In what continues to be an unusual event in streaming, Vidgo subscribers have been without access to their live TV service for an entire month. In spite of having no access during the outage, consumers have continued to be charged for their subscription.
The issue, attributed to a dispute with a vendor, began on Friday, September 29, 2023. Over the initial weekend, Vidgo emailed subscribers to let them know about the service interruption, and to confirm that the company was working on fixing the problem.
Since then, the service has largely remained offline with subscribers unable to access live TV programming through the Vidgo app. While subscribers can use TV Everywhere support to access live programming through a network’s own app and website, not every network included with Vidgo’s various live TV packages provides support for TV Everywhere authentication through Vidgo.
As multiple subscribers have reported over the past month, and continue to report, they are still being billed for their live TV plan during the outage, and at full price.
Earlier this year, Vidgo increased the price of its Plus and Premium live TV packages, resulting in the cheapest plan costing a minimum of $69.99 a month.
In addition to continuing to be billed for their service, some subscribers have also reported being unable to get in contact with the company to find out more information on what’s happening. Vidgo does have a support site where it is possible for existing subscribers to open a support ticket for any issues they have. There is also the option to contact Vidgo’s Support Center by phone.
Originally, Vidgo stated that it would offer a two-week credit and a separate $10 a month credit for each of the next six months. More recently, the company confirmed that it was waiting until the outage ends before issuing credits. At which point, subscribers are expected to receive a full credit for the entire duration of the outage.
In early September, and as part of a limited-time deal, Vidgo dropped the price of all of its plans down to $20 for the first month.
This promotion continued to be advertised throughout the outage and is still advertised as available for new subscribers signing up today. However, we have seen a few unconfirmed user reports suggesting subscribers that signed up during the outage were charged the full amount instead of the $20 discounted rate.
We tried to replicate this issue by attempting to sign up for a subscription to see how much we would be charged, but Vidgo appears to have stopped allowing new sign-ups through its website. Once attempting to sign up through the deal, users are presented with a “We are experiencing a service interruption. Please try again shortly” message.
As Vidgo doesn’t generally allow the option to sign up through its platforms apps, it now appears to be impossible to sign up as a brand new subscriber. As we have reviewed this service in the past, we were able to log in and there was an option to restart our subscription. However, as a returning subscriber, the account is ineligible for the $20 deal.
Adding to the potential number of issues, we have also seen other unconfirmed reports suggesting some subscribers continued to be billed after canceling their subscription.
While we were unable to confirm these various billing issues, it is possible that the outage has affected billing systems as well. This might explain the inability to sign up at the reduced rate and why some customers report being billed after canceling.
In theory, this might also explain why Vidgo changed its stance on credits. If billing systems are affected then it might not be possible for Vidgo to issue any credits until the outage ends.
Due to the lack of updates over the past week, it continues to remain unclear when the outage will be over. As part of one of the company’s previous updates, Vidgo explained that it was making “solid progress” on the problem but refrained from providing any firm details on when service would be restored.
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