Digis Internet Ripoff Misleading, False Advertising, Terrible Customer service, Bait and Switch INTERNET
DO NOT BUY DIGIS INTERNET. Before I go any further let me tell you that I am a tech guy. I am a professional programmer and web developer, so I am highly qualified to make this complaint.
Digis advertises this incredible high speed internet and claim they are faster and better than DSL, and Comcast high speed. They told me their connection speeds and made comparisons that matched their climb so I signed up.
What I found out about them is the opposite. Before I go into that let me tell you about their signup scam. Thy tell you you need to pay an installation fee which is 100% refundable through a rebate.
The facts on the rebate are as follows (After 60 Days of being with them I never saw a penny from them) They tell you you can cancel anytime within the first 90 days after that you are committed with them. What they don't tell you is that the rebate will not arrive until you have been a member for 90 days so basically you are paying the installation fee as a cancellation penalty. If cancel in the first 30 days you don't get your rebate but they let you out of the contract, If you stay 90 days then they refund that fee but then they have a cancellation penalty so that kind of equals you out. SO MUCH FOR THE REBATE which is kind of a bait and switch or a real shell game to hide the truth that you will pay a few hundred dollars to try them out no matter what.
Now onto the bandwidth. They advertise incredible speeds they say unlimited. They do not mean unlimited in fact they throttle your speeds down as soon as you hit a certain peak. This is the most important part of understanding the serious misrepresenting of their service. They told me that if I used more than 1 gig a day (By the way they didn't mess with my connection speeds at all during the 30 day trial period which is really unethical to give you unlimited internet until your 30 day trial passes then they start cutting your service once your locked in. Like I said very much Bait and Switch)Anyways on with my story after 30 days my internet slowed way down and I found out from them that once I hit a bandwidth cap of 1 gig per day that they would throttle down my internet to slower than DSL speeds. And If I used even more they would cut it even more. The very nature of unlimited internet mean without limit. Throttling down your internet is a limit by it's very nature. Now maybe you are saying to yourself that you won't use as much as me and therefore this problem won't happen to you. Let me educate you. 1 Gig isn't that much at all. If you or your kids like You tube you could burn through that within 1 or even 2 videos and you internet speed is snubbed. Virtually any internet user except from grandma woh just uses her computer to send emails can hit that cap. Comcast has a cap like this but there's is 250 gig per day. That is a very high usage mark to hit but 1 gig is just ridiculously low.
All video and most interactive website are designed now to use massive amounts of bandwidth and I assure you if you sign up with them you will find yourself being throttled and with very minimal web surfing. To top it off their whole customer service department avoids telling you this fact like the plague. They blamed for a while several other factors that i quickly dismissed as I knew what they were telling me was complete bunk. They were trying to prey on me like I was an idiot who didn't understand technology and once they knew that I could not be bamboozled they admitted the limitations they were putting on my internet. They made no apologies for it and continued to throttle me on a daily basis.
Realize as well that this company did many other unethical things to me that are too numerous to list here but for the purposes of this ripp off report I need to tell you DO NOT USE DIGIS.
When I finally had had it with them and begun to put them in a corner they terminated my service without warning leaving me completely without internet which basically disabled me completely until I could find a replacement. They didn't care that they put me in a terrible bind or that I could have lost my job for lost productivity since I worked from home.
Now their phone service is also a scam they send you out a box to hook up to your home phone that uses what (BANDWIDTH) thats right you think you have problems with your internet usage now you talk on your phone a little bit during the day and you will easily chop you bandwidth in half. So now you get around 500 meg a day and I can show you page after page of Videos on You Tube that are more than that to download once.
IF YOU SIGN UP FOR DIGIS YOU WILL BE SORRY !!!
Here is a small list of other grievences that I have with Digis
* They cashed my installation check and then denied receiving it and tried to bill me for it again. (They shut my service off twice and I had to call and yell at them and plead with them to turn it back on. ) Even though I paid my bill every month
* They were rude every time I talked to them they treated me with contempt
* They tell you lies over the phone and only admit it when you are smart enough to catch them in their lies.
You have been warned sign up at your own peril I highly recommend Comcast if you cant get them try qwest DSL they will be so much better than the crap you will get from DIGIS
Lazlotlomax
Pleasant View, Utah
U.S.A.
2 Updates & Rebuttals
Grandfather
Layton,Utah,
United States of America
DIGIS is my choice of service.
#3Consumer Comment
Thu, November 01, 2012
This is my comment to my son Mark who is contemplating using DIGIS but nervous after having read the "Ripoffreport." I am a 75 year old, fairly savvy internet user. My son Mark is a Captain for a major airlines, a high level systems programmer and manager, and usually counsels me regarding technology matters.
