[jem]

If you do decide to buy a box from ebay then you will;

a) be wasting your money as it won't work
b) almost certainly be in receipt of stolen goods.

Each box has to be 'paired' with a viewing card and VM certainly won't do it for a box not supplied by them. The boxes are only rented by the user unlike the Sky boxes so whoever is putting it up for sale doesn't actually own it.

If the box is being sold with a card, then presumably the seller has cancelled their contract and the card will have been disabled anyway.

If you do go ahead then the best that the box will do is give you without a valid viewing card is the standard BBC 1 and 2, ITV3, and Channels 4 and 5, (and VM may well kill those off soon anyway) they won't be the HD versions and the recording feature won't work either.

All in all probably not a good buy.