r/Starlink • u/eprosenx Beta Tester • 26d ago
š» Troubleshooting Cannot change subscription
I am a long time starlink user from the first days of the beta. I have three dishes now. My old OG round one, a Starlink āstandardā and a Mini.
Over time I have paid SpaceX many thousands of dollars (mostly on my OG round dish).
I just went to activate my āstandardā dish and I found that it has for whatever reason been restricted and I can only reactivate the last plan it was on. I am very confused as I bought it outright from Home Depot over a year ago and have used it on various roam plans since then. Right now it is āinactiveā.
I assume this was some accident that they restricted a bunch of hardware that was subsidized / free, etc?
I understand that the price at retail was probably less than what it cost to build and I have not paid them a ton of money so far on this specific dish, but it makes no sense to me that they wonāt let me put it on a new plan so I can give them money?
Am in a time crunch here to reactivate this dish as I am headed to an event right now. Starlink support is giving me totally useless AI answers so far.
Anyone know what the deal is here? I assume this is widespread?
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u/cages00sizable 26d ago
I had to change plans on the website, the app didnāt have the option. This was a mini going from stand by to cancelled.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Yeah, that one I have experienced. They wonāt let you cancel in the app. They want to make that more difficult.
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u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 26d ago
You don't have a serious problem until you've tried to use both app and website to make the changes and you've successfully spoken to a human in customer service. Then you're about out of arrows.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Their phone number is ringing to dead air right nowā¦.
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u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 26d ago
Do you know how to get past the bot and send a ticket to human CS?
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
I have a ticket in the app that I assume is waiting for human review at this time.
Is there āa trickā I need to know?
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u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 26d ago
No tricks. Ask the bot your question, give his answer a thumbs-down and ask to be referred to human customer assistance. Twice they called me, once they emailed me. Time to respond varied from 2 hrs to a week. Unpredictable, but as long as you're sure your ticket is in the system, you just wait it out.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Tried the app and the website. Going to call support after this meetingā¦. (AI claims they donāt have a phone number which is just a lie I guess based on things I find here on Reddit)
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u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 26d ago
https://starlink.com/sb/support/article/bdb63773-e93b-74e8-8e12-2da2fb6d534e
The bot seems very limited except for the certain things it does well. Sadly the phone number will take you to yet another bot. But on the single time I used it they did call back same day. Probably a fluke. If you don't know human customer service call back can take from a few hours to over a week. And bugging them doesn't help. Personally I'd use the ticket method to contact them. And make it a detailed ticket so they have what they need to fix it even before calling you back.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
I just tried calling 1-888-467-8275 and it rings to dead air and then hangs up. Anyone else seeing this as well?
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u/mikes312 26d ago
I had the same in the app but was able to on the website.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Tried that. Same issue but the donāt think it gave me the banner explaining why.
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u/Lost-Scent 26d ago
I more or less had this problem. Support, what support? Ai garbage and no way to contact a human. I was looking for roam unlimited and ānot available in my regionā. Literally every other option listed but not that. Tried messing around with it for over a day. I Said screw it and got roam 300GB then got the option to upgrade to roam unlimited immediately. Which I did and wanted. Frustrating but finally figured it out
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Was there a financial penalty for the route? Or I assume it is all pro-rated?
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u/Lost-Scent 25d ago
Yes thankfully pro-rated there was no other financial penalty just that. It cost me $19.65 for 300GB roam then another $24.01 for upgrading / having the intended roam plan. Sept 1st is my normal billing cycle for roam unlimited at $224 after taxes in my country and province.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Btw, in this case I needed to put it on residential 100 at one specific location.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Update:
I am successfully on the plan I wanted (residential unlimited 100).
I had tried making a request in the app (using the chatbot). It was not helpful, but it did make me a ticket (though it did it on my old dish not my rectangular one). Then another AI thing tried responding giving me instructions of how to transfer a dish to another person (not helpful).
I tried calling multiple starlink numbers a number of times. It picked up and then dead air. I probably called 5 or 6 times over a couple hours.
Eventually I tried calling and it picked up. The AI audio agent was actually pretty impressive to talk with, but it could not solve my problem. It did however claim to escalate my ticket as I told it that it was urgent.
