On or about April 25th of this year, I signed up for WildBlue's satellite based internet/broadband service (ProPAK plan) on explicit expectations (via company advertisement claims and sales representative that I spoke with over the phone) that service availability would not be affected by inclement weather conditions unless those conditions where "severe". The company's website claimed that service availability would be equivalent to typical satellite TV service and that only "extreme" weather conditions would cause availability to be affected.
Additionally, after questioning and expressing my concerns about the service level I received from a competing satellite service company (Hughsnet), the sales rep I talked to from WildBlue assured me that WildBlue service is NOT affected in the same way due to their satellite dishes being different. She indicated that Hughsnet dishes had a design flaw that were prone to collect water during rainy weather but that their dishes were not affected by this condition. The sales rep's apparent confidence and knowledge (along with the company website info regarding this) convinced me that I would not experience the same reliability issues I had before w/Hughsnet. I signed up for service with these explicit expectations.
When service was installed on May 3rd and I began to use the service on May 4th, everything appeared normal until our first rainy day (May 7) when we experienced several outages with no connectivity for large blocks of time during the day (several hrs overall with intermittent to no connectivity) and major performance degradation when connectivity was restored. The weather conditions on that day were not what anyone would call "extreme" or "severe" - merely a light to moderate rain... No storm conditions of any kind.in addition, as always under light weather conditions like this, our satellite TV remained operational with no issues whatsover.
When calling tech service and then afterwards being transferred to the termination department and customer service, WildBlue then informed me that yes indeed, their service is and can be affected by weather. One representative actually went on to claim (with a straight face I presume) that WildBlue defines "extreme" weather conditions as any inclimate weather condition including "light rain and cloud coverings". Finally, they indicated that I had signed a contract accepting such "acts of God" and that if I chose to terminate service with them I would be subject to the "termination fees" totaling some $720.
This is a blatant and outrageous attempt to rip customers off by false advertisement, lying and doing whatever it takes to get them signed up, only to tell them afterwards that they are now stuck with service they don't want and never wanted to begin with. I signed up for this service in good faith and with expectations that I would receive the service that was promised to me. I now want to terminate my contract (given service level cannot meet my originally expressed expectations) but feel b/c of the termination policy, I am being forced to stay on as a customer against my will.
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