You maybe got lucky.Did that too. Deactivated one of our 3 receivers. I wish I could remember which DTV number I called, but I got a fella named Bert who sounded very American. I went to the DTV website the next day, and the receiver had been removed from my equipment list. He said I would receive an email with disposition instructions for the receiver and the access card. It's been a week, but I haven't heard from them.
When we shut our account down when we moved, we followed their instructions to return the equipment. Then, we got a $250 bill, saying we didn't return the equipment. THEN, they tried to bill us $60 for a partial month of service (even though we didn't have the gear to receive, and it should have been stopped).
I went round and round with a rep on the phone and she finally relented when I threatened to file a complaint with our state's attorney general. And if you check out the AG web site, I bet you will find that the top complaints are coming from the TV content providers. I guess they didn't want more?
They must have finally logged that equipment back in, because we paid them $0.