Service Rants

WildBlue Satellite Internet and BBB

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)

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.

First Post/Rant

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.