Shortly after announcing the Series 3 TiVo announced that they would allow the transfer of lifetime subscriptions from older TiVo's to a Series 3. TiVo no longer sells lifetime subscriptions so the ability to transfer one could save a good deal of money over the life of a TiVo. When I bought my parents their Series 2 TiVo I also bought them a lifetime subscription, that way I wasn't giving them something that had an ongoing cost associated to it.
I figured that sometime in the not to distant future my parents would be getting an HDTV and would want a TiVo to work with it. I decided to get them a Series 3 since I would be able to transfer the lifetime subscription to it. The catch with the transfer is the Series had to be bought by 12/31/06 and transferred by 1/31/07. By giving it to them on Christmas I was going to be cutting it close. I actually bought the Series 3 in November when I had a 12% off coupon.
After giving it to my parents on Christmas day I transferred the lifetime subscription even before opening the box. Later I hooked it up to my brother's new HDTV. It booted up fine but within minutes rebooted and kept rebooting. I tried a couple of things and eventually called TiVo. They suggested I unplug it and wait two hours. I reluctantly did so, it actually booted longer that time but again it went into a reboot loop. My best guess is it was a heat issue and as soon as it heated up it would fail. I tried to undo the lifetime transfer however I couldn't once it had started. I was told to just call back once I swapped the box. Since I was flying out the next morning at 6 AM I had to leave that task to my mom.
I didn't have the receipt with me, didn't think I would need it. I left my mom my Best Buy card and the info on when and where I bought it. She went to Best Buy during the craziness of post Christmas. She was able to return it easy enough and get store credit since it had been so long since I bought it. The only problem was that Best Buy had none in stock at that store or any others nearby. She went to other stores to find a replacement and had no success. She went back to Best Buy and I think they essentially placed an online order for the exchange price so that she could have a receipt showing a purchase prior. It wasn't easy but it got done.
The new Series 3 was delivered on 1/2/07. My brother unboxed it and tested it. Once we were sure it was working I called TiVo to migrate the account to the new box. Also sometime around this time TiVo extended the deadlines a month, so it wasn't as much of a rush it seems. At least it got resolved.
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