TiVo Reviews

I've had TIVO for 15 years but their new boxes are worthless. They don't last and only have 90 day warranties. TIVO tries to sell you a new box every year or 2 when your current box experiences "hard drive issues". This is a common problem with TIVO boxes. They used to be a good company and sold good equipment but now they just try to scam you by selling you lifetime service on equipment that stops working after a year or two.

I ordered a Tivo mini vox on 3/9 thru their website. I changed my mind and when it was delivered I refused package and dropped it off at Fedex. As of today still no refund. Getting nowhere with customer service.

I don't know what has happened to what used to be one of my favorite companies (the original owners). I have been a loyal customer since they started. It is time for this relationship to end. I just got off the phone with supervisors, and when they get pinned on an issue, the phone is disconnected. I have gone through multiple TiVo's quickly, resulting in the unit needing replacing, and then you get the upgrade talk. A few days ago, I just received a replacement for a unit I purchased last year. I called today just about reprogramming a remote. The technician had me do some things with the unit I wasn't calling about, and it stopped working. I just purchased that one about two years prior. I told them it sounded suspicious that so many were going out so soon to each other, and all they wanted was more money to get a used replacement.

I bought my Tivo straight from the company website like the previous two models I own. This time it took a week to get the Edge unit. Right from the box the unit wouldn't even boot up. I had to wait over the weekend to contact them since they offer no support on weekends. Talked with an agent who said the box was defective and to send it back. They sent me a return label and I returned it via FedEx the same day. After 5 days I called again to find out when they shipped the replacement. I was told they wait for the return to come back first. FedEx delivered it 5 days ago. Today I get an email saying they just received it and will send a replacement in a week. If that is what actually happens it will make almost a month since I bought it. They are in no hurry to deliver but have hundreds of my dollars.

I have been a loyal Tivo customer for over 30 years, purchasing thousands of dollars of equipment and services. For the past two years, I have been unable to watch My Recorded Shows on any device other than the tvs on my home network. Tivo says it is known issue and they have been working on it. For two years? I've noticed other negative reviews posted here discussing the same issue. For some unknown reason, at least to me, they have stopped providing this service. It worked fine from 2011 until 2019. Never again!!!

Loyal customer for nearly 20 years. Once I bought a new box and without realizing it, months went by and they were charging me for two boxes. They didn't cancel my old box out, then refused to pay me for charging me for two accounts for months. 6 months ago, we purchased a TiVo Edge. The motherboard died, I called for a replacement for it was still under warranty. They would not send us a new one until I shipped back the broken one, and wanted to charge me $50 replacement fee. For their broken item. I've need their help twice in 15 yrs or more and both times were absolutely rude. I also did not know that I couldn't cancel my TiVo subscription unless I pay 160.00 or wait 6 months! I have it on my calendar to cancel this service and cannot wait!

After purchasing the Bolt with lifetime subscription. I was told it would take a few hours for my email to be registered. Six days later and 3 wasted phone calls to Technical Support??? No luck. Unable to access my account or stream recorded programs to any device. They say the problem is being addressed by their software experts. Oh yeah. As to when I can access my account & my programing, they won't commit. I hope I can get it resolved during my lifetime subscription.

I paid over $150 last April for one year maintenance. My Tivo just broke. TiVo will not refund me for the remaining 8 months. Tivo is stealing from me!!! I use OTA. Tivo use to support that. I wanted 2TB and four tuners. I have many stations I can get with my antenna. I absolutely hate going through Channel Master to get a Tivo product. It's ridiculous. Product choices are horrible. Used to be able to get 2TB models. Can only get 500GB. TiVo told me to look on Ebay. Are you freaking kidding me?! Next time I call they might say go look for your next Tivo on Craigslist. Hey Tivo, please tell your next ex customer there's a Tivo at the McKinney landfill. I've been with Tivo since their first products. I am done with this loser thief.

