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jbird395 · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 2

re: 3100 reciever is ordering PPV "by itself"

Has anyone else ever encountered this problem...

For the past couple of months, we have been charged for Bell PPV movies that we have not ordered. We have noticed that on occasion, PPV movies are set to auto-tune (on our 3100) without anyone in the house having selected them (we turn these auto-tunes off when found). We have told Bell about this problem and they will not believe us, insisting that these movies were ordered using the remote.

One of the movies we were charged for was one we owned and one was for a movie we had already rented. If we are going to spend $5 for a movie, we rent them to get the DVD extras. We do not use PPV - ever. Yes, we have kids (12 & 14), but some of the movies we are being charged for are movies that no kid would care less about. Some of the movies charged were scheduled during days when the whole family was out of town. I am thankful that none of the movies were porn, otherwize my wife wouldn't believe me either and we'd have a way more serious problem on our hands.

Yesterday (July 12 '05), I called Bell to have the charges reversed, which they did under protest (after they refused to do it for my wife). They told me to lock the movies out using my remote. I told them that wasn't going to work because a) we didn't use the remote to order the movies and b) if this happens again, they will simply blame us assuming we disabled the lock or gave away the password. The operator said this was the only option.

On the issue of a defective remote going nuts, this operator insisted that the default pop-up choice on selection verification is "NO". Well, it is "YES" on our system and he wouldn't believe that either.

Yesterday evening, I came home from work after picking up the family (who hadn't been home all day) and turned the TV on (to set the lock) and found a PPV movie on. After a 1/2 hour call to Bell, they suggested reducing my credit to $0 to assure this wouldn't happen again. I told her about the earlier conversation and said that had the previous operator suggested this option, I'd have taken it and we wouldn't be facing this situation again.

In a nutshell, we have been sold PPV movies that we never ordered and Bell is insisting that they were ordered by someone in the house using the remote. They don't believe me and I think they are delusional and condesending. They refuse to acknowledge that this may be a new problem that they simply haven't encountered before. Bell would rather turn a blind eye to this problem than trust us to report a potentially serious technical problem with their system and/or equipment.

Has anyone else ever encountered a problem like this before? There must be someone else out there who can help legitimize by claim.

Jason
Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Canada

torpainter · Guest

Any neighbours close enough with a remote?

dr260 · Guest

take the phone line out of the reciever

lawdogjr · Guest

Of course its Bell's fault... how many times do you think they get "i swear
I didn't order this" calls?
Best ones so far:
a sub's dog rolling on the remote.
IRD was possessed and the sub brought the unit to see a priest.
sub thought the PPVs were part of TMN
A 1 year old managed to unlock the IRD and order a half dozen venus movies.

Honorable mention goes to: "my sons swore they didn't order it", "my husband
knows better" and "i wish my wife ordered lesbian porno"

Point being, IRDs don't order movies by themselves. 3100 has IR remote so
cross out the neighbors ordering them; its likely someone w/ access to the
remote. Best solution.. hide the remote. the 3100 has no front panel
menu/select buttons.

Harry Eugene Ly · Guest

If you have only 1 receiver, I agree with the previous poster... remove your
phone line from the receiver. For the time being, BEV couldn't care less if
you had 1 receiver and don't plug it into the phone line. What I suggest
that you do is lock the PPV channels manually (select each individual
channel) and also hide the locked channels (the 3100 receiver supports
hiding of locked channels). You must make sure that you individually select
that PPV channels to lock and don't just select the menu option of locking
all PPV channels. Once you do this, your remote cannot go to these hidden
channels even if you tried to manually select it from the remote. On a
separate note, I seem to remember as you've indicated that by default, the
"yes" option is selected when you select a PPV channel. If you accidentally
press the center button in the remote, you pay for the PPV channel/movie.

kain99 · Guest

sounds like one of your kids or their friends are playing around and
ordering ppv's
there is no way your remote is doing this on it's own
put a password in the re and make sure the kids do not know it and if this
keeps happening take the remote away and lock the front buttons on the re
remember anyone can dump the memory in the 3100 and change the password
there is more than enough info for the kids to find on how to do this
don't blame the receiver or the remote it is the kids or friends for sure
that is doing this

Mitch · Guest

now there is a smart idea,, that should have been the first thing you do

Mitch · Guest

umm hmm,, he said it happened when they were out of town?? does it really
sound like some one is breaking in and playing a joke?

No Name Needed · Guest

Someone standing outside the window with a remote. Only possible
explanation.

unplug the phone line. Simple.

Harry Potter · Guest

No Name Needed wrote:

jbird395 · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 2

I am the guy who originally posted this article. We appear to have discovered the problem. Here goes...

We have a 3100 & a PVR, in completely different parts of the house. The 3100 was the one that was ordering movies "by itself". We also have 2 TV's (one for each receiver). We them set up so that we can we can watch the PVR on either TV, by patching the COAX Out on the PVR to the Cable IN COAX jack on the 3100. When we (often) watch the PVR on the TV plugged into 3100, we bring the PRV remote into that room as it operates on a radio frequency (can be used anywhere in the house) and not infrared.

In our experience, remotes only operate the devices that they were provided with (especially in this case where the two remotes have supposedly different signalling systems), otherwise in this day & age they would play havoc with other appliances. This is, in fact, what happened here. As it turns out, the 3100 responds to the signals sent by the PVR remote. This in spite of the fact thet BELL CLAIMED IT DID NOT! The result is that when the PVR remote is in proximity to the 3100, it recieves the commends and, like chess pieces being pushed around a board by a blind child, carries out chaotic commands (you can't see what the 3100 is doing wven you ate wathcing TV on the PVR). When used enough, on occasion the ENTER button is hit on a PPV channel and a movie is ordered.

But, you ask, don't you have to say "OK" several times to confirm an order? Suposedly, but with our system, we found that the default button was "YES" as opposed to "NO" as Bell insists it is. This makes it much more likely that a movie will get ordered (as "Yes" default, hit okay twice & you're in, as "No" default, you have to toggle between the OK and sideways button). We figure that movies which were ordered while we were away were bought because they had been set to a Timer. We know this because to this day, the 3100 appears to have random Timers preset for the unlikeliest of shows.

As a follow-up to this, Bell told us to set up a password lock but that didn't make any difference. In fact, that same day, another PPV movie was ordered. We called back, furious and they told us to have out account zet to a ceiling of $0 for PPV. This fixed the problem, however I wonder why they didn't tell us this option in the first place in spite of my calling them repeatedly spitting mad.

In the end, we don't order any PPV and haven't (volountarilly) done so in over a year. I do find myself continuously deleting Timers on the 3100.

In the end, I still hold Bell 100% responsible for this issue because the problem lies with the design of their hardware. In addition, they do not appear to know much about how it works (otherwize they'd have figured this out in a heartbeat). Furthermore, they seem to jave a jaded view of how their defaults work in oredering PPV and finally, I am outraged by their willingness to discount my claims and would rather call me malicious/incompetent than even think of questioning their equipment/software. I'm the customer, dammit.

So, in the end, as far as I'm concerned, due to the nature of their hardware (remotes designed to be cross compatible when they should not be), so far as I'm concerned, the 3100 DID bloody well order movies by itself.

Jason

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