A relative of mine has asked me to find out if it is possible for someone to have hijacked their account and charged movies to their bill. They suspect the installer but aren't sure. Basically, 6 Pron movies were on their bill and they really don't think it's their daughter. I am inclined to agree with them, but I don't know anything at all about Dish.

Any insights or do you think it's the daughter?

And crap, my avatar is broken.

If their receiver utilizes an access card (plugs into the front of the receiver and looks like a credit card), and if the card is blue in color (not yellow), then yes, it is very possible.

Do they have their Dish system hooked to a phone line? If so, it may have been an accident. Any of the PPV channels allow you to buy access to the movie simply by selecting yes after tuning to the channel.

I've (most likely) Hijack'd your player, but not your Dish account. Definitely the daughter and pals, dirty little bu..ers!

Cheers

If someone were using their CAM ID (access card ID) they likely would not try ordering PPV. In any case, they'd have to either make a voice calll or have the receiver dial out on a phone line. in both cases they should ask DishNetwork for confirmation of what phone line the request for the movies came in on. Then just say, "nope, wasn't me, reverse it please" and they should take it off. Heck, even if someone in the house did order it, they should reverse it no questions asked. It only takes a second to threaten to switch to DirecTV.

Edit: More reasons it's unlikely the PPV order came from outside this person's home...

- If someone else is using their CAMID it's because they've hacked the card. If they've hacked the card, they've more than likely got all channels open (no need to order anything).
- The access card also has the receiver ID recorded on it (this is visible on a sticker on the receiver) as well as an EEPROM ID (which is not visible on any stickers or literature accompanying the units).
- If such a hacked card were connnected to a receiver that was also conected to a phone line, DishNetwork would see TWO "customers" using the same ID (but on two different receivers) and suspend (blacklist) the CAM ID. So he'd have no TV.
- If a call were placed manually for PPV request that would likely raise a flag if the same CAM ID were already hooked up and in service on another phone line.

Bruno

You're correct, they would need to have the receiver ID keys, and would have had to extract these from the firmware. And another good point, Echostar would have the originating phone number used to call-in the PPV. Lectric should call to confirm the charge/origin.

Bruno, you would make a good IT auditor/consultant :-)

Hrmmmm..... It seems DishNetwork NEVER makes mistakes, at least according to their customer service. They have now cancelled the ability to rent pay-per-view. (My Aunt and Uncle, not the Dish)

What makes it weird is that once again, there is an unknown movie charged to their box, and there was nobody home. Confirmed. Dish is, BTW, refusing to cancel the charges. Searching on the net has shown me quite a few people making the same claim. Charges are appearing without anyone renting anything. I'm glad I have cable.

Oh, and Bruno, that's exactly what I thought. I know the cards can be copied, but I wouldn't think anyone would actually call in with it. And if they did, I would assume they'd cancel the service.

I should have made a further edit to my message... It should have made a point about it being likely that no one in the house placed the PPV order while still (extremely) unlikely that it was because of a cloned card. A billing error at DishNetwork would be very probable. They could have easily had some system bug or just cross-billed from someone else's account. Very easily.

They should refuse to pay on the threat of dropping service completely. They're not the phone company. There are other choices. DirecTV would be more than happy to come over and install a system. You can use the same dish in fact and need only to re-point it and connect a new receiver. The benefits there: Better customer service, better user-experience with hardware/software, more/better programming (IMO), better video quality (IMO).

Bruno