Interesting nuggets from the subscriber contract

[maratsade]

13.1 WARRANTY DISCLAIMER.

HUGHES DOES NOT OFFER ANY WARRANTY IN CONNECTION WITH THE SERVICE OR THE SUBSCRIBER EQUIPMENT. THE SERVICE IS MADE AVAILABLE ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF TITLE OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. HUGHES EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR UNINTERRUPTED, OR OPERATE AT ANY MINIMUM SPEED. YOU AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE AND THE SUBSCRIBER EQUIPMENT, AND SUCH USE BY ANYONE USING YOUR ACCOUNT, IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. NO ORAL ADVICE OR WRITTEN INFORMATION PROVIDED BY HUGHES, ITS EMPLOYEES, DEALERS, OR THE LIKE SHALL CREATE A WARRANTY.

Also, in section 13.2:

Without limiting the foregoing, Hughes shall not be responsible for: (a) any failure to transmit or store, or for any deletion of, any communication, message, email, or content transmitted through, sent to, or received by the Service or Hughes’ servers; or (b) any modification, suspension, interruption, or discontinuance of the Service.

[GabeU]

Protection against, "Your service was down so I couldn't sell my stock, and now I'm out $XXX.  You owe me!"  or "Because I couldn't submit my contract on time, due to your service being down because it was snowing, I lost my job.  You owe me $XXX"  

For all intents and purposes, legally speaking, they don't owe anyone anything due to this recent outage.  However, as we've seen, they do sometimes compensate, like with the Tokens during the last wide outage.  

[maratsade]

Yes, they do compensate sometimes, which is more than I can say for other companies (I'm looking at you, V---on, and X---ty). 

[Reggie]

I know this is off topic.

If my electric go out for days. Is the electric company going to replace all the home grown beef and my store bought ice cream?

[maratsade]

Well, I never had any luck with my electric company about that. I've had outages lasting for 7 to 10 days due to hurricanes, and not a peep from the electric company. 

Lowe's gave me $250 to compensate me for food gone bad in a refrigerator that kicked the bucket 18 months after I bought it.  That was part of the extended warranty, but $250 was the limit.  I lost more than that, but it was better than nothing, and they were very prompt about it without me having to jump through any hoops. 

I also never got anything from the phone company when the land line was dead for over 10 days. I finally cancelled the land line because it was dead more often than it was alive and it just wasn't worth it. 

[MarkJFine]

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@maratsade wrote:

Well, I never had any luck with my electric company about that. I've had outages lasting for 7 to 10 days due to hurricanes, and not a peep from the electric company.

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Same here... There was that ice storm a number of Februarys ago where there was no power for a week. I don't recall Dominion being nice and providing a rollback.

It was rough, but I didn't call them or get on social media to cuss them out and make demands for restitution like you see people do on here. I simply reported the outage and waited it out.

Life is simply too short for people to be so angry and paranoid all the time.

[maratsade]

I never called the electric company either, but I did call the phone company and was told they didn't do pro-rating.  The X cable company allegedly pro-rates, but customers have to call. When you do, you fall into a deep dark phone tree. Eventually, the user dies, goes insane, or gives up to prevent death or insanity. 

I personally think that companies should perhaps consider some sort of goodwill gesture if service is down for a long time, perhaps over 3 days.  It doesn't seem to be a thing, though. 

[MarkJFine]

I would tend to agree. I've had to restock a full refrigerator quite a number of times over the past year or two. I can't recall a worse period in the last 30-odd years since I first PCSed to Virginia than the last 3 or 4 wrt power stability. It ain't cheap, but that's the breaks.

Oh and then there's the well... imagine giving a full-up ops briefing after you've bathed using 16oz water bottles and shaved via flashlight. I don't mind roughing it, but not in my own home. lol

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

I've had to restock a full refrigerator quite a number of times over the past year or two.

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Earlier this year, or late last year, we had an outage that lasted nearly a day and a half.  Not that long, but when it comes to food in cold storage, that's the end.  I ended up having to restock everything in my fridge and chest freezer.  And the worst part is that I had just gone shopping two days beforehand.  The chest freezer was stocked very well.  😞  

[maratsade]

Yes, I had the same experience of having just restocked everything when the refrigerator died.  These things always happen at the worst time. 

