Do Not Sign Up For 1st Responder Wireless News.com

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bnglbill

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Jan 24, 2004
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Delaware (New Castle County)
I have had a pager through Maryland Fire Network for several years now and it has been great. They send out text messages for local fires, police activity, trauma alerts, 3rd alarms from across the US, local weather, news, etc. A couple of weeks ago, my pager went on the fritz and the screen kept blanking out. No problem, the service has been great so I figured I would go to Maryland firenet and sign up again and get a new pager. So come to find out, they merged with a company called 1stresponderwirelessnews.com that offers the same service, $50.00 for the pager and $80.00 a year for the service, no biggie. Well, I decided to sign up and the nightmare began!! First off, the sight was not working so I ended up getting charged 5 times!! yeah, that's $140.00 times 5, you do the math. So after a week of phone calls, I got 4 of them credited back to my account and I finally got my pager. For the first 3 days I got absolutely no pages. I called and emailed and every now and then I got a person but didn't get any answers. This went on for a week when finally they said, well, you need to send the pager back so we can reprogram it. I sent it back at my expense. I kept in email contact with someone there who after several days said the pager is now working and mailed it back to me. To make a long story short, I am now 3 weeks into this and I have the pager and it still does not work correctly, I get very few pages for fire and police and absolutely no weather, news and traffic. No one at 1STRESPONDERWIRELESSNEWS.COM will return my phone call or emails now. So I just wanted to let you all know in case you may consider dealing with them.

I think I have been very reasonable and I am still trying to work with them but I have about had it!! if I am able to get this resolved, I will certainly let you all know.

Sorry for being long winded, maybe this should be in the tavern but with this being pretty much localized, I wanted Marylanders to know about it.
 
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Dank

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Jan 21, 2003
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MD
I agree the level of service has decreased. And the number of pages has dropped greatly since many areas are now digital (howard, mont co, AA, etc). Without dispatchers who have digital scanners we can't get the pages. On the conventional side I don't hear alot of PG county pages from them and PG is still analog UHF.
 

don333

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Dec 19, 2002
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TO BNGLBILL AND DANK.....IF YOU'RE INTERSTED IN CHANGING PAGER COMPANIES THEN PLEASE CONTACT "BREAKING NEWS NETWORK" @ 1-888-875-6100. THEY HAVE REPORTERS AND COVERAGE FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE STATE OF MARYLAND AND WIDER COVERAGE FROM SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT TO NORTHERN VIRGINIA WHICH INCLUDES NATIONAL NEWS. ALSO THEY PROVIDE TOP NOTCH SERVICE AND USUALLY THERE IS SOMEONE IN THE OFFICE 24 HOURS A DAY. i HAVE BEEN WITH THEM FOR 7 YEARS AND HAVE NO COMPLAINTS. GOOD LUCK!
 

bnglbill

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Jan 24, 2004
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Location
Delaware (New Castle County)
Getting there

Don't know if it has to do with this post or not but I have finally made som progress. I have been speaking to the general Manager and I now have his direct contact number. He assures me that the problem that I am having is a problem with the pager and he will get it resolved by early next week. He also assures me that he is working closely with the former MFN guys to make sure that the paging will be as good as or better then the former MFN service.

As promised, I will keep you all posted.
 

bnglbill

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Delaware (New Castle County)
don333 said:
TO BNGLBILL AND DANK.....IF YOU'RE INTERSTED IN CHANGING PAGER COMPANIES THEN PLEASE CONTACT "BREAKING NEWS NETWORK" @ 1-888-875-6100. THEY HAVE REPORTERS AND COVERAGE FOR ALMOST THE ENTIRE STATE OF MARYLAND AND WIDER COVERAGE FROM SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT TO NORTHERN VIRGINIA WHICH INCLUDES NATIONAL NEWS. ALSO THEY PROVIDE TOP NOTCH SERVICE AND USUALLY THERE IS SOMEONE IN THE OFFICE 24 HOURS A DAY. i HAVE BEEN WITH THEM FOR 7 YEARS AND HAVE NO COMPLAINTS. GOOD LUCK!

Thanks, I'll keep this in mind.
 

4909

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Premium Subscriber
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Sep 29, 2002
Messages
81
Location
Johnsville, Frederick County, Md
Breaking News Network, BNN, covers Metro Baltimore, DC, Eastern Shore, and even out here in Western Maryland, as well as NoVa and some Pa. Yes, I'm shilling for BNN, and I've tried the others...but I've had a BNN pager since they first started, and never had any problems.

Best Regards,
 

mfn250

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Jun 16, 2003
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Location
Pasadena, MD
Just wanted to let you know that we could use all the dispatchers we can get. The more people we get, the more pages we can send, and the better the coverage. If you are a scanner buff and wanna page, we are always looking for new people.

http://www.1stresponderwirelessnews.com/webpages/home.aspx

look on the bottom right corner, it says "Dispatchers Wanted"

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me.

