Wildblue Complaints Conspiracy?
This post was originally posted by jhart2007 as a comment on WildBlue Class Action Suit
A couple of questions and then a brief comment.
First, has anyone on this Blog ever spoken with anyone at the Wildblue “Retention Department? I seen several references to such a Department on the epinions complaint link I posted earlier. Just curious.
Second, I also saw a couple of epinions complaints reference a Wildblue Email link that the poster said could be used for elevating subscriber complaints up a couple of levels. The Email address was listed as “executiveescalations@wildbluecorp.com” I have not tried to Email the link, but did try clicking into “wildbluecorp.com” and got a “server down or unavailable” error message. That means ther IS a web page with that URL, but it is offline or access blocked. Just curious if any of you have heard of this Wildblue web space before.
Comment. I couldn’t shut my brain off last night and get to sleep. As I lay in bed, I decided to try and think like Wildblue. How would I handle equipment and performance failures and lots of angry subscribers across the nation. I quickly realized that I would have Wildblue management, particularly Wildblue legal, regularly surf the net looking for Blogs and web pages like this one. That’s the one problem with the public internet cloud…it IS public and accessable by victims and criminals alike. Just something to be aware of as we vent, share stories and discuss options. It is also possible, if not likely, that Wildblue itself might set up a false complaint web space in an effort to collect names and track the activities and plans of subscribers who are getting screwed with an eye toward proactively thwarting their efforts. I don’t know if Wildblue is actually that smart, but I think we should at least consider the possibility. Given Wildblue’s other activities, I wouldn’t put it past them.
I can’t think of any way to protect or prevent this kind of activity, but I thought I should share it anyway.
Suggestions? Comments? Am I being paranoid? Alternatively, Am I being paranoid enough?
And then the following comment:
To: ADMIN
My comment above was NOT aimed at you. Please don’t think that I’m attacking your credibility. I’m not!!! I just wanted to alert you and the other members and surfers of this blog to the possibility.
I have seen this done in other businesses so it is not without possibility that WildBlue could or would. Anyone that may question me personally thoug – see My Personal Blog – that’s me.
Thanks ADMIN. I’m relieved that you did not feel my comment was directed at you. It most definitely was not.
I located two more very interesting links that you might want to surf through. The first is a link about the Wildblue TRIA, complete with pictures. I found it EXTREMELY informative.
http://www.wildblue.cc/wbforums/showthread.php?t=5564
The second link is almost laughable. I surfed into the Wildblue web space and saw a new sidebar link and a short PR blurb that Wildblue had just received a quality and performance award from “Broadband Report” which is a broadband performance and satisfaction tracking site. I surfed into the Broadband Report site and many of the comments on the first page are complaints similar, or identical to ours. This is another user forum that clearly demonstrates the breadth and depth of Wildblue reliability and performance issues.
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/wildblue
Click these links and learn, learn learn.
More later.
Jake
I have seen their bragging about broadband reports and then saw the complaints at broadband reports website – it is NOT “almost laughable” – it is freakin hilarious!
While I have no data to support the claim, I think broadband reports will give anyone an award that gives them a little greenery
Either that or WildBlue is taking the bandwidth away from the customers to give it to testing… Wouldn’t be that hard by coding a hostname throttle…
Having ordered WildBlue Satellite Internet Service from International Satellite (4WildBlue.com) on 12/28/07, the order being confirmed by them via email at 11:12 PM, I had some questions regarding the trees surrounding my house and what would happen if the installation was impossible. They replied that I would still be charged a “cancellation fee” of $50.00, regardless. Knowing there were other service providers who had told me they would charge me nothing under those circumstances, I quickly canceled the order with International Satellite, notifying them by email at 9:05 PM on 12/29/07. At 11:27 PM that same night, “Diane” in customer service emailed me that they could not cancel the shipment of the equipment via UPS and that I would not get my refund (minus the fee of $50) until after I had returned the equipment.
