TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Really Really Bad Customer Service
I recently purchased a Humax DVR / DVD Recorder and what followed was the worst customer experience of my life!!!  The unit I purchased had a noisy fan and by noisy I don't mean a soft humming in the background but a fast consistent ticking noise.  You can't help but hear it.  I have a DVR from my Satellite company which does have a humming noise but faint and hardly noticeable.  This noise is different.  I requested a replacement and was duly advised that it would take 2 to 5 working days.  Since TIVO was using Fedex and I typically have a problem receiving packages from Fedex I called after two working days for a tracking number.  What followed was a nightmare.  Over a 10 day period I made over a dozen calls.  On every call I waited a minimum of 45 minutes sometimes over an hour to be serviced.  Each time I was told that they had no means of obtaining the return shipping tracking number as this was done manually and they would call be back.  I WAS NEVER CALLED BACK EVER!!!  What was interesting was that to get to customer support you had to call the sales number which was answered pretty quickly but then you were placed in another queue for issues and that was where the marathon wait started.  After 10 days and countless hours waiting on the phone I begged and pleaded with the support person who finally decided to create a new order for me.  I received the new unit two days later only to find that the replacement unit had the same problem with the noisy fan.  By this time I had had enough.  I called (a 1 hour wait) to return the unit only to be told I would have to pay for shipping.  After a heated argument with the customer service representative they agreed to pay for shipping and refund my money.  This has not happened yet so I wait with bated breathe to see if I will get back my lifetime subscription payment and the money paid for the unit.