Is it possible for Viasat to charge me a $500 upfront fee?

Yes, Viasat has started implementing a $500 upfront fee in selected areas where bandwidth is extremely limited and customers have poor credit or the soft credit check returns “no hit”. This is to ensure Viasat is onboarding high quality customers in high demand areas and this higher fee is added as a signal to you to decline the sale. This will be counted as a “decline of service”. Ultimately, declining these customers prioritizes capacity for sale to more qualified customers that will allow Viasat partners to be more profitable going forward. This upfront fee is supposed to launch on August 13th, 2020. This will only be introduced to a small group of customers who are unqualified for service. If there are other members in the household with better credit then it would be good for them to check if they can get qualified for service.