I was required to purchase the dish and sign a two-year contract. Since I need this service only five months of the year, I found this quite pricey, but I had no other choice; dial-up or satellite, that is all that is available here. So, upon the assurance that when the contract had run, I would be able to suspend service for those months I am in another state, I braced myself for paying nearly $2000 (two thousand) for ten or eleven months of service.

The next real problem had to do with the business office. For reasons that escape me, they were completely unable to update my password for some months. Every call, (and I averaged one every ten days or so), service or billing, resulted in a long litany of questions and answers. I terminated every call with a request that the password be updated then and there, and was assured it was so; subsequent calls made it clear that I was being misinformed. It got to the point that I would not call even when I needed service because I was so frustrated with their inability to update my password. Finally, due to work on my roof, i HAD to call; the dish had shifted and needed realigning. This time–over a year later–they finally got the password updated and it still is on file about 18 months later.

When I have service–weather permitting, as noted above–it varies between slow and very slow. For example, from about 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM M-F I don\’t even bother; download speeds run about 18 kb/s, far slower than dial-up! The same is true of Saturday late mornings and Sunday evenings. I am still debating whether I want to have as phone line installed just for dial-up internet purposes. It si pertinent here to note that the people who speak with you when your service is down are without exception helpful. pleasant, and willing to do whatever they can for you. Since what I most often need when my service is down is a weather report, they unfailingly provide me with same while on the phone with them.

My two-year contract was up some months ago, and I am now preparing for my semi-annual move to another state with my job. I have tried THREE times to put the WildBlue service on suspension; all three times I have been told something different.

The first time, I was told that I must call back within the billing period in which I wanted the suspension. I waited a full four weeks and did so.

This time, I was told that the suspension would go into effect on the selected date.

Tonight, I contacted WildBlue through their website via chat to confirm. This time, I was told that I must call back on the day I want the service suspended.

At this point, I am documenting every call concerning the suspension of service. I have a suspicion that they will be trying to bill me despite my very clear wishes to suspend service; and if so, I will indeed dispute the charges through my credit card company.
So, in summary: dial-up speeds at T1 prices; poor, and in the case of the pyramid scheming installer, downright illegal practices.

We told them this was the reason we were dropping their poor
wildblue satellite Internet service because we were rarely
able to make use of it. ( 2 years of frustration! )

They said that if we wanted to sign up for wildblue
satellite Internet service again, it would not be
possible because it was not available in our area!

Why did wildblue install our dish and take over
$2000.00 of our money for this service which they
admit is not available to us???

Why are there several other homeowners within a mile
of us in all directions that have wildblue satellite
Internet service??

Will wildblue refund all of our money which they have
ripped off from us??

I noticed both the lights on the wildblue modem and
my Netmeter for about an hour after we canceled our
service and the first thing I saw was that the lights
did nothing unusual. The next thing I witnessed was
that my Netmeter graph indicated at next to the highest
data speed level that it ever has. Most all of the time
when we were able to use wildblue, it rarely exceeded
3 to 4 times our dialup download speed and never gave
us as fast an upload speed as our dialup. I guess they had
to activate our service temporarily in order to un-authorize
our modem.

Our modem is still acting as it has for most of this 2 year
fiasco, the internet is still there but I can no longer
use it. ( Nothing much has changed !!! )

Most of the time when we were able to use wildblue, it
only downloaded data at about 1/4 of the speed of our dialup.
We now have our 2nd phone line and are past the absurd 2
year contract.

We only gained a slight benefit from having wildblue
when we wanted to use the phone for calls instead of
for our dialup. But we now have 2 lines and can both
access the Internet and talk on the phone at the same time.

This was as if they were searching for my modem and
after they found it, the speed went to about 1/4 of the
speed we have been paying so much for!!

No wonder we have had such a terrible time with this
wildblue scam, they seem not to have turned us on in
the beginning. I guess this is why they never answered
any of my emails complaining of their poor service. It
is also most likely the reason why they never finished
the install in the beginning and caused me to buy my
own new parts as well as pay my neighbor to properly
install the dish and align it.

Why did I have to wait for my 2 year contract to be over
to avoid paying them their crooked early cancellation
fee? If wildblue was not available in my area then why
did they want the early cancellation fee?

Beware of this scam, They will take your money and then
run away from all their obligations to their subscribers.
Their so called 90 day equipment warranty is worthless
because they refused to complete the hacked up installation
and never replaced the junk modem they installed.

I learned they installed A junk modem during their hacked up
install, when the new modem I purchased outright myself gave
me their own message on my computer screen that the modem I
was removing had already been reported as scrap!!

( Imagine that !!! )

Why would they ever answer any complaints from someone who
lived in an area in which wildblue was not available?

Why did they take my money then?

I really hope someone has the time and money and legal
resources to either put an end to this scam, or at least
force them to only be paid for service actually received by
their subscribers.

I am now using my old dialup which I was never able to
drop when we had wildblue because wildblue was seldom
available.

I now do not have my browser popping up the old and tired
messages that I have lost my Internet connection.

And as well, I am saving about $100.00 per month by not
having to pay them any longer.

My name is Jorlene Post and I live in Sylvania, Alabama, Dekalb County.

I want it known that Wild Blue dish network is guilty of false advertising, bait and switch-over-charging, damaging installation work, slow internet speed, and shutting the service off multiple times without notice. They’re representatives also claim they have no way of knowing the exact amount of money that has been taken out of my account, since they don’t keep those records.

I signed up for the installation for $99.00 and was told at the last minute that I needed a mounting pole for an additional $50.00. Since 12//18/2009 I have been charged, not the 54.00 that appears on the contract, but $125.00 every month, plus an additional $190.02. My checking account bounced, forcing me to pay $70.00 in late fees as a result of these overcharges. Add to that, they have shut down our service twice without notice, costing my brother, Chris Stevenson who is a best-selling author, to lose hundreds of dollars in lost sales and miscommunication with his agent and publishers.

The technician, who installed the hardware, left a 15ft section off the mobile home trailer skirt and lost all of the fastening screws, requiring it to be reattached at expense. He simply left the skirt laying in the dirt when he finished the work. The installation process took more than five hours, with the tech continually trying to get the proper sat signal into the receiver.

On two occasions, we were told by customer support that they were sorry for the overcharges and promised to credit us for two months. They continue to charge double the monthly fee and claim to know nothing about any verbal agreements concerning monthly credit allowances.

The dish has been installed in front of the main entrance to the house, and is pointing directly at the roof eave. No doubt this has slowed the service down to a trickle due to bad reception. Snow or overcast days knocks the signal completely out, where we lose days of service.

I am on fixed income, and this has shattered my household financial status, and I will probably never recover from it.

We need a class-action suit against this company Now! Please email me with how I can participate in this class-action suit against Wild Blue.

My brother would also like to be contacted, since he has more damaging evidence against them. His name is Chris Stevenson and his email address is below:

stevenson_333@msn.com

Thank you,

Jory Post

BANDWIDTH USAGE

Data usage - 30 day rolling period
________________________________________
TABLE VIEW | GRAPH VIEW

Sign Out
| Help

Data unavailable at this time. Please try again later.

Percentage
Used Current
Usage
(MB x 1000) Maximum
Available
Threshold
(MB x 1000)
Download

61 % 7.4 12.0
Upload
86 % 2.6 3.0