How do I determine if a receiver is good to activate before I buy it?

I take it you did not read this thread.?

Call Bell TV.
Give them the R00# from the Receiver.

If it is free to be sold they will tell you.

You should also ensure that the seller has also called Bell TV, to say he is selling it/them.

Is there any possibility of activating a used receiver that used to be on rental?
Somebody is selling one but said that they were not able to activate it.
Its a 9242 at a great price!

No. It is a rental so if you buy it you have yourself a Boat Anchor.

The person selling the rental receiver will be asking for it back after Bell charges them $599 for non return fees. Bell has a receiver recovery program going on right now, tech's are out attempting to retrieve receivers from back as far as 2007 and if they are unsuccessful, the customer is billed.

This is only for non returned rental receivers.

Yes that program has been running since last June, with very limited success.

I would be very interested to know just how many people are actually charged for these receivers, I am yet to hear of more than a handful.

Basically, once it is flagged as a Rental in Bells' System, that is it, it can only ever be returned after the Customer decides to no long rent it.

I do know forsure, that once a recovery order is created if the receiver is not recovered and returned to Bell, 3 months later the customer is billed.

Wow, that is very interesting. Then based upon that info, Bell will be invoicing for 13,000 receivers in the GTA alone.

I have a 6100 that I want to sell to a buddy of mine. It was activated way back when a smart card was not required. (It has one built-in apparently) Now they are insisting on selling him a 50.00 smart card to get the damn thing to work. Is this really a requirement? Shouldn't this card be available for free?

Technically yes it should be free, as the card remains "Owned by Bell", Bell replaces them for free when you have a currently registered receiver with them.
And you may be required to return the Smart Card to them when you cancel as per, "the user agreement".
Could you imagine if all the new credit and debit card users were charged $50 every time a new card was issued.
We need someone with unlimited funds to challenge Bell in Court on this and many other issues.

As dirtroad says, Yes, you will have to pay for a new Card. Bell will only issue a free one if the card in the receiver is the previous generation, yours is at least 2 gens old, being the internal one.

It still might be worth the $50, as Bell will be swapping out 6100's with 6131/6141's in the comming months, that swap should be free, so for $50 he will end up with a new receiver, capable of being turned into a PVR with the addition of an EHD.

I can get a Bell 9100 for like $100 .....Is it worth it or is this one too old? Seems to work fine. I cant find any info on it, i was hoping its a dual tuner like the 9242, Can anyone shed some light?

I assume you mean the 9200? It's likely that Bell will replace all the 9200 and 6100 receivers with MPEG4 compatible equipment at some point, so it might be worth it. Just be really careful buying used Bell receivers, because if they're rentals or have money owing, you won't be able to activate it. Check the receiver number with Bell first.

-Mike

The add does say 9100. The fellow is a doctor ( his email has his buissness links on it) He told me, you can run 2 tv's off it, but you can only watch recorded stuff on the main tv and not the 2nd tv .

There is no such animal as a Bell 9100 receiver.

If it is a Dual Tuner Receiver you can watch any recordings on either TV, if it is set to Dual Mode.

I don't think a doctor would make mistakes like that. Be very cautious about this deal. I wouldn't even consider buying that receiver.

You are right Pinza , it is a 9200. He's asking $150, do you think its worth that?

If it is free to be activated onto your account and it works OK, then yes.

Ok.....I am going to offer him $125 :cool:

He said he will take $100. Only has 1 remote....I think i should buy it. :p