Guidelines for Selling (and Buying) a used Rogers Terminal in Ontario

[Eug]

So, yet another issue with activating and deactivating boxes. I originally posted the first part of this in the rant thread, but I think the update warrants a post here.

My mom's in the middle of a move (aka. "transfer") and had an old rental 3250HD. I told the CSR that it was old and the DVI output was unsupported so I was going to exchange it for a 4642HD for the new place she's moving into. He said go ahead.

I went to the store to do that. They took the box, deactivated it from the account, and then refused to give me another box in its place. They said boxes could not be activated on accounts in the process of being transferred. Not believing him, I called their phone line, and got the same answer. So, for the install date, I had no box at all for her. I asked if I could just activate one of my purchased boxes (after deactivating it from my account) and they both said no, and I'd have to wait until the transfer process was finished, because the system wouldn't allow them to activate the box on the account.

Despite their claims, I decided to call yet again today to try, so that she'd have that purchased box ready for the install guy. No problem this time. I deactivated the box on my account, and then activated it on her account. So, why were the other two CSRs claiming this was impossible?

We'll see what happens tomorrow with the install with this box.

[coghlan]

My brother used to work for US cell phone call centre. He made the following (good) point:

Cell phones are returned to retailers all the time. The latter have special numbers to call for rapid admin changes, and they are constantly doing this to deactivate IMEI numbers. Customers don't deactivate their own IMEI numbers, but neither do they walk out of a store with a (subsidized) phone without activating it. STBs leave the store unactivated.

Every retailer that accepts a Rogers STB return should be required (and have authority to) deactivate a SAB, since the SAB might still be activated. With a phone, they know it has been activated, but with STBs perhaps they should assume that it has been activated. Perhaps that is all that is needed.

[coghlan]

Hallelujah! The original purchaser actually returned the voicemail left by a CSR and confirmed that...the...box...had...gone...back...to...Best...Buy. Amazing!

Only took 4 days and a total of about an hour on the phone with a half dozen various CSRs.

I'm now off to try and get an end-of-contract iPhone 3 transferred over that one of my daughter's friends gave her. We know the original owner, so this should be much easier.

[Eug]

Originally Posted by Eug

Despite their claims, I decided to call yet again today to try, so that she'd have that purchased box ready for the install guy. No problem this time. I deactivated the box on my account, and then activated it on her account. So, why were the other two CSRs claiming this was impossible?

We'll see what happens tomorrow with the install with this box.

Install went fine. No issues. I'm glad I didn't take the word of the first two CSRs (one in-store, and one on the phone).

P.S. I brought the box back home since my mom's home is currently empty anyway. No furniture yet. I plugged it in and to my surprise it sorta works at my place. I'm surprised because I live in Scarborough and her place is in North York, and the channel mapping is different. In any case, at my place it follows the Scarborough channel mapping, but is missing most of my speciality channels, and it's also missing her speciality channels. Interestingly, it receives Space at my place, even though she doesn't subscribe to it (but I do).

Originally Posted by coghlan

I'm now off to try and get an end-of-contract iPhone 3 transferred over that one of my daughter's friends gave her. We know the original owner, so this should be much easier.

What's an iPhone 3?

If you mean the 3G GSM iPhone then there should be no issue if your daughter is on the same carrier. All you have to do is swap the SIM card.

If you're not on the same carrier then that's a different story. It's also a different story on CDMA, but it shouldn't be a problem since you know the previous owner.

[coghlan]

Originally Posted by Eug

What's an iPhone 3?

If you mean the 3G GSM iPhone then there should be no issue if your daughter is on the same carrier. All you have to do is swap the SIM card.

If you're not on the same carrier then that's a different story. It's also a different story on CDMA, but it shouldn't be a problem since you know the previous owner.

My daughter wants to be able to use it on another carrier's network (UK).

[TorontoColin]

Please limit discussion of Rogers mobile devices to the Rogers, Fido, and Chatr Wireless forum.

[Foxenhimr]

My Rogers cable "expired" on June 28th. When I looked at the 8300 on the morning of the 29th, the display was showing 4 dashes. Does this confirm it's deactivated, or does this just mean it mean there was no service ?

Do I need to confirm on the with them on the phone that it's actually de-activated ? I do plan to sell it...

Thanks

[MooBaloo]

You should always call and confirm. The four dashes just mean it isn't authorized, not that it's not on an account.

[Foxenhimr]

is the de-authorization something they can do from "their side", or something the box needs to be hooked up for ? I would hope so, otherwise I'd need to hook it back up somewhere else ...

[yyzlhr]

De-authorization can be down from Rogers end. The box does not need to be hooked up to be de-authorized.

[Paolo]

Let me explain my experience with a de-authorized stb.

I have 3 STB which i watch tv regularily on. For a period of a few months ,i had to disconnect one of them because the tv was being replaced. Anyways we were in no hurry to replace the TV so we left everything disconnected and continued to watch the 2 remaining tv sets. Yesterday we got around to hooking up the new third TV back up and connected the old STB. and was greeted with a Not Authorized message. Now I know for a fact Rogers still has the Mac address of this box on record on the account, because i never called to have it removed. i simply logged into rogers.com and went to the re-authorize STB section and moments later the box became active. I also noticed the QSG disappeared, but after a reboot it came back, darn!

[alebowgm]

If an STB does not communicate with the head-end within 30 days it automatically will deauthorize itself until it gets a new 'hit'. This is standard practice.

[Paolo]

Yeah I kinda figured that on my own, however I was not aware the period of inactivity was set to 30 days. Good to know.

[57]

Just a quick note to let you know, as mentioned earlier, even if you do everything correctly (per post 1), sometimes Rogers' computer has difficulty activating the STB on your account. Apparently the "release" by the previous owner sometimes doesn't "take". So, If you've done everything correctly as discussed in this thread, it may require another call to Rogers by the previous owner to "release" the STB. (This happened to me just recently and may relate to the capabilities of the CSR doing the activation, or the CSR who did the release)

[ElenaH]

So I understand how to go about buying a used box… but what about things like warranty? There would be no warranty on a used box right?

So if it dies, which from reading the threads on the Nextbox especially, seems to happen, you're just out of luck? Money down the drain?

I see a number of ads for the 500GB Nextbox for a couple hundred cheaper than at Rogers or FS/BB but if something were to go wrong with it, there would be no way of exchanging it, I would just have to buy another one?

Am I missing something here? It seems a number of people buy used boxes… are you just taking the risk and hoping for the best or is there some way to get rogers to replace the box if it or the iHDD dies?