Re: poor lamb - Page 2 - Hughesnet Community

gaines_wright · ‎02-03-2019

I ran into a acquaintance of mine at a local tavern the other day. He was very excited to tell me that he just had satellite internet installed, and was going to get Netflix, and would also be able to do away with his satellite TV bill, all for only fifty bucks a month.

I asked him what tech company he used and he said: "I don't remember the name. They're across from the BBQ place." ( 20 miles away ) They're not the company I use. Mine is reliable and honest. His told him that all of this stuff was going to be easy.

I asked him what satellite company he was with, and he replied: "I don't know. I think it's written on the dish somewhere." When I asked him how many gigs of data was in his plan, he didn't know the answer to that either I said to him, before you do anything like this again, please come and talk to me first.

Like a lamb to the slaughter.

I smell a soon to be broken contract. :>)> If so, it will be second that I know of in my tiny little community, in just the last few months.

"A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness. Bad manners. Lack of consideration for others in minor matters. A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot."
ROBERT HEINLEIN

GabeU · ‎02-08-2019

@MarkJFine wrote:
Cancellng cards or any refusal to pay will also put them into 'collections' and usually results in a bad mark in one's credit rating.

Evidently this person works "under the table" and doesn't care about their credit rating. It's possible that they'll forego the contract, but the cost of the equipment is another thing. Whether he'll rest on "come get your equipment" or return it as alluded to in the original description of such only he can decide.

With that said, when someone refuses to pay at the beginning the chances of them allowing that contract to end is less. Those who have been allowed to break their contracts tend to be those who don't slam the door right off the bat.

People never realize how much they hurt themselves by their actions until it's too late. Restraint often saves the day.

gaines_wright · ‎02-08-2019

@MarkJFine wrote:
Cancellng cards or any refusal to pay will also put them into 'collections' and usually results in a bad mark in one's credit rating.

That seems to be the general consensus. But does anyone actually know anyone to who this actually happened?

I know one person who didn't pay the ETF, and had no repercussions.

I wouldn't be suprised, with so much deceptive marketing going on, that so many people are canceling satellite ISP contracts without paying an ETF, that the lenders are just ignoring it. Similar to 40 years ago when medical labs and xray places would collect from your insurance, and then try to collect the full amount from you also.

I actually had fun when a collection agency would call, after talking to me one time they wouldn't call back again. Especially, after talking to my Credit Union who told me: " Oh, we know that stuff is going on. We won't even consider it when looking at your credit."

Of course, at lot of things have changed in the last 40 years.

GabeU · ‎02-08-2019

@gaines_wright wrote:
I wouldn't be suprised, with so much deceptive marketing going on, that so many people are canceling satellite ISP contracts without paying an ETF, that the lenders are just ignoring it.

Neither lenders, nor credit rating agencies, ignore someone having a debt placed into collections. As well, neither cares what the debt collection is for. When it's present it affects, and will continue to do so for quite some time. Unless someone has a legitimate excuse and successfully fights to have it removed from the record, which is both time consuming and emotionally draining, it affects their credit for years.

gaines_wright · ‎02-09-2019

@GabeU wrote:
@gaines_wright wrote:
I wouldn't be suprised, with so much deceptive marketing going on, that so many people are canceling satellite ISP contracts without paying an ETF, that the lenders are just ignoring it.
Neither lenders, nor credit rating agencies, ignore someone having a debt placed into collections. As well, neither cares what the debt collection is for. When it's present it affects, and will continue to do so for quite some time. Unless someone has a legitimate excuse and successfully fights to have it removed from the record, which is both time consuming and emotionally draining, it affects their credit for years.

No offence intended, but do you have any first hand experience with this happening? You seem so sure about it.

I certainly didn't find it so.forty years ago, when lenders, looked at the details of the causes of a bad credit rating, and acted accordingly. At least my lender did with my credit rating, which at the time the collection agencies were doing their best to try to destroy. I financed a new truck at that time with no problems.

All this makes me want to cancel Hughes, not pay the ETF, and then finance a new truck. :>)> Just kidding.

Anybody want to bet that I wouldn't be successful?

I'm suprised no one caught the original point of my post, which is that satellite ISPs are using predatory and misleading tactics to lure in new suscribers, and then they the hold the boogie man of an ETF over their heads to try to keep them.

IMO this is not wise marketing, and I don't think it's going to be successful in the long run I know one person who didn't pay the Hughes ETF with no repercussions. I await the result of poor lamb doing the same with Viasat.

