User Submission from John B.

I had Clearwire, and like most everyone else it worked great for the first couple of months. Last summer my speeds dropped to below dial up. My brother is a NOC supervisor for Hickory Tech, and I had him come over to check out the modem. He tested it on several occasions, all of which turned up speeds lower than 56k.

Finally, I contacted Clearwire and they sent out a technician. After screwing around with the modem (testing it and moving it throughout my house) he told me that the only way I would get adequate service was to have my modem OUTSIDE facing west. First, I asked him why my service took such a dive, when nothing on my end had changed since I got it. He said it was because of trees and landscape changes. I thought he was full of crap, but whatever. So then I asked him what I was supposed to do. How was I going to put my modem outside?! He said that I should just cancel and find another provider, because they couldn’t provide me adequate service anymore. Surprisingly shortly after he left my speeds went up again (with the modem in the same spot it always sat). That lasted for three days. I called Clearwire back again, and explained the situation to the service rep.

She didn’t say anything and then transferred me to cancellations. By now I got the picture. They wanted me to cancel, and had no other alternative to offer. So I cancelled my service, and picked up Quest (which has been impeccable). Surprisingly about a month later my wife was doing our bills online, and noticed that we were over drafted. That never happens, so we were pretty surprised. We come to find out that Clearwire posted a $180 charge to our checking account without our consent or knowledge. I called them to inquire what it was all about. I was told that because I used their service after the technician came out that they were going to charge me a cancellation fee.

I asked to speak with the person that made that decision. I was told that I could not be transferred to them. So I reiterated to the representative that their technician told me to cancel my service because THEY could no longer provide me adequate service, and they think it’s ok to charge me. I hung up with her and called my bank right away. I filed a fraudulent charge form. My bank credited me back while they looked into it. After about a month my bank finalized the chargeback, citing that Clearwire had violated Visa terms. Would you believe that the same day I got the letter from my bank Clearwire illegally withdrew funds from my account again? I called my bank again. Once again they were awesome, and pursued Clearwire for a compliance breach this time.

This inquiry lasted about two months. Once again my bank finalized the chargeback. The day this second chargeback went through I was contacted by Clearwire. The lady asked me if I knew why the charge had been kicked back. I told her it was because they were in violation. She said “It is a legitimate charge.” I asked once again to speak to the person who made that decision. She repeated “All I can say is that it is a legitimate charge.” I told her that “I wasn’t f@#king paying it.” Low and behold another charge pops up on my checking account. (Mind you this whole time I never received a bill, statement, or receipt.)

This time I was fed up. I closed the account, put a block on any charges they may try to post in the future, and filed another fraud complaint against them. Obviously the bank charged them back this third time. I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau. They have not responded to the complaint. However, they have a machine call me with “an important message” about four times a day.

For anyone thinking about getting Clearwire, I would recommend finding the cheapest, crappiest dial up service available in your area and buying that because you will get better speeds.

By the way I cancelled in August of ’07, and today is the end of Feb ’08. I figure my next step to resolve this is by filing with the Minnesota attorney general, and then off to court if I have to.

Your website says it all “Clearwire SUCKS!!”

Thanks for your time,

John B.