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

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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

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

A FRAUDSTER who sold 400,000 set-top boxes which could receive TV subscription channels for free cost Virgin Media £144million a year, a court heard yesterday.

Munaf Zinga, 41, set up Rayyonics Ltd in 2005 to sell Eurovox devices for £100.

Mukundan Pillai, 42, was the technical expert and Salim Patel, 47, the delivery driver, Snaresbrook crown court in London was told.

Zinga, of Plaistow, East London, and Pillai, of *Hainault, Essex, got eight and six years in jail respectively after being found guilty of conspiracy to defraud.

Patel, of Plaistow, admitted the same charge and was sentenced to a year.

The judge called the scheme “audacious”.

[Welshchris]

Originally Posted by Sirius

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

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.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

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.

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.

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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.

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"

[m419]

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?

Originally Posted by m419

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?

Originally Posted by Sirius

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

[RobboEdin]

Originally Posted by m419

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?

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.

[Darakuli]

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.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Darakuli

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.

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?

[Derek]

Originally Posted by Escapee

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

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

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Derek

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

That's just about what I heard.

[mentalis]

Originally Posted by Welshchris

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.

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.

[Ignitionnet]

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

[nutellajunkie]

Originally Posted by martyh

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"

Here here!