ClearWire review: Cheating customers! 63

Do Not sign up with Clearwire phone service. I did and had nothing but trouble with the service. It kept cutting out and beeping made using the phone imposable. The last straw was when I needed to call the doctor and could not. I had to use the neighbors phone. I am disabled and need my phone working. Finally after numerous complaints and troubleshooting they agreed at terminate my contract and I was told I would Not be penalized for early termination. Guess what Crap Clearwire charged me for early termination! Because of this I called them and was basically told sorry were going to charge you and there’s nothing you can do about it.

I am also very unhappy with Clearwire Internet service if that is what you can even call it. I call it Chitwire. After just moving to Washington, we signed up for it at Best Buy because we liked how simple it was and clearly that was all it was, simple to plug and for them to steal your money every month. We could not keep an Internet connection. It consistently went down every 3 to 5 minutes and we were frozen from what we were doing. They call that Internet connection? I don't, after many hours spent on the phone with Chitwire techs and customer service and upgrading our account to $50.00 a month because that will make it work better, HA HA are you joking? No resolution to pleasing their customer. I cancelled the account, returned the modem and now I am getting calls saying my account is overdue. I cancelled the debit card they were stealing from. They aren't getting another dime from us. I've reported them to the WA BBB and will continue to post on every negative web site I can find about them, which isn't surprisng there are ALOT. I am letting people know this isn't an Internet connection company, it's a we will steal your money for a service we don't provide and even if you're unhappy, we don't care. Well Chitwire will care when they get enough negative publicity. I am trying to get the media to get this out there next.

I have the same exact situation going on right now! I was assured if I moved outside the coverage area I could cancel and now that I cannot get there service anymore they still wont let me cancel! They are trying to charge me like$200 or something like that! I have tried everything to get them to let me cancel, they tell me if i send them documents they will cancel it! But when I send The documents they tell me that those documents arent going to work! I cannot afford to be charged $50 a month for a service I cant use!

They are BY FAR the WORST company I have ever came across! They are nothing more than a scam!

If anyone has any idea of how I can get help please inform me!

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! THEY WILL ROB YOU BLIND!

I signed up for clearwire at least two years ago for a stated fee of $19 and change a month. I CLEARLY confirmed this was a month to month service that I could cancel at anytime. The service never worked in my home, but worked intermittently in my daughters house so I kept it for awhile. After a few months the fee doubled and I started trying to cancel the service. I was repeatedly told they were sending a UPS label for me to send back the modem, but it never arrived. My husband suddenly passed away and this problem dropped off of the radar until they started charging me $40.33/mo. I tried again to cancel the service and was told there would be a cancellation fee for my "contract" - WHAT CONTRACT! They suspened the charges for three months and were again sending the label (the only way to return the modem). Never received the label and charges started again. After 6 months and multiple phone calls - each giving me a different "cancellation fee". They admit to having the wrong email address - WHAT! and I get the label and return the product. Oh I was also assured do to all of my problems with them no further fees including a cancellation fee would be charged. I sent the modem back last month and today I am charged $139.62 cancellation fee AND TWO charges of $40.33! I spoke to a customer service "supervisor" who stated that I according to their notes I agreed to the fees last month HUH! and that there is a note on my file stating no refunds or credits are to be given to this account. I am on my way to my bank to try and have those charges rejected. I will then report them to my BBB and would love to be included in a class action suit or sue myself. This is a criminal interprise that needs to be stopped.

Teri.

1) Their service did not perform as advertised

2) I spoke with them after 9 months about disconnecting the service. I was then told about the $180 early termination fee. I told them I would finish out my contract, as that would be cheaper, but did not want to renew it.

3) I was not billed the 13th month. I believed this was due to my contract having been cancelled. I found out later that it was considered the "promotion" I was accepting and therefore "renewing" my contract.

4) Called after 14 months, after the term of my original contract, to cancel and was told that because I did not call within 30 days of the end date, the contract automatically renewed and I was stuck for another year unless I paid the early termination fee, as I had already "accepted" the "promotion". I was referred to the terms of service.

5) I reviewed the terms of service and noted that it said that near the end of the contract date I would be propted to either renew the contract, go into a month-to-month, or cancel. I was never prompted. I spoke with a customer service rep about the prompt and he informed me that a "prompt" meant that I had to call in.

6) I spoke with another customer service rep and tried to spaek to someone with any authority. They would not. I then told them to bill me the early termination fee and cancel my contract. I was informed that they could not do that until they recieved my modem, and was instructed NOT to return it to a sales location. I was told that a shipping slip would be e-mailed to me. No shipping slip was e-mailed.

7) I reviewed the terms of service again and found a paragraph that stated that the modem had to be returned within 30 days of cancellation, implying that the cancellation could be done first. I tried again to cancel and was told I needed to return the modem first. Again no packing slip. I am still being billed every month for a service that doesn't work as advertised and that I was willing to pay to discontinue.

8) I am considering a lawsuit.

I am going through the same stuff right now. I even asked for them to send somebody out to trouble shoot and they were unwilling to do so, so I am stuck with the contract. Did you ever resolve this?

