>> DirecTV periodically deployed electronic countermeasures, or ECMs, in the satellite stream that killed the cards in their set-top boxes. Ereiser needed someo

>> DirecTV periodically deployed electronic countermeasures, or ECMs, in the satellite stream that killed the cards in their set-top boxes. Ereiser needed someone to fix the cards. I worked for a home theater company from 2000-2002 following the dot com crash. Every single one of our customers had pirated DirecTV cards. I still remember getting calls on a regular basis, "Yeah, I think the card got fried again" and would have one of our techs go out and get their fried cards replaced. I was pretty shocked how common it was and how a legit business was profiting from giving away satellite tv for free which was obviously illegal. Every time DTV fried the cards, we would charge a card replacement fee and a service charge which was around $30. Nobody ever complained about paying it - as long as their pirated tv continued to work.