As thousands of people in the United States turned off the Russian channels, and then returned: the story with a happy ending

ForumDaily spent his investigation and tried to find out whether the famous Russian provider will return to the American market.

Фото: Depositphotos

In the US, a big scandal erupted on the Russian television services market. Famous provider ActavaTV suddenly stopped working. As a result, thousands of Russian-speaking residents of the United States were left without Russian channels and favorite films.

No money, no circuses

In order not to forget the Russian language, a resident of the state of New Jersey Ksenia Sokolchuk decided to watch Russian TV channels more often. Friends advised to choose the company ActavaTV. They were satisfied with the service and pricing policy of the provider. The first time Ksenia entered into a contract in 2014 year. For 12 months, she paid $ 278. All financial transactions she did through the Internet. She received an e-mail from the company with a specified amount, which Sokolchuk paid with a credit card.

Last year, ActavaTV billed a lower amount - $193. As usual, suspecting nothing, Ksenia paid for the services. And last Tuesday the provider stopped broadcasting all channels.

“I called technical support. There, the answering machine said that everything would get better soon, and supposedly they would then compensate for these non-working days. I decided that it was a scam,” says Sokolchuk.

She called the bank, whose credit card paid for the services of ActavaTV, and complained to the provider who did not provide the paid services. The bank promised to return the money to the credit card. Now, Sokolchuk will not have to personally sort out relations with ActavaTV, but a financial institution.

A resident of New York was left without their favorite Russian channels. Photos: Facebook.com/Zoya Tsetsorin

Zoya Tsetsorin, a resident of New York, cannot watch her favorite Russian programs.

“I didn’t want to extend their service - they have constant interruptions and shutdowns. The husband insisted. Now what? Headache,” the woman wrote on Facebook.

Lawyers say that if clients paid for services in cash, it would be quite difficult to return the funds. Most likely, you will have to go to court. But the majority of subscribers of ActavaTV are unlikely to want to understand at such a high level, says lawyer Arthur Gershfeld.

“If you paid in cash at your home or office, then provide this agreement to the court. You can go there for the sake of principle,” says the lawyer.

The provider stopped working on Tuesday. Photos: Facebook.com/Yekaterina Ryumina

Without explaning the reason

ActavaTV operated in the American market for more than 5 years and provided access to more than 500 channels from Russia, Ukraine, Israel, CIS countries, Europe and America. Most of the company's subscribers are from New York and other states where a large number of Russian speakers live.

ActavaTV sent out e-mails to all customers who were left without Russian television, in which she apologized for the inconvenience and promised to resume work in the near future.

“Unfortunately, the ActavaTV service is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience. We hope to resume broadcasting as soon as possible. Don’t worry - as soon as the service is resumed, you will receive compensation in the form of a free extension of your subscription for the period of no access,” says the message to subscribers on Online company.

At the same time, the provider advised its users not to look for a new service provider, but to wait until the company resolves its problems.

“Without exception, every IPTV company in America has already faced or will face a similar outage. Therefore, we do not recommend switching to another provider. We are confident that after all controversial issues are resolved, ActavaTV will restore the provision of the highest level of service to its customers,” the provider’s website says.

However, other providers who suddenly lost a strong competitor are not experiencing any problems at the moment. So in Kartina.TV reported that the company is operating normally without failures.

What caused the stop broadcasting, ActavaTV in the letter sent out did not specify. For all questions recommended to contact your service department. But there the answering machine only repeated the text of the appeal already published on the site.

The office of ActavaTV in Manhattan is closed. Photo by Denis Cheredov

Server Actava.tv as of February, February 25, was down, the site was blocked. Company page in Facebook does not open. Despite this, ForumDaily managed to find out the official address of the company.

It turned out that company office located in Manhattan on Broadway. It looks like a very decent building. A representative of the security service met on the first floor of the ForumDaily journalist, who said that all guests had recently been banned from entering. The man even showed the paper, where it was written in black and white: guests were not allowed to enter the office №1850.

A note that was left by the managers of the provider. Photo by Denis Cheredov

After the release of the material, ForumDaily was able to contact Konstantin Kristovski, the general manager of the service Actava.tv. He explained the shutdown of broadcasting by technical failure and assured that they are gradually resuming work.

“We have partially restored broadcasting. Moreover, the list of available channels will grow from the moment our work is fully restored. We have opened a hotline. Call with any questions: 1 - 800-305-8282. Our website is already working,” Kristovski said in a comment to ForumDaily.

Another opinion is shared by Gregory Goldfedib. He contacted Forumdaily today and introduced himself as the founder of ActavaTV. Goldfedib said that he was one of the creators of the service back in 2010, but left the company after three years. According to Goldfedib, ActavaTV is now in litigation with selected Russian channels. The rightholders, including STS, Daryal TV and others, filed copyright infringement lawsuit by ActavaTV.

“This lawsuit was filed back in November and it’s not about technical problems at all. I think that after the legal battles, ActavaTV will close,” says Goldfedib.

The General Manager of ActavaTV gave his answer to all the charges.

“Gossip has always been, is and will be. Any legal issues are part of business. This should not be displayed publicly. This is the private side of the business,” Kristovski commented.

Strokes to scandal

When Edward Sorsher learned about the new scandal, he was not at all surprised.

The director of the company Edward Web Design Company has its own claims to ActavaTV. Back in 2012, the company signed a contract with the provider to develop a new site, Edward received half the payment for his services. However, after some time, he learned that the staff of AktaTVTV found other specialists.

“In the end, they didn’t pay us about $2 thousand. I didn't sue. The amount is small. I would just waste a lot of time and money,” Edward admits.

In addition to providing television services, ActavaTV also sells calling cards. True, this business is registered under a different brand - Mastercall. Information about the problems with mobile communications provided by this company, no.

Today, having won the trial of the leading Russian channels, the provider ActavaTV is again on the market and provides its subscribers with access to more than 170 channels and a catalog of 100 000 movies. How events developed defended the interests of Russian-speaking TV viewers in the United States, read our investigation.