MD-250
 

RocketMan1

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Feb 1, 2005
Messages
281
Location
NW Indiana
mfn250 said:
Just wanted to let you know that we could use all the dispatchers we can get. The more people we get, the more pages we can send, and the better the coverage. If you are a scanner buff and wanna page, we are always looking for new people.

http://www.1stresponderwirelessnews.com/webpages/home.aspx

look on the bottom right corner, it says "Dispatchers Wanted"

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me.

MD-250

How much do you pay?
 

mfn250

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Jun 16, 2003
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Location
Pasadena, MD
I pay about $38 a quarter for alpha numeric plus voicemail. but that is still to MFN atleast as of my last bill.

If you sign up with first responder services are:
$7.75 a month or $80 a year ( pager cost $75 if you do monthly or $50 if you pay a year upfront)
 
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RocketMan1

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Feb 1, 2005
Messages
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Location
NW Indiana
mfn250 said:
I pay about $38 a quarter for alpha numeric plus voicemail. but that is still to MFN atleast as of my last bill.

If you sign up with first responder services are:
$7.75 a month or $80 a year ( pager cost $75 if you do monthly or $50 if you pay a year upfront)


what I meant was, what do they pay the dispatcher? in the post previous to mine they stated they were looking for dispatchers for the first responder web site.
 

bnglbill

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Jan 24, 2004
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Location
Delaware (New Castle County)
Still dissatisfied

Don't know who is running the show in MD, I have been speaking with the General manager in New York. I keep trying to work with him but I think I'm making a mistake. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, I really don't get anywhere.

Last I heard from him, he was going to send me 2 pagers (each with a different service provider) and have them here this week (by Wed because of the Holiday so I could see which one works better. well, we'll see what happens, I'm not very confident that I'll actually have a working pager (or 2) in my hands tomorrow.

One of the supposed hold ups is someone from MFN hasn't turned over a pager programmer to him yet and this was supposed to have been done last weekend.

Any insiders from MFN watching this thread have any info on this??
 

bnglbill

Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2004
Messages
148
Location
Delaware (New Castle County)
mfn250 said:
Just wanted to let you know that we could use all the dispatchers we can get. The more people we get, the more pages we can send, and the better the coverage. If you are a scanner buff and wanna page, we are always looking for new people.

http://www.1stresponderwirelessnews.com/webpages/home.aspx

look on the bottom right corner, it says "Dispatchers Wanted"

If anyone has any questions please feel free to contact me.

MD-250

I don't think the problem is with the dispatching...
 

Dank

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Jan 21, 2003
Messages
370
Location
MD
Based on previous emails I have exchanged with the MFN local c/s that the dispatchers are volunteers. Other services have paid dispatchers from what I hear, hence better monitoring and coverage of breaking news. If your interested here's the email address I have used, mfnqamanager@aol.com.

Good luck.
 

BoxAlarm187

Level 6 RR Member (Since 1998)
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Old Dominion
I know that all of our dispatchers (Virginia Fire Network) are volunteers also.
 

bnglbill

Member
Joined
Jan 24, 2004
Messages
148
Location
Delaware (New Castle County)
customer service, what's that?

As expected, no pagers, no fix, no phone call, no email!!

Customer service does not exist with 1stresponderwirelessnews.com. I will be demanding a refund and I will be looking into getting a pager with one of the other companies.

I urge you all to avoid doing business with them...

It's a shame because I really enjoyed MFN and firehouse.tv.
 

FDNY10-75

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Database Admin
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Nov 24, 2004
Messages
157
Location
Albany, NY
Guys,

bnglbill's argument is very one sided. 1st Responder Wireless News has over 1000 happy customers. With a such a large number people, mishaps can occur. However, just because one guy didn't get what he wants, that doesn't mean you should avoid their service. I have been a member for quite awhile now, about 6 months. I have not had any problems, and the communication between the administrators and customers is wonderful. I have used the other paging companies, and the service is not as great. Not as many pages, and details are left out. 1st Responder Wireless News really surprised me, when I would get dozens of pages an hour, which is much better than any other service.

Now, bnglbill states that MFN was great, I am sure it was, but when 1st Responder converted, they took in the SAME people that paged for MFN, and gave them better and easier to use tools for paging. So, the argument doesn't make much sense. It's like instead of using an old Compaq computer, you switch to a new Dell. Nothing really changes, things are just better.

What is a real shame here, is that there is time in bngbill's day to make a negative rant about 1st Responder Wireless. Why not try and correct the problem?

I wouldn't even bother wasting my time defending 1st Responder, if I wasn't amazingly pleased with their service.
 
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