Hi
I'm in a similar identical to than one already described by Eagle, here in Rome I can receive with my second hand E-bay bought digibox and a 80 cm dish all the FTA channels plus Channel 4 ( 100% Strength 20% Quality ) and Five by using an old expired Sky card.
To upgrade to BBC channels, I asked my wife's parents to call BBC for a new FTV card, they dialled the 0800 number, communicated my digibox data and last week I finally received the new card.
When I inserted the card in the digibox I received a message that sounded more or less like ' this card need to be activate call your broadcast for further assistance ..."
As explained in your discussion I asked my wife's parent to complete the job by asking BBC to activate the card.
However when I asked to do this they were rather reluctant as they had been told that BBC ( or maybe SKy itself) in their pursue of cracking down on card used abroad, are sending people around to inspect houses from which they had received phone calls for new cards , to check if a dish is actually mounted outside !
They were also told that as soon as BBC realise that the card is not operated from the UK address for which it was requested ,they send a satellite signal that not only kills the card but the digibox as well !
Honestly I don't know if these strories have been deliberately circulated to create unjustified panic among people , but as you can understand I'm at the moment really worried that when I ask the card activation I will end up loosing even Channel 4 and Five !
In this respect I would be grateful if you could send me any relevant information regardiing the reliability of these rumors.
Please, feel free to not publish this message if you believe that its contents may create unnecessary concerns, in this case I will be very happy to learn privately that there is no reason to worry about .
Being sorry for this rather lenghty message and for my poor English
Regards
Amedeo