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Users Conned by Cable Con
RJ Mansfield writes "MSNBC is running a story on users attempting to con their cable companies being connned. The high-cost filter being sold on Ebay and through email Spam to bypass Pay-Per-View (PPV) digital cable systems is a readily available filter that only temporarily blocks the PPV charges. Users are getting shocked when the cable company then bills the cable user for all of the ordered PPV."
This is what we're talking about. A little crappy coax coupler. I saw this on ebay a couple days ago, and thought to myself 'This must be a scam -- such a little thing can't work, since real descrambler boxes are pretty large and complicated'. Guess I was right.
This is not a descrambler at all, that's handled entirely by the cable box. The only thing this particular device achieves is to prevent the PPV order from being transmitted back to the cable provider. The digital cable box, or "DCT" will let you order as many movies as you want, up to a credit limit set by the cable provider. For AT&T Broadband in the greater Chicago area anyway, it usually defaults to $100 or $150. As far as the DCT is concerned, you're watching the movie, and being billed for it. Once the DCT fails to respond for a certain time period, usually a couple weeks, it'll be shut down, and prompt you, the subscriber, to call in. You're then forced to have a technician come out and check out the DCT to find out what's going on before you're allowed to have the service restored, unless the problem can be determined by a bit of quick troubleshooting on the phone.
;)
All in all, this little filter does the same thing as leaving the phone cord unplugged on older networks where the cable network wasn't two-way. I have no sympathy whatsoever for anyone who thought they would get away with it. There would be no use in trying to convince the tech that the DCT is broken either. They have diagnostic tools and whatnot. Even if you were to convince a technician that the DCT is broken, and they swapped it for a new one, guess what? You're still billed for those PPV movies that are remaining in the DCT. They clean those out once the DCT is returned and put them on your bill, sometimes as much as 6 months later
(disclaimer: i worked for at&t broadband chicago until about 2 months ago)
While a 1-{800 | 888 | 877 | 866} number is free to the calling party, except for some nefarious call redirection scams, it is NOT free to the receiving party. They pay for the call. They can receive ANI information detailing which phone number is calling them.
Unlike Caller-ID information which is transmitted in-band (on the same line) between the first and second telephone ring and can be blocked by the dialing party, the ANI service is transmitted off-band and CANNOT be blocked when you call an 800 number. It's always there.
Contrary to the tone of the article, this isn't and instance of the cable company "conning" users. The gist of the story is this (since so many don't seem to read): People bought a filter that blocks the box from talking to "headquarters", so the cableco doesn't know what movies you are watching. The problem? The cableco realizes that your box hasn't called home so hey shut it down, and once you bring it in they can easily retrieve all of the movies that you watched (the box has a long memory of all those late night porn flicks). They aren't "conning" people, but rather are charging people for events they TRIED to steal, but couldn't.
Saying that the cable company "conned" them is like saying that Walmart is conning you if they make you pay for a chocolate bar you ate while walking around the store.