Buying receivers from other people?

[piercy67]

Ones at Best Buy and other retailers are brand new and never activated.

 

[petsheep]

You'll be making a HUGE mistake if you decide to go the CHEAP route and buy off ebay.
You CANNOT RESELL a current D* REC, LEGALLY.
They are LEASE to you and should be returned to D* when you are done with them.
You do NOT OWN it.

99.99% of the time, this is correct. I'm on a MDU contract with D* and everyone (everyone) in my condo complex owns their receivers/DVR's. I'm also on our condo communications board (satellite & internet) so I know how it works. A few months ago, I deactivated 2 receivers and activated 2 and did NOT have to send them back. They even said on the phone that I wont have to send them back since I own them. My suggestion is to make sure that you get the receiver id and access card id from the seller and call D* to make sure it's not a leased unit.

 

[Jimbo]

99.99% of the time, this is correct. I'm on a MDU contract with D* and everyone (everyone) in my condo complex owns their receivers/DVR's. I'm also on our condo communications board (satellite & internet) so I know how it works. A few months ago, I deactivated 2 receivers and activated 2 and did NOT have to send them back. They even said on the phone that I wont have to send them back since I own them. My suggestion is to make sure that you get the receiver id and access card id from the seller and call D* to make sure it's not a leased unit.

Curious, what is the model # of your rec.
It must be one of he older D* branded models ...
Hopefully it handles mpeg4

 

[petsheep]

Curious, what is the model # of your rec.
It must be one of he older D* branded models ...
Hopefully it handles mpeg4

Our building has pretty new technology since we use MFH2. Only new receivers will work on our system. For HD DVR's, we use HR21 & HR22. Our supplier doesn't have any HR23's yet, but they said within the next 6 months. I personally believe they have 'em, but want to get rid of their old stock first. Other receivers that work are H20,H21,H22,R20,R21... basically anything that is SWM compatible. We do have a legacy system in place (stacked line), but it only offers like 2 or 3 HD stations. Once we upgraded to MFH2, we got every HD station and almost everyone moved to the new line.

 

[curtishd]

So I have a guy willing to trade me a few BR's for 2 HD DVR's, HR23 and HR22, but when I call Directv they say that the receivers have never been activated before and the seller confirms this by saying they are brand new still in the boxes. Dtv reps seem lost since these have not ever be activated SO my question is will there be any issues or what when I go to activate the receiver?

 

[boba]

HR23 and HR22 new units will activate as leased receivers but you should have no problem activating the new cards included.

 

[joed32]

I have to defend the HR20 as well, I have 3 and 2 HR21s and all are doing fine. The 20s are much faster responding to the remote.

 

[Ramy]

If you knew how many of those things I had to replace on service calls, you would think differently. If yours is still working fine, you are one of the lucky ones. I remember we had a memo go out to all of the Techs stating that the Techs were not to tell the customers that their receivers were junk anymore. I bet around half failed within the first few months of being installed.

Also, 50hrs to 100hrs and 200hrs to 400hrs is pretty significant if you ask me.

Which HR20's are you referring to? I have 3 HR20-100's and have never had any problems with them.

 

[BlueEos]

I got "stung" once on a box from eBay that Comcast cable would not allow service on and so I would NEVER buy another box UNLESS, my service provider told me that I could use it with their service.