Seems like the right time for this:

@Tasunke: I wouldn't want to lock out ordering all together.. we actually like to order a movie every once in a while. And I like to watch the free OnDemand stuff when theyre is nothing on regular cable.

It just mildly concerns me because I live in an apartment where the mantinence guys have access when we aren't home.. so they could theoretically help themselves to all the PPV they want.

I've heard of it happening (well.. maybe that's just what they say.) and I could imagine that if they are going to be shady enough people to do that, they aren't going to be sitting watching Coraline or something like that.. they're going to go for the high dollar stuff.

I might try contacting Comcast to see what we could do to protect ourselves.. it seems like an idea worth persuing.

When he was a kitten he used to fling his entire body against the door until he could pop it open. So we learned a) to not lock him out of places the people were and b) that doorknob use is the lesser of two evils!

Besides, I didn't know the controller could turn on the console.

@Kimaroo - No Stars Upon Thars: "My cats do that too.. well the smart one does.. the dumb one just waits for him to do it."

Sounds like the dumb one is actually the smart one.

"I'll just let him do the work for me!" Lazy too.

@chiieddy: Wow, I see the OP blaming crowd is working overtime today!

I just have an expired credit card number set as my default payment method on XBL. It takes a few more deliberate button presses to change your payment method.

@MostlyHarmless: inversely, nothing sucks more than being the oldest and watching your younger sibling get away with everything because she's the baby. Seriously, when my parents initially seperated my mom would almost NEVER punish my sister for anything.

@MSUHitman:

That's what I came here to say. Funny story though. Guess he'll be picking a code now?

I was babysitting for a friend and the three year old boy I left paying a game managed to buy off the main dashboard screen a 800 point expantion to Fallout 3. I don't own this game, and have no use for it.

It is far too easy to do this I found out due to it only taking a push of the A button three times.

My grandmother's Alaskan Malamute got ahold of it and when this dog had something she wanted, she kept it. She was known for attacking anyone who tried to take something away from her.

When she finally abandoned the homework (sometime in the night, we found it the next morning) My mother put it in a Ziploc bag and wrote a note to my teacher. My teacher was REALLY mad, but she excused me.

Then, two years ago, we got our first dog (read: holy terror).

Even though I am well past the age of having school-assigned homework, I get it now. Man, do I get it now.

If it's a laptop, close the lid to where it's still playing, but doesn't hibernate the computer.

My son had decided to download the "Up" demo, and somehow managed to buy MS points instead. Oops.

That was money we really didn't have to spend, as we were moving because we were both laid off and living off severance pay. I turned on parental controls, and we used the points to buy some games to keep us entertained in our new place while we looked for jobs.

Luckily he can only open doors that push inward, so he can't manage to escape the house because he'd have to pull those doors. My parents have a cat who can open knobbed doors NO PROBLEM *and* has figured out how to pull doors towards him by sticking a paw under them. They have to shoot the deadbolts on the doors to the outside, and when he has to be closed in a room (like during thanksgiving dinner because he will seriously try to crawl into the turkey and once stole a 3-lb cut of meat) they have to use a bungee cord to hold the door shut!

I was like, "Oh, God, they're taking over! Opposable thumbs can't protect us!"

@Powerlurker: My door handles are lever types like [centuryhdw.com] so if Eyebrows' door handles were like that, it would make it easier for cats to get them open.

I think some cats, though, have learned to twist a circular knob. It's amazing.

and it wasnt a kid
it was granny tring to get to CNN
i'm not kidding CNN
and she bought 90 bucks worth of payper view
in 10 minuts
all the same show
..................
At first (cable company) didnt wana refund it then i was like Do you REALY want me to take this up how i mean just how do you explain in any other way why id want to buy 30 ppv's of (show) all starting within the next 3 hrs when sed show is 2 hrs long and you'd get it for the entier day on one buy.

...
i ended up going to the cable company
i will say the maniger was nice after i playd back the call.... (it is ok for us record where i am it only needs one side of consent)

reversed the charges and a months service i didnt ask for the service..... no small fee at the time my cable bill was 170 a month....

Being stuck at home all the time does tend to arange your entertainment funds a bit :p
tv internet no phone.
main extended hd movie packige 3 rooms dvr's

i have Dtv now 3 rooms 1 dvr and still get net via cable but no movie channels there a wast repeat's old ones at that.
not worth it unless they play soon after the dvd's hit

How does a cat open the bathroom door? Do you have knobs that aren't circular?

The default should be that neither are selected and you have to make a choice one way or the other.

@pecan 3.14159265: Your argument is compelling.. but the total look of rejection and disapointment on his lil fuzzy face when I open the door when I'm done (if "the smart one" is busy doing something else) says otherwise.

You never know with cats though.

