Complaints

• Initial Complaint

  07/22/2022

  Complaint Type:

  Product Issues

  Status:

  Answered

  More info

  I bought a router from them. Less then three months later. It get blacklisted. Ladybug Wireless could say. It not their fault. They couldn't even tell why their router was blacklisted. Service provider they went through. Told me it was stolen. Ladybug said there nothing they can do. Also I didn't like they charge me for whole month for one day of service. They said isn't there fault and isn't your fault. But we don't refund. It there router I bought. Yet they could never tell me why it blacklisted. Also every month they service would go down. I contacted them took less than an hour to get back up. Why would they need to reset it every month. When it went down the third time. My router was blacklisted. So 2 month of service over 600 dollars. Is to much. All they could say. It not are fault. They even offer to hook me up to another provider. If router is blacklisted. How would that helped? Pay more money an still get no service. It didn't make since. They also said I can buy another router. What bugs me the most. I had internet most of my adult life. Never had I ever been blacklisted. I live in the country. Where no one offer high speed internet. Now I just use my phone. Same service that ladybug went through. But my phone is faster.

  Business response

  08/29/2022

  Business Response /* (1000, 5, 2022/07/24) */ To Whom it May concern: This is a prepaid service, and the upside to that is no credit checks, no commitment and no cancellation fees. The downside is no proration or refunds, no matter what. It's a simple pay and play model. This has been our policy since our inception and most people love the way it works. Mr. ***** purchased his device outright in February and it worked fine until it was blacklisted. It should be noted he came to us from another company and he did not want to use our service in the device he purchased from the other company because it had also stopped working, which is why he swapped to Ladybug. There is a lot of conjecture on the internet about what caused the mass blacklisting earlier this year, but none of their theories make sense. Hypothesis 1: That the resellers, and in this case, specifically, Ladybug Wireless marked the device stolen or blacklisted with the one carrier. (It should be noted the device is still good on all other networks). This is not logical. First it would be unconscionable, but also, our revenue does not come from device sales, but the recurring service fees and we would not do anything to harm that. This issue was very stressful for us and we worked tirelessly (lots of overtime) trying to help those people get their services working and each new line (that we paid for out of our pocket) was shut off because the devices were blocked from the network, but we did not know it yet. Then we spent another 2-3 weeks working with the manufacturers trying to get the carrier to unblock them. Since the carrier absolutely will not unblock them, we offered to swap customers (at our expense again) to another network. Mr. ***** declined this option. Hypothesis 2: That there is a crack down on resellers or that bad data plans were used. This is not logical as we use the same data plans for all our customers and only about 15% of our blue customers were blacklisted. Most of our other blue customers are still working fine on the same model devices on the same sim card they've been on for years. Alas, as far as I can tell, all the competitors are all still in business and going strong and as a whole, the blacklist affected a fraction of their customers, as well. Hypothesis 3: That the device models or the chipset we use (EC 25AF) is not approved on the network anymore. This too is not logical because there are millions (not all Ladybug Wireless customers) using Mofi, Peplink, ZBT, Readynet devices and still functioning fine with no issues whatsoever. Hypothesis 4 : That bad data plan was put in the device. This is not logical as we use the same data plans for all our customers and only about 15% of our blue customers were blacklisted. When we asked the carrier what the customers were doing on the network that caused them to be blacklisted, we were told the carrier could not disclose the activities for privacy reasons. That was the first thing anyone said that made sense, but it's still infuriating for us and the customers. Mr. ***** told us in late May that he was working with the carrier to get it off the blacklist. In Mid July, he told us he was unsuccessful. This complaint seems to be based on information from Reddit and other forums. These forums are suggesting that folks file complaints to try to force the reseller and/or the carrier to reverse the block, but according to these same forums, no one has been successful yet in getting a device permanently off the blacklist. They will get it removed and it will work ok for a few days and then be shut off again. The fact is, we do not own or operate the network and have no control in anway over their decisions. The fact that the carrier will not release the device, (which is unlocked and owned solely by Mr. *****), coupled with the fact that millions of others are still chugging along with no issues whatsoever on the same model device with the same type of data plans, leads me to believe it's really the customer's use that is the root cause. Despite that, we worked tirelessly for Mr. ***** trying to help him. We can document the countless hours of time and hundreds of dollars we spent on his behalf to no avail and we offered him a resolution that he turned down. But, at the end of the day, we are not responsible for the device being blacklisted and despite our best efforts, we cannot reverse that. Nor can we refund money on a used device that was essentially broken by the consumer. I wish Mr. ***** the best in his endeavors to unblock the device, but he needs speak directly with the network as they made the decision to blacklist the device and only they can change that. Sincerely Ladybug Wireless

*Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business. ↩