🚀 go-pugleaf

sorry to hear about your experience.  There seems to be a lot of poor
customer service in this space these days; compounded with the rumors that
ricochet may go under this fall, it's really unfortunate.

For what it's worth, I got my merlin card from wwc less than 2 days after
ordering it, several months back.  Reception is spotty, but when/where it
works, it works really well.  I have clocked it at over 200kbps on multiple
occasions.  I live in California, and have gotten good reception in the Bay
Area, LA area, Orange County, San Diego, and Seattle.  But there have been
numerous dead spots in each of those as well.  It's because of this that I
carry my blackberry as well.

Kevin

"ddt" <ddt@ddt.ddt> wrote in message
news:p7FP6.549432$Sv5.11440782@news.easynews.com...
> File under: Wireless Web Connect:  Wireless Internet, Ricochet, Novatel,
> Metricom
>
> I think I just canceled my Ricochet wireless service with Wireless Web
> Connect. But you know what? I'm not sure.
>
> I started in September of  2000 with the stand alone Ricochet modem. It
> wasn't too useful because of its bulk, nor as fast as promised, but when I
> needed it, worked. Sometime around the new year, I saw and bought a
Novatel
> Merlin PC card at a Fry's Electronics. It was quite cool. I could stick it
> in my laptop, or my Compaq iPAQ Pocket PC and life was good... Until the
> card burned out. I went to sleep one night with it playing music from the
> BBC, the next day the card was dead. Both the laptop and the iPAQ said it
> was an unknown card, and in fact putting it the laptop tended to make the
> laptop hang.
>
> I called Novatel and after around thirty minutes of the tech telling me
> "that's very interesting... now lets have you do this... now restart the
> laptop" my laptop stopped booting. I sighed, told him I'd call back when I
> got my laptop running again, then thought better of it. I  called my
> Wireless Web Connect representative. I told him the story and told him
since
> I wasn't happy with my Novatel experience I'd like to order a Sierra
> Aircard. He said he could only take orders for new clients, but if I
called
> WWC's sales line they should be able to help me out. [By the way, the
sales
> rep is a nice guy. I'm not cheesed at him in the slightest.] I called
sales
> and since they were not answering the phones directly, I left a message
> detailing what I needed and asked them to call me back. No call.
>
> I sidelined everything for a couple of months until I realized I was going
> to be traveling again. I called the WWC customer service line on May 8,
and
> after only ten minutes or so on hold,  got to tell a customer service
> representative (CSR) what I needed. She understood, and said it was in
> stock, I'd need to pay $300 for a new card... and probably $30 for an
> activation fee. I complained about the activation fee and she said she'd
> check with someone about it. I said "fine, ship it standard. And since it
> will be a few days, can we turn my old modem back on?" She did do that.
The
> modem never arrived.
>
> On May 18 I called back and talked to CSR #2. She couldn't find an order.
> She could see the re-activation of my old modem. She could see who CSR #1
> was, and she could see the serial number of my dead Novatel modem. She
> thought I may be able to get the Aircard as a warranty replacement for the
> Novatel, but if she couldn't, she'd have to charge me for it. She didn't
> mention the $30 activation fee, so I thought I was doing good. This time I
> wanted it shipped FedEx. It was to arrive Monday May 21. The modem never
> arrived.
>
> I called May 24, talked to a third CSR, who initially, could find no
record
> of an order being placed. I'm on hold a while. He comes back online
> apologizes and says he'll personally ship the modem May 25, and I'll have
it
> on Saturday May 26. I was in the process of telling him to cancel my
account
> when what he said sunk in.... I'd have the modem in a day and a half. I
> agreed and sincerely thanked him.
>
> Guess what. Today May 25, customer service rep #2 calls. She doesn't sound
> quite as nice today. She apologizes for the problems, attributes it to me
> buying the Novatel modem from Fry's and says. "I'm sorry, but what you
will
> *have* to do is..." I lost it. I didn't swear at her, what I said
was"Cancel
> my account, this isn't worth it. Cancel my account." Then I hung up. Bet
you
> guys $50 she didn't cancel my account. Based on my experience with them,
> I'll be calling them for months, trying to stop them from billing me.
>
> My advice is stay away, far away from Wireless Web Connect. It seems like
> something is terribly wrong there. This whole stupid train wreck of a
story
> took place over seven different phone calls and two months of time. If I'd
> been trying to weasel a better modem out of them without paying for it I'd
> feel better somehow, like cosmic justice had been served.  But I was
asking
> them to take my money, if necessary, just please sell me something that
they
> all said they had in stock,  and send it to me.
>
> Good Luck. You've been warned.
>
>
>