I purchased a Tivo Bolt+ via Amazon in 2017. I had it for about 2 years and it died. TiVo replaced the unit but I lost all the programs that were recorded. About 2 weeks ago the replacement Bolt+ started acting up. I called and when through their troubleshooting procedure and the unit was declared dead. They put me over to sells and I was told my two options were to send the unit to a repair shop (which will probably take a couple of weeks) or to buy a new Edge on sale for $275 (which will take about 4 or 5 days to get here). They say the Edge has a warranty of 5 years. If it dies that will be the last time I use TiVo.

I've owned and loved several TiVo devices over more than 15 years. For many of those years, I found their technical and overall customer to be the very best. Unfortunately since the sale of the company in 1916 these services have taken a nose dive. I currently have two BOLT devices purchased some years ago. In 2020, one finally bit the dust. TiVo replaced the unit with a reconditioned, newer BOLT for a price. (Basically the price of a reconditioned unit.) There were problems with audio and video dropouts for at least several seconds which occurred intermittently from the start. My first contact with service was within a month of installation. I followed the meager troubleshooting items suggested. Since this is an intermittent problem, it was left with me to 'see if it still happens' and to contact my cable provider. It did still happen, while my second older BOLT worked and works fine, even when swapped with this main TV.

1st bought a TiVo Sony 30 Hour PTV Recorder 2/2/03. It was 2nd or 3rd Gen, I think, I wanted the dual tuner model, but couldn't afford DirecTV. Friends & family lauded the greatness of the TiVo DVR 7 its quality. That Sony TiVo, with some tweaks, lasted me 10+ years. But looking back w/o the rose colored glasses, they were the only fully working DVRs available, and DVRs were to VHS recorders what Smart TVs are to that 13" black & white console tv I watched my first British TV on.

To begin with, I have been a customer for over 15 years, have bought at least 4 machines from them, and have had great service in the past. This is a main reason I am disappointed. Last year I had a problem with my Bolt and called customer service. They diagnosed it as a hardware problem and exchanged the 2 year old machine with a reconditioned one for a $150 fee. The new machine had the same problem and it turns out it was a software issue which was diagnosed by an upper level service department. The $150 was not necessary but I didn't complain.

The NFL games I record are removed shortly after the recording is complete. There is no way to recover them. This is a perfectly awful system TIVO has devised. Twice, I've spent thirty minutes on the phone with someone in the Philippines, dealing with a faulty phone on her end, trying to get some answers. Nothing accomplished. Same with a chat; only suggestion was to delete everything on our DVR and start over again. Forget it! This is a TIVO process problem, not something here on this end; it is only with NFL games. I urge avoiding any TIVO product at all costs, after fifteen years of using their product, it is clear that the company is being seriously mismanaged.

Updated on 03/16/2021: This is to update the postings I made (2/2/2021) on five websites regarding Tivo, their Product and Customer Service. I did receive a response from Tivo’s Executive Relation Group to the posting I made on ConsumerAffairs.com and because, as of this date, that review has been read 1450 times, I believe an update is necessary. As stated in my first posting, I contacted Tivo’s Customer Service, using the standard contact phone number (877-367-8486), with no satisfaction and extreme frustration. After my posting to Consumer Affairs, multiple phone calls, and 42 days, I purchased a Tivo EdgeA and am on the Lifetime warrantee program.

I’ve been a loyal customer to Tivo for over six years spending thousands of dollars on equipment. I purchased a 4K stream last year. It didn’t work and I called it in within a few weeks, they would not do anything about it. So I threw it in a drawer to forgot about it. I need another streaming device a few months later so I dug it out and hooked it up again. Still did not work even after factory reset. So I called and instead of a refund asked for an exchange. They said it’s past 90 days and I pointed out that I’ve spent thousands of dollars with them and for them to deny me for a cheap $50 piece of equipment when I’ve spent thousands with them really upset me. She offered to sell me another 4K stream though!

