WildBlue Sucks

This was sent to me by Lisa in AR and wanted to spread the word about WildBlue so, being more “to the point”, here is her story:

I decided to go television/cable free and watch my programs on Netflix and Hulu.  Evidently I’m the only person in the world that doesn’t know that satellite internet doesn’t do live streaming video; the salesman assured me there would be no problem, sold me the high tier package, and then gave me a phone number to call back if there were a problem:  turns out the phone number he gave me is the number for United Healthcare Medical Insurance!

AFter a week of total frustration and many calls to Wildblue, Internet Explorer and Netflix, I cancelled, requesting my initial set-up fee and monthly charge to be refunded and the early termination fees to be waived.  The man I talked to in the cancellation department assured me that if the recorded call did indeed indicate that the salesman mis-represented what satellite internet was capable of, that I would get my money back.  He gave me a ticket number and told me to call back in two days.

I called back, and was told by a Supervisor (after requesting one) that no, I would not get my money back, that the recorded call could not be listened to as it was “corrupted somehow” and that they would waive the early termination fees and that’s all.  I am out 111.00 for the initial set-up, $165 for the pole mount, and 84.95 for the first months service—unbelievable.  More than $300 for one week of frustration and no service!  Wildblue is not an ethical company, does not stand behind their product or service, and should be boycotted—SPREAD THE WORD!

I received an email from a woman (Rhonda in TN) who told me that they have been repeatedly hit with the WildBlue FAP and had their speeds dropped down. When she contacted WildBlue about it, they refused to give her any proof, which she wanted because she said they hardly do anything but check their email and such. So you are not hearing a third party story, I have copied her email, word-for-word below:

Hi!

I can’t say that I am happy to write to you under these circumstances, but I, too, have had my barn load of Wildblue problems!  When we first hooked up with wildblue, our speed was great and we were downloading/uploading with no problems whatsoever.  After a few months, though, wildblue started saying that we were running over our “limit” of download bandwidth and started cutting our speed back drastically.  Then, even though we pay our bills, they cut us off completely!  Well…we called them and asked point blank to please PROVE to us this so called overused bandwidth so we could find out what the problem was.  Of course, you can very well imagine, they said, “we don’t have that information”.  Bull!!!  Even when I had sad speed dialup, I could look up on an hourly basis and see what bandwidth I was using.  They think we are all so stupid that we will just TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT that we are all using up loads of bandwidth without a shred of proof from wildblue to back their claims up for charging us, then slowing down our speeds or cutting us off.  We have called several times and can’t get any more information from them except that we need to watch our download gauge.

Well…now, here is a little something interesting for you.  I also have DishNet Television satellite service, which is also affiliated with wildblue.  My wildblue bill is on my dishnet bill, as a matter of fact.  I was having a bit of trouble with one of our receivers, so I called tech support for DishNet to ask what to to.  They were more than helpful and within a few days, we had a replacement receiver.  Here’s the interesting part.  I talked and asked questions with the tech lady for over an hour about several things, including upgrading my service for DishNet.  But, I told her I was very upset with wildblue service and wasn’t sure if I should invest any further money into their company.  Well…well….when women talk, sometimes things “come out” in the open, you see.  The tech lady I spoke to was very nice and when I told her of my problems with wildblue, she told me, and I quote, “you couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to work on the tech side of wildblue right now!!”.  She told me that several months back, wildblue hooked up with Google thinking that this would make things better for the customers and be a good way to out do Hughsnet, another complete waste of satellite internet service (we were with them before we got wildblue..they suck too!).  Well, when they got whatever service they got from Google, it had a lot of “back door applications” going on, which eats up bandwidth like crazy!  She said that DishNet and Wildblue customer service is in the same building in Virginia, I think she said.  She said that wildblue can’t keep tech reps in because so many people are so angry about the same problems.  What is happening is that wildblue hooking up with google has caused so many problems, their tech workers are working around the clock trying to fix it, but refuse to tell the public due to the huge amount of money they would not only loose having to compensate those customers already pissed, but would loose any incoming possible customers that might sign up with them.  I don’t know about you, but wildblue is NOT advertised around these parts, but Hughsnet is on the TV all the time!!   This representative of DishNet told  me that wildblue is trying to make the problems look like it is the fault of the customers and trying to prove it to the customers without any proof, when they KNOW all along it is their glitch and we are paying for it.  Where I live, I don’t have much choice….it is either horrible speed dialup (and I do mean horrible…we are at the butt end of everything here and the lines are so bad, even my phone service sucks!), I can opt to pay $900 a month for T-1 (NOT!! can’t afford that by any means!), no DSL even offered due to the age and horrible condition of the phone lines out here and cable isn’t an option either.  So, satellite is my only choice and I can hardly afford that!  And, I can’t afford it with bad service!!  We run a small business out of our home and if the internet goes out, we are out of business, if we aren’t making money, we can’t pay the bill, if we can’t pay wildblue’s bill, they cut us off….it’s a wildblue circle, I guess you could say!!

