How does the Directv Lease fee work? My situation is in the details section:?

Question

I have 4 old owned boxes (before they started leasing) that were deactivate years ago, if I reactivate them do I have to pay any additional fees on them. In addition, if I purchase an HD or HD/DVR receiver from ebay, would I have to pay this lease fee?

Answer 1

If you own the boxes you do not pay a lease fee. Instead, you pay an additional receiver fee of $4.99. It's not that you're paying to lease the box, but for programming on each additional one (instead of paying multiple times for it).

If you were to lease a receiver you'd have a service commitment of 18 or 24 months (depending on the type of receiver) or a $20/month not fulfilled fee.

Reactivating old equipment tied to the account, regardless of leased vs. owned status, will not activate a commitment, either, since they've already affected your service commitment.

If you were to obtain a HD-DVR from ebay, so long as the previous owner also owned the receiver you will not be charged a lease fee. You should ask for the Receiver ID number (also called a RID number) and Access Card number (it's the one above the barcode on the back of the card) before you make the purchase. Then call into 1-800-531-5000 and ask them to look up the receiver and tell you if it's leased or owned (explain you're thinking about purchasing it from ebay, they'll totally understand). If it's owned go ahead and purchase it.

Also, just a few side notes: if you get a HD-DVR from ebay, make sure it's a HR20 or HR21 model. The HR10-250s no longer get the HD feeds and you'd just be wasting your money. In addition, if you don't already have HD or DVR service, they cost an additional $9.99 and $5.99 respectively.