Virg-- piracy letter

OK i got a letter today from VM i downgraded last month but i bought my box from fleabay im going with the flea bay thought that its them that have given out info to VM , i havnt phoned the number yet ill wait and see what goes on over the next few days , its worth noting that the e bay sellers have vanished but most i saw were selling the boxes as FTA

 

http://rapidtvnews.com/index.php/200811042464/kudelski-&-upc-hit-irish-pirate.html

 

so is it safe to have these boxes or not???

 

hi i got a letter the same letter today. i have upgraded my pack i got my box on fleabay and am in the southwest

 

dont worry folks the cctv is on,just waiting for the flying squad with branson cowering behind them.come on richard ur aving a laugh he he he

 

Hi, I received the same letter this morning, i canceled my tv back in feb this year still got BB and telephone though.

I will throw something else into the mix, my son bought one a few months back of fleabay for a mate, the fleabay account uses his ntlworld email address, could it be traced through that?

PS I live in NEast

 

i@m in the midlands and pay for all channels except movies and sport.
I did buy a box off fleabay about a year ago but it turned out to be a clone and broke down after a couple of months. I replaced it from a different place.
I'm pretty certain that the information they have on me was obtained from the dubious dealer on fleabay

 

Hi
Can you advise are we safe to keep using these boxes, or should put them in a dark cupboard out of sight till things cool down?
Is it just a VM scare mail or do they really have info on us???

 

Thats the big IF m8 the letter says you have purchased a box so we have to assume they have details from when and where we purchased a box , i myself blame flea bay and have canceled by flea bay account .

 

would it be anything to do with us disconnecting our vm boxes to use starview,eurovox etc and not keeping our vm boxes connected.

 

What a letter , new tactic in the book and you can expect more of this type of approach . You will note that in the letter they call it an unauthorized box not an illegal box simply because every set top box is the same , every box can be modified and it is not illegal to purchase a set top box or even modify it taking the recent decision in the xbox mod case into account.It would be incumbent on them to set out precisely what they define as an unauthorized box

To put it simply to purchase a box is not against the law , to have any come back or case against a person the cable company must have evidence of the connection , evidence of channels actually watched , evidence to the effect of knowingly obtaining the services without permission, they must seize the box .

There letter also seems to offer every recipient immunity from any future prosecution once it can be shown they acted upon it to their detriment(consideration) and it could be argued that could be as mere as confirming that you have investigated the alleged complaint and you are satisfied there are no unauthorized( your understanding of what this is) boxes attached to the network and you as being an ordinary reasonable person have no understanding of the alleged illegality.

A subject of access request addressed to the company sectary may also be of assistance in clearing up where this information is coming from and whether there has been any infringement of your right to financial data privacy..an appropriate wording is below

Dear Sir or Madam

Thank you for your letter date xx/xx/xxxx
Having regard to the contents of same please send me the information which I am entitled to under the Section 7(1) of the Data Protection Act 1998 .
If you need further information from me, or a fee, please let me know as soon as possible.
If you do not normally handle these requests for your organization, please pass this letter to your Data protection officer or another appropriate official.

 

Brilliant and thank you very much .

 

I was told by a work mate Tuesday that they'd seen an ad Monday night on tv by vm warning of unauthorised boxes. I've been searching other forums and there seems to be a lot of these letters about.
I also found a post on one of them saying they were warned to unplug their box Monday night and leave it off for at least two weeks as vm have invested thousands into a new system that can detect any box receiving none paid channels, even boxes with cards and splitters. Apparently there doing area sweeps.

How true this is i don't know.

 

Not true at all methinks!

 

No way the first line of the letter states
"It has been brought to out attention that someone at your address has purchased and may be using an unauthorised set-top box."

 

Like i said i don't know how true this is, it's only what i've read, in the mean time im sitting tight, i didn't get mine of fleabay, so i'll wait and see if i get one of these letters.

 

This is a fantastic post. If you don't mind my asking, are you employed in law? In any case you sound like a good ally.

Aside, and just a thought for everyone here, is posting on this
website a bit dodgy anyhow? Can fraud squads not glean info from web author?

 

No m8 not if the site admin blocks people from seeing ISPs which i hope they have lol.

 

I see. But how do VM target people (sending letters to) who they know illegally download software/music etc? They must know the websites we visit otherwise we wouldn't need to protect our IP addresses with Peer Guardian etc? If they can trace that, then it wouldn't surprise me if they can read these posts and monitor us to some degree surely?

hope i'm wrong....

 

hi guys just gonna thruogh this into the mix,
ive read all the threads and can only see peaple getting letters who have at some point bought from fleabay.....
has anyone bought abox not from there and still got the letter?