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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."
It seems fair to me that someone trying to cheat on PPV charges would get burned.
A more interresting question is who did more wrong... Is it worse to try and circumvent PPV charges, or are the people selling these devices the real bad guys?
Opinions?
.: Max Romantschuk
Sky in the UK have cottoned on this sort of thing as well. With SKY if you order PPV the box dials up sky to get authorisation. People realised this, unplugged the phone and found that they sky box would then grant them access as it gave them the benefit of doubt.
:) Fantastic
What they didn't realise that they box has a £50 credit limit so if you hit this then it stops. So people then plugged the box back in, it dial sky and they get a bill for £50
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
That's hilarious - it's just a coax connector. If you read the copy, it never says anything about giving you free PPV, or even descramblig anything. It's a "Digital Cable Descrambler Filter for PPV", which means it's a filter for the descrambler. It happens to be a filter that passes everything. You're just left to assume that it gives you free porn. Cute. I wonder if that would work in court.
What's really funny is that somone's already bid $7.00 for it. It's a shame he only has one of them - he could make a lot of money. Or is he just bidding against himself?
What if life is just a side effect of some other process and God has no idea we exist?
A couple of years ago, when i was addicted to quake, lived at home and only had access to dialup i got hold of some strolen accounts. These were not ordinary "free" dialup accounts that looks like just another phonenumber on your phonebill, but a toll-free number that billed the owner of the account.
:)
:)
Yeah, i know, it was a really low thing to do on my part.. but i knew i was not the only one using the account, and the real person that owned the account would never end up having to pay the bill. So i felt i only screwed over a "big company".
I was young and dumb
Anyways, a couple of months later, my ordinary phonebill dropped down in the mailbox. It was a *little* bit bigger than usual. There were no additional notes on the bill and there was no warning about legal actions from the company, so i payed the bill and kept my mouth shut.
I got what i deserved and i learned my lesson
Sounds fair to me, but knowing the type of people who do this, their first reaction is going to be one of "What a second! We weren't told about this!! We were busy reaching around your jacket to get your wallet, we didn't know that you were grabbing ours in the process!"
Honestly, people dumb enought to getting ripped off while they are trying to rip off someone else deserves what they get.. people beliving spam even more so. After all, a fool and his money is easily parted.
I am however puzzled over one simple fact; can it really be legal in the USofA (where I presume this is happening) to sell such a device? Over here (Norway for those who don't get the clue from my nick) it would be quite illegal to sell something which is intended to allow the (l)user to break the law.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
I see no reason why the users of these devices shouldn't sue the retailers and manufacterers for false advertising. Just because something is contra-band (sic) doesnt (sic) give you the right to do what you please.
Please sue. Then you can testify in court how you attempted theft and were robbed in the process. Then, after you win your civil case and receive your settlement the District Attorney can arrest you for the crime you committed. It will be an open-and-shut case since you have already given sworn testimony admitting to the crime. The DA can give it to his freshest assistant and chose to prosecute to set an example.
Its illegal to make lethal booby traps for criminals and for a good reason too. Not just to protect the police who might stumble on them (or kids or whomever) but because criminals actually have rights! Due process and all. Look it up sometime in the Constitution, its a fading fad thanks to post 9/11 hysteria but its still a good idea.
While it is illegal to make lethal booby traps--the 'nanny state' at work; you are making a false comparison. Sting operations are conducted all the time, and are only called entrapment when the police fail to follow procedure or give due process. What we have here is more equivalent to a police sting operation, which is really a legal confidence game. The case here is criminaly-run, private enterprise sting operation. The victims are brought into this game with intent to commit a crime. Unfortunately, they are caught because of the ploy and consequently have to pay. The fact that the cable company does not press charges is what should be amazing here.
Due process and all. Look it up sometime in the Constitution, its (sic) a fading fad thanks to post 9/11 hysteria but its (sic) still a good idea.
Sorry, recent changes in the law do not mean that due process has been hurled out of the court system. We still have the same judges. We still have the same defense attorneys who thrive on lack of due process. We still have the American Civil Liberties Union to take egregious violations of the Constitution, and laws that support said violations, to the Supreme Court.
However, I am glad that you are incensed when the Constitution is abused by such laws. Perhaps you should be equally incensed when judges chose to legislate from the bench, which belongs to the legislative branch or to loosely interpret the Constitution to suit their needs.
What those who want activist courts fear is rule by the people.
Satellite TV in Spain (cable didn't catch on) relied on a smart card that contains all the information about what the subscriber has paid for. This meant that if you reprogrammed the card to contain the most recent user codes, you could access all the PPV channels for free. If you have a legit card, it recieves the new codes from the satellite signal itself.
There was a huge underground industry around - it got to the point were people where actually selling cards with PICs on them which would reprogram themselves automatically, getting the info from the satellite signal.
Obviously the satellite company knew about it, as did everybody else. I cannot think of anyone that didn't have one of these cards (if they had satellite obviously). The TV company didn't do anything about it for a couple of years. Why? Market share. The more people that signed up for their service and got a box, at a higher price than it would be with the compentition, the better in the long run for the company. People were signing up left right and center with the expectation of being able to unlock all the channels.
And then all of a sudden - clamp down! The company started verifying the user info in a different way an bingo - millions of subscribers that are addicted to 24/7 PPV.
If this is the same sort of device I remember using in college for this purpose then it is simply an inline hi-pass filter that you can buy at radio shack for a couple of bucks. I always worried we would eventually get a GIGANTIC bill, but luckily that never happened. The worst that ever happend was during a boxing match the screen blanked out and a message came on saying 'We know you are stealing this broadcast' or something to that effect. Scared the shit out of us, but nothing ever came of it. We later speculated that maybe the cable company figured out a way to send the message to people with the filters (which were pretty rampant at the time) but couldn't necessarily tell who was using them.