Tivo used to have, and still has the gold standard of recording shows. But that is all it has. They have outsourced customer service to the Philippines, and it is impossible to get a supervisor. Having now owned 3-4 generations of Tivo units, and always buying lifetime service, the customer experience was awesome until 3 years ago. Devices are no longer trustworthy, and lifetime service only goes with the device - device dies, so does lifetime service. So sad to see what had been a cutting edge tech company turn into a has been. Shame on their management and parent company - it will be too late when people have cut the cord.

I had Tivo for years until about 12 years ago when cable companies didn't come with DVRs. Back in the old days it was perfect. I switched to satellite after that, and didn't need Tivo because my providers gave me DVRs. I switched back to cable because satellite doesn't work with all the trees that surround me now, and signed up for Tivo. It's a different service. IT DOES NOT RELIABLY RECORD PROGRAMS YOU SET UP TO RECORD. It's pretty hit or miss, and I MISSED most of my favorite shows for the past few months, thoroughly confused over why they never showed up, even though they were always set to record.

Had Roamio with Lifetime guide. They cancelled that so I bought Bolt. Neither TiVo receivers got Fox or some other channels despite OTA signal booster and new cable ends installed by pro. Used them in different rooms, same results each place. Recorder often had picture distortion. Calls for service not satisfactory.

I have been a customer since the startup of TiVo and yes it does truly make tv your own! However, equipment and customer service are terrible. They can't seem to supply a receiver that will last more than two years. When you call you get people you can't understand and they can't understand you! My two year old Bolt crashed and they are sending me a replacement Edge (for $200), eight days later I receive the Edge without even a power cord! Seven days later I'm still waiting on power cord. This is like buying a car without tires! Again, the Tivo experience is great but equipment is unreliable and customer service has gotten progressively worse through the years. I purchased a lifetime subscription from the beginning but you still pay a high price for the equipment. Be warned, great tv may come at a price with some serious frustration.

Constant frustration. We invested in a very expensive "life-time" system 3 years ago that was supposed to save us money over many years and it's been a nightmare and constant frustration. Equipment has been faulty and behind the times with technology. Their customer service is terrible and if any of their equipment stops working because they update their system then they make you buy new equipment and call it a "replacement fee!" I ordered 2 replacements $84.99/each and when they both didn't work properly they refused to refund my money or replace the boxes with "new" equipment. They want to send more re-furbished equipment. If you ask to speak to a supervisor they say they won't transfer you. I don't see the company will be in business much longer.

I have called TiVo many times to resolve. What happens is that occasionally when I go to try an app like Amazon or Netflix I get a licked up black screen. It used to work so well but since they added roll out ads it hasn’t. They wanted me to pay $140 for a new box. I balked having been with tivo from their start. Then they came back with $70. I said I’m done with tivo. They are in their way out, reputation is shot.

I have been a TiVo customer for over 15 years in spite of the complication it represents. As the technology started slipping, I was asked in April 2020 to update my TiVo equipment to troubleshoot the connectivity issues. So I did and spent $600. Fast forward a August, the entire TiVo connection is down again. This time they asked me to change my modem, which I did. Still nothing. It’s been over 10 hours on the phone with support now. The agent is still unable to troubleshoot and becomes extremely rude and asks me to be “more patient” as I am getting increasingly frustrated by the whole situation. I told that was inappropriate, but he did again in an even more patronizing tone.

After being a Tivo Customer for 20 years I quit. One of my DVRs suddenly stopped reading the cable card according to Tivo "Tech Support". So they were going to send me a replacement via FedEx. I paid for the unit and shipping and heard nothing. After multiple calls they said there was an "issue" with my address even though they had shipped Tivo products to the same address in the past. Every time I call they say they are "processing" my address. It's going on 3 weeks now. Tivo products are great. Customer Service used to be U.S. based and was great but ever since the company was bought by Rovi it has no Customer Support to speak of. Too bad.

