Looking for anyone with firsthand info on how extra boxes work with DirectTV. If I currently have Direct TV at the house, but I want to add it in another room, can I just buy a used box from someone and get it to work or does DirectTV have to do something special with it or the card? Do they charge extra even if I own the receiver?
you can get a directtv box from anyone and it should work as long as the net work card is good. make sure its one of the newer boxes. if you just had it installed you should have been able to get the extra boxes free, but yes it does cost for the extra boxes. we had some but gave them back when we switched.
We are currently paying $4.99/mo for each extra box. I would rather just buy some used boxes and stop paying the lease fee but not sure about the card thing.
the cards come with the boxes. the older ones dont have them. let me check with my mom but i think we got rid of all of ours when we ditched the dish. 4.99 is the lease fee you will pay anywhere though, that what we are paying with comcast.
the cards are registered to your account. when you hook it up to your satellite it will go through a "registration" process. and you will have a 4.99 charge on your account each month thereafter. so regardless if you "buy" a used one from someone else (which you can't technically do, since they don't belong to you), you will still have to pay the monthly charge. yes folks, thats right. when you pay 99 dollars for a box from best buy, you are actually only leasing it from direct tv. no one understands this, and they are ALWAYS pissed when they have to give them back to direct tv when they cancel their service. if you buy them from best buy then you don't have to pay the 4.99 each month. think of the 99 dollars as basically a one time lease fee. instead of paying the 5 bucks each month.
So there technically is no way to get out of the lease fee because you have to pay for the card anyway which is the same price as the box? Oh well.
I think some people here are a lil confused. You lease the new boxes you get at the stores and directly from DirecTV but you can buy older used boxes off ebay or other places like that. I have three of them at my office that I got off eBay. We used them in our break rooms. Cost me $17 shipped for all three. Once the box is activated, you then pay a service fee every month of $4.99 that allows you to view the channels on that box.....new or used. I have 4 boxes that I personally OWN at my home. DirecTV has told me they do not want them and I could do what I want with them.
they took mine when we cancelled out 2 year lease agreement. but yeah, like i said. you either pay the 99$ up front or 4.99 per month. if you do one, you don't do the other.