My Clearwire Experience – User Submission by David C.

Hello there, fellow victims of Clearwire’s oh-so-wonderfully customer-oriented services!

My experience involves a few different instances, and they are as follows:
A few months into my contract, I’d notice the modem not receiving strong signals, or receiving good signals and not performing adequately when compared to the signal strength. When I’d called Clearwire Tech Support about the issue, their obvious reply was to keep turning the modem a quarter-turn until I picked up a stronger signal. When I did this and reported the same problems, I was forwarded to Level 2 Tech Support. Apparently, Level 2 Tech Support is quite busy, as it took them three days to call me back and tell me that I was connecting to the wrong tower. When I corrected them by saying, “No sir, your hardware is connecting to the wrong tower,” my reply was simply silence, and a request to go to speedtest.net to make sure my connection was operating normally. Now, that drew a red flag right there… A company that uses a 3rd party to test THEIR services? Hmm…

Near the end of my contract date, I renewed my contract to get in on a deal for a cheaper monthly bill. I thought I’d be using Clearwire as much as I had before, for at least the next year. Circumstances changed, and I no longer use Clearwire but maybe twice a week, for a few hours. And when I do, it’s a complete joke! I have screen shots of my browser attempting to load pages. And when it finishes loading, it loads untranslated HTML codes. I’ve used Safari, FireFox and Opera. I’ve also attempted to load them in Windows XP’s Internet Explorer and FireFox. When I went in to Clearwire to speak of the issue, the reply I was given was, “Hmm, sounds like a software problem.” I said, “No, it’s obviously not, as I’ve ruled that out by using two separate operating systems and four separate browsers.” Then he proceeded to ask me for my billing info, and when given, he could not find me in the database. After a few different attempts to find me, he finally entered my full service address, and was able to find me that way. Nice system there, boys…

When I went in to re-up my contract for the lower monthly price, I was shocked to find what I did… When the representative pulled up my information, he said, “Huh. Looks like you’re already on the $30/mo plan.” I told him that my usual bill is $40 (plus taxes, obviously). He said, “Ya. No, you’re on the new one.” As bewildered as I was, I let it slide. Until now at least…

I am attempting to cancel my Clearwire subscription, and they are insisting that I pay a $200 cancellation fee (pro-rated for two months). I replied, saying, “Excuse me, but my contract should have been up two months ago.” They said, “Have you not been using your Clearwire for the past two months and paid for it?” I said that I have been. They said, “Good, because it says you renewed your contract on [this date].” I replied, “Excuse me? I never signed anything to renew my contract. I simply told the guy at the store that I wanted in on the deal. Nothing was signed, so I was under the impression that – as many cell phone companies do – I would be on a month-to-month plan…” They said that they didn’t do things that way. We’ll see how that goes when I tell my bank to stop all transactions with Clearwire…

- David C -
Boise, ID