Customer huh? Strange that you are not listed in the customer database. 3 days, you could cancel for free.

I have tried to discontinue my service with Clearwire due to the fact that my 20 year old son passed away this year and I cannot afford Clearwire because of debt. I have emailed Clearwire stating that I would even send in my son's death certificate for proof. When I called Clearwire and tried to explain this to Clearwire on the phone, they reminded me that I signed a 2 year contract that I wasn't aware of. I need to resolve this and have suffered far too much stress this year. I hope that anybody who wants to sign up for their service that the consumer is aware of how Clearwire operates. As far as how I rate this complaint, I agree with what my statement is.

As you can see I don't use clear wire e-mail because it is the worst. I get so much crampy e-mail that I never solicited. I thought I was the only one having problems with clear wire. I moved in an apartment complex with numerous apartments and I have very weak frequency. I have called and called their technical support and nothing. They keep telling me there is a clear wire tower not too far from me and I should get a good signal, and I keep saying that may well be but I am not getting a signal and get kicked off the internet and many times cannot even get on. No one is hearing me, and now they have taken money from my account that was not authorized and I am dreading the call. They have the rudest people in customer service and they will do anything to keep you from talking to a manger. They are telling me the same thing to cancel my contract it will cost $180.00. I absolutely hate this company and I will never sign a contract with any company again for any reason. I am looking forward to returning to dial-up.

has any effort been made by any state agency to fix this robbery by ClearWire. I had there service for 6 months and as I type this posting I am on the phone canceling my service. They want to charge me $195 cancellation fee that is unfair if you can not provide a service to your customer, how can you charge them for canceling the service. any suggestion please let me know.

If you just want to check your email or the local news, Clearwire isn't that bad. But then again you can do that with dial up. Which half the time, Clearwire is not much faster than dial up. If you like watching videos online, if you upload things online, if you work from home and have to connect someplace virtually, Clearwire is about as useless as it comes.

If it were about 10 bucks a month, I'd say why not. But after the first few months, it goes to something like $44 per month. I'm sorry but a signal not much faster than dial up is not worth 44 bucks per month. And the tech and customer support might as well be the local cashier. Nothing wrong with cashiers, but you don't go to them for tech support. But it seems the local cashier is where Clearwire goes to hire tech support. Because the only responses I've received from Clearwire tech support were, "The signal should be fine," or "Let me resend a signal to your modem." I hope they don't get paid more than $10/HR because Clearwire's tech support is useless.

The only people who seem to defend Clearwire are those who work for them. It's nearing the end of 2007, if you can't upload or download simple streaming video, then the service is useless. If this were 1998 and most of the internet was static without video or audio, then Clearwire would be fine. But it's 2007, almost 2008, Clearwire should just go out of business if they don't get up to broadband speed.

I never liked customer service with Comcast. I didn't like Qwest that much. Direct TV had issues in the rain. And Time Warner banned certain channels and didn't broadcast others, on top of the local blackout issues, but at the end of the day, at least I could watch streaming video and upload pages to my website without worrying about failures.

I thought AOL was bad when it disconnected you all the time. But that was 1999. Like I said, Clearwire either should go out of business or get up to date. Right now they are a scam. $44/month for dial up sure ain't worth it.

1st ClearWire modem sucked. I exchanged it for another. 2nd ClearWire modem was just as bad. Best performance was about 700 down and 200 up but more typical was 500 down and 55 up. Repeated calls to service to ask for on-site support and I get "you are getting a great signal" we can verify this right now. You are getting what we advertise! "Up to 1500..."

Finally I took the modem to one of their offices (left it in my car). As they kept insisting that they were getting a strong, solid reply from my modem. I told them to hold that thought, went to my car and asked: Do you mean this modem is giving you a solid response? ClearWire employees are liars!

I cancelled my account then and there. Threats of billing cancellation charges be damed it did not work, no use to pay anything. I too will file a complaint as I just noticed that they have CONTINUED to bill me since April. (Missed it as it was a company account.) Called them and they claimed I never returned the modem. ClearWire EMPLOYEES LIARS!

After three phone calls they are processing a "credit" to my account as they "discovered" that my date of cancellation was received in April but still do not show that I returned the modem.

I didn't have internet for a long time. Then someone offered to help me get Clearwire. I'd just bought a new computer, so what the heck, right?

Well, I haven't even gotten it started yet! Oh, I've gotten the modem and everything. Then I find out that my ethernet port is bad. Clearwire said that they'll send me a USB-to-Ethernet adapter. Well, that was on a Friday. They didn't ship it out until today! They told me originally I would be using their internet on Saturday. Now I've got to wait until Tuesday to get the adapter. What a pack of liars!

Clearwire is a criminal organization. First of all, their terms of service are only viewable on their website when you go to sign up for the service. How can someone who is going in to sign up for internet service access the internet to read their extremely broad, and restrictive terms of service!?