We cut-the-cord on cable TV a couple of years ago, switching to a Tivo box, over-the-air local channels, and streaming providers. The Tivo box worked fine for over a year, recording the over-the-air shows just as I had set up. Recently it has skipped recording some of my daily shows. It will record several days of shows correctly, and then skip a day. I called Tivo support about this over a month ago. They told me it was a known issue for about a year and many customers are having the same problem. They could not say when it will be fixed, but it should be soon.

I bought a Tivo Bolt in 2016 with the lifetime subscription. I bought it right before they were discontinuing the lifetime subscriptions service. I have never been charged for service. In 2018 I bought a Tivo Mini to work off of the Bolt for another room in the house. I liked the fact that you didn't need any additional service fees to use the mini off the Bolt. A couple weeks ago, Tivo started asking me for an updated credit card to charge me for my annual service plan. I thought, that can't be, because I have the lifetime subscription and ignored it.

I had to give one star to submit review but would prefer to give Tivo zero stars. I have owned Tivos since 2003 and been very happy. I never had a problem. Recently my Tivo quit working. I called for tech support and was told Tivo would replace my current defective Tivo for a service fee of $79 and I could transfer my lifetime service for $199. I agreed because I had had nothing but great service for 17 years. Since May I have received 3 replacement Tivo Bolts and spent hours over 4 week on the phone with tech support. One day I was on the phone for 4 hours running diagnostics! Tivo continues to blame my cable company when they have nowhere else to go. My previous Tivo worked just fine in this house, with this tv and cable company. The only thing that changed is the new Tive. Even so, I have made several calls to the cable company and even had a cable tech come to the house and check-out everything.

Having been a TiVo client for several years, my experiences have been unsatisfactory. Recently one of my TiVo minis malfunctioned - I paid for and was provided a replacement -however both the first and second replacement were faulty. I spent hours on the phone with TiVo technical support. Then my main box, a TiVo Bolt malfunctioned - again hours on the phone with technical support who identified that the Bolt was faulty. I was offered to buy a replacement Bolt, but preferred to upgrade to TiVo Edge which is reputed to be more dependable than the Bolt. I requested a credit for the faulty Bolt or some accommodation on purchasing an Edge but this was denied -I would have to buy the Edge as if a new customer with no credit offered for the Bolt. So after multiple device failures in a two week period, hours on the phone with technical support - all wasted time, the customer service approach was take it or leave it - poor and I will be leaving TiVo.

My Tivo subscription ended and 3/3/20 I re-upped my service on that day. I also removed my old Tivo bolt and replaced in on the same day. I called Tivo billing and had them remove my old Bolt from my account and put the new charges to my new Bolt device. On 3/10/20 I checked my bank charges and saw that Tivo had billed me an additional $149.99. On 3/11/20 The original charge cleared but after speaking to their billing services dept. they assured my I would be refunded the $149.99 after 3-5 days.

TiVo has the worst customer service and they are not honoring their agreement. I Purchased a brand new TiVo edge on October 7. A little over 30 days the hard drive stopped working. TiVo said in their agreement that if the DVR is defective within the first 90 days they will replace it for free. I called them on November 26 and they said they will be sending me a tracking number for shipping. I never got The tracking number and here I am 10 days later and still no replacement box.

I've been having some technical difficulties with the MoCA and the sound reception in my Mini's. I keep getting an error that the signal was low. Called the technical service. A representative named Jay was not helpful. He was saying I have an issue with the Router and its Firewall and TCP ports and referred me to the manufacturer of my router instead and that was the end of that conversation. I rebooted my Router and everything stated working again. The Router is working just fine and no issue with it, but I was still having an issue with low signal and sound on my Mini's. It was still going on and off on my Mini's. I called back again after a few days hoping to get a representative who would be more helpful than the previous one. No luck. The next person was dumber than the last and was blaming the coaxial cable!