Shaw Direct Complaint and Rant Thread

[noah12]

My Beef:

I am paying 95.00 per month and half the channels I do not even watch, but the way the packages are setup you have no choice. Allot of the packages only have one or two stations I do watch. They should allow you to pick the channels you want, but naturally they don`t.

[atvnut]

I found out this morning that Bell carried the delayed game last night from New Jersey. I tried to get it on my Shaw and wasn't being shown. I believe now I've made a mistake. We have a player from our village who plays for the Lighting, I was furious when I found out it was not available and over coffee this morning found the guys with Bell were able to watch on channel 424.

[JustinGTP]

Originally Posted by noah12

My Beef:

I am paying 95.00 per month and half the channels I do not even watch, but the way the packages are setup you have no choice. Allot of the packages only have one or two stations I do watch. They should allow you to pick the channels you want, but naturally they don`t.

From what I've heard, it's not always up to the provider. There is this "thing" with the CRTC about having a certain amount of "Canadian Content" so they bundles are arranged as such, so they can be allowed that way. Shaw and other companies can sell certain channels by themselves. I don't see how this is a complaint at Shaw Direct, it's like this with every company....

[noah12]

Justin

My cable company offers allot more pick options than Shaw but I do not want cable TV.

noah

[lonnie]

the bundles are often dictated by the network owners themselves. for example people often can't understand why they have to subscribe to either fun stuff bundle or the movie channel bundle to get playboy. it doesn't make sense til you realize that they are distributed by the same company.

[TJ77]

Umm...no.
To get Playboy you must subscribe to a minimum of one Canadian pay channel, in this case either Family or TMN. This is a linkage requirement imposed by the CRTC. Astral owns both Family and TMN, but not Playboy.

[solarux]

I have been with a Sat dish (StarChoice originally) for about 1 year or so.
Now Starchoice is gone and Shaw Direct took over. I reside in Ottawa presently as well.

My main rant:
is the slight increase in my Bill ?. compared to what I was paying before with *C, I'm am now paying about ~$8 more per month ?!
I phoned Shaw months ago, and we went thru everything and sure enough they finally admitted that they have had a small increase in rates generally.
Has anyone else had this "slight/tiny" increase too ?

[GaryE]

We all get these $2 or $3 increases. I think we all had one back in September and now all of us with the HD packages are seeing an increase as of Feb. 1st. I've been with StarChoice/Shaw Direct for years now and have had increases every year. Thankfully, as a long time customer I was able to shave about $16.00 off my monthly bill by getting rid of most of those useless timeshifting channels from across Canada.

[mypath]

I have had far to many dvr530 exchanges over the year in 2009.
A week ago I received a brand new 530 out of the box.
However the new 530 in my experience seems to have the same inherited faults.
These include powering off whenever it wants to,channel freezing,although the bottom guide advances, audio no picture,factory reset issues.
Having to pull the AC plug and waiting awhile seems to be the only way reset the unit.
After being a long time customer a change may be the way to go.

mypath

[starchoice]

I'm on my second 530.

These are some of the unusual but regular problems I have:

unit seems erratic when you give it something to do while on an HD channel

I regularly get an unsubscibed message to a channel I'm subscribed to and need to enter the channel twice to get it

sometimes a newly recorded show does not show up on the list unless I exit and re-enter.

[shankall]

Hello

I called Shaw Direct to cancel my service yesterday. I have been a 5 year subscriber and had the 530 since it first came out. I went through approx 6 530s in that amnt of time. Sunday night was the last straw for me. I was watching HD Net and my 530 rebooted itself about 15 times in about 20 minutes. I called tech support and he could not figure it out and sent me out a refurb PVR. I checked out Telus and their offers were too good to pass up and called shaw to cancel. The guy in the Retentions department asked me why i wanted to cancel and I told him that the 530 is a peice of junk and we have been promised upgrades to the guide for 4 years and that it has been tested for that long. He stated to me that there is upgrades and they are testing right now and the rollout should be soon. Then he said that it seems that nothing will keep me with them and went ahead and canceled. The only bad part is i have to pay the remaining 3months of my center ice package. I wish all of you luck with your 530's the frustration is over for me!!!!

[starchoice]

Originally Posted by shankall

He stated to me that...rollout should be soon.

...and you didn't stay with that assurance?

What offers did you get from Telus?

[hugh]

This is not a Telus thread so lets keep the discussion to Shaw please. Off-topic posts will be removed.

[kcowan]

My 530 (original purchased in Oct09) failed to record last Sunday. We had a power outage and it rebooted and seemed to fix itself. So far so good. Can't wait for the download!

[Homefrontinbc]

hello from bc