Dtv Stream refurbished boxes 49.99

Unfortunately there's a history here.  You see, we've been changing services roughly once every eight months, as prices have dropped or increased and as channels have been dropped and added.  We started with Omniverse in November, 2018 and, from there, changed to YouTube TV, AT&T TV Now, a combo of Sling/Locast/Stremium and, finally, back to YouTube TV, which is where we are now.

And my peeps are sick of it.  They do not view this as a series of fun adventures playing with new toys, as I do.  Instead, they deeply resent new technology and view it an evil burden to be endured, rather than as a fancy house to be explored.  The idea of dropping their Rokus and Fires and switching to an Osprey would be anathema to them.  It would be a deal-breaker.  

In short, the only reason why they joined up with me for these arrangements back in 2018 was to save money, nothing else.  They consider this whole matter to be a chore, like paying the bills in order to keep a roof over their heads.  The less they need to think about it or spend time on making choices, or learning new gear, the better.  They deeply resent this whole process, wish it would go away, and are furious that cable TV became so expensive that they were essentially forced to make the switch.  They wish this whole thing would never have been necessary in the first place.  

No, not the way I wish things were with us.  But that's the way they are unfortunately.

Only purchased refurbished from DirecTV Stream. They deactivate the boxes and provide a 1-year warranty.

I will try to explain this again. The person I bought it from purchased it directly from Directv stream. The issue is he never activated the box, and apparently the box was tied to someone else's account prior to him receiving it. We got on a three-way call to Directv, and they confirmed the box was bought from them by this individual, who then sold it to me. they told me they did not scrub the other persons account from it, who had it prior to him buying it. Then they refused to offer any solution, via customer service , or the tech support to get the box functional. 

So my question is, why the heck is Directv sending out refurbished boxes, that are still linked to other peoples user IDs.

I can't answer that. All I am aware of is the one's directly from DirecTV Stream are deactivated.  2-way offer. You have a 3-way deal. At least, purchases to subscribers directly have a 1-year warranty and would be covered for replacement.

Sounds just like an Ebay purchase. I don't think the truth is being told.

Wrong, he purchased it from Direct tv and the rep confirmed this with me while all 3 of us were on the phone. The rep then told me the reason the box would not allow me to log in with my user ID was because when he bought it, he never activated it.  Made no sense, does the box have some 6th sense where it can detect who's trying to activate  it?  The box never gave me the option of putting in my stream ID it just auto logged into an account I assume was out of my market , because when I tried to record a local channel, I got this error message. 
" This local channel isn't available to record, 
your billing ZIP Code determines which channels you can record "

DTV apparently pre-associates the box with the account that it was purchased under.   I assume this is similar to a carrier locking a phone to their service - it is to improve the chances the device can't go anywhere (in this case, be sold) until it is paid off.  However, once the device is paid off, the provider should no longer have a proprietary interest in it and should "unlock" it if asked.  Phone companies often don't make it easy, but generally will, with the proviso that they often will only when requested by the account holder.  DTV makes it harder than that, by requiring the account holder to do it themselves, apparently after "activating" it, and claiming that they can't do this themselves.  This seems (Edited per community guidelines) to me - they obviously have the technical ability to unlock it (whatever that means in this case) and if the device is paid off, they don't appear to have any justification to refuse to, especially if the acknowledged original purchaser said to do it.  This sounds like a reasonable issue to complain to the BBB about.  Their T&C for the device forbids you from selling it, but I seriously doubt that such a restriction would hold up, especially since the T&C is only implicitly agreed to - (almost) no user will actually see it, especially before getting or activating the device, and doing so supposedly commits the user to the T&C.  That's even worse than a click through agreement.

I don't know if this would help, but one time I had a old AT&T phone that i wanted to use with a international sim card. I walked into the AT&T Store and asked them to unlock this phone, I was going to sell it and wanted the buyer to be able to use it anywhere the want. With a little push they unlocked it and I was on my happy way.

Have you tried taking it into a AT&T store and asked them to unlock it.

I might take a bill of sale from the previous owner if you could.

We are not talking about phones here. AT&T is not involved.

The folks in AT&T stores know nothing about DirecTV equipment, let alone how to unlock one. 

If they sell "em what do they do with their returns ?

Does AT&T Store not have anything to do with Directv Stream anymore ?

DirecTV and AT&T are 2 different companies, although AT&T is a majority owner in the separation. 

That said, AT&T still sells DirecTV Stream on their website, DTV says you can return the streaming devices to AT&T stores and indicates you can (perhaps) get them there, and a user posted in the last few days that not only were they sold DirecTV Stream service at an AT&T store and get the device there, but a rep at the store set it up for them.  So AT&T and DTV may be separate companies, but AT&T still offers the DTV product at their stores (as they do for a number of other non-AT&T products). Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean they have the knowledge to or capability of unlocking the device, but if there is one that is convenient, it wouldn’t hurt to check.