WildBlue Follow UP 

After excellent initial service from the new WildBlue 2-way

satellite Internet service as described in my Right Tool entry, I have

experienced increasing problems, some hardware related, others which tend to

indicate that management expanded too quickly.

First the billing problems, then see how long it takes to
get a down system working again.

My first credit card bill for WildBlue service turned out to
have a major error, a second bill for the single service I had ordered.

I quickly challenged this with both the credit card company

and WildBlue’s billing department but it took three months and my own personal

investigation to get it all resolved – for details, read on…

Each month my bills from AMEX showed two WildBlue service

charges placed at the same time, one for my correct amount and the second for

the next higher level of service. 

But my WildBlue bill only showed a single invoice amount –
for the correct bill – nothing relating to a second bill. 

After several months of having AMEX withhold that second

payment and no help of any sort from WildBlue except for them to tell me they

had no idea what was going wrong (despite my providing them with the

transaction details from my AMEX bill) I finally had some time and started

probing myself.

I found that someone in another state was getting free

WildBlue service because I was being billed for their connection as well as

mine.

 

Now I didn’t loose any money on this, and I still don’t know

how the error occurred, all I know is that it couldn’t have been my fault

because I never heard of that other person, never even drove through their town.

 

So, why didn’t WildBlue take more interest in this problem

and track down why my credit card was being double billed until I had tracked

down the problem myself?

>This is a troubling question.

 
But there are worse things than a disputed bill, such as not
having access to the Internet for an extended period.

See the next blog entry for that sad tale.

I’d post it now but the story isn’t complete so I don’t know the ending yet – I am
now 10 days into no WildBlue service and counting with no uplink in sight.