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

[hd2me]

I wanted to know whether I can buy and use a used Rogers HD Box from another subscriber.

Is it locked? I have seen the term unauthorized floating around.

Basically, I am getting digital basic without an HD box.....

[57]

Your post was moved to this existing thread. Please read posts 1, 2. The answer is yes, with the appropriate cautions, as mentioned in posts 1, 2.

[alebowgm]

Something to note about this, if the unit is still on someone's account and has to be taken off, make sure you call in during Rogers Customer Care hours which I believe run M-F from 8am-9pm and Saturday from 9am-6pm. Otherwise you will probably get the run-around, as if you call outside those hours you will get CSRs who are not trained or aware as to how they can perform a transfer of an SAB# from one account to another.

I had this issue recently on a Saturday, they told me to call back during normal hours to do a transfer, but since I am now only in Toronto on the weekends, I told the CSR that wouldn't do since I was giving an owned unit to a family friend who could make more use of the terminal right now, so it was a gift. He wound up finding a 'tier 3 technician' who he parlayed onto the call and we were able to get everything transfered over and the channels pushed through immediatly.

Just my 2 cents.

[cdnuser]

When my father's house was robbed they stole the rental box. So I susspect that is why many people are having issues setting up one they bought at a flea market or though classified ads. Buyer beware.

[alebowgm]

Yep, as is said earlier in this thread, ALWAYS call Rogers before purchasing the unit and run the SAB# with them, verifying that the unit is an owned unit, doesn't have a balance oweing and is available for 3rd party purchase.

I also always power the device to make sure the mainboard isn't fried.

The only thing I haven't figured out is a way to check if the tuner is damaged before purchasing 3rd hand but I have been lucky with my purchases and haven't had issues.

[46FD04]

Hopefully someone here can answer me this question.

I recently purchased a used 8300PVR from someone who is moving to an area not serviced by Rogers. This customer cancelled his Rogers service on approx. Jan. 16th, and he has to pay for an additional 30 days service. I advised the seller to contact Rogers and remove the receiver from his account, so I could attach it to mine.

When he contacted Rogers, he was told he CANNOT remove the receiver from his account until it's closed.

When I contacted Rogers, I was told there are two scenarios;

1. A current/active customer can sell/deactivate their receiver at any time. If the seller was still an active customer, I would be able to attach the PVR to my account and get it authorized.

2. When a customer cancels their service, the service remains active for 30 days, AND they cannot remove any receivers from their account. Therefore, I cannot activate this receiver on my account until the 30 days have past.

Can anyone explain to me just what the heck Rogers is trying to do?

They've pi**ed me off so much, I feel like cancelling my own Rogers service and selling this receiver.

Any thoughts or ideas?

Thank you.

[alebowgm]

This is a long standing Rogers policy. Rogers wants to make sure they collect any $ that is due to them. By not allowing a customer to transfer boxes off of an account that is being cancelled, it means that the person has to pony up. On the main Rogers forum (not PVR) there is standard practices for properly purchasing and selling units.

At this point, you need to wait the 30 days out. Even if you tried to sell the box, anyone who knows how to safely purchase 3rd party units is going to ask for SAB #s in advance and will be told that the box can't be activated at this time, which probably will kill the sale.

[morkys]

Ok, so I guess if I am looking at used Rogers boxes, I have to go and look at the unit itself, write down the serial number and call Rogers myself to make sure that the unit I am looking at is disassociated from any accounts. Make sense? I figure if Rogers is about to implement whole house PVR with the 8642HD, they aren't going to change PVR boxes any time soon, or if they do, they will continue to allow the 8642HD to work with their services for quite a few years to come, but you never know.

[alebowgm]

I often will ask the seller in advance to provide me with the SAB# for the unit so I can call Rogers and have them run the number. I will also ask them to put a note on both files saying that it is clean and can be transferred. Sometimes they will do this, other times they only will put a note on mine. Then I just have to check to make sure the SAB# matches what I was told and all is good. Otherwise, if the seller won't provide the SAB# in advance, I tell the seller we will be speaking to Rogers before I give him any money.

[m3repair]

@albowwgm----> I do pretty much the same thing except I call twice to verify the information, at one point I had purchased a used Terminal was told it was ok with Rogers and in fact it wasn't ok as it was actually a rental, yes I was able to return it but my point to this is verify twice, and as a last step to ensure its all ok when you verify it with Rogers and ask to put a note on your own account stating that this SAB number is good to go for activation and customer will make a return phone call to add this digital Terminal once it is in the customers possession

Good Luck!

[golfguy72]

Thought you would get a kick out of this. Purchased an open box 8642HD this afternoon from Tiger Direct. Went to activate it and Rogers says the box is on someone else's account..

[57]

Read post 1, 2 of this thread and the links there. You may be able to straighten this out with Rogers. If not, you should be able to take it back to TD.

