According to a thread at TiVo Community, TiVo is offering certain customers product lifetime service for $99 as a customer retention measure when they call to cancel service. User jfh3 contacted TiVo and reports that the criteria to receive the retention offer are:
- those that were on three year prepaid plans with a THD and reactivating the box.
OR
- Those on the $6.95 plan that are cancelling that plan AND adding a new Premiere. (e.g. move a THD from a $6.95 plan to lifetime for $99 AND buy a new Premiere with a new, current plan).
He reports that he confirmed these with a customer support supervisor. However, another user reported that they were offered the $99 retention rate despite not meeting these criteria.
But don’t rush out and expect to get this rate, not everyone is getting the offer. Keep in mind that this is meant as customer retention. Many companies do this, make a special offer when a customer calls to cancel their service, to retain the customer. In the past TiVo has done this in other ways, such as offering the $6.95/month MSD rate even though a customer had just one unit. (This was before the last rate hike, of course.) Acquiring new customers costs a fair bit of money, which justifies spending some money to retain existing customers. But the offers are generally based on the customer’s unique history, and sometimes the discretion of the customer service rep. If you call and say you want to cancel service just to get the discounted rate, they may well call your bluff.