Possible Scam Going On by company pretending to be DISH affiliate...

[Anonymous99]

Hey all! I just wanted to warn you all to a scam going on by a "Dish Network Affiliate." This "affiliate" uses a Skype phone number and an "Out Of Area"/"Blocked Number" to call you and offer a deal that sounds too good to be true. The company will pay off your DN bill for the next 12 or 24 months and then you will pay the company your bill's value in a lump sum for 6 or 12 months respectively. I'm not sure exactly how they have access to my account to pay my bill, but I'm sure that the scammer would actually somehow end up asking you for the information (your account number, etc.). Interestingly, the guy had my address and name on file, though.

I told him to e-mail me the paperwork, and he, surprisingly, did. I've attached the "paperwork" here. I don't know how common this scam is, but I sure hope Dish Network is doing something to try to stop it (even though I'm 99% sure these calls are coming from India, and I have no idea if the US has any jurisdiction over someone trying to scam from a different country).

Also, I just want to make sure that the DIRT team is aware of this scam...

 

[Mr Tony]

so a company with a NY customer sales and service number and a mailing address in Florida but physical location in Wisconsin

um sure I get it.....

 

[Anonymous99]

I think the worst part is that satellitesales(dot)com is a secondary victim here. They seem to be a legitimate company....

 

[garys]

Did you notice the deal has expired already? August 31, 2012. It may be a huge joke from someone in the company looking to get canned.

 

[rocket69]

Wow Looks like a good scam.

1 they get your info and pay DN with a Stolen CC
2 you look and see your all payed up for years and then send them Western union or some other payment you cant get back if things go south.
3 DN gets a charge back on the stolen cc on your account and shut it off for fraud and you will now need to send in money and never will you use a CC with dish.
4 Your screwed !

 

[navychop]

Almost funny, endless versions of account stacking. Not.

 

[Tampa8]

Can you change the heading to reflect this is not a Dish scam.

 

[Anonymous99]

Wow Looks like a good scam.

1 they get your info and pay DN with a Stolen CC
2 you look and see your all payed up for years and then send them Western union or some other payment you cant get back if things go south.
3 DN gets a charge back on the stolen cc on your account and shut it off for fraud and you will now need to send in money and never will you use a CC with dish.
4 Your screwed !

Just did a little bit of research and it seems even worse than Western Union. Looks like they ask you to go out and buy some "money cards" and then ask you to give them the money card numbers so that they can deposit funds into your DN account. I don't know how anyone could think buying the money cards and giving them numbers is legitimate (I guess money cards don't have any sort of fraud protection...), but it looks like I'm not the first to get a call from these people.

http://newsandtribune.com/business/x1774444284/Dish-Network-scam-hits-Clarksville

 

[Anonymous99]

Can you change the heading to reflect this is not a Dish scam.

It is absolutely a scam where DN's name is being fraudulently used as the front for the scam. Although it's not a scam perpetrated by DN, it's extremely relevant to all DN users (and even potential users who could be lured in with this 50% off promise...).

If you can think of a better heading (and talk me through how to change it), I would be more than willing to change it.

 

[KAB]

Can you change the heading to reflect this is not a Dish scam.

Agreed. Reported to Moderators.

 

[TheKrell]

You can't change it; a mod will have to do it. Agree with Tampa8. Thread title seems to indict Dish Network, and not the actual culpable party who call themselves "Satellite Sales". IMHO that is what you should have put in the thread title.

 

[MattG@DISH]

We appreciate the information.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Changed the title.

 

[psychotrope]

Changed the title.

Thanks for the title change. While browsing the thread titles, this new title gives me a better idea of what's going on. At first I was worried that a legitimate affiliate of DISH was scamming people. Also, thanks for warning us about this scam. Based on one of the linked articles I read, if you get the dreaded scam phone call, it seems to suggest that perhaps the scammers have already hacked your DISH Network online account. I'd be interested to know if that's true or not. It may be time to change the ol' password.

 

[rockymtnhigh]

Thanks for the title change. While browsing the thread titles, this new title gives me a better idea of what's going on. At first I was worried that a legitimate affiliate of DISH was scamming people. Also, thanks for warning us about this scam. Based on one of the linked articles I read, if you get the dreaded scam phone call, it seems to suggest that perhaps the scammers have already hacked your DISH Network online account. I'd be interested to know if that's true or not. It may be time to change the ol' password.

It took me a few minutes to even figure out WHAT to call it.

 

[navychop]

Thanks for the title change. While browsing the thread titles, this new title gives me a better idea of what's going on. At first I was worried that a legitimate affiliate of DISH was scamming people. Also, thanks for warning us about this scam. Based on one of the linked articles I read, if you get the dreaded scam phone call, it seems to suggest that perhaps the scammers have already hacked your DISH Network online account. I'd be interested to know if that's true or not. It may be time to change the ol' password.

Hacked individual accounts? Or got bulk subscriber info thru a dealer or elsewhere? Or hacked Dish?

 

[navychop]

Deleted- Dupe post

 

[Anonymous99]

Yea, definitely a hard subject to title...

I changed my PW right before I posted this, but I doubt they had my password hacked. It was a 12 character string of random numbers and letters.

Regardless, the more people that know about the scam, the more likely it is to stop working (although I'll admit that the satelliteguys crowd probably doesn't need a lesson on how to catch scammers as much as the regular Dish users...).

 

[sparc]

Or got bulk subscriber info thru a dealer or elsewhere?

i'll bet this is it. That's why I consider it a Dish scam since they're allowing third parties access to our information so easily. We've had numerous phone calls from scammers in the last few years pretending to be Dish. They weren't quite as bad as this one, but they had access to all our customer info to the point they sound very much like Dish.

 

[psychotrope]

To the people who have received the scam call: What kind of account information did they recite back to you in order to make themselves sound legit? Just name, phone number, and address? Or like account number, last 4 digits of SSN? Someone said that they actually made programming changes to the person's account in real time. It might be helpful to know what type of info they actually have in hand. That also might narrow down where they are getting said info from.