They can consider it until they’re blue in the face, but it’s not up to them to decide. What matters is what the law says (and it happens to support them in this case, but if it didn’t, their guidebook wouldn’t matter any more than it does now). The cable conglomerates don’t write the laws directly (yet).
See, this is why I just wouldn’t bother. I had cable internet with AT&T Broadband. I purchased the cable modem from them for $150 (I was so pissed at BellSloth DSL at that moment I would have bought the modem for $500 just to spite BS). Anyway, when I moved I returned the digital cable box and considered the matter done. So then AT&T starts sending me bills for $300 - $150 for the modem, $100 as a “failure to return property” penalty and a $50 “processing fee”. It honestly took me something on the order of 15 phone calls and 4 letters to get this all straightened out. I finally have a letter from Comcast (who bought AT&T) saying that I DO NOT in fact owe them anything.
Not that this makes “cable theft” right - I’m just saying dealing with a faceless corporation is usually more hassle than it’s worth.
And who seriously believes that anyone has to do this? Fortunately, DSYoungEsq has said succinctly and clearly what I’ve been trying to say all along. (Thanks.)
If you’re getting cable that you didn’t order, call the cable company and tell them. If they still don’t cut it off, don’t plug your TV in unless you get a legit subscription. It’s that simple. All those dire consequences you speak of seem pretty farfetched to me and fairly easily worked out even if you do get a love letter from the cable company.
There are plenty of bad things about the cable company, Lawboy, and I won’t disagree with any of your criticisms. But it seems pretty simple to me that the answer is not to go ahead and use the service without informing the cable company.
(The answer is of course to re-regulate the cable industry – compel them to allow competitors to use their lines, set pricing caps on service, and require a la carte service on a channel-by-channel basis. But that’s besides the point.)
I will agree with Ascenray. Unjust enrichment probably won’t factor into this scenario. There should be a statute (unwise and biased as it might be) or not (however, needed it might be).
No offense taken! Like i said, what about those scenarios where antennae access and cable access are one and the same? That is, I cannot use the antennae without getting cable? (Which, technically, means I’m not using the antennae. It’s bad enough I give an easement to the cable company on my yard, do I have to give them access to my walls, too? Oh, and I just contacted one of my buddies from law school to check my facts, and he swears that in his condo in Chicago, he doesn’t have to plug anything in, and he gets cable. His theory is that there is so much bad wiring and so much cable going around, that his antennae picks up the signal. I still think this is wrong, but assuming that it’s not, how does this scenario play? I think you could guess what my argument would be.
In all my travels, in all the different places I have lived, apartment, house, etc., I have never seen the place where the cable and the antenna are hooked up together in some underground hideaway secret from all. After all, the cable people don’t like digging any more than you do.
If, and I emphasize the highly unlikely possibility of it being true, someone actually receives through their regular access to an external television antenna cable signal, with no access to the place where the cable and antenna are merged, I would consider it likely you could offer that fact as a defense to the assertion you had stolen the signal. As stated, I think it more a hypothetical offered by someone who simply has an axe to grind, or a mis-statement of fact by someone who can’t admit to the truth.
I just have a story to add. One of my friends has never owned a television at all. Her parents didn’t have one in the house when she was growing up and she prefers reading and outdoor activities.
She moved into a townhouse (sans television) and after three years she received a letter from the cable company informing her that they discovered that she had been receiving a cable television signal and she’d need to pay back fines, etc.
She pointed out that she didn’t have a television, so how was she supposed to know that she was receiving a cable television signal? The cable company said, “prove to us you don’t have a television”.
From her standpoint she didn’t have a TV, she never entered into a contract with the cable company, and yet they were putting the burden on her to prove that she didn’t steal cable television. The only way she could prove she didn’t own a television to the CC’s satisfaction was to allow them to come into her house.
As a matter of principle and safety, she didn’t want to let the cable company personnel into her house (imagine making an appointment, being inconvenienced, and letting a stranger into your house, just to prove to someone else you’re not stealing), but she just wanted to get the matter over and done with.
