You own the receiver and the card.....they cannot dictate what you do with it. It is your property. And yes, chances are you have a very valuable "H" card which can be reprogrammed to receive programming for free --- this is why they are trying to discourage you. BTW -- you should be able to get $250-$300 for just the card itself if you do have an "H" card (blue card with serial numbers on back starting with "H" instead of "HU" or "F".
Selling a DirecTV Receiver
I want to sell a DirecTV receiver but DirecTV told me that I can't sell it with the access card and that the buyer would have to buy a new access card. Has anyone sold a receiver before and worked around this issue. This sounds ridiculous to me and would make the idea of buying a used receiver a bad one especially with new ones selling for next to nothing.