eBay Promo scam for Direct TV

No one reads the warnings.

They shouldn't have to. Crooks pretending to be someone else is centuries/millenniums old. It is up to us customers to be careful with our information.

Requiring payment up front for discount, especially by gift card, is huge red flag. Only call official customer support number, no matter the company.

Not having knowledge about these gift cards (being old school) I got duped. While I was on the phone with the scammers and before I bought the gift cards, they somehow had Showtime and Cinemax added to my service and turned on. I was watching the TV while they did it. To me that confirmed they were legitimate. 

Right, they called DTV pretending to be you since they had your info and added them.

Does anyone know of any way to recover the money lost?  I got scammed and bought $240 of Ebay gift cards.  Is it just a loss? Please help.

That's why they ask for gift cards: non-refundable and untraceable.

@Rowdie_1964 

Unfortunately not. Gift cards are used because they are non-traceable method, so essentially the equivalent of cash. So if you already gave them the card info, the money is gone.

I wish that ATT / Direct TV  would have sent an email warning us about large scams like this ebay gift card promotion. They've known about it. Unfortunately, they didn't want to bring any attention to it. Not protecting your customers is a worse PR issue. It's great to get emails from them when they want money or your subscription packages have been illegally updated though. 

Agreed. ATT needs to treat their customers better. A simple email about the scam would have sufficed. Instead, countless hours of messing with ATT employees (lost employee wages and time for both of us) have really not helped anyone.

I just paid $550 for Directv/Ebay promotion, which was supposed to cover upfront payment for 5 months Directv, and then I was promised half-price rate for 19 months!  Now what?  Do I just forfeit the whole amount I paid?

Afraid so.  Consider it an expensive lesson learned.

This scam has been around for years and not just with DTV there are warnings on the websites that sell gift cards, the companies that the scammers are using do send out warning but it appears nobody is reading them.

@Suzem0102 

Unfortunately the money is forfeited. That is a scam that has been around for quite some time.

If a huge discount requires payment up front, such as several months of service, then walk away. 99 times out of a 100 that will be a scam, and the 1 out of 100 will be a company with a horrible promotion model.

We actually were able to recover the gift cards and use them on eBay before the scammers did. We couldn’t get a refund because they’re gift cards. But at least we didn’t really lose the money completely

How were you able to recover the gift cards before the scammers?  I just got duped as well for $480!  Then they tried to scam me again by saying there was an error with the gift cards and that I needed to go purchase additional cards and that they would refund me for the previous amount after I called back with new cards.  I even said, I do I know you're not scammers?  And he reassured me that he wasn't.  If he was, would he be able to turn on Cinemax? He was pretty convincing and assured me that this was a special promotion going on. Can't believe I got duped!