The general idea is that the businesses in question are paying for residential service, but are actually using in a commercial establishment. There’s a big difference between the subscription fees for the two types of service, and providers want to crack down on commercial outlets that are scofflaws.
I’ve done a good amount of these. The overall pattern is that the owners of commercial establishments register their service to a house or apartment. They then move the equipment (dish or box) over to the place of business, wire it up, and stream pirated signal.
My tip-offs: Small businesses showing expensive channels, like foreign-language soap operas (usually Asian) or non-USA sports (World Cup soccer, cricket, yachting.) I’d also look for window posters/online ads for UFC or other PPV events. And I’d also scan business rooflines looking for small residential-sized signal dishes, or look inside for a laptop or small residential cable box hooked up to stream signal to multiple television screens.
These setups are often found in ethnic neighborhoods where English is not the first language spoken. And I found small clusters of them at times; once one business figures out how to pirate the signal, others nearby do, too.
I stopped doing these because the fees went way down. And I felt bad turning in small family businesses run by recent immigrants who may not have fully understood the Terms and Conditions of their cable service. A lot of the places I was “busting” for piracy had two plastic tables, a few chairs, and neighborhood folks watching sports from their homeland. I didn’t like the work; YMMV, however.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/03/2022 04:09PM by ColoKate63.