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DirecTV Amazon scam hits Tampa Bay area

Scam offers to cut your satellite bill in half
Posted at 4:58 PM, Mar 02, 2017
and last updated 2017-03-02 22:00:14-05

The Polk County Sheriff's Office is investigating a possible scam that promises to cut your satellite bill in half.

The sheriff's office received a report on March first from a woman who was scammed out of $300 after pre-paying her DirecTV bill for six months. 

Becca Hanna filed the report after a person claiming to be with DirecTV made her an offer to cut her monthly bill in half if she paid the next six months.

The person on the other end explained it was an offer between DirecTV and Amazon, "they knew my DirecTV account number, my address, everything."

Since the so-called satellite provider was working with Amazon, the caller directed her to purchase a $300.00 gift card towards her monthly bills. 

"I should have known right then," she said. 

This picture shows the number of times the person called to move forward with the transaction. You can see the 1-800 number in the picture. 

Hanna tells us she Googled that number, and sites came up saying it was related to DirecTV.

"When I Googled it, it shows there was an ad on the top of the page."

After Hanna purchased the gift card and sent it to the caller she decided to go directly to DirecTV herself where she found a different number. 

"Because if I did that first, I would have found out right then that it was a scam."

Hanna said Amazon has offered to refund her $300 since she is a Prime member. 

DirecTV sent us this statement, 

"AT&T-DIRECTV does no solicit its customers for prepayments. If a customer feels a call is not legitimate, we encourage them to hang up and call back using the number on their AT&T DIRECTV bill. We monitor our network for potential fraud activity and provide information about fraud scams on our website." 

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