Customer Blamed for Clearwire Billing

Corpus Christie, TXDavid F. signed his Clearwire Internet service contract in May or June of 2008. He says that the service was terrible, resulting in his decision to cancel the Clearwire service. Even though he agreed to pay the Clearwire early termination fees, David discovered he was still charged for 2 extra months after he canceled the service. Worse, he says the company blamed him for the extra charges.

"After the initial set-up, the connection was really poor and the speed was not as fast as I thought it would be," David says. "I had to constantly reposition the modem to get the optimal signal. Every time we were on the Internet, we had to move the modem an inch to get an extra bar, but we were told that we were only a mile away from one of their towers.

"We kept calling them [Clearwire] and asking what to do. They ultimately said that the modem must have been broken, so we sent it back and they gave us another modem for free. But the connection was still bad. Every once in a while, we couldn't connect to the Internet at all.

"I called to tell them I wanted out of the contract and they said that it would cost $260 for an early termination fee. I said that I could not afford that and they asked if the problem was technical. I told them that the connection was not great and they said that they could try to boost the signal on their end and if I stayed on they would give me a free month.

"I decided to see what would happen. For a week or so the signal was better, but then it went back to normal. It was a horrible connection. I dealt with that for a month or 2 but then I got tired of it.

"I called and told them I was going with another service. They said that I still had months on my contract and it would cost me $230 to terminate it. I could afford it at that time. They tried to push me to sell the contract to someone else, so I tried that for a couple of days. I tried on Craigslist and offered it to family and friends. No one wanted it and I wouldn't recommend it.

"I paid the termination fee and they told me they would send me a return label to send back the equipment. They told me not to take it into the store because the equipment would be shipped back in bulk and it might get lost. But, it took them 2 months to send the return label and they charged me for those 2 months. I called them and their financial department was supposed to call me back in 3 days. It's been a week. I want my extra money back.

"They were pretty rude and they were trying to push me to sell my contract. They don't have very good communications. They said it was my fault that I was charged for February and March because I didn't send the equipment back within the 10 days that they said they had sent me the return label. But, they didn't send me the label and they have no way to prove they sent it. There's no tracking because it's all by e-mail. They told me not to go into the store, even though it's only 10 minutes away. It's their equipment and I couldn't take it to their store.

"I don't recommend Clearwire to anybody else. They will definitely push you to sell, sell, sell. When we looked on Craigslist, there were not too many people trying to sell their contracts. But, when we looked on E-bay, there were thousands of people trying to get rid of their service. There was no way we could sell it. If you're going to cancel your contract and can afford the termination fee, just cancel it."