on my second pvr630 in two week, the first one died and the second one is acting up. (freezes, not recording, pixels).

I called to stop the lease on the 630 and keep only my two 505 and they told me that I have to keep it a minimum of 3 month. I then asked that they either take it back or I cancel my sub.

They transfer me to a customer relation specialist and he told me that if I cancel now, I will be charge 3 month for the receiver and 3 full month of service ( a total of 310$ ).

What a scam, I never sign anything. that's what you get for being loyal even if they were behind competition.

I am calling my credit card company tomorow and tell them my card is stolen and need a new one and i'm calling ''protection des consomateurs'' to take action. They will never get any money from me,Shaw is the now the worst company I ever had to deal with. They are selling unfinished products and use their customer as paying beta testers. I will not go trough what 530 owner went trough.

When you placed the initial order the CSR didn't tell you about the 3 month minimum? I spoke to several CSRs about the rental program and they are very explicitly stated that there was a 3 month minimum.

If you cancel you will be charged for 3 months of 630 rental plus 1 month of programming, as per the terms of service.
Although I doubt you'll agree, it is your responsibility to be aware of the terms of service.

You can't say you're being charged $310 for 3 months when you're intending to keep the service for your two 505's.

The only 'extra' charge would be 3 months rental on the 630, wouldn't it ?

...and I may be mistaken, but I think reporting a credit card stolen to avoid paying charges is called fraud.

They are selling unfinished products and use their customer as paying beta testers.

That's been well known for years as a matter of fact.
Caveat Emptor!

You can't say you're being charged $310 for 3 months when you're intending to keep the service for your two 505's.

The only 'extra' charge would be 3 months rental on the 630, wouldn't it ?

...and I may be mistaken, but I think reporting a credit card stolen to avoid paying charges is called fraud.
No, they charge me 3 month if i cancel everything, not just the 630 lease. They say it's part of the contract when you lease a 630 (a contract i never sign or read)

And charging poeple for defective receivers and doing false advertising claims is not fraud???

Shaw Direct turned off Philidelphia-Detroit at 4:25 ET at the 2 min warning!!

EDIT: Game is now on CTV

the more i see it i will have to always call and get service in english. i called shaw saturday asking for some info for my 630 and the girl was from god knows where i had to repeat several times and i was left waiting on phone and then she would come back and again waiting again..i did not have the phone number in the options list.. it's when you press enter button to order a ppv movie... she told me at first she could do it but ah ah she's incompetent. she couldn't do what i was asking for..she passed me on to a tech guy who knew what to do it took him seconds to understand..

when i called to get my/or info on buyingthe new 630, service was so lousy in french, the deal was done in english for me to get this 630..they understood and they respond very fast and they are not kids. adults. in french they sound like students! i guess they don't pay that well maybe it explains it all..

And last night I just dealt with "english" service, whom I'm sure I woke up when I first spoke, and his French? accent was so heavy I had a difficult time understanding. Either language may at times be a problem, and pay is probably "not so good!". :)

There shouldn't have been a fee for the service call to begin with, since all service calls are covered under the Simple Satellite Warranty.
And yes, a lot of technicians seem to blame everything on the receiver.

When you purchase a new receiver directly from Shawn Direct you receive a 50$ pay per view credit for existing customers. I have purchased a number of receivers from different stores and seem to loose out on these credits.
Does Shaw offer these or any other incentives to people when they purchase their new receivers ?

50$ pay per view credit for existing customers

Generally, you have to ask upon activating a new receiver for PPV credits. They usually won't say anything if you don't.

This is good to know because the $50 credit and free installation was part of the deal when I ordered my 630 yesterday. Thanks for thie information.

Generally, you have to ask upon activating a new receiver for PPV credits. They usually won't say anything if you don't.

We are absolutely supposed to be applying the $50 PPV credit with a new HD receiver. Sometimes we forget to apply them but if you mention it, they will certainly apply it.

Jessica - Shaw Direct Employee

I too occasionally get a CSR with a heavy French accent and being somewhat hard of hearing doesn't help any. However, I must say that over the past ten years I have found Star Choice/Shaw Direct customer service to be excellent overall. A big plus certainly has been the call back feature, which when I first signed up, they did not have.

Well, I have a positive experience with Shaw Direct I wanted to share. As a bit of background, I was with Bell ExpressVu from ~1999 up to 2004. A dispute over a second receiver for my house ($100 more than two receivers and a free install for a new customer) meant that I cancelled my service and moved to (at the time) Star Choice.

Every subsequent time I have spoken with Shaw Direct customer service, I had been pleased. I also found their turn time on website feedback, and the home evening callback to be very good.