Hi Mark,
I don't blame you for being nervous. The internet is so much a part of our lives that good service is like good health and welfare. Poor service is the opposite...a descent into the hell of disease and pain.
My experience with DIGIS is precisely the opposite of the person who has complained. I don't see a date on the complaint but if you read the rebuttal you will notice that it was written in 2008. DIGIS could have matured significantly in the span from 2008 to the present.
DIGIS customer service has been remarkable. I had problems at first mostly because I was using an antiquated router...my own. The DIGIS tech coached me through a purchase and returned to help me re-configure everything. I don't have any record of paying an installation fee and I keep precise financial records of all purchase and payments in Quicken. The condo owner had DIGIS and that may be why I didn't have to pay the fee. However, when we moved they reinstalled the system on the rental home, put up a new dish and didn't charge anything for the move. In addition to that, a DIGIS area supervisor came out after installation and checked over all of the work that his team had done to ensure that it was done right.
I have NEVER been throttled back. Now granted most of my work is via email but I do download and upload very, very large files to the cloud, VOIP all day, listen to music and really "wring" the service out constantly. I made a point of asking them if the use by DIGIS of others on the system would in any way affect my bandwidth and they assured me that it would not and it has not so far.
I may just be lucky but my experience has been the very opposite of the person who complained. As we speak, "Speadtest.net" has me at 14.59/2.90 and the system has ranged around that no matter when I check it.
During the first week of service when things were a little bit "dicey," I got really cranky with them and they responded patiently and sent out a very savvy tech to solve my problems. Unless fiber optics at quantum speeds suddenly surface on the horizon where we are building our new home, DIGIS will be our service of choice.
And...was delighted to spend time chatting with you as well.
Dad
Randalssig
Pleasant Grove,Utah,
U.S.A.
Rebuttal (((link)))
#3UPDATE Employee
Mon, July 28, 2008
I have worked for Digis for almost 2 years and, because I feel that the service that we provide is worth-while and that we are an equitable operation, I feel the need to rebuttal the complaint that has been laid to our charge.
The upfront installation cost is $140. We offer two rebates to compensate for this. A $40 rebate and a $99 rebate. Customers can send in for the $40 rebate immediately after the service is installed and have up to 30 days from the time of installation to send in for it. The second rebate is a $99 customer loyalty rebate which is sent in along with the customer's first 3 monthly statements. The window to send in for the $99 rebate is between 90 days and 120 days after installation. There is no contract whatsoever, at anytime.
To speak to the complaint that we do not provide unlimited internet access but that we throttle customers who exceed a set usage amount, this is partially true. The internet access is unlimited. In order to ensure that all of our customers receive reasonable bandwidth speeds, if one customer hits the designated usage amount, their internet is not shut off but rather is throttled.
Regarding the argument that 1 gig = 1-2 YouTube videos, please consider the following:
By 2007, the median video was 192.6 seconds in duration (Gill et al. 2007). The median bit rate of web videos grew from 200Kbps in 2005 to 328Kbps on YouTube in 2007. So by late 2007, the median video weighed in at over 63MB in file size. On YouTube, the average video size is 10MB, with over 65,000 new videos added every day.
http://www.websiteoptimization.com/speed/tweak/average-web-page/
Based on the above report, even if an individual were watching videos with twice the bit rate of a typical YouTube video, at 20MB, with this math, in order to hit the 1 gig mark they would have to watch 50 YouTube videos or in other words 2 hours and 40 minutes of straight video streaming.
To the customer's argument: Virtually any internet user except for grandma who just uses her computer to send emails can hit that cap.
This claim is true, anyone can hit the cap. However, the average user on our service uses between 8 -15 gigs/month.
I am familiar with this customer's account and had the opportunity to speak with him on a few occasions. He informed me that he gave a check to the technician that installed his service and that he had record of our cashing said check. Upon reviewing his account, we did not have record of his installation payment and I asked that he provide us a bank statement reflecting that the check had been cashed, at which point we would be happy to rectify his account. In our first conversation the customer told me that he would be happy to comply. However, in subsequent conversations I was told that he had already faxed it to us and then finally that the customer's bank could not or would not provide the documentation needed. After several attempts to identify and correct inaccuracies in our billing system without any resolution we were forced to turn off the customer's account.
It is unfortunate to hear that this individual did not have a positive experience with our company and we continue to find areas in which we can improve. However, I feel that we were more than fair in trying to work with this customer to find an acceptable resolution.