@Kimaroo - No Stars Upon Thars: Pretty sure the dumb one is the smart one - why do it yourself when you can wait for someone to do it for you?

@Trai_Dep: Bah, they don't need opposable thumbs when they have razor sharp claws. Luckily, our little new world order demon-felines are de-clawed in the front so hopefully this will save us from the Cat Caliphate.

I had heard stories of service/maintinence guys coming in and helping themselves to PPV movies and such things, and so I looked on our Comcast parental controls to turn off ordering without a code and guess what?

There isn't such a thing. The only thing I could do is lock out the higher ratings so atleast some weird mantience guy can't order the high dollar stuff.

Thanks a lot Comcast. : /

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): My cats do that too.. well the smart one does.. the dumb one just waits for him to do it.

You can't keep them out : /

@MostlyHarmless: I have two sibling phone stories like that, as well.

My brother got caught calling some *other* kind of paid phone number, if you get my drift.. I still can't figure out what he was thinking.. he was obviously old enough to know better (15+) and he knew my mom got all the bills....

The other was a step-sister I used to have (my parents have had strange relationship issues) and she was about 8 at the time. There was a trend back then for these commercials that advertised "10 cents a minute calling!!" if you dialed some kind of short number before the number you were calling, and they started with 10-10. Anyway.. they would say how cheap that was and "So easy!" so she started calling her grandmother using this 10-10 number., which would have been swell.. if her grandmother had been a long distance call. Nothing like paying 10 cents a minute for hours per month of a local call.

Luckily you can reach the door from in the shower and push it back closed without getting out.

@_NARC_: I've been trying to find a program for Macs that simply locks the keyboard, but the only thing I've found is for babies to "play" so it doesn't help me with my kitty at all. I want to be able to leave iTunes open and playing, but lock the keyboard so the cat doesn't change the song/program/buy a new collar.

If cats had opposable thumbs and could figure out how to open cans without humans, they'd slay us all in our sleep and create the first Cat Caliphate.

@Eyebrows McGee (now with more baby!): That would be absolutely terrifying.

At the age of 5, he downloaded the original Halo from the Xbox Originals line and the South Park movie. (I had some explaining to do to his mother...)

For a while, I started taking the wireless adapter with me to work, but since the wife likes to watch netflix during the day, I have set up parental controls to stop this.

When I got to the phone, it turned out the call was a robocall from the city telling us about upcoming road closures due to an Easter 5k run.

Does anyone else remember the couple who received a few hundred dollars tacked on to their water bill, only to find out that the cat was flushing the toilet all day while they were at work?

@H3ion: I would be impressed if the dog signed up for a Capital One card and put his photo or a photo of his owner on it. More points if the owner had a Mac it is apparent that the dog used the Photobooth feature to take a current photo.

[www.bitboost.com]

[icanhascheezburger.files.wordpress.com]

I think it's sick because it degrades female felines everywhere.

Of course, that was nothing compared to the guy my parents rented a room to for a few months, who called a phone psychic every week, ran up a huge phone bill, and then disappeared.

@katstermonster: Oh yikes.

My bird is obsessed with keyboards. I've had all sorts of crazy iTunes and iChat experiences thanks to his love of ripping out keys in my powerbook or jumping on the buttons. Luckily everything he would delete/move on iTunes was easily restorable and the missing keys got me on a first name basis with my local Apple store. When the powerbook became obsolete they started giving me extra keys just for him to play with.

The new iMac keyboards are thankfully bird-proof and now his preferred position is straddling the top of the monitor and looking down at whatever I'm doing on the screen.

I love how this is a thread mostly about how animals are sneaky and smart in their ways. My rabbit likes to try to gnaw on the remote, particularly the top corners. He's turned the TV on and off a few times.

One of my late rats even nibbled off some of the rubber on the directional sticks. My original XBox DVD remote is missing all of the buttons because of the same rat. I guess they like rubber?

She now locks her computer when she leaves.

Needless to say, I enjoyed every moment of it. Very few things feel as good as watching your older sibling get owned.

The old XBox used to have a lockout code for purchases on it. The new one lacks any such feature, to my knowledge. It'd be great if this story, and the public reaction to it, got them to change. At the very least, putting a default "Do not buy" option that you have to move off of to confirm your purchase would be great.

Good on him for taking accountability and not expecting and/or demanding a refund.

Really, Mrs. Baker, my dog filled out all the wrong answers on my homework - I kept trying to put down the right ones, but Jimbly here kept grabbing the pencil and erasing them! I know the answer to 5x20 is 100, not woof!

I would actually be more impressed if Oscar the dog had managed to download a game and got to the second level. Good on the OP for not asking for a refund though - maybe this is a good way to outsource the task of buying more points. Just leave it out for Oscar to pick the right amount.

Was his homework missing too?