In fact, the equipment was not even shipped until 12/31/07. I refused delivery and got UPS to return the equipment, which was received by the company’s shipping department in New York at 8:08 AM on 1/10/08. So far, there has been no refund at all. Because I canceled within 24 hours and because the company lied to me (they could’ve stopped shipment) and has not issued any refund, I am seeking a refund for the entire amount of $320.00 via BBB, AMEX, and others. My advice is to avoid this business entirely, even if you actually want WildBlue: all the other service providers are going to be better, based on my research and experience with these horrible people at 4WildBlue.com. Once they charged my credit card, they did not seem to care about me at all. Diane even bragged in an email that they “already had my charge.”
Since WB has gone to Google mail a few days ago, very little of which works at this point, I decided to end all ties asap. WB/GMAIL IS NOW POSTING PERSONAL CREDIT CARD INFORMATION ON EVERY EMAIL SENT AND RECIEIVED, WITHOUT MY AUTHORIZATION, AND IN TOTAL VIOLATION OF HOW I SET UP THE ACCOUNT. I decided to delete my Gmail and WB email account, and went through the steps required, but when finished, they stated I needed to confirm me deletion via an email they sent to the acct. The promised email has not arrived, and the acct apparently can’t be deleted. Customer service was a joke when I called the day after the Gmail switchover, and due to the high call volume the recording said there was, it would be hours before I could talk to a live rep, and then they disconnected the call.
I have decided to end my contract with WB immediately, and the only way to keep them from ripping me off more is to cancel the credit card and get a replacement. If they want to take me to court for the remainder, I welcome that. If any others out there feel they got a bad deal form WB, especially those with a recent installation that doesn’t work, cancelling your credit card is the only way to keep them from taking the full ammount you allegedly ‘owe’ them under the contract. Let them take you to court, if enough people do this, they will spend a lot of time in courts in every state they operate in, and perhaps begin to see the light. Wisconsin has consumer protection laws against this sort of thing,as many states do, and it is doubtful they will pusue it in court here.
It is time to actively seek an attorney that is willing to proceed with a class action suit against WB. It is my understanding that once the suit begins, WB can be compelled to advertise and contact present and former accounts with an offer to join the suit. How do we go about finding an internet savvy attorney, I want to be involved if possible so this thing can proceed. Admin?
Bartsen
I agree and I am also looking for an Attorney as wildblue has ripped me off and my bank is also working with me to get my money back. Companies like this must be hels accountable for the actions they take agains people, its time to fight fire with fire and get them to make ammends.
I am currently working with an attorney to proceed. You are correct in your thought pattern. WildBlue can be pushed to contact past/present customers in the case. Many times, it is in their best interest to get as many people under one suit so they are not fighting multiple lawsuits.
I am actually talking to the attorney about when we can proceed. He will have to front a lot of money and wants to make sure there is enough interest to proceed. Currently we only have about 20 people that have really expressed serious interest and that simply will not be enough.
When the time comes, I will put together a form for interested parties and direct traffic to gather personal data (name, email, address, WM service dates, phone, etc) that we can give to the attorney to get started.
We are getting much closer and I am keeping track of all registered users on this site as well as those that have contacted me directly.
At this point, let as many people know about this site as possible and keep the fight strong. We should have a serious update in the coming weeks!
To Admin about class action:
I’m very interested. Have had the same problems everyone else has listed below. Now it’s worse with the mixup with Google. Can’t get to the help webpage today, can’t get to the “contact us” page, the phone number didn’t work (kept hanging up on me). I’m unable to send emails out, even after a lengthy chat session with one of their technicians.
I’m now looking for another ISP, and fortunately for us in our remote mountainous area, our local broadband provider now reaches our house when it didn’t a couple of years ago (which is when we signed up with WildBlue).
Please let me know what I need to do to get signed up for the class action suit.
I’m very interested. Have had the same problems everyone else has listed above,i was told i was buying the equipment,free install and on and on.I never signed a contract my name was (i guess) signed by the installer.The Residential Customer Lease Aggreement i read on their web site at the time stated at the time 12 month you leased the equipment and the 18 month contract i ordered was equipment perchase with free normal install. Please let me know what I need to do to get signed up for the class action suit.
I just order WB and with all that I read, I feel sick to my stomach!!
