DirecTV accuses Utahns of fraud

A Utah couple is facing a lawsuit for allegedly selling false subscription accounts of DirecTV programming.

Troy and Marci Sample of Draper were named as defendants in a suit filed this week in U.S. District Court of Utah by California-based DirecTV Inc.

DirecTV claims that the couple set up a legitimate DirecTV account but then activated additional access cards, selling the access cards to 33 other individuals.

Those using the illegally activated access cards also were named as defendants and are listed as John Does until they are identified.

Additional access cards can be obtained by subscribers of DirecTV for a $5 monthly fee and are used for establishing programming in multiple television sets within a household.

"What these folks did was they activated a receiver, then they managed to acquire additional access cards and receivers and activated those under false accounts," said Robert Mercer, a spokesman for DirecTV. "Rather than those receivers residing in their home, those receivers were in their neighbors' homes."

Mercer said the John Does then paid the Samples $40 to $50 a month, while the Samples continued to pay a $4.99 monthly mirroring fee for each access card they activated.

Attempts to contact the Samples for comment were unsuccessful.

DirecTV said it is entitled to actual damages, including any profits made by the defendants. Statutory damages could range from $10,000 to $100,000 per violation.

In the past, DirecTV encountered piracy problems where individuals modified the access card itself to obtain additional programming.

"We don't have a piracy problem anymore, certainly not on the scale that we did, because we have developed a bulletproof access card," Mercer said. "To our knowledge, it has not been hacked. But there are these instances of fraud that do turn up, and we don't hesitate to go after these people."

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