Anyway, I wanted to pass this tidbit on to you.  I have already contacted a local “That’s Messed Up” news piece on a local channel who handle this sort of thing.  He said he has had many complaints about them and is considering doing a piece on the problem.  If you guys do get a class action lawsuit going, please put me on the list. We have lost money due to their incompetence and I want my money back!  If we could just get this out to the media, I think it would break wide open.  I am going to keep trying to get this through in any way I can from my end, please keep me informed as to what you guys do…..I believe if enough of us gather together against them and get a good lawyer to represent us little folks, we could win this thing and make them pay!  Thanks for the great work you are doing, by the way.

Okay - I thought this one would be kind of funny and yet ironic all at the same time. On another post about WildBlue and related companies having poor service and bad attitudes, we had a WildBlue installer (tbagg) jump in on the conversation and telling us how we would not have a chance at going after a class action and how his dodge neon wouldn’t do 150 etc.

He raised some legitimate arguments which I appreciated and gladly posted as I think it is imperative that we allow others to post their opinions, regardless of what they are.

The funniest thing though is that he helped me to prove a point about how “helpful” WildBlue and their affiliates are. I have been unable to get anyone that could give me a straight answer about removing my satellite dish from my house. I want to make sure that there are no “dangers” (electrocution, etc) in removing it and if so, I want to know how. My local installers will not answer it for me, even though I have given them no indication of who I am - just asked a simple question and they give me the run around before finally hanging up. Well, since tbagg was so vocal on the blog, I thought I would shoot him an email, again, not leading on to who I was - below is a copy:

I got your email off a WildBlue-related website and hope you do not have a
problem answering a question for me.

I want to remove the satellite off my house but was curious as to power
source prior to moving. The installation company is a joke and I can’t
even get them to answer my calls so I will be removing this myself.

I can easily figure out how to removed it (unbolting, but need to know if
there is anything specifically that needs to be disconnected inside the
home prior to disconnecting outside.

Thanks.

I thought this was a relatively easy question for him since he stated that he installed many systems. Of course, rather than answering what would have been a very easy question, he shoots an email over to a friend to get him to look up my email domain and see who i am, then responds with my contact information and a note from his friend telling him to ignore me.

I have to assume that the general mentality of anyone employed or subcontracted by WildBlue must have  to be pre-qualified in the art of working harder to avoid service. This just went to prove a point that many of these guys would rather work harder to NOT give an answer than to just give the easy one.

While I realize it is not hard to do a domain lookup, this guy had to email it to a friend and wait for the response, ultimately responding two days later to let me know that he knew who I was and he was going to ignore me. Then, he had the audacity to come post about it on the other thread. I thought that was the FUNNIEST part, and kind of the icing on the cake.

I first installed Wild Blue in July 2007 - installation and equipment totaling $300. Wild Blue had asked for a credit card over the phone for the equipment charges and the first month’s bill. The installer arrived as promised and everything went smoothly – so far so good.

Problems arose the very next day when I went to log onto the internet and couldn’t. My MSN homepage took over 4 minutes to load and logging into e-mail was even longer. This is the beginning of a long and painful saga….