There is a way to get this company. Go to http://www.bbb.org/us/ . Press the orange button about a third down the page to file a complaint. Hit ‘em where it hurts. They’ve logged 1307 complaints in the past 36 months and they lost their BBB Accreditation in April ’08. They freaked and got it reinstated in Sept. ’08. They’re under strict monitoring now by the BBB. If they lose their accreditation with the BBB, then they lose their lucrative partnerships with Dish, etc. These companies won’t go near a company who is not in good standing with the BBB.The more complaints that come in, the better. It’s easy as hell, a couple of mouse clicks. What the BBB is looking for are complaints. One of the biggest problems with this company is that they’ve formed partnerships with other major concerns. Once again, NO MAJOR CONCERN IS GOING TO DO BUSINESS WITH A COMPANY THAT DOESN’T HAVE AT MINIMUM A GOOD STANDING WITH THE BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU. THAT IS WHY WILDBLUE COMMUNICATIONS AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE GOT IT REINSTATED. But as I also said, they are presently being monitored very carefully and what is going to sway the BBB is the number of complaints that come in. For about 1 1/2 minutes of your time, you can do this, and deal a blow to one of the worst ISPs in existence…if not the worst. At the present time, I too am stuck in a WB contract. In one of the stupidest moves in my legal career, I didn’t check them out thoroughly with the Better Business Bureau. Like all of you, I too, was desperate for something faster than dial-up.
Hello
I am a few days from dropping my wildblue poor
excuse for internet access by satellite.
I began posting over a year ago on some other
websites in hopes to prevent others from falling
victim of this scam as I did.
Recently on 1 of these sites I happened to notice
that when I reviewed HH GREGG and Assurant Solutions
in regard to being ripped off on a 5 year extended
warranty, A few of the other users of that site
began harassing me by leaving nasty comments on my
reviews.
It seems they took so much offense with my Wildblue
review that they somehow managed to hack into the
that rating website.
They manipulated reader votes on many reviews made
about Wildblue and actually zeroed out both the
” AGREE ” AND THE ‘ DISAGREE ” category vote count
totals. They did not change totals for ” funny ” or
for ” helpful “.
Then they complained to the site administrator and
claimed I had multiple accounts which was against the
site rules.
I had learned that site was favoring Wildblue by their
repeated zeroing out of the votes for Wildblue in what
seemed obvious to me to be favoring and protecting them
from the public seeing what others felt about them.
I had sent messages to a few other members to alert
them to both the vote count hacking and also that some
of their reviews about Wildblue were simply vanishing
from the site.
After I had sent these messages through the site messaging
feature, 1 of the vanished Wildblue negative reviews
did re-appear! ( IMAGINE THAT )
I decided to cancel my membership with that site when
I received their made up charge accusing me of having
multiple accounts on their site. I was not sanctioned
or restricted, and I only had 1 account. But I did not
feel that site was on the level simply because they
were seemingly protecting Wildblue.
I had reviewed 10 different businesses and made about
100 comments on other reviews, mostly about my bad
times with Wildblue.
The site administrator did as I had asked him to do
and quickly closed my account, as well as deleting
my reviews in which I had rated those 10 businesses.
He also deleted all my comments as well as all my votes
I had made on other people’s reviews.
I have no problem with that rating site, my problem
is with myself because I had overlooked the fact that
Wildblue is a paying advertiser on their site. I
should have thought about the possible influence which
this fact could have upon any ratings.
Another interesting aspect which I have learned since
I closed my account with that rating site is that their
vote count totals are still incorrect.
I was curious about their vote count when I saw that
the vote count totals had been zeroed out on a few on
which I remembered the numbers.
Over the past several days I have visited and spoken to
several of my friends and relatives about my suspicions
of that web site.
I actually wrote down the vote count totals on about 30
reviews and had them in a notebook with me. I then asked
my friends to either visit that rating web site and place
their votes on these reviews from my notebook, or in the
case where they were members, to log in and place their
own votes.
After writing down the beginning and ending votes from
each of my visits, while I ‘shoulder surfed’ other’s pc
screens, I was able to confirm that this other rating site
does actually and frequently edit as well as zero out bad
vote count totals for the Wildlue reviews.
What I have advised those people I visited that have been
members of that site, is to do what I did and close their
accounts.
