Forum Discussion
Monthly Complimentary 500mb Data Token Feature Removed
Not sure of this is the right place to ask about this but as the title says I noticed tonight my 500mb complimentary data token feature is no longer available. I'm a Gen 3 legacy customer that origin...
If they can find something in your account notes from the upgrade that states you were supposed to get a free 500MB token for the duration of your Gen5 service, maybe they'll offer a $1.50 discount per month on your service, which is what a 500MB token would be worth at current data token prices. Or maybe every six months they'll give you 3GB worth of tokens. And that's a maybe. I can't speak for what, if anything, they'll offer.
The irony is, you would have gotten that data token for all the time you did regardless of them agreeing to it, just as everyone who upgraded from a legacy plan did, including me.
Again, things change. Just like with the free email, which will likely be gone at some point in the not too distant future. ISPs are doing away with email, and HughesNet will almost assuredly follow suit. It's already started, in a way, as I don't believe new customers are even given email anymore at sign up. With all of the free and much better email services available, it's of no advantage for ISPs to continue offering it.
I get what both of you are saying, things change, I'm 62 years old and I've seen a lot of it over the years. I doubt there's language in the contract stating that I would retain certain features. I really had no reason to think I would need that at the time. The thing is regardless of what's in the contract I was told by their reps certain aspects of the old plan would be rolled over to the new. If we as customers, not just with HughesNet, just continually accept things like this then I guess we get what they give us. I got my first computer in 2001 and signed up for Hotmail, quite a few accounts as a matter of fact but I still use about 5 of them regularly. I use one mainly and I had the others when I was an admin for Napster. I realized at the time they were free so I have no expectations and dread when they do away with it but I have backups. I have Gmail accounts, a HughesNet account and I have an admin account that I use for a website I administer which will be my ultimate fall back and is specific to that website's domain that is a paid email account. I have no expectations from any of the free accounts because they're free but when I'm paying for something I do and I expect the company I'm paying to stand behind what they tell me.
I get what you're saying, and I can understand the frustration. The rep made a promise, but unfortunately it's a promise that he/she would have no power to enforce, at least not for the duration. Discounts and the like are one thing, but things that go against the system itself is another. Again, hopefully there are notes and, if so, they can do something for you.
Good thing with the email accounts. Unfortunately, some people only have an HN email account, though thankfully it's easy to set up one of the free ones. And I'm sure when HN decides to drop the hammer on their email they'll give subscribers plenty of time to migrate over.
I've never used HN's email for anything other than Community notifications. I still use my original MSN email that I set up in the late 90s, though I do have a Gmail account as well for backup. I had a Yahoo email set up years ago, but when they got rid of their chat rooms I dumped it.