A couple of months ago, I upgraded my AVR to an HDMI one, a Denon AVR-591. As somewhat expected, the Denon would not place nice with the HDCP on my 505, and I needed to hook the 505 directly to the TV. Not great, as my wife has huge issues with changing the TV source, and I was hoping to move to one source for everything.

With the announcement of the 605 and the 630, I sent in a message to SD to see if there had been any progress in resolving the issues with Denon AVRs. I received a call back the next evening from a SD emplyee who walked through the issues with me - as expected, we were not able to solve them. He was also honest in reporting that he wasn't positive the HDCP issues would be solved by moving to a 605.

Anyways, after seeing successful reports a few weeks ago on Digital Home of people using the 630 with Denon receivers, I did drop another note to SD to see what could be done. After being called a few days later by the rep, and discussing the HDCP issues, I was able to get a 630 for a reasonable price, with the full amount of this price being credited back to me in equal installments over my next 20 bills.

In other words, I effectively got a free PVR from SD which will solve my HDCP issues, all for agreeing to stay with SD for another 20 months. Seems like a win-win for both sides, and I am extremely satisfied as their customer.

I just got my Jan statement, and although I had paid for my DSR630 on my previous bill, I just got charged for it again.
Anyone have this happen to them?

OK, after a total of 51 minutes on hold, one dropped call and an accounting lesson, here's what I learned: Shaw ALWAYS charges full price for hardware. You will never receive paper or email stating otherwise. Their accounting trickery then credits you back fictional amounts based on nothing you will ever have confirmed (i.e this receiver cost $199 as opposed to the full price of $399). I guess they get a tax break of some kind for charging full price for hardware.
I wonder if the CRTC thinks this is cool, not to mention Revenue Canada.
Nonetheless, I wasn't overcharged, re-charged, discounted, charged, credited and then charge again.
All so that the hardware price wouldn't change on their books.
nasty

I agree with ScooterMcTavish.

In the short time I have dealt with DS, I have called in to customer service with different questions etc. and have always had a good experience. Much better than my current provider.

I just hooked up and installed my replacement HDPVR630 the hard drive failed in the first one no worries these things happen. never had hardware issues before and Ive been a long time customer.

When I called to have it authorized after the setup was done I was told ...


CSR: is the reciver plugged into its own power bar with nothing else?

ME: No everyting is plugged into one. its a pretty good one with surge and noise protection.

CSR: "The reason it possibly failed was that it was not plugged into its own power bar."

ME: "Huh what do you mean?"

CSR: "to prevent these kind of problems the reciever should be plugged into its own power bar."

ME: "But it is Plugged into a power bar and its a really good one that is packed with heavy surge protection plus RFI filters and electrical noise filters that are between each bank of plugs. so why should I get another one for the reciever? good ones like that are expensive!

CSR: is it plugged into the same one as the TV? you can have problems if you plug it into the same power bar you have your other equipment plugged into."

at this point I was getting a little frustrated I think he was just blowing smoke and trying to justify the drive failure something you dont need to. S__ happens.


ME: so do you provide dedicated power bars

CSR: No but any inexpensive one will do it just has to be separate you can get them for about $20.

ME: And thats better than plugging it into a Triplite Isotel powerbar that has all kinds of surge and noise protection?

CSR: Yes so long as your other equipment is not plugged into the same one so that you wont have these problems any more.

At this point I politely said Thanks for the advice said the goodbye and hung up.

Wow I may not be an expert in satellite receivers but I work in service with electronics during the day as well as being a ham radio fanatic at night. I have some idea of how surges, RFI and electrical noise can effect equipment and how to protect it. Adding a cheep power bar will do nothing. In fact using a cheep one and bypassing a high quality will make it more susceptible to problems. Besides since the 630 it has an external switching power supply, its isolated from the mains pretty much and as a switching mode supply it should be able to handle sags and peeks in the line voltage very well.

Shaw Direct Please don't place the blame on the customers installation when it was more likely a defective component in this case the fault of the maker of the hard drive!

Shaw Direct Please don't place the blame on the customers installation when it was more likely a defective component in this case the fault of the maker of the hard drive!

I agree. Sometimes receivers just die. You shouldn't need a seperate power bar for the receiver. The only time we ask to bypass a power bar is if the receiver won't turn on or it has little power. In that case, we ask to plug the receiver directly into the wall, not another power bar.

I will certainly pass along the feedback.

Jessica - Shaw Direct Employee

Thanks Jessica

I also work in the service world fixing large printing equipment. I have heard some horror stories from my customers of some silly and sometimes impossible solutions they have had from the call centre. I know that most of the people doing call center work do a fine job. no mater where you go there is one oddball in the crowd. but if noone complains then nobody knows there is an issue.

Cheers