I visited Aloha Cellular in Kihei and I was new to the Island. My wife and I had no means to connect to the internet and we needed to for employment purposes. When we went to Aloha cellular we were introduced to a product by Verizon wireless. It was an internet card which boasts high speed internet access for a monthly fee of $59.99. The product was presented by an employee, and that there was a 2year commitment which we had no problem as long as the product worked. The employee was very friendly and we made the mistake of putting our trust in the employee when signing the contract. This is definitely a lesson to be learned to not sign until you read everything. We asked if there was anything to the contract other than the service being 59.99 per month and if there were any other charges to which the sales person told us that there were no other charges. So we just signed the agreement and were on our way.
We should have done our homework because the internet card accesses dial up only which is very slow not high speed as advertised. Also the connection is very poor where we live. Out of the four bars you should receive on the signal we had two bars. Only once in a blue moon we had three bars.
My wife had experienced disconnects on the internet as well as very very very slow connection to websites.
Since we were waiting for our cable to get connected, we also tried watching episodes of tv on the internet. What a disaster. to watch a half hour episode of a tv program we would have to view the program for at least an hour and a half. The video constantly froze every five to ten seconds for an average of one to two minutes.
The only thing we feel we could use the service for was checking our e-mail. We also tried to work with Aloha cellular and told them of the problem we were having and the associate agreed with us. She had said that her internet was slow as well and that she would look into it and get back to us although she never did get back to us. When I called back I told her that we were just tired of the frustration and we just wanted to return it because we did not feel that the product was performing to the potential as advertised.
She said that we were within the thirty days and feel free to return the product.
I returned the product and had to call verizon to cancel the service and spoke with technical support who wanted to assist me to fix the problem but I told him that I had already returned the product and there was too much frustration and I just wanted to cancel the service. He told me that this was fine and that there would be a statement in the mail showing a zero balance just to show the end of this service.
In a few days I did receive a statement in the mail. There was no zero balance. The statement shows a balance of 87 dollars and change. Verizon Wireless is charging me an activation fee of $126.00 minus the credit of 59.99 for my initial payment.
What the sales associate conveniently did not disclose to me that was in the contract was that: if for any reason after three days of taking on this service and terminating the service early you will be charged the activation fee.
Now, if I were just ending the service early without a reason I understand and would accept the activation fee. But more importantly if this were disclosed to me at the beginning I would have never signed up for this service to begin with.
We did try to use the service for one month but were so frustrated that we gave up.
Again if the service worked we would have kept it even though it is priced pretty high.
I just think it is poor business practice to not disclose something that can be explained in a few seconds but, I guess you try to avoid something that will cost you a sale even if it's doing the right thing.
And if you have an inferior product how dare you try and charge a customer for activation fee for something that doesn't work as you advertise it.
Again I have no problem with paying for the activation fee if I canceled the service with no reason for cancellation. But when the product is not working properly I think that there should be no charge for activation when the service is poor.
Frank Sears