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@GabeU wrote:

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Earlier this year, or late last year, we had an outage that lasted nearly a day and a half.  Not that long, but when it comes to food in cold storage, that's the end.  I ended up having to restock everything in my fridge and chest freezer.  And the worst part is that I had just gone shopping two days beforehand.  The chest freezer was stocked very well.  😞  

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[maratsade]

" imagine giving a full-up ops briefing after you've bathed using 16oz water bottles and shaved via flashlight. "

But you have a captive audience, right? they can't leave. 🙂  (Edit: so at least you're not alone in your misery...)

[GabeU]

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@Reggie wrote:

I know this is off topic.

If my electric go out for days. Is the electric company going to replace all the home grown beef and my store bought ice cream?

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And who's going to take care of the smell?  Beef is just plain putrid when it rots.  UGH!!!  😛 

[maratsade]

In New York city once there was a long outage, and people were having parties and sharing ice cream, making hamburgers and steaks, etc., having one big block party. It was pretty awesome. I think if people just let others know their power is down and they have fully loaded fridges and freezers, parties could be organized to eat all the food before it rots.  

[MarkJFine]

Oooooh... I remember two big NYC blackouts: The first was 1965? We were living in an apartment complex in South Queens that had their own power generation. It was awesome to look out the window and see darkness all the way to JFK.

The second I would have to say was 1977, because it was in that ESPN Yankees doc. Dunno about cookouts, but there was a lot of looting that night. I just remember it because I was on my way to see Todd Rundgren at the Asbury Park Convention Center, and there were zero NYC FM radio stations on the air.

[maratsade]

I think the one I remember was the one in the 70s, and yes, there was a lot of looting, but also oddly, a lot of community spirit.  I was in Manhattan at the time, and the cookouts were surreal but also very cool. And yes, seeing NYC without lights was also surreal. 

Edit: I also remember a big outage in the early 2000s. 2003??

Edit number deux:  The 1965 outage. 

[GabeU]

We got VERY lucky during the 2003 Northeast Blackout.  We were one of the few areas that was not affected.  🙂   There were folks less than three miles from here that had no power for nearly two days.  

[maratsade]

Clearly services love you. 😉

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@GabeU wrote:

We got VERY lucky during the 2003 Northeast Blackout.  We were one of the few areas that was not affected.  🙂   There were folks less than three miles from here that had no power for nearly two days.  

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[GabeU]

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@maratsade wrote:

Clearly services love you. 😉

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I wish that were the case.  Because of living on the side of a large ridge that faces Lake Erie, which is about ten miles away, we get hammered with wind storms and terrible lake effect snow.  Our power goes out, on average, about four or five times a year.  It's not usually out for more than a few hours, but it's very annoying, especially when it happens during extremely cold or or horridly hot weather. 

My folks are lucky in that they have a floor furnace in their living room.  It doesn't need power, so they still have heat, and the thermostat is a millivolt thermostat, running off of power generated by a thermopile unit over the pilot on the furnace.  Me, OTOH...  I end up using my oven and stove, but if it lasts more than an hour or so I turn them off because of the carbon monoxide danger and break out the kerosene heater.  It works, but for my little house it's overkill, and I have to open windows to regulate the temperature, lest it get to the 80s or 90s in here, even when it's -10F outside.  I'm going to be getting one of those propane Buddy heaters this fall.  That will be better.  

[maratsade]

Jeez, Gabe, that's nuts.  I have kerosene heaters too, and every time I use them I have to disable all the smoke alarms, which ironically work without power.  I have to remove all the batteries and disconnect them from the house, because something in them beeps even without batteries.  Then after the power comes back, I have to reconnect them all again.  It's So.Much.Fun. I'll have to look at the Buddy heaters. 

[MarkJFine]

I may finally look for a generator this winter. Everyone around me has one. I could freak them all out and get a shelter-mounted one and a chase vehicle. I know one neighbor that would think we're under attack. Lol

Edit: Ok... I think I've thrown enough shade on Mr. Lemme brag about a 33 year military career. #smh

[maratsade]

" I could freak them all out and get a shelter-mounted one and a chase vehicle. "

Please do. And take pictures. LOL