Second, they very well know that if you were to actually read their TOS, you wouldn't sign up for their service, so they intentionally push it aside and coax you into signing the contract before you catch on. They assure you that their service is "just as good as DSL, only portable." Well, that sounds GREAT! Doesn't it? Not. DSL allows me to view all the streaming video I want, download all I want, play all the games I want, and use whatever VOIP service I want, and it's CHEAPER!

Clearwire has no problem sending others your personal information. Your e-mail address is NOT safe with them!

It put a hit on my credit, but after Clearwire refused to cancel my service, I put a stop payment on the company level. Get out of your contract, if you can.

Hello All,

I have also been scammed by Clearwire. They misrepresented their monthly plan and are saying that I will be charged an early cancellation fee. I am gathering information and names for a class action law suit against Clearwire. If someone already has done this please contact me otherwise please contact me and I will add you to the list.

Thank you,

Edward Gee

So how did Clearwire infringe on your trademark, how did a NATIONAL company already registered with the stock exchange infringe on your little po-dunk rinkie dink mom and pop company? You do know you have to register your business name for wall street right? It's also checked to make sure there's no infringements when registered right?

I think Best Buy should be just as culpable for this Clearwire service sham as Clearwire itself. After all, it was while I was at Best Buy that I made this terrible decision to sign up for their service. However, I just presumed if Best Buy was behind it, it must be okay.

Wrong!

Like all these other folks who have written about their negative experiences, I too have lived every episode; the most memorable being when I called in to cancel and refused to talk to the retention department. The short end of a long story is I got nearly $500 charged to my Visa (they said I didn't follow the procedures - I told them, I never got a THING in writing and that I wasn't paying another dime for a service that didn't work. They simply charged my visa on file - another stupid move on my part to not have canceled the card)
I'm trying to figure out a way to get away from these rude amateurs who can't provide anything that even resembles dependable internet service

Yoohoo, Best Buy? You'll be hearing from me soon about this...

I have tried for several months to get out of my clearwire contract... no deal...they will not even think about, most days I can not get on the internet, I have had several trouble tickets, they offered to come to my location, I never saw them, yet they say the issue was resolved, because the tech drove out in my area with a modem and showed great signal, if I try to get out of the contract, I will have to pay the penalty of over $100, in a month or so, that i will go down a little in the mean while Clear Wire SUCKS< they do not provide at all what they state.

They could care less about the customer, they want the $$$...

Clearwire may be a scam, just like they claim you may receive up to 1.5 MB/sec. download speed. I've been trying for months to cancel my service because I also do not recall ever seeing the terms and conditions prior to signing a contract. The salesman told me I could watch movies and play games online with Clearwire, just like I was happily doing with my DSL. I chose to switch because I had planned to use the my laptop in my vehicle around town and use Clearwire to connect. What I have found is that the IP address is changed every night, which means my wireless router also goes down. Was this in the terms and conditions - I doubt it. Do they care, absolutely NOT. I think filing with the AG is a good idea, and plan to do that in Idaho, as well as contact the BBB. They may get my $188 but at what expense to them.

I so regret signing up for this service. I feel I have been mislead on my expectation for this service. I suppose that is also covered in their terms and conditions. What ever happen to customer service. Now instead we're imprisoned to a contract. They should take class or two and learn what 1 unhappy customer can cost a company. I guess a termination fee is their way of saying - Thank-you, we're sorry our service didn't work out.

Tom,

I have the same issues with Clearwire signals. I do work from home most evenings and frequently lose a signal which kicks me off my network or I just can't connect at all.

I have called customer service and I've never been treated more rudely. I told them I wanted to cancel because I couldn't get service and didn't have the time to waste on the phone with tech support every night. They told me I'd have to pay a cancellation fee then.

The ironic thing is when I signed up for the service, I was never given any terms of my contract. I was also supposed to be buying my modem when I signed up for 2 years and then I could avoid the monthly $4.99 lease fee, but low and behold I have been charged a lease fee every month for six months. They said they had no such deal in place and that I must be mistaken?

I think this is a case where Clearwire Rep, Zac, who was selling Clearwire at the Best Buy in Bellevue, Washington intentionally misrepresented both the quality of the connection AND the incentives for signing a 2 year contract.

I plan on filing a complaint with the BBB as well as with the Washington State Attorney General where I live and Clearwire's home office happens to be located. I can't believe that a Craig McCaw venture could be run in such a fly-by-night manner.

I WANT MY COMCAST BACK!

I'm having all sorts of issues with Clearwire signals. My Clearwire modem works great for days and then loses signal for days. Their infective (and rude) tech support just keep telling me that the signal should be strong. I asked to cancel the service - they inform me that I can if I pay them all sorts of cancellation fees. I have filed a complaint with BBB. My personal recommendation is to stay far away from Clearwire services.

Will do, I got scammed by clearwire also

Betty,

I have had problems with Clearwire as well and I have filed a complaint with the State Attorney General's office in the state where I live as well as with the Attorney General in Washington State, where their corporate offices are located.

I recommend filing a complaint with the AG's office of the state where you live as well as in Washington, where their corporate office is.