wildblue--viaSat

i was looking at my bill today seem it had went up so i check my statement and it has a{ The Annual Property Tax Recovery Fee} first time thing any one else have this happen ????????????

I got it a few times also. I complained about the tax/fee not being disclosed but did no good. Basically they get charged a tax on their equipment and pass it along to the customers.

What state? I,M in Tennessee and it has not showed here YET

Taxes vary by state. I'm in Mi

Yup, got it here in MA, Verizon Telephone got into a
peeing contest with them and didn't pay that
fee.......long story short, I ended up canceling service ,for a different reason and ended up not paying it.

here is a copy of the chat i had with them Stephanie B is wildblue rep. you is me in the chat


Stephanie B: Thank you for contacting ViaSat Customer Care. I will be more than happy to help you with your request. Please allow me a moment to review your account information.
Stephanie B: hi charles
Stephanie B: For security reasons, may I please have the last 4 digits of the payment method on file?
You: hello so tell what this annual property tax recovery fee is
You: well f i have go find my card
Stephanie B: ok
You: ----- for a simple question one has to jump through hoopps
Stephanie B: Thanks so much
Stephanie B: Sorry. I have to validate the account before giving any account specific information.
Stephanie B: The Annual Property Tax Recovery Fee is for property taxes on the equipment installed at the customer's home (modem, tria, antennae). The charges vary from county to county. The charge will be displayed as a one time charge located under the "Fees" section of your bill. It will be listed as "Annual Property Tax Recovery Fees". ViaSat recently charged the property taxes for the previous year and have now begun to process that charge for 2014. The property tax varies county to county, and the amount is based on the city where you have our service. The average charge is $3.00-$4.00; however, some can go as high as $9.00 - $10.00 (or higher) in those states with higher tax rates.
You: wait i bought the equipment so whay you charging me
You: i paid up front for it
You: it belong to me
You: and are you sending the tax to my county
You: or pocket it
Stephanie B: It's a tax from the state. It is 3.94 according to the bill
You: no you said county
You: so i own it i pay property tax you doubling taxing me
Stephanie B: I will credit your account for the $3.94 I apologize for the frustration with the Annual Property Tax Recovery Fee.
You: thanks i well be calling ky state tax and my county and tell them that your all charging tax i am betting it not being sent in to the state
Stephanie B: I apologize for the frustration with the Annual Property Tax Recovery Fee. Is there anything else I can help you with?
You: no
Stephanie B: Perhaps you might be interested in our home phone service? Our Exede Voice service offers unlimited calls to the US and Canada for just $19.99 for the first 6 months. Visit http://www.exede.com/voip to learn more, or call 1-855-463-9333 to order now! Thank you for chatting in to ViaSat today, we appreciate your business!
Stephanie B: Have a good day
You:
there calming it a property tax the state is charging them in ky the county collects property tax not the state. like i told her i paid up front for all the equipment so that may be why there refunding the charge , i think it a made up way to increase the cost

That is almost word for word the discussion I had. Except they said I don't own the equipment, it's just a unlimited lease.

The other thing these companies do is to sneak in a rate hike,
usually after the first of the year, sometimes as late as March-April.
Dish did it to me this year again, would have to look up the
Wildblue account on www to know......just did, been the same since
at least June 2014. When I had DirecTV they did it every year.

Do you have any wireless broadband service providers in your area? They are somewhat limitied by terrain so its possible that there are none in your area. It would be a much cheaper option and you deal with a small buisness vs large corporation.

I did that initially when a local service became available, primarily to support the local economy. Constant problems and they were constantly having technical difficulties. Did not have the latest equipment at the time and speed was only about 10x of dial-up. Only service tech lived down the road about 3 miles and numerous times I'd call him over in the evenings to get things running again. Trees grew up between us, even though they were on the local water tower for max height and I was on a hill. I wasn't going to cut my trees.

Yeah I pay more for satellite but I get pretty much 99% up time and speed is the latest out there. Actually I have Excede/Wildblue and Dish services for internet. ViaSat apparently owns the satellites and Excede is the parent company. Dish buys bandwidth from them.

Why do I have two suppliers? Because I want 2 and in the rare occasions where one is down I have the other. Being retired we spend a lot of time surfing and it's a major entertainment/necessity here.

Mark

wildblue also only thing available he also well hughes net is also and i sure now that ky letting att off the hook for providing telephone service well never see any thing else. so well just have to live with it if i had a good unlimited internet my tv service be gone

The property tax thing has come up on Wildblueworld, dslreports, and the newer forum before. It's not charged in every area.

Viasat is the parent company. Exede (new service) and Wildblue (old service) are the product names of their services, they are not companies. Dishnet is either Exede or Gen4 (Hughesnet company) bundled through Dish. Both are branded Dishnet, depending on the area you can request either one, or they will choose which company they will install. They are the same product as getting Exede or Gen4 directly, same equipment working off the same satellites, except the plans offered are different, and customer support is provided by Dish instead (which customer support is worse than going directly with Viasat for Exede).

Wireless providers (WISPs) are good options in some areas. But they have limited range. The closest one to me was 30 miles away, much beyond 10 miles and it was pretty iffy getting service. It was slow as well. The closest village is 15 miles away, maybe 12 miles straight line, there was never one there. Regional GSM carrier has an excellent option though, that's what I use after having satellite for years.

all i know is that when i first had it installed i payed for the whole thing didnt do the rental. so this is the first time they laid this property tax on me,, as i told them how do you tax me for something that i own it may be a legit charge if the state county is billing them,, but they know most people well not notice it,, as its paid for by credit card. that the only way they do monthly billing you have to have a up-to date credit card so the extra charge will go unnoticed so they just add it and when one bit--ch about it thy take it off.

Wildblue had it so you could buy it outright, own the equipment for a while back around '06-'07 or so. That's what I did with mine. Exede never had the option available to purchase the equipment, it was always leased. They did have both a pay up front lifetime lease (I think that was an option anyway) and another pay up front two year lease (where you'd get the monthly lease fee beginning after two years), but those never result in owning the equipment, if you cancel, the modem and tria (thing on the dish arm) go back. I've seen confusion on this topic on the other forums too, people mistakenly thinking they own the equipment when they paid a fair chunk up front.

I don't get paying tax on something leased either. But I think cars you do too (I've never looked at leasing a vehicle).

If you have Wildblue equipment that you do actually own from years ago, then no, at least Viasat shouldn't charge tax on it.

It gets confusing, because some Exede dishes were labeled Wildblue (the old product name). Even though they were not Wildblue service. Changing the new product name to Exede was kind of last minute, they were initially going to continue calling the new service Wildblue, but changed it to differentiate the new product from the old one. So, some dishes were "printed" up as Wildblue before the name change.

I was running the Wildblue system with the long RT unit that is like
the one on my Dish service. It developed a thermal problem so I
called them up to fix it. They sent a very qualified tech out with a
new RT and antenna and on the antenna was Excede which I was
informed my current service had been renamed. The new unit had
a smaller RT unit that was vertical rather than horizontally mounted
and the speed is much faster. Don't have any other details about
what all they changed. Monthly statement remained the same.

Mark