ReplayTV Price Drop Bait-and-Switch

jkeyes writes "Last week on 12/17 DNNA (new parent company of Replay TV) decided to drop the Replay TV 5504 model down to $149, yet the boxes and website said that it came with three years free service. So immediately it appeared on deal sites like FatWallet with Replay telling people on the phone who called that yes all 5504 models include 3 years of service so immediately Circuit City & Amazon sold out. Then on the 12/22 DNNA released a press release annoucing the new price and claiming that the 5504 models NO LONGER have 3 years free with them and blamed the retailers for dropping the price too soon. Even though their own Customer Service Reps were saying when it first dropped that you got 3 years free. Also to add to the issue the actual devices have giant green stickers on them saying Three Years Free AND a paper inside telling you this. Replay went on to say that if you had a problem with this or your replay was deactivated to just return it to the retailer you purchased it from."

Comments

The egregious part of this..

[Anonymous Coward]

What the summary doesn't mention is that DNNA has been deactivating boxes that a) had stickers and papers that said they included service, b) were sold by retailers who assured customers they included service, c) DNNAs customer service said included service, even to people who asked about the $150 boxes, and d) often did show as having service when they were hooked up.

Then it took them a week before they put out clarifying press releases, and some stores continue to sell boxes with service-included stickers that DNNA won't likely honor. DNNA can blame the retailers all they want, but they're the ones deactivating boxes that contain their promises of included service. This as about as classic a bait-and-switch as there is.

Re:I brought one of these recently: Skip this prod

[Mr. Slippery]

I also have a Replay TV. I'm on my 3rd unit, as the first two went kaput and had to be RMAd. Customer service during this time was a mixed bag, some reps were great, others did not appear to be native speakers of English and I could only understand every other word they spoke.

However, now that I've got a working box I'm pretty happy with it. Never had any problem with dl'ing the channel guide. And with its "sharing" feature and client software that others have written, you can send shows off to your PC for storage (or I think even burning to VCD, though I've never tried that).