Forum Discussion
Goodbye HughesNet Bad Last Impression
When a service cancellation is requested it is normally performed at the end of the current billing period. However, if immediate cancellation is requested they can immediately cancel the service and prorate the charges for that current billing period, I believe.
Unfortunately, any token purchases are non-refundable. It's treated in the same way as remaining plan data, in that it's not refunded.
Per the subscriber agreement:
6.4 UNUSED DATA TOKENS.
You agree that any Data Tokens you may have purchased, or which may been provided to you free of charge, have no intrinsic value if you are no longer a HughesNet Subscriber. Thus, any value associated with any such tokens will lapse at the time of termination of your Service.
Don't disagree that that is the exact contract language; just saying that it's not a good business practice. You paid for something you didn't use, and they keep the full value. They aren't put out financially by someone not using tokens. It's small money, and in the bigger scheme, seems cheap on their part.
As for the prorated balance, the customer service rep struggled so much to understand what I was saying that I'm not sure he would have known this to be true.
Great community on here by the way, especially you Gabe. But this business model for satellite is so fragile- this fixed wireless is a game changer if they are able to implement it with additional towers over the next few years. We've saved over $120 a month by also eliminating a landline and replacing with VOIP. We can also now consider cutting the cord on satellite TV. Rural areas deserve better, for sure.
Pretty sure the business model is there because the infrastructure costs warrant it. The fee structure is there to:
1. Ensure people think about what they're purchasing before buying.
2. Don't make rash decisions to discontinue.This is true for terrestrial services as well, but I'm sure the installation and maintenance costs for satellite services vastly outweigh that of terrestrial.
You may not like it from a customer standpoint, but it makes a lot of sense from a business standpoint.
BTW: The above conditions do include expectations-setting. The corporate-level admins on this board go through great pains to rectify anything a salesman said that was problmatic.
It's just not standard business practice, so I find it interesting you defend it.
I've cancelled satellite radio and television, and I've always received a prorate for what was used, and credited for what was unused.
For a company to fail to credit a customer for what was not used, tells me that their financial situation is poor. This particular business practice isn't common; I don't see a great need to defend it.
Contracts, and penalties to break contracts protect the satellite company for these "rash decisions". There is no need to pile on at cancellation by forcing someone to pay for something they aren't receiving.
I haven't needed a corporate level admin to level set any expectations, as I wasn't promised anything by a salesman. Perhaps you are thinking of another post.
The community here is very supportive, but often overly defensive of satellite and Hughes Net in general. Call it like it is- given choice, people will flee in a heartbeat. Wired and satellite solutions for terrestial customers aren't growing and satellite services will likely serve mostly aircraft and extremely rural areas in the future. The moves on wireless are changing the game quickly.