When the cable guy was in her house he initially accused her of just recently removing the TV, but she pointed out there were no indentations on the carpet near the cable outlet, and in the end the CC dropped the matter.
I don’t know what the law is, but in this case I think the conduct of the CC was outrageous. The burden of proof should be on them, not her and ideally she should have been able to get some compensation from the cable company for her lost time and aggravation.
Why can’t I hook the coax from the TV to that little bump in the wall? It’s my wall, and my bump in the wall. The cable company’s ownership of the cable, like any utility, ends somewhere outside of the building, and my ownership begins after that.
Of course, the other utilities are pretty good about starting and stopping service, because they are actually delivering a product such as water, electricity, or gas that cost money to provide. Illegal hookups cost them money, and so they keep on top of things. Now, consider the cable company: Providing the service (to an additional house) doesn’t really cost anything once the connection is made, and they only have so much manpower to make service calls (and that is their choice, they could hire more people but they don’t). So does the cable company put it’s efforts into hooking up new customers which will provide a revenue stream, or disconnecting old customers which doesn’t provide a revenue stream, and doesn’t cost anything if they don’t disconnect? Sure, they concentrate on hooking up the new customers. If they don’t spend much effort on disconnects though, they shouldn’t be surprised if the next occupant uses the service.
Providing that the person doesn’t actually go out and connect the cable at the point of connection, then this is a problem that the cable companies creates.
It seems to me that DSYoungEsq’s possible scenarios require an additional one, to wit:
- You move in, hook up, see the service running, realize that you should not be getting free cable, and unhook. But you also decide that it’s not your problem, and that you’ll be damned if you’re going to take the time to tell the cable company to fix its own mistake, especially when you’ve heard stories on the SDMB about cable companies trying to charge people for service they never received (see aaelghat’s most recent post for a particularly egregious example).
In this case, the company still has an active line, and so is still theoretically suffering from impoverishment, but because you don’t use the line you get no enrichment from it.
Is the legal burden on the OP simply to avoid using the cable. Or does he actually have an obligation to tell the company about the signal, whether or not he makes use of it.
And a technical question related to this:
If you are in the OP’s situation, with a cable signal running through what should be a dead line, is there any way for the cable company to tell whether or not that cable is actually plugged into a receiving device?
When we moved into our house, there was a coax running from the pole to a logical location for a TV. I had no interest in cable and never even bothered to connect it to a TV. Some time later, I decided the TV would be better in another location. So I pushed the coax into the wall.
A few years later, we found out roof rats were getting into the attic through the hole where the coax entered the house. I asked the cable company (TCI then, I think) to remove the cable so I could seal the hole. They refused and said “it was my house.” My interpretation was that I could remove the drop if I so wished. So, I put cut the cable about 6" beyond where it left the strand, pulled the entire length from my house, and sealed the problematic hole.
A few years after that, I get a visit from a cable company representative (AT&T by this time). He informs me that the signal was never shut off and I have been receiving free cable for around ten years. However, if I agree to subscribe now, they will let the whole thing drop and only charge me going forward. I explain that the CATV drop was removed years ago with their permission and I have no interest in cable TV. He proceeds to explain that while stealing cable is a crime, it is common – he even knows a few cops who stole service. Given it wasn’t my fault, they wouldn’t file any charges. Just subscribe now, etc.
I finally told he to go check the drop in and verify the house does not have service. At this point he gives up and I have not heard from them since. I still use an antenna in the attic and get receive five or six channels very poorly. We mostly watch tapes and DVDs.
Full disclosure notice: I work for a company that supplies CATV equipment. Yes, I work in the CATV industry and have no interest in watching cable channels. Deal with it.
I had a simular but not exactly the same situation. I moved in and was using the rabbit ears to get a signal. All was well and good till the cable co sent up a letter asking us to subscribe w/o an instalation charge since the former owner had cable. It also said if we don’t subscribe and we are receiving their service we can continue to enjoy till they cut it off. I though I’d see what would happend if I hook up my TV to that coax, presto cable TV, and totally free acording to the letter.
