it's just a joke now and our warranty is up in Sept'03 and we're screwed
I think you would have a good case for a full refund in this case. 6 defective receivers in one year indicates a faulty product that would be covered by "lemon" laws. You are entitled to a full refund under the law, including all your expenses. It would be a good idea to start gathering your paperwork now and send a documented report to your local or provincial consumer agency and BEV's executive office before the warranty expires. Tell them you won't give up until you receive a full refund plus expenses. You could then purchase a new 5800 with full warranty and 30 day exchange privileges. I would get an extended warranty from Future Shop if I could. They are very good about honouring their extended warranties.

A second alternative would be to apply for BEV's extended warranty. It is $5/mo I think. Most people think it is not worth the money and it has lots of legal loopholes. I would ask for an extra year of free warranty service and file for a full refund. These companies will do anything to avoid giving refunds. :wink:

Well, I tried to be possitive about my refurvished reciever. Hoping that the "gliches" were only temporary and not part of a bigger problem, but it looks like I got another lemon. :(

I called the BEV to complain about my 2nd reciever and the rep told me about upgrading from 5100 to a 5800, so naturally I was intrigued. He said to first you buy the 5800 new, then you give back the 5100 for a $100 rebate. Whether that is programming credit or actual cash, I don't know, but the deal really sucks either way. It's almost insulting, to even mention that "deal" as a solution to my reciever woes. :evil:

At least it is nice to know that if the next reciever I get does not work, that I am protected under consumer laws.

JJJ:
That $100 deal was mentioned to me before also. It would only really make sense if you were upgrading say, from a 4700 to a 3100. Then it would be ok.

It really is a joke, and the BEV CSR probably thought it was an awesome deal.

The consumer laws protect you with the 5100 as well. If BEV cannot supply a working 5100 under warranty then you are entitled to a full refund. They will fight you all the way but the $100 programming credit offer is an insult.

Don't hold your breath waiting for that $100 cheque. I upgraded my 2700 to a 5800 in April, and I still haven't received the cheque. I checked the parcel tracking at Canada Post, and they confirm that the old receiver was received. I have called BEV twice, and still no luck. They told me twice that they are emailing their accounting department and I should receive a cheque in a week. I am about ready to give up on it.

Rob

Well..............so far so good.

The replacement (refurb) 5100 is working better, and much quieter than my original 5100.

I have recorded and watched several programs already with no apparent issues/problems.

My warranty is still good for another 2 months, so hopefully things will be smooth. I may pick up the BEV offer of an extended warranty before my current one expires, just to protect myself there.

I_Want_My_HDTV:

Thanks for all the info on the lemon laws, I think it helped our case but this is what Bell e-mailed us after we told them we had had enough and wanted a full refund.

Bell said, "Thank you for your e-mail. I am very sorry to hear that the problems with your account have extended with the additional unit we had arranged to be upgraded for you. Unfortunately, Bell ExpressVu does not have a hardware refund policy in effect as we are not in the practice of refunding hardware.

Should we not be able to satisfactorily address your concerns, you are more than welcome to forward your concerns to the appropriate external parties. We will definitely ensure that we exhaust all measures necessary to provide a satisfactory resolve for you as a Bell ExpressVu customer".

They said they want to "exhaust all measures necessary" so we wrote back and asked for a "BRAND NEW" 5800 w/the new 5800 remote, a new 5800 user manual and 2 years extented warrenty(as our warrenty is up in Sept, 2003). Well they came through with this one and we recieved everything in the mail within a few days. This is our 6th reciever (our third 5800) and so far so good, we'll see how long this one lasts for (good thing we got 2 more years warrenty ha ha ha)

Dude! You are my hero :D

Way to stick to your guns and demanding appropriate restitution - and getting it :o

And, I guess kudos should also (begrudgingly, of course) be given to BEV for nutting up and doing the right thing.

Nice to hear things worked out well - enjoy the 5800!

I think R&J's persistence made BEV capitulate. What a shame that R&J had to jump through hoops to get what he demanded.

No doubt hours were spent on the phone to BEV. Hopefully their toll free number is not too expensive for BEV to run.....LOL

Phil.

P.S. Refurb 5100 still ok..........

Thanks for everyone's help on this matter... one word of advice we feel we can share is to always ask for someone who has the authority to do something for you. We kept emailing customer service in the spring asking for our concerns to be passed along to someone who could do more than the typical BEV line we were getting.
We eventually heard from someone who was an...
"Executive Response Associate
Prime - Marketing Department
Bell ExpressVu President's Office" and he is who we have been dealing with when we were not getting any satisfaction from the call center and ended up granting our resolution to this matter...

Good luck to everyone!

R&J

I am glad you got a good resolution from BEV. I just wish I had as much luck with *C. In their case, the hardware was not the only problem though.

R&J -it's good to hear that Bev will (eventually) help you out.

Just to update my situation... I have yet to recieve my 3rd reciever! :evil:

The order was placed on August 5th. I called them up a few days ago and they told me that the replacement was ordered, but for some reason (unknown to the CSR) it was never shipped.

If one thing Bev is NOT good at is consistantly good customer service. To bad you could deal with one CSR when you find a good one. 8)

Interestingly last year when they had all the problems with a bad update that cause dthe boxes to not be able to call in their ppv programs I had a decent experience. They kept trying to get me to check that I had everything right and I told them that I did, explained all the symptoms, and told them that as a professional software developer I was relatively certain that it was the last upgrade that caused the problem. They at least told me how to reset the box so I could order another PPV, and then called back 3 weeks later to tell me that I had been right, and that there would be a software upgrade coming soon to fix the problem they'd introduced. It was the same CSR calling back, and although she may not have been the most technical, at least she got the service part of her job down pat.

Yeah, yeah, no one has posted anything here for a while and no one probably cares, but here's an update on my receiver woes...

Sept 2003: I waited 10 business days after my last post. No receiver. Then after 10 more days, I had enough. I called in and they put me through to a "special" person who told me that there actually was absolutely no 5100 available at that time. However, he will call me personnally when they do become avaiable.

Two days later: A refurbished 5100 receiver arrives. Strange, but true. How ExpressVu went from zero receivers to getting one... fixing it... and sending it out in a matter of two days... (one really since I did make the call at around 9:00pm)... is a mystery to me.

As a sucker, I decide the best thing to do is wait and let the "special" person call me back. Maybe he could explain how a receiver could get fixed and sent to me so quickly. Maybe it was a mistake... He never did call me...

October 2003: I get a nice letter stating to return one of the receivers or I will be charged for an extra receiver. At that point I realized that waiting for the call is pointless and set up the replacement 5100 receiver. After turning it on, the hard drive makes a VERY loud whining noise. I called BEV and got yet ANOTHER receiver has been ordered for me and said my "case" has now gone to the "executive response" team. An e-mail and numerous messages were placed stating 4 ways to contact me.

2 weeks later: No response. So after failing to contact any of them, I used the Bell employee directory (nice perk working for Bell Canada) and started calling everyone on that team and got a hold of someone. Now I won't go into details of what he said or what he could do, as no actual action has happened yet. However, getting a refurbished (or possibly new) 5800 instead of yet another broken down old-ass 5100 receiver was part of it.

Honestly, I just want something that works. I have never even reached the maximum of the 5100 hard drive... what do I really care about a receiver that has a bigger hard drive?

I'm just wondering... if anyone actually read through my sad, sad story, is: are there any actual differences between a 5800 and a 5100 besides the hard drive? I mean is the circuitry actually different? Maybe similar, but different models/makes? Is the 5800 more reliable?

5800 vs. 5100

S.S.D.R.

Kryspy