I am self-employed and work from home.  I need to have access to both my parent company’s intranet and a secured socket layer database site. NEITHER of these areas would load with any regularity or consistency. In fact the SSL site from which I send sales information to my clients, failed over 95% of the time! I found if I worked at 5 a.m. est. or after 12 midnight, I might be able to use this SSL site with some form of normalcy.

In September, I “upped” my service package from Wild Blue’s Select Pack ($69.95/mo) which promised 1.0Mbps download and 200Kbps upload to their top of the line ProPack ($79.95/mo) which was supposed to deliver 1.5Mbps download and 256Kbps upload. I saw no significant change in speed or reliability!

Over the next four months, numerous calls were made to Wild Blue’s technical service. – hours upon hours of my time wasted! Although polite, the representatives were not helpful. Their “ping” tests showed we had upload and download speeds in range of the program we had purchased. At one point, they suggested not using Norton Internet Security and not using Windows Explorer as they “did not work well with our system”.
Curious, these are industry standard softwares!

A Tier 2 technical service rep. explained one evening in October that the FCC imposes higher security steps on the satellite data exchange than on regular DSL or cable, which can cause the system to operate slower. This was the first I had heard of anything like this and the first of ANY of Wild Blue’s representatives to admit a speed reduction!! Interesting…. Certainly their salespeople and their website don’t mention this!!

During the first week of November 2007, we called Wild Blue once more and spent another extended evening on the phone with Tech Support. This time, I even went to far as to provide the tech rep with my security clearance and password for my SSL database site to see if he on their computers in Colorado could enter the site with any success. (Remember this is a site I need to work with everyday!!!) After 10 minutes on the first login, he admitted it wasn’t loading up. He tried again and the site although slow, did open but was missing critical search fields and wouldn’t exchange data on even simplified searches. (So it wasn’t just my connection in
Connecticut!!) He had no clue as to why and promised to dig into this and call us back.

The next week we called again – frustration level maxed out. Wild Blue’s response, after checking our complaint log, was to suggest a service call at our location. The service call would cost us $95.00 and was not guaranteed to correct the problem. There is also no refund if they come out and find nothing wrong. We did not authorize them to schedule this service call and opted to wait and reconsider our options.

Three weeks later, I receive a call from a subcontractor looking to schedule a service call at my house. I responded that I did not authorize any such call and I did not want a service call. Four days later I get a call from another provider wanting to schedule my service call. I tell them the same thing. Their rep. asked me to call the “dispatch center” where these calls originate and also alert them that I had never authorized a service call. I did as she asked and thought the problem was solved…
Until I received my next months credit card bill and saw that Wild Blue had charged me for a service call that was never made. (This charge is currently in dispute thru my credit card company)

On December 31, 2007 I called Wild Blue to cancel my service since they never once provided the service, reliability or speed they had sold to me under contract. I wasn’t asking for a refund for lack of service – just stop billing me for service you don’t provide. The woman was absolutely rude and argued with me for more than 35 minutes that without a service call so they could see if there was an equipment problem at my location there was absolutely nothing they could or would do for me. Willing at that point to work with them, I asked to have the service call at no charge – absolutely not!

I rang off the phone with this person with a warning I was going to pursue this through proper channels. Since then I have filed a complaint with:

Better Business Bureau of Colorado (where Wild Blue is headquartered)

 Wild Blue has responded, again claiming that without a service call they will do nothing. They did admit in this response I refused a service call (this information is sent to my credit card company - hope it helps!) Interestingly enough, the file was sent from their legal dept and tagged “escalating dispute”. I responded back thru the BBB with another 2 pages of rebuttal - we’ll see what happens!

AT&T Customer Service in Connecticut …since they are the local affiliate, and advertise Wild Blue in their bill packages, etc. I called them on 12/31/07 and the representative I spoke with asked me to wait on filing with the DCP and the Attorney General until AT&T had a chance to investigate this through their company. He promised someone would call be back. I waited 10 business days with no response, so my additional complaints were sent.
UPDATE: on 1/18/08  I received a call back from the AT&T rep who took my complaint originally. He stated that the response to AT&T’s investigation (from Wild Blue) was that a service call was initiated then declined by me so I am still liable for full payment of my contract.  (same tune different day….)

Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection …waiting ot hear back

Federal Communications Commission …waiting to hear back

Connecticut Attorney General Blumenthal …waiting to hear back

…as my fight continues I will add to this post. At present I am not asking for anything more than to be released from the remainder of my Wild Blue contract: $479.70 and the refund of the erroneously charged service call: $95.00.

If I were to add in the install costs ($300) the months of unreliable service ($459.70)… then included the hours of lost productivity (remember I’m self employed!), hours of tech support time wasted, telephone calls, letters and the like, this figure would be substantially higher.

UPDATE - 1/29/2008 - “RESOLUTION”

I  received a final response back from Colorado Better Business Bureau. They have marked the case “Administratively Closed” on 1/24/2008. Although Wild Blue is sticking to their guns that their speed is satisfactory and performing within the range of my package. They are willing to terminate my contract and waive the early termination fees associated. I had to threaten legal action with charges of loss of business, hours of time w/ tech support, plus equipment, install etc. to get to this point.

In the end, I’m out the equipment and install fees, what I paid in monthly “service” charges, plus I still have this huge dish hanging on my house. My credit card company is still working to get the erroneous charges reversed from my December bill.
After all this, my advice to other consumers out there:
Use any other internet service instead of Wild Blue Communications!

When I purchased my WildBlue Satellite Internet Service, I did so through The Wireless Center in Gautier, MS (near Ocean Springs, MS).

Of course, during the initial sales and setup - they were great to deal with but after talking with them about how poor the WildBlue service is - the owner got VERY offensive, raised his voice, and basically told me to go screw myself because he was not interested in helping me.

The funniest part about the whole ordeal, was my intent on calling The Wireless Center in Gautier, MS was to have them come get the satellite and modem. I WAS GOING TO GIVE IT TO THEM - FOR FREE! All they had to do was come pick it up, but as soon as I said the service was crap, he went off on me and would not let me get a word in edgewise.

I have filed a Better Business Bureau complaint against The Wireless Center in Gautier, MS, although I doubt it will do any good since they are not even a member.

Anyone living in the Mississippi Gulf Coast region and thinking about doing business with The Wireless Center - think twice. They are very friendly as long as you are handing over your money but as soon as an issue arises, they will not even listen to you before automatically going over the edge!

Caveat Emptor! (Buyer Beware)

As anyone who has ever filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) knows, the wheels of progress move slowly, if at all, with this organization.

Shortly after my original disappointment with WildBlue’s service, which was immediately after signing my contract, I contacted the Better Business Bureau to see if, by chance, they may be able to help resolve my issues with my WildBlue Communications Contract and equipment.

The BBB of course, does not “really” get involved. Instead, they allow you to complain and then allow WildBlue to respond, then allow you to complain some more because WildBlue’s response is of no help whatsoever.  After complain and response go back and forth a few times, the BBB will “Administratively Close” your complaint - as they did with mine this morning. This may piss you off, as it did me, but I started thinking about it and this is not a bad thing. What this basically says is that the company was unable to resolve the complaint and the Better Business Bureau, who gets paid by the company, was tired of seeing the complaint so they closed it. the up side to this is that the complaint remains on WildBlue’s service record.

The Better Business Bureau has 3 basic types of company reporting and include Resolved with Response, Resolved without Response, and Administratively Closed.  Resolved with Response means that WildBlue resolved the issue and the customer responded saying it was resolved. Resolved without Response says that WildBlue stated it was resolved but the customer never responded to confirm. Administratively closed means that WildBlue was unable (or more than likely, unwilling) to resolve the complaint.

