Bad customer service...

So I just spent another 30 minutes on the phone with TiVo.  Here's the background:

Last month my wife noticed that our monthly TiVo bill increased from $8.95 to $14.95 and asked me to look into it.  I checked online and there was no indication as to why the fee had increased.  So I called TiVO.

They proceeded to tell me that the reason behind this was that our "Lifetime Service" TiVo had not connected to the TiVo service for the last 6 months and therefore we were no longer eligible for the "Multiple TiVo" discount.  I found this to be unreasonable as the lifetime unit had not been sold or anything and I had not notified TiVo that I was canceling it or anything.  I explained my case to the service rep and he agreed and told me that he would credit us the $6 and that if we plugged in the TiVo and had it "call home" that our account would revert to the "Multiple TiVo" discount pricing.  I hung up the phone a satisfied customer.  I have been a customer with TiVo for nearly 10 years, a true early adopter and have purchased TiVos as gifts and have recommended them to many friends who have since purchased.

Fast forward to this afternoon.  The lifetime TiVo is happily running and phoning home via my internet connection every fifteen minutes.  The charge hits the credit card again and it is the $14.95 rate.  I'm annoyed that I have to call again but I wasn't expecting the treatment that I got.

I explain the situation to the service rep and sit on hold for ten minutes while she spoke to a level 2 support rep.  She comes back on the phone and apologizes for the problem and tells me that their billing system needs this other TiVo to continue to connect for another month.  I'm OK with this and ask her to credit my account for the $6.  This is where the service falls apart.

She explains to me that she "can't" credit me for this and that while the monthly fee should revert to the $8.95 level in the next billing cycle that I will have to make another call to TiVo to get the credit.  I've now been on the phone for 20 minutes and am very annoyed to hear that they are going to make me make another minimum 10 minute long call to them in a month.  Why not simply credit me now.  She puts me on hold again and comes back to explain that their billing system doesn't allow her to credit an account for the same thing twice. 

Now this is blatant crap.  Every billing system has an override capability.  I know it, she knows it and I tell her that.  I'm trying hard to be polite because I know she is just following company policy.  After I explained that this is very poor service and that I would like to speak to her level 2 person she puts me on hold again and finally comes back and tells me that she can in fact credit my account but that if it happens again next month that they will be unable to credit me again.  I tell her that's fine, I'll just call back again and make the same complaint next month if they don't fix the issue and that I will be forced to re-evaluate my account with them should they attempt to keep $6 that is not theirs to keep.

The whole fiasco took well over 30 minutes.  It cost me more in time than the $6 and it damned sure cost TiVo more than the $6.  I was a big fan of TiVo.  If this happens next month I may very well cancel a service that I have come to rely upon.  I'll be pissed about it and I'll miss the service but I am not going to let them take advantage of me.