Rummaging through the bins

[Anonymous User]

Hi. I threw my old NowTV box away at my local recycling centre back in August. At the beginning of November I got a charge for a cinema pass. Turned out someone has scooped my box out of the skip and purchased a pass. I quickly got onto sky and got my money back. 

I was told that my account would close after one month “in accordance with the law”. In the meantime the guy who’s been rummaging in the bins has activated two more trial passes on my account. 

why can’t sky just cancel my account? What’s with the one month law business? 

cheers,

rob. 

[Anonymous User]

Just to add. I removed the device from my account and changed my password.  How have they logged in as me again?

[Anonymous User]

I was also told that my credit card details had been removed from the account. THEY HAVEN’T!!!!

[ukbobboy · Accepted solution]

@Anonymous User 

Hey Rob

You should get onto your credit card company and cancel your card, explain that someone is using an old and discarded device to activate fraudulent payments and you want to stop it from happening again. 

The bank should then be able to block and cancel your CC and issue you with a new one within 5 to 10 working days.

Good luck

UK Bob

[Anonymous User]

Cheers.  I've just done that with app from the card company. Didn't realise it would be so easy to do.

Really confused that someone can still access my account and make purchases on an old TV box when I've changed my password.  Also why does it take a whole month to close my account?  Surely if there's fraudulent activity then sky can block the account immediately?

I've also set the parental and payment pins on the account so they can't watch their ill gotten gains! 🙂

Cheers UK Bob.

Rob.

[ukbobboy]

@Anonymous User 

Hi again Rob

You asked, "...why does it take a whole month to close my account?  Surely if there's fraudulent activity then sky can block the account immediately?"

Rob, your financial well being is not Sky's, or any other company's, priority and so they're not going to take it as seriously as you would.  That's why you have to be ever vigilant so that you don't get ripped off by accident or design.

Simply put, if you don't protect your money, and so your financial well being, then nobody else will.

UK Bob

[RoyB]

@Anonymous User @ukbobboy 

Here’s an edited version of a post I made a while ago. It was a very similar situation to yours, except that they did not know where the breach occurred. You, at least, do.

“But unless the new owner knows your email address, which isn’t on the device of yours that he has, or knows your secret security question and the answer to it, if you have protected it that way, they won’t be able to change your password at least.

But you must change it now, straight away, under My Account/Personal Details. See the details in the Help, here:-

https://help.nowtv.com/article/change-password

This will stop this person from logging in again, but won’t end their current session, or what they can do in it.

So you must also force a logout on all devices, as in the third FAQ question on that page:-

”You can force a logout from any devices you're signed in to. This means that next time anyone tries to use one of these devices, they'll need to sign in again. To force a logout, reset your password and when you get to the Manage permissions page, select NOW TV and click Remove.

Now just sign back in on each device with your new password.”

Now, to use your account, they will have to sign in again, which they won’t be able to do, as they don’t know your new password.

To further secure your account now, though, I recommend you also set up a Payment PIN, under My Account/Settings & PINs, And tell only people you trust the PIN, which will stop anybody else buying passes on your account.

Finally, delete the device they were using, under My Account/Devices. This doesn’t have any great effect, though, except to free up the device slot they have taken, make it more obvious if they still manage to come back, and give you some quiet satisfaction.

Just setting up one Pass was quite modest though; you are perhaps lucky they didn’t put you on the Monthly Sports subscription, or fire up both Movie and Entertainment passes.

Next time, before you toss a NowTV device and while it is still powered on, press the button under the box for over 15 seconds, to reset it and erase your details, and make sure they are indeed erased before disposing of it.

Letting NowTV account details out into the wild is potentially putting as much as £65.00 a month up for grabs; guard that password like you would a credit card PIN.”

The above may explain how they could keep using the box; the current session stays good even if you change your password, unless you force their logout. And NowTV, while being perhaps a bit remiss, can’t force them off any better than you can.

You might also notice that the above advice doesn’t include cancelling the payment card used; there’s not enough detail on your account to enable this to be picked up from a device. So unless you think it’s been breached separately, you are fine not to have to,