Here is a breakdown of the WildBlue Communications Better Business Bureau file as of today:

WildBlue Advertising Issues:
Resolved with Response - 4
Resolved without response - 6
Administratively Closed - 3

WildBlue Contract Issue:
Resolved with Response - 22
Resolved without Response - 23
Administratively Closed - 18

WildBlue Billing or Collection Issues:
Resolved with Response - 36
Resolved without Response - 33
Administratively Closed - 8

WildBlue Sales Practice Issues:
Resolved with Response - 12
Resolved without Response - 8
Administratively Closed - 7

WildBlue Delivery Issues:
Resolved with Response - 2
Resolved without Response - 2
Administratively Closed - 1

WildBlue Repair Issues:
Resolved with Response - 16
Resolved without Response - 14
Administratively Closed - 4

WildBlue Service Issues:
Resolved with Response - 54
Resolved without Response - 75
Administratively Closed - 36

WildBlue Customer Service Issues:
Resolved with Response - 30
Resolved without Response - 43
Administratively Closed - 24

WildBlue Guarantee or Warranty Issues:
Resolved with Response - 4
Resolved without Response - 1
Administratively Closed - 1

WildBlue Product Issues:
Resolved with Response - 11
Resolved without Response - 5
Administratively Closed - 4

WildBlue Refund or Exchange Issues:
Resolved with Response - 22
Resolved without Response - 20
Administratively Closed - 5

WildBlue Issues not Defined: (Other)
Resolved with Response - 6
Resolved without Response - 7
Administratively Closed - 1

So, according to my calculations, WildBlue Communications (WildBlue Satellite Internet Service Provider) has 112 Unresolved Complaints with the Better Business Bureau. This number is high, but by many can be chalked up as “being a big company” so what can you do to make people more wary of the numbers?

If you have problems or unresolved issues with WildBlue Communications, go to the Denver Better Business Bureau (since WildBlue is headquartered in Englewood, CO) and file a complaint. You may be one of the lucky ones that gets a resolution, but at the very minimum by taking two minutes out of your day, you can help others become more aware of WildBlue’s track record of customer service.

Click Here to go to the Denver Better Business Bureau’s Complaint Section to file a complaint against WildBlue Communications.
(Link will open in New Window)

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.

I would like to thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to view this blog posting. If you are actually utilizing WildBlue Satellite Internet, I know it is even more time out of your day so I will try to make this first post as short as possible while still getting my main points across as to why I built this site.

After moving a little further out of town, I realized that cable and DSL internet were not available. At first I considered getting a T1 line put in as I could get Internet and phone for about $300/month this way but after talking to DirecTV about my television service, they recommended WildBlue as an alternative that could give me the speeds of Cable or DSL without the the heavy pricetag of a T1 because I simply did not want to get on dial-up since I have not had a dial-up account in about 7 years.

I finally got hooked up on WildBlue on August 15th 2007. The installer was very nice, hooked up the lines I needed, ran speed tests, etc. and was on his way. After a few hours I went to get on the Internet and it was extremely slow. The ping times were extremely high (pinging google.com was giving me latency of as much as 2600 ms). I chalked this up to a small storm brewing and just figured I would try again the next day.

The next day came and it continued to be slow. Since I had no real major things to do, I simply checked my email and left the PC. After several days of slow times, I was really starting to get pissed off. I just paid over $400 for a huge satellite dish that is bolted into the side of my brand new house (I had it custom built) and am under contract for a year’s worth of crappy Internet.

At this point I did not have the time to deal with it because I was leaving out of town for a week. Immediately upon my return on Tuesday the 28th of August, I sent an email to my local WildBlue representative and legal@wildbluecorp.com asking to be let out of my contract and give me a refund on my dish. I received no response from WildBlue Legal and the local guy simply emailed me back telling me I needed to get in touch with Tech support before he could really do anything. I called tech support and was shocked by a 20+ minute wait time when the Auto Attendant (AA) said there were no issues with service. SHOCKER. I started doing more and more research and realized that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unhappy WildBlue customers out there and decided if WildBlue is not going to let me out of my contract, the least I can do is use my expertise to create a site to inform others and have a medium in which others can communicate.

At this point I am seriously considering a class action lawsuit against WildBlue for misrepresentation of services and deceptive business practices. I will gauge interest in a potential class-action through this blog over the coming weeks.

It is late and I am not sure if I correctly set up the user rights on this blog but please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.