I do not know what the name is for what they are doing,
but I feel it is not right. In my opinion they are doing more
wrong than is Wildblue. Wildblue is simply not able to
deliver what we pay them for. That rating review site seems
to me to be helping lure people into doing business with the
Wildblue service by hiding the true opinions of those reading
the reviews.
Thank you for reading my opinions
I became homeless, so I cancelled my bank account, and debit card , now Wild Blue can not debit my monies. I called to see where to return the Tria & modem, but security issue won’t allow them to give me that, rather they will “mail it to me” even tho I am homeless and using computer at a library! So I left the box I was going to return to them in a big dumpster!
I got my service installed thinking the speed would be better than dial-up. It’s not. It’s pitifully slow. I discovered this after 2 to 3 days. Went to cancel my service and they are charging me ~$400. I just want other people to avoid making a knee-jerk decision like I did — namely believing all their marketing BS on their web site. The service is super slow and the company has no sense of fairness in making things right. I also filed a complaint w/ Better Biz Bureau. If you are a consumer and smart enough to read this blog (I wasn’t) go somewhere else. You won’t be happy w/ the speed.
I think you all got the crap in the of the stick I have wildblue and am very happy with it, I just think no one here asked the right questions to understand how it worked.
Dear JOn, I asked all the right questions and I say the service is far from what I was promised when I called to find out more about the service the rep asked what I primarily used the net for I explained that my husband and I were advid online gamers and that I needed something that could Download large patches and VoiP I even went so far as to list the games we played I was assured that WB would be fine there would be no problems. When the installer got here He asked what we did with the internet we told him the same thing we told the rep on the phone. He paused for a long minute and told us I have no idea why they would tell you can use this service like that but WB does not support VoiP and its highly unlikely any of your games will work. He also said that if we wanted to cancel (he had already put the dish on the roof) that we would have to climb up and take the arm off the dish or he could take it down for an additional $125 as well as losing our deposit. I am at 69% usage have been at 69% usage for 3 days now and am still being slowed because of their fair usage. I was told it could take as much as 4 days to restore normal service. Not to mention the 30 day rolling period still does not make sense to me. I understand its not billing cycle but if I use 3mg on the 23rd of may then the 23rd of june 3mgs should roll off my account and that is not the freaking case. Tired of paying 84.65 for something I get to fully use 1 month and then 2 months at snail pace.
I too have been jerked around by Wild Blue. Last weekend mine went down. Spent 45 minutes on the phone Friday night. About 2 hours on Saturday, 6 hours on Sunday and more on Monday. Each so called service rep told me something different. No on knows what the hell is going on. Hubby could do the 2 minute test in his sleep he has done it so many times this week. They keep saying the speed is where is should be. Haha what a joke. It was alot faster before and Saturday it took a nose dive. They all think they know what they are doing. I should have used a few choice words when I spoke to them, but I dont think it would have sunk in their heads. They are all too stupid to realize they are being yelled at. Contract is done in November and then they can kiss my you know what! Good Bye to Wild Blue FOREVER! I am paying $90.00 a month for the top package. Should have stayed with PeoplePC for $11.95 a month and have the same amount of speed!
I have had WB for almost 2 years, because the local LEC can’t get any other service to me in the mountains where I live. I pay WB $70/month for this internet service, which most times is not much better than a dial-up connection. I know they are throttling my available bandwidth as soon as I start any kind of large file download. The download will start at around 130KB, than within 20 minutes, its down to far below what a dial-up would be at around 20KB. I am being ripped off in a major way, and no one at WB can tell me anything, except for their standard lame response “did you run the optimizer” which changes little and/or makes it slower. IF I set my Home Page to the Wild Blue site, it takes about 30 seconds just to display the page. I have made many complaints to WB, but nothing ever changes. As soon as I have the $$, I am installing a large anntena on my roof, so I can get Verizon Broadband. Than just before I cancle my service I will run Wireshark, than initiate a large download of say a 100MB file, capture the packets, than I will have proof of what they are doing I can use in a lawsuit. Lets see, 2 years at $70/month is around $1700 bucks, and this ervice isn;t worth more than a dialup at $15/month, so I figure they owe me around $1000.00 and conting atthis point! This company has ripped off their last $ from me. Time for some payback!!