- Report: #1224507
Complaint Review: Broadstar - West Palm Beach Florida
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Broadstar
3965 Investment Lane, Suite A5 West Palm Beach, 33404 Florida, USA
Phone:
352-988-2444
Web:
www.Broadstar.com
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Broadstar Unrealiable and shoddy business practices West Palm Beach Florida
If you ever find the name Broadstar in a lease agreement or ToS agreement regarding the leasing of an Apartment, condo housing unit, dormitory, or anything of the sort, turn around and keep walking. In addition to an already shoddy lineup of services to be offered through their plans, the company is run by cluess staff members and chargers an exorbinant amount of money for services that you're lucky if they work even half of the time you need them.
I am a resident of the Reserve at Kanapaha apartments. At the time of my signing my lease, in April '14, I was aware of the contract between my leasing company and Broadstar, but I was sorely mistaken in assuming that it would be a dependable situation that would work itself out. As I am a generally busy person, I find being subscribed to a Cable and Home Phone service unnecessary, but the first thing I noticed upon reviewing my lease, and I admit this should have sent up a red flag, is that basic cable is mandatory. You can't opt out of it because the monthly cable bill is tied directly into my monthly rent. It's only a basic cable package and it remained fairly inexpensive, so I dismissed it and went ahead. Figuring I pay for it and might as well use it at least a little, I've come to discover the quality is absolutely attrocious. Many of the channels suffer from poor picture quality and in addition, of the ones that do work, there are unusual audio glitches that frequently occur during commercials that spike in frequency and volume to a point I have to change the channel it's so painful. Even their own TV guide channel is poor quality and at one point late last year, their TV Guide was just a feed of some guys desktop, complete with icons and a mouse pointer idling in the corner and this is how it stayed for nearly a month.
Moving on to my real issue, we come to the Internet Connectivity. Broadstar, who as I remind you, has a contract with my complex among several others, that make them the only ISP allowed to operate on property. This being said, they piggyback off of an AT&T Network that constantly suffers from throttled Speeds and frequent disconnections, both in and out of peak usage hours. Even when it's not the AT&T Network directly, the hardware utilized by the company is so cheap and so poorly setup that the frequency of outages occurs on a regular basis. This is a company that, when I first setup my account, offered a "blazing fast" high-speed package of 12mbps, although it rarely ever exceeds 9 or 10, all for only $40 a month (Mind you, that's not including the forced-on cable bill.) While I watch the ISPs in surrounding neighborhoods offer 25, 50, and even 75mbps packages for nearly the same price as what Broadstar is charging me now, the best it has ever been able to offer is a 20mbps service.
The upgraded package, which came at no additional financial cost, did come with another cost. Beginning in September and lasting until nearly the end of December, I had no internet service whatsoever. There was the occasional day where it might work for an hour or two, but otherwise it was out for good. It was only until they reversed their upgrade back to 12mbps that the issue resolved itself. During the conflict, I maintained constant contact with their main office and their head technician in my area. While the technician who visited my home was a great guy who seemed genuinely interested in fixing the problem, their main office was a different story. Every phone call was accompanied by an hour-long wait on hold and more often than not resulted in being sent to a machine asking me to state my name, number and issue and they would get back to me, but they have never once responded to any of the messages I've ever left. The few times I ever did get through, I would demand to speak to whoever's in charge and, over the course of 4 months, I had a dozen different phone calls with a dozen different representatives because none of them stayed with the company for a long period of time. I was constantly reassured that they were doing everything they could to repair it and when I demanded to know what was wrong, they blatantly lied and told me it was only happening to my service and the rest of the community was performing normally, which I know firsthand to not be true. All the while, with 4 months of no service, they were continuing to bill me each month and when I would call to dispute having to pay it because I had not received any service for them to deserve payment, I was given response like, and I quote, "I doubt it's as severe as you're saying it is." to which I have escalated the issue up to the CEO of the company with the demands of an apology, a full-refund for the period with no services, and my service being fully functional.
Now, not 4 months since the issue was resolved, the service is acting up once again with my modem shutting off constantly cycling at random intervals as frequent as once every couple of hours to 9-10 times within a one-hour period. Since the issue started up, I have attempted to contact their office numerous times at different hours of the day and have not once reached a live human, which suggests that they're now screening my calls and refusing to talk to me because they know I have nothing pleasant to say about them.
If you're preparing to sign a lease to live in a complex, ask and ensure that they aren't locked into a contract with Broadstar. If they are, find another apartment complex. If Kanapaha doesn't break their contract and bring in other service providers soon, I will not be renewing my lease and I will be taking my business elsewhere.