It took them 3 years to cut it off 
Mr. Seamonkey has worked in the CATV industry for over 20 years. This is what he says about your situation: Moral implications aside, just keep doing what your doing. He says the only way the CC would know you have working cable is if they were to do an audit in your area. They would simply cut you off, then sic a salesman on you to try to sell you services. It is the burden of the CC to prove you were actually using the services and you are under no obligation to let them access your home.
He says if you have had cable for the last 18 months with no contact from the CC, more than likely they are not big on audits in your area. If they were to audit and cut you off, and you declined services, it would be likely that they would tag your connection, and check occasionaly to see if it was re-connected. If it was re-connected without a work order, then the poop hits the fan.
CC’s are more interested in getting you to sign up in the first place, more money for them in the long haul.
So in short, if you enjoy having cable on the house, go for it. If not, then dis-connect.
(ps - he travels the US doing audits for the Big 3.)
Disclaimer: the Seamonkey household, in no way, form or fashion condone the steeling of cable services.
With the proper equipment, such as a time domain reflectometer (TDR), they can tell if the cable terminates in an open circuit, or if there is something attached to the end of the cable that provides a terminating impedance, such as a cable box or TV set.
** lawboy ** I again urge you to read my old pit thread regarding potential ethical violations on legal opinions on a message board. I think it holds true for both law students and lawyers. And, I won’t even get into what your opinions mean if you aren’t a lawyer yet representing yourself as one on a message board.
IANAL, but my friends had a similar experience with cable (except they were actually guilty).
One of two roomates ordered cablemodem, and, upon finding it didn’t work correctly, plugged it into a TV (and sure enough, got cable). He called the cable company, they fixed the cablemodem signal, but out of curiosity they checked the cable signal again – and realized that with a $5 splitter from Radio Shack, they could get both cablemodem and cable off the same line.
About four and a half years later, a cable repairman was servicing cable for the apartment next door – and noticed that their cable was on.
The repairman knocked on my friends’ door and confronted them about having an active cable signal. They feigned ignorance (“no, we don’t have cable, all we have is a cablemodem”) and the cable portion of the signal was switched off. Amusingly, while they were talking with the repairman at the door, the cable TV was TURNED ON IN THE BACKGROUND. They cringed every time the announcer said, “You’re watching ESPN …”
So, in answer to various posters:
(1) Yes, they can tell if your cable is plugged in – they can even differentiate between a cable and cablemodem signal.
(2) Yes, it is quite possible to be guilty and still evade punishment. But I’d bet there are as many people who get caught as there are people who don’t.
dmartin is not getting the credit he deserves here. If your goal is cya, this is entirely the way to go. Go ballistic on their asses. I’d fall short of threatening to take action in the first contact, and for God’s sake don’t mention any non-existant relatives or make any contrary-to-fact assertions, but at least make sure you cc everybody from the BBB to the FCC to your local newspaper (which undoubtedly won’t print anything unless you live in the boondocks). Paper trail is everything! But keep in mind, if you make the play, you gotta be willing to follow through. Chances are, though, you’ll get the reaction you’re looking for: “Ah, Jesus, please pull the plug on this asshole and shut him the f**k up.”
Don’t be lulled into believing that understanding the law is sufficient.
Not analogous. In your hypothetical, Al Capone stole something from a third party and left it behind in your house. In the case of unsolicited cable, there is no third party or theft. Think of it this way - if I ran a maid service, entered your house unsolicited and cleaned it for you every month for a year, would I then have a legal claim against you if I later discovered I had been cleaning the wrong house because I was too stupid to keep accurate records? Nice try. Try again.
“Al Capone came back from the dead and installed that cable! I had nothing to do with it!”
Yeah, like that’ll fly.
Who said anything about Al Capone coming back from the dead to install cable? I didn’t see that anywhere. What’s your point? The cable company installed the cable and they’re too inept to keep accurate records of their paying customers.
It was a joke. This is a zombie thread (you resurrected it from the dead - it was last active 10 years ago).
Just remember; Al Capone went down for tax invasion… be sure to properly document the found cash lest you be busted too! 