Question $100 roku activation fee for Hisense TV's?

[andrepartthree]

Hi guys .. apologies if this has been asked before in the forum, I did a search on the forum and couldn't find any related topic for it but maybe I wasn't looking properly

I have purchased a Hisense H4 year 2020 series TV, 43 inches, model number 43H4030F3 ... it's a gift to a refugee family who's in a really rough spot from Afghanistan so the TV isn't for my individual use which limits the amount of testing I can do on it ... still, I created a "throw away" email account as the TV's roku interface demanded to create a roku account, roku seemed to work just fine as far as the free options

(these poor folks probably won't be able to afford Hulu or Netflix or what not so I'm grateful roku has so many free TV offerings.. to be clear the husband WANTS to work but the poor guy doesn't speak a word of English ... we're looking and trying to see what if any job opportunities are available for him anyways but that's admittedly a huge handicap... wife speaks very poor broken English, two kids who are literally half the size they're supposed to be due to malnourishment , looking into free lunches/breakfast at schools for the kids and that sort of thing as well as government programs for refugees that teach English and stuff like that )

Now here's where I get confused.. there are some BITTER Walmart (and amazon ) user review complaints about the Hisense TV's demanding a $100 roku activation fee... but when I tested the TV out roku seemed to immediately work without demanding any money.. I skipped the step where it asks for a payment method since, again, this isn't going to be my TV.

Is there some nasty surprise in store down the road later on where say after 30 days trial period or whatever Hisense demands $100 for roku to work? Or let's say things improve for this family and they want to get say Hulu and Roku's like "surprise, you have to pay $100 to make that work?"... I tried searching on the internet for info on this and came up with nothing.

Any information anyone has that could help me out would be greatly appreciated - and thanks so much to anyone who reads this and replies

 

[Ralston18]

Note: I am not a lawyer and the following is not legal advice.

First: no one has to pay anything if they did not provide any relevant financial information. Especially if they did not explicitly consent to or provide access to some financial account. Credit cards or otherwise.

Second: anyone demanding money after the fact (Hisense TV, Roku, etc.) may have no standing to make such a claim.

A trial period is just that - a free trial period. A time to freely try some service to determine if that service is worth the cost. If the person trying said service does not remember to terminate the service then, at sometime, they will may be billed for the service.

Which is moot if no access to financial accounts and/or automated payments was previously provided.

The provider can simply discontinue the service if there is no immediate path to payment thereafter with respect to the trial period.

If such financial information was provided then the user must proactively cancel the account which can often be a complicated and masked process imposed by the "provider/seller".

That is the key. Before signing up to or otherwise agreeing to some form of payment it is crucial to understand the terms of such an agreement.

Otherwise, in my mind, any attempts to solicit payments are likely to be extortion or implied extortion.

Just my thoughts on the matter....

But not legal advice.

 

[Rokinamerica]

According to this it is a scam. Roku does not require payment. I have one on my TV and it is free.

Do You Need to Pay to Activate a Roku? (How to Register a Roku For Free) | Cord Cutters News

 

[andrepartthree]

Thanks you guys I appreciate the quick replies ... I wish the people posting these reviews on amazon and walmart would tell the entire story .. I looked it up after rokinamerica's post and it would appear that people who don't know how to activate their roku look online to figure out how to do it and, sure enough, there are scam companies out there who agree to activate it for them - for a fee the buyer was never supposed to pay in the first place! I'm thinking they must be targeting people who are REALLY computer illiterate... it seems pretty straightforward, when you turn on the TV roku's like " Hey I need an email address to get started " and if you don't know what an email address is but you know how to go on the internet say on your phone and search up " how to activate my roku " ... I can see how bad things would happen (just a theory mind you, that's the only way I could see it happening).

Thanks again guys ... I will check in with the refugee family we're trying to help out later on and see how they're doing with their TV... I know Xfinity offers a $10/month internet plan and a $150 computer for persons who can demonstrate financial need (with Joe Biden trying to establish "everyone should get internet" policy it would seem the Xfinity website is saying you may not even have to pay for the computer if your financial need is great enough) ... I looked it up the 5 mb/s and 50 MB speed on that plan is apparently just BARELY sufficient to stream TV for say their wee munchkins looking for free kids shows on the roku TV ... we'll see how it goes.