Orbitel Communications

I am surprised to receive a such a complaint from this customer as there are no service calls to this address since June of 2015. We have also verified clear signal to the home and that the customer has downloaded 19.6GB while uploading 1.5GB in the past 24 hours. Thus, we will not be issuing any...

credits to the account. We are more than happy to schedule a service call if they so choose to show usage and clear signal. It could be an issue on the inside of the house or with their equipment. Thanks, J

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted],...

and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.

Apparently Orbitel Communications did not read or understand the basis of my complaint. The $55 is between myself and Orbitel because I told them on two occasions that I did not need any services after March 31st. The fact that they allowed my tenant to request additional services without my written permission falls on their lap. I will fight this through the court system if they don't realize their error. I will reiterate that when I requested services I only authorized basic service, Orbitel chose to provide additional services at my tenants request without my permission. I request that Orbitel reconsider their decision unless they desire a costly court fight.

Regards,

This is an issue between tenant and landlord, not between the cable company. The tenant added services. The $55 should be collected by the landlord from the tenant.

I have called several times and used [redacted] because no one ever answers the phone. Your company gave...

my phone number to another client and turned my phone off once. I have never been late on any payment but you still turned my phone off and had to take the phone number back from the customer you gave it to in order to give it back to me. The one time I requested someone come to my home, the rep took the equipment gave me outdated equipment to replace it. It never worked. I was forced to purchase my own equipment in order to have service. Everyone in our city has nothing but complaints about the service and support they receive. There's a dedicated [redacted] page to complain about the company. I was told to report the company to the fcc because my phone is out so often and I have no access to 911. You can say you only came out to my home once but count how many times I've called and tell me what else I should've done. I don't accept this response.

The technical staff of Orbitel Communications is probably the worst I have ever dealt with! I've made a half a dozen tries and they all lack adequate knowledge of internet/email issues. I am switching back to [redacted] today and will never consider Orbitel again.

I have been a cable customer of Orbitel/Western Broadband for nearly 15 years with generally good service and annual price increases. We spend the winter months in Sun Lakes and return back north for the summer. This past spring I notified Orbitel that we were leaving for the summer and to put me on the seasonal billing. I have always received my statements via email. Today I received an email saying " Please see the attached statements. Your account is past due. Please call

the office to make a payment ASAP." The attached statements were the last four months which I never received. Evidently Orbitel changed their billing system and somehow the indicator for email billing was dropped so everyone on that method never received a statement. When speaking with the customer service rep, I told her I would be happy to pay my balance, but without 3 months of late charges and a reactivation fee. She got very rude and belligerent saying it was my responsibility to call them when I didn't receive any bill for 4 months. Quite frankly we are very busy and travel so when I get a bill, I pay it. After some heated conversation back and forth she finally agreed to waive the late and reactivation fees. This was the worst customer experience I have had with any business in a long time. Since they made the error to begin with and then realized it by sending me the 4 months of statements, she should have apologized and offered the credit right away. When we return this fall we will probably no longer be a customer. I hope others did not have this same experience.

May refunds were processed last week and sent out this week. You should receive it soon. Please feel free to call our office and we can explain this or any other inquiry you may have. Thanks, J

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.Yes, they corrected it temporarily. Last night, Sunday Dec. 7th while watching the 10:00 p.m. news on channel 704, the entire program "froze" and the screen went black. I stayed up until midnight and the channel  was still not working. I phoned the company at 10:10 and complained that the same channel went out on the HD channel and on the ditigal channel. This was just 6 days from the incident I complained about to the Revdex.com. The issue is that Orbitel has done little on nothing to prevent this from occurring again, it is an "ongoing problem with their inability or reluctance to prevent this from happening tomorrow, or the day-after or next weekend." They are not correcting the problem on a day by day basis.Regards,[redacted]

Historically poor service, they don't answer the phones if you try to communicate with the business, they do NOT do as they promise on multiple occasions. This company is a complete fraud! In addition to extremely poor service, they do not provide the basic services we pay for, they rarely if ever answer there phones when we do try to get corrective service, they have repeatedly promised "billing credits" for their mistakes (over 2 years time) and we never received 1 credit! Our recent two service tickets habitually get "fulfilled" without any corrective action or a service call being made.. This company has no intention of providing the services they bill people for...

Absolutely. Please let us know when you are experiencing issues. And, again, we are more than happy to schedule a technician for a service call should you need one. Please advise. Thanks, J

I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID [redacted], and have determined that this proposed action would not resolve my complaint.  For your reference, details of the offer I reviewed appear below.
I have purchased many homes in many HOAs in [redacted] and have paid Orbitel Communications through the HOA fees for all of them, except this one home that I owned in [redacted] HOA.  How am I supposed to know that the cable fees are separate from the HOA fees?  Since I have never lived at or received mail at this address, I had no way of knowing that on this home, the Orbitel fees had been separated from the HOA fee.  Neither Orbitel or the HOA informed me that I would have to pay them separately.  On the Orbitel website, it still says if you live in these HOAs (gives a list, on which [redacted] is included), you do NOT pay Orbitel directly, but through your HOA fee.  

Here is a quote from their website:

“Basic Cable TV is included in the HOA fees paid by residents of [redacted] and [redacted] ('Basic Cable Bulk Billed Communities'). Residents of these areas do not pay Orbitel directly for Basic service fees.”

So when properties close escrow, any prior Orbitel bill should be settled and the new owners should have their rights under the contract renewed with their basic cable as part of the HOA bill, at the discounted HOA bulk rate.  Why should I have to pay at the undiscounted rate, just because the previous owner had financial trouble and lost this home?  Also, why doesn’t Orbitel mail out bills that explain their position and reason for billing the cable service separately.  Communication is NOT their strong suit.

I did contact the HOA and they told me that they had contacted Orbitel on January 14th, 2014 and that they had informed Orbitel of the sale of this home in August 2013.  The information is recorded at the [redacted] website for public viewing, so I have attached a pdf of that for Orbitel’s perusal.

According to Orbitel, I have no recourse but to pay the undiscounted basic cable rate, so if they would send a bill via US mail with the appropriate charges for the months I owned this property, I will send them a check and hopefully they will be kind enough to call the collection dogs off.

Regards,

Loren Ness

Mr. [redacted], we can only go by the records provided on your account. I will research to see if there are any inconsistencies. However, if someone called to have service connected, service was provided and used, then the amount will stand. Thank you for your patience in this matter.

Thank you very much for your message. We are as frustrated as you are. These outages of signal are due to the source in which Orbitel receives them. The Tucson networks are fed to us via [redacted] (a major cable provider in Pima County). They had equipment issues which caused the major networks to go...

dark for us as well as [redacted]. We have been in contact with [redacted] and have been assured that this issue will be fixed this week. Thanks, *

I do not have a response from Orbitel that is acceptable....

No one with any authority has called to correct the problem. They are still working to correct. No compensation for the months past payments with interepted service. 

Billing for services not used

Orbitel Communication has a policy that allows them to bill the consumer even when it is physically impossible for the consumer to use their services. As example: They only allow a customer to put their cable and internet service on a "vacation hold" during the time from March 1 to Sept 30. If the consumer will be away any other time of the year, or for longer than October 1, the consumer is still charged the full monthy amount EVEN IF THEY ARE AWAY FROM HOME AND UNABLE TO USE THE ORBITEL SERVICE. The only other option they provide is to disconnect entirely, surrender the equipment they provide and then pay to reconnect.

That's fine, from now on each time our internet is throttled, cuts out, is down we will call. Btw the last time orbitel was here they blamed our router even though it was new. We have since bought a new 4 antenna router and constantly have problems.

I respectfully disagree with the most recent response. Our Chief Engineer noted he has spoken with you and is a top level manager. In addition, the complaint is concerning a few music channels with which we are working on a resolution to intermittent sound issues. A monthly credit for the next 12 months has been added to the account. Respectfully, J

Once service call in the last year. No other notes on file. If this is an issue, we would expect more contact from customer. We are more than happy to set up a service call to investigate.

My wife and I had been customers of Orbitel for over 5 years...the entire time we lived in Maricopa. Never had any problems with service and never missed a single payment. We moved to Gilbert, AZ in November and had to shut off our service. We paid our last bill and re-verified when we dropped off our equipment that our account was closed and paid in full. All of a sudden I start getting calls from a collections agency in March stating we owe $72.00 and this delinquency has been reported to the credit agencies. When I called Orbitel, they said "you know you have to pay your bills, right???" We explained that 2 people confirmed that our account was paid in full when we moved out of Maricopa and we have not received any bills since then (even though we have mail forwarding). They representative told me that we would have to pay or our credit would be damaged. I have perfect credit and I was forced to pay to get the listing off of my credit report. This is a poor way to do business and disgraceful way to treat your customers (now former customer). I will be sharing my experience with all of my friends and former neighbors in Maricopa in the hopes that they will disconnect their service as well.

Thank you for the message. The check was processed Thursday 9/11/14. Sorry for any delay.