User Submission from Mike T
June 2nd, 2008 | by Tim |When I originally signed up for clearwire I signed up for the one year option. It is after all an option they provide to you the customer. This also entails that you do not change your internet speed to a lower connection speed or clearwire will start your contract year all over again. You can however raise your connection speed at any time during your contract term without penalty.
After following this policy I called to cancel my service. I was then told by customer service that I only had a 30 day window to cancel my contract. This window started at end of my one year term and because I had gone past 1 year 30 days I was locked into another year contract. I told the service rep I was unaware of such a loop hole nor was it stated to me verbally at any time nor did I see this advertised anywhere to lead me to believe I only had a 30 day window to cancel my contract. I made many calls and complained all without result. What happened to “Customer Service”. Finally after two long years I am able to cancel my policy tomorrow with out the roughly 200 dollar penalty. By the way there uplink speed is slower than any other provider I am aware of. It is 256k so slow you cannot play online games without choppy movement during game play. I feel that the contract was misleading, intended to mislead and is a fraud towards consumers. We need to have and or inquire about a class action law suit. Has anyonew ever heard of an internet service provider or cell phone service provider, or for that matter any service provider giving you a 30 day window to cancel after full filling your contract or your locked in for another year? No of course not. I have been paying for two service providers for the last 3 months as it was cheaper to do so than cancel clearwire and suffer the so called early termination fee. I am now with qwest internet and have nothing but positive things to say about them. Please contact me if anyone is looking into legal action. I say all customers should be provided a refund for the additional year of service, cancelation fees, or both. Thanks for the site.
One Response to “User Submission from Mike T”
By Walt Taufen on Jul 10, 2008 | Reply
I signed up with Clearwire 3 years ago and it took several months to get the service to work. They sent a “tech” over to my house to try and help; the first thing he did was slip a disc in my computer. I howled, and stopped him from loading any of his stuff, I told him I just wanted his service to work. He said it was my computer’s fault because I was running a “hodgepodge” of two operating systems. What does that mean?? I got a computer from a computer store like everybody else. After a few months it worked better, but I have NEVER had download speeds over 250k, and sometimes it slows to 68k. Now that’s almost ‘dial-up’ slow. I cannot watch videos on YouTube without it stuttering and stopping unless I do it at zero o-clock in the morning when nobody else is on. I even paid the extra money to “upgrade” to the faster 2meg speed and still never saw a download faster than 250k.
Now my modem has crapped out and they can’t get me another one for 4 days. Their local office is not “authorized” to help the customer, I asked; then what are they authorized to do, the answer was “to sell service to new customers” so don’t think that because you see a local Clearwire office that they will help the customer, THEY WON’T. After being on hold for 12 minutes I finally got a ‘service rep’ on the phone; she told me I cannot terminate my service because I am still on contract and it will cost me 200 bucks to get rid of these people.
I think a class-action is in order, however I finally read the Terms of Service (TOS) and when you agree (you agree by going online with their service) you give up all rights to join a class-action suit. And even if you prevail against them in court, you must pay their attorney fees, costs, etc. according to the TOS. If there is ever a class-action I will eagerly join. But I think venting here and on craigslist rant&rave is all the consolation we will ever get. I am going to do all I can to prevent others from signing up with Clearwire and live out my sentence (contract) and never look back.