Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Well l would be staggered if it cost Virgin £144 million a year.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Excellent

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

That's what I thought at first but if you divide the £144 million by the 400,000 boxes it gives you £360 per box - or £50 per month....assuming my sums are correct :)

I guess they are basing that on access to all premium services which these boxes would probably have, whether they were watched or not.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

It didn't 'cost' Virgin anything a year. the figure of £144m is based on if those people paid for what they were having for free.

it's a bit like saying they lost £144m a year from not having BTs customers as their customers.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Only if the BT customers were using VM's equipment, bandwidth, and services.....

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

I was thinking along the lines of Virgin were paying BT £144M a year in costs.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

All that matters is they are now in jail and i hope have soap on a rope :).

As for the others still waiting on court cases to start i hope they see this and think OH POO looks like i am going to jail. :)

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

I honestly couldn't care less either way, however i think 8 & 6 years in jail for watching a Television channel you haven't paid for is ridicoulus. I find it shocking that people are applauding a system that causes someone to lose over 10%-20% (depends on parole) of their life because of some entertainment that doesn't even affect anyone elses everyday life.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

They didn't get 8&6 years for watching telly ,they got 8&6 years for fraud and quite a well set up fraud it was so it was a well justified sentence

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

They were selling hundreds of set top boxes which allowed people to defraud the cable company.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Ah makes sense, it did seem strange to me how long they were jailed for. If it was for just using a dodgy box, anything over a year would be excessive imo.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Don't forget the costs of policing things and having systems to clean up noise that fraudulent use may cause.

Also what if the fraud caused real customers to loose service. And then leave.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

The cost estimate is from the same straw man school as the entertainment industry claiming that piracy costs them a certain amount, the jail sentences are well deserved though it does vex a bit in general how crimes against corporations seem to be punished more than crimes against persons.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

i thought the new system that they put in place for their TVs was uncrackable and thats why they replaced the cards.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

It is, This happened from 2005 onwards before the update to the cards

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

im not racist but why do they always seem to be foreigners hell bent on breaking the law.. Is it just the media reporting on just foreign people or is it a sudden jump on foreign people commiting crime.

Its the same here in Swansea the local paper a lot of the news is about things that non Brits have done.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

The problem is, it's hard to estimate the costs as no one truly knows how many people would have paid for the cable tv legitimately. It's all very well saying that vm were losing (say) £50,000 a month because there were 1,000 dodgy boxes hooked in to packages worth £50 a month, but no one knows that all of those 1,000 people would have paid the £50 a month (in fact it's a fair bet that a lot of them wouldn't). The same as the record companies claiming that someone running off 1,000 copies of U2's latest Magnum Opus/Great Album/Good Album/Dirge (delete as appropriate) has cost them 1,000 sales. There's no evidence it has.

I sort of agree with your comment about punishment of crimes against corporations against crimes against people.

To me, a crime against a person is far more serious, but it's worth remembering that depending on the seriousness of the crime, a crime against a corporation could, if it causes severe cashflow problems, cause a lot of employees to lose their jobs, so it has the potential to affect a lot of people.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

lets face it ,most "foreigners" have little to lose when you compare our justice to the justice that can be dished out in their own country ,that is assuming that this latest batch are in fact "foreigners"

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

So is the new fraud prevention thing that they did a year ago not work? and why don't they disconnect non-subscribing customers from the cabinets?

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

If you read the fora where the lowlifes hang out, you will see that they are complaining that Virgin Media ARE disconnecting at the cabinet. Of course, it doesn't stop them if they have a paid BB subscription with Virgin Media.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Box fraud isnt possible anymore after the new Nagra v3 Cards, Its physically impossible to get boxes chipped now.

---------- Post added at 19:32 ---------- Previous post was at 19:30 ----------

@Robbo The cabinets are being cleansed under Cab maintenence, However its only over built area's, Most area's I have been working in (Bradford, Halifax) And the asian area's that are getting cleansed as they are the biggest area's for chipped boxes, But the new cards are not crackable yet.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

I guess they are praying the new cards don't get cracked. I hear they have just given the hard working employees in their fraud department a nice bonus for bringing these fraudsters to justice.

The usual VM/ntl bonus...... anyone guess what it is?

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

A 90 day 'consultation' period before their jobs get binned?

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

That's just about what I heard.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

I'm far from any kind of expert on this, but I think it just tends to be foreigners that hide under the radar for a bit and do this.

I suspect there are plenty of Brits doing the same thing - just not in this country.

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Fraud is largely gone. Card sharing is still an 'issue' though a relatively small one.

Selling Eurovox isn't illegal, if it were a certain moderator at a certain website who's been selling these boxes for some time would be in clink. They can be used for legitimate reasons also, though not many are. Bit like binary newsgroup and P2P clients :)

Re: Set-top box fraud 'cost Virgin £144m a year'
 

Here here! :monkey: