Complaint Review: AireBeam

I was initially very pleased with AireBeam. After about a year my job was taking me out of town quite a bit and I thought it would be great to get some video cameras so I could look at the house and make sure it was okay. I was disappointed to find they wanted to charge me an extra $20 per month just to do something other services don't charge for--allow IP camera traffic. But the nature of over the air vs. cable or DSL which are not available in my area, means the antenna has to be ported to let traffic through. So, I downgraded from a 6MBPS to their 2MBPS to keep my bill at a hefty $59.99/mo; I could have 25MBPS with other companies. But my bill drops to 39.99 for only the 2MBPS. I think, well that is decent of them...it's ridiculous to charge $20/mo for a couple ports to be open. So a year goes by and they inform me two days ahead of time they need to put up a new antenna on the house and someone needs to be there. I said I was out of town, they didn't reply just came out to the house and changed the antenna. In the process, the new antenna didn't have the ports open and the internet connection went down b/c the router needed reset and so my alarm was offline as well as my cameras. So thanks for that. I drive 400 miles home to get things back up and running.  But I cannot get things back up and running because the ports are not opened on the new antennae.  I'm informed I will need to pay an $85 service fee to have the ports open as I was never charged this fee initially and, oh yeah, you owe us $220 for having those ports open and we want our money now. I ask about splitting it up b/c that's a lot of money to come up with on short notice. They said we could split it in half but the service fee has to happen now as well as at least $110 more. I was hoping for a better resolution to the situation as it is ultimately their fault about the charges; I would have had no problem paying all along, but that's not how it went. I thought it fair to either waive the service fee or half the port cost as it was their billing error.  Any little amount of give on their part would have made me feel like a valued customer. Instead they treated me like a nameless cog. Two days later without any additional contact they charged out $281.95 on my card.  Glad I had the money in my account or I would have been even more upset.  The customer service representative was very kind and helpful and was completely shocked when his boss told him, "They used the service, they're going to pay."  I agree we used the service and if they hadn't screwed up on the billing we would have paid and without complaint.  The way it was handled lost me as a customer and apparently made me angry enough to write this crazy long note.  If and when I have any choice for alternative service I will be switching and I would suggest anyone else do likewise.