This letter is a formal complaint against the abusive business practices of Clearwire. Clearwire has continued to enforce an alleged “contract†to not allow me to drop their service despite. They continue to arbitrate the dispute without acknowledging the facts of the case and ignore errors caused by their own company. I simply wish to discontinue the service without penalties. Under the present conditions, I am left with no fair or equitable recourse.
When, I signed up with Clearwire in December 2006, I was particularly concerned with the ability to use VOIP (Voice Over Interet) on their wireless system. Several Clearwire agents told me they could not "guarantee" a third party's services since they had no control over such companies, but that their wireless transmissions were comparable to other similar broadband competitors.
We had several problems initiating the service and eventually required a Clearwire technician to come and connect us to the system. Even after this, my VOIP service (Internet telephony) though a third party was terrible. In one instance, a 911 operator had difficulty understanding us. Nevertheless, we gave Clearwire the benefit of the doubt and spent several hours over a 3-4 month period on the phone with customer service trying to resolve the problem. Various traceroute and ping tests demonstrated a significant latency problem. By the summer, we finally determined that Clearwire did not meet minimum reasonable industry standards of a broadband provider. In addition to its technical failings, Clearwire has not met basic universal service obligations as our common carrier. For instance, our Internet conncetion (and consequently our phone service) was suddenly and without warning disconnected due to a clerical error. So, we finally decided to terminate the service.
HOWEVER, we were told we could not cancel without paying a significant fee and were surprised to learn that we were on a 2-year contract. This was surprising since we had specifically avoided entangling ourselves in a long-term contract (The month we signed up with Clearwire, Qwest was offering the same bandwidth for $20 less per month, but we did not choose them because of their 2 year minimum requirement). I informed Clearwire of this, but was told I would have to get the sales agent who sold me the contract to attest that he had made the error. I contacted the agent and he told me he could reduce the contract to a year. We then waited until the completion of the year, but we were then told that the contract had not been changed. I contacted the agent again; he recalled the conversation and that he had put in a request for change, but given that he had since left Clearwire, he could no longer make changes.
I called Clearwire, and was told that I had "signed" a contract. I told them the transaction had occurred by phone without a contract. They told me I had been given notice of the terms when I was signing up to the account online. I told them that I never saw such an account, nor would I have signed up under those conditions for reasons explained above. Furthermore, it was their agent not me that created the account (I was not even home at the time). The Clearwire rep then told me that since I had allowed a CLEARWIRE technician to initiate my account, I had in essence allowed him power of attorney to obligate me to the contract. I AM NOW BEING HELD TO AN ILLEGITIMATE "CONTRACT," which I NEVER SAW NOR SIGNED NOR CAUSED TO BE SINGED, UNDER THREAT OF COLLECTIONS and WITHOUT A FAIR OR ARBITRARY RECOURSE.
After researching the Internet, I have found that Clearwire has a pattern or misrepresenting its capabilities and then holding disgruntled customers to a service they do not want. I request your investigation into the matter.
Anonymous
Boise, Idaho
U.S.A.