[57]

Just as an FYI, an open box item typically indicates that the item has been sold and returned, or used for a demo. It is no longer "new". Since Rogers says that the STB is already on someone's account. This suggests that the item was sold to someone, activated on their account and returned to TD without deactivation.

Nevertheless, you should be able to straighten this out between Rogers and TD, or you should be able to return it to TD as mentioned above (without cost). I do not know how this item was represented to you, however, that is the reality of open box, and anyone purchasing open box should be receiving a significant discount.

Please advise how you proceed.

[coghlan]

Originally Posted by alebowgm

This is a long standing Rogers policy. Rogers wants to make sure they collect any $ that is due to them. By not allowing a customer to transfer boxes off of an account that is being cancelled, it means that the person has to pony up. On the main Rogers forum (not PVR) there is standard practices for properly purchasing and selling units.

At this point, you need to wait the 30 days out. Even if you tried to sell the box, anyone who knows how to safely purchase 3rd party units is going to ask for SAB #s in advance and will be told that the box can't be activated at this time, which probably will kill the sale.

I am going through this right now. I didn't call Rogers to verify the SAB, as I only thought this was necessary to ensure the box was manufactured for the Rogers network. From the photo, I could see that it was. Never occurred to me that it might be registered to someone else.

Hopefully I will be able to get this resolved, short of sending the box back to the eBay seller, who is legit (000's of feedbacks).

IMHO, Rogers' process allows for the creation of orphan serial numbers. A VIP customer is allowed to own 3 boxes in addition to the included rental. Such a customer could purchase another box, activate it and return it to the store as defective etc. Actually, they could repeat the process 3 times. Rogers doesn't ask if the newly-activated S/N is replacing a previous activation, so taking 2 back to the store (and not telling Rogers) can chew up 3 S/Ns, with the first two becoming unusable (orphaned). If the customer return units are bought by a bulk buyer, the original owner is out of the loop - yet his/her OK is needed to release the S/N.

When this happens, and someone ends up with one of these orphaned S/Ns, there should be a process to verify if the original registrant still has the <n> previously-activated S/Ns in use in their home. If not, the status of the orphaned S/Ns should be reset to FREE, rather than expect the new owner to junk the (very expensive) box.

So much for Rogers being environmentally-conscious.

[Eug]

This deactivation and reactivation process sure can be painful. I've purchased two used boxes in the last month.

Box # 1: Seller had cancelled the account but hadn't specifically deactivated the box. However, I and the seller tag-teamed on the phone with Rogers and after about 20 minutes of back and forth, the box was successfully transferred to my account. However, when I got it home, it didn't work. It showed up as unauthorized. So Rogers zapped the box and... nothing happened. Waited 15 minutes and nothing. Called again, and they zapped again, and nothing happened. I was then transferred to technical support who did that again, and then it worked.

Box # 2: Seller had cancelled the account but hadn't specifically deactivated the box. Before I got there he called Rogers to ensure all was in order with his account. I got there, called with the serial number and was told the box was still owned by him, despite his phone call a few minutes earlier. So, he got on the phone to deactivate the box. I could not activate the box on my account right then and there because I already had a full-house of boxes on my account, but the CSR said all was in order, and there was a note on the seller's account that the box was sold to me. I got home, deactivated one of my (broken) boxes, and tried to activate this new used one. Nope. Still owned by the seller. I said to the CSR if he checks the account it will show a note saying the box was deactivated and was to be sold to me. The CSR says the note is indeed there, but nonetheless the box wasn't deactivated by the previous CSR. So, I said if he sees the note there then just to complete the process, but his supervisor said he couldn't. Finally, I had to call the seller to ask him to call Rogers yet again, for the 3rd time. This time the box got deactivated. But then I had to call back to activate the box. They activated the box, and zapped it. Nothing. Still unauthorized. Waited. Nope. Called back and they zapped it again. Nothing. So they transferred me over to technical support and then it worked.

BTW, when I deactivated my original broken box, that brought me from 5 boxes to 4. However, when I tried to add the new box, they said I had maxed out my 4 outlets (on my VIP account). So, they couldn't add another box. I told them they just deactivated my old broken box not long before that in order to add the new box, so they asked for the serial number of my old broken box again to confirm this before they would allow me to add the new box. Finally when they added they new box, they charged me a $50 Technician Install Fee, and then promptly refunded it.

Buying a used set top box really shouldn't be this complex. This seems like a conceptually simple process, but yet it can be a huge time waster, not only for the seller and purchaser, but also for Rogers' own customer support line. I guess the good news is the CSRs were polite, but still, I wasted several hours getting all this sorted out. I wouldn't have bothered if only Rogers retail boxes were $120 cheaper, but their current retail pricing encourages us to look at buying used.