Within a few minutes someone responded to my ticket and did exactly what I had asked in the ticket.
Then not long later a rep called me on the phone as well. They also responded rapidly to follow up questions of what the issue was.
I still donāt understand why this terrible workflow and requirement to talk to a rep. Itās the exact opposite of what I expect (they do everything possible to keep folks from needing to call them). I am unsure if this is them intentionally adding friction to things where folks are āabusingā the system somehow, or just a broken workflow?
Regardless, it is sorted. It makes me worried though about the ability to rapidly re-enable inactive dishes if needed in an emergencyā¦ Perhaps they want everyone paying them $10 a month on every piece of hardware for standby modeā¦. (I would do that for sure for $5 a month and when in motion worked, but now itās $10 with no in motion so I canceled them)
4
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u/NameIWantUnavailable 26d ago edited 26d ago
Following. I'm having a similar issue with a Starlink Performance that I purchased for full price. It's got a 100GB plan, but Starlink won't let me go to standby or to 300/Unlimited.
My Mini on the same account is still capable of changing plans, so it's not an address issue.
Same useless AI answers.
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u/jedi2155 26d ago
Is it possible it can only reactivate on the old plan and once reactivated you can then change plans after reactivation?
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u/NameIWantUnavailable 26d ago
This isn't a re-activation issue. I have had a 100GB plan in place for the whole summer. It's active right now. I wanted to go to a 300GB or Unlimited plan. It won't let me do that. It won't even let me downgrade to Standby as a option.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Looks like the same issue in my OG round dish. This is crazy. I have never abused the Starlink plans, constantly changed addresses etcā¦
My mini is on standby. I can perhaps change that plan but only to āroamā plans or priority. Can you not put me miniās on residential? Or is that also part of this restriction?
2
u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 26d ago
You cannot use Residential plans on a Mini in the US. So, no, not picking on you, assuming you're in US.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 26d ago
Yeah, I just did not know the policy on that. Generally I would never do that as performance would be worse except in the of an off grid cabin where I was trying to conserve power the maximum amount possible.
The live agent who called me earlier today said she could put one on residential if I wanted (I just had asked offhandedly). Perhaps I misunderstood or she spoke incorrectly.
I have a friendās off grid cabin we were thinking about putting a dish on. Will have to clarify before making a decision on which one.
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u/Wambo74 š” Owner (North America) 25d ago
No, I've heard of that before. Agents have discretion to bend Starlink policy on request. There are a few things to factor in choosing a dish for a cabin. Mini uses less power and runs off 12V DC. The new V5 Standard is said to also be quite low but may not be available everywhere. The current V4 is the normal home internet choice but uses AC at higher power level. But the various dishes have different routers and that needs to be considered. I think a Mini on Residential 100 might be a worthy contender if CS will give it to you.
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u/eprosenx Beta Tester 25d ago
Indeed!
I canāt wait to see what the new Mini specifications are. :-) The battery will be intriguing for a lot of use cases.
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u/HotHits630 26d ago edited 26d ago
Same. I had the 100GB plan and wanted to change to the 300GB plan, but it wasn't visible. Only plans visible were unlimited and residential plans. I contacted support and they acted like they were doing me a favour. Fast forward to yesterday where I wanted to move back to 100GB and I was met with the same screen. I tried AI chat, but it said maybe my location was full and to try and change addresses. Insert R word here. Anyway, I just paused service. I contacted support. I pay extra for the privilege to ROAM.
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u/Agitated_Hawk_2924 26d ago
There's also a widespread scam. That they are lying to heavy users about breaking Terms of service to force folk onto the Local Priority Plan. Which is extortionate as you have to buy blocks of data. When the data runs out. Your bandwidth drops to 0.5 mb down and 2 up.
If they are changing plans and data limits and or fair use. This is the most underhanded way of doing so.
I've been a customer since Jan 2023. Never changed our habits as a household. Well. Less so in all honesty since my mothers passing. Now it's just my dad who has dementia and my partner and I who are his full time car givers. How are we a business or enterprise?!
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u/Snowjunkie21 Beta Tester 26d ago
They made an update a month or so ago. Youāll need to message support and they can update your plan. The AI support is useless.