MrBuster · ‎02-08-2019

Wow -- that was quick! I don't want to ruffle any feathers by asking, but what did he dislike so much in such a short period of time?

I have had a good experience with both HughesNet and Viasat/Excede, excepting the one time my brother streamed some dumb video over and over and went over the 15GB cap on the classic plan and squawked to me about it being slower than dial-up and I said I can see by the Windows Task Manager that it is downloading at like 2-3 times dial-up speed yet. That really set him off....

gaines_wright · ‎02-08-2019

@MrBuster wrote:
Wow -- that was quick! I don't want to ruffle any feathers by asking, but what did he dislike so much in such a short period of time?

Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.

MrBuster · ‎02-08-2019

@gaines_wright wrote:
Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.

10 gig data plan!

I am behind the times!

I thought their minimum plan was one of those “unlimited” plans with 35 or 40GB priority data now and that those caught up would not notice until after a couple of weeks when they had chewed through all the data and experienced deprioritization so I was surprised it took less than a week -- I guess the antenna trouble has reduced the offerings.

The low data plans can be painful without the old free zone in the morning hours. Of course, their plans vary a lot by area so maybe that is a busy beam for them with nothing on the new "bird" to offer. Although none of the plans are suitable for extensive high definition streaming....

GabeU · ‎02-08-2019

@MrBuster

I believe that the Liberty Plans are still available in some areas. And, in reality, from what I've been reading on their boards, the Liberty Plans are still better than the Unlimited Plans for those on the big beam, and even more so with the people who got the Unlimited Plans with the higher data threshold before Optimization kicks in. That antenna issue really hurt them, and offering Unlimited Plans when they were fully aware of it was just plain stupid. Those lucky enough to be on one of the high density spot beams do well, but most can't get that.

I really do feel sorry for those with said plans. Speeds dumping into the double digit Kbps range in the evenings, and sometimes not much better during the day? No thank you. You can barely even open a basic web page with those speeds these days. 😞

gaines_wright · ‎02-09-2019

@MrBuster wrote:
@gaines_wright wrote:
Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.

10 gig data plan!

I am behind the times!

Well, I probably misspoke. I think he actually told me it was a fifty dollar a month plan. I have no experience with Viasat, I just assumed it was 10 gig.

I considered Viasat shortly after my problems with gen5. I called my tech company, and they told me I already had the best deal that was available with Hughes.

MrBuster · ‎02-09-2019

@gaines_wright wrote:
Well, I probably misspoke. I think he actually told me it was a fifty dollar a month plan. I have no experience with Viasat, I just assumed it was 10 gig.

I considered Viasat shortly after my problems with gen5. I called my tech company, and they told me I already had the best deal that was available with Hughes.

You were correct. I see there is a plan called 'Basic 25' with 12GB priority data for $50 which sounds like what you described. It did bring back the Free Zone in the morning, so maybe they realized not encouraging non-peak time use was a mistake.

GabeU · ‎02-09-2019

@gaines_wright wrote:
Well, I probably misspoke. I think he actually told me it was a fifty dollar a month plan. I have no experience with Viasat, I just assumed it was 10 gig.

In that case, it's most likely the Unlimited Bronze 12 Plan, which is $50 for the first three months, then $70 after that. It's an okay plan, but one would do a lot better with HughesNet for the price, especially with the major speed issues on the big beams with the Unlimited Plans now.

Edit: I see MrBuster mentioned a Basic 25 Plan, as well.

@gaines_wright wrote:
No offence intended, but do you have any first hand experience with this happening? You seem so sure about it.

No, I do not have first hand experience with this, but I know those who do. And yes, I'm 100% sure about it, as that's what happens when a person has something go into collections. Credit rating agencies are nowhere near as lax as they were 40 years ago. Nearly everything that's negative affects credit ratings these days. Even late payments.

And I got your basic point, but what happened to your friend is more on the agent than the company, though I know that the company is ultimately responsible for what their agents say and do. The agents aren't supposed to do those things, though I'm sure they feel pressure to get the sale and sometimes lie in order to do so. It's very unlikely that ViaSat instructs their agents to lie, or even implies that they should. It's not at all to their advantage to have them do this, as the impact to them from doing this can be far worse than the profit made from the subscriber. Talking up the service is one thing, but flat out lying is another.

As for holding the ETF over their heads, this is true, but not when it comes to sales agents lying about something with the service, as we've seen with a few of the results of sales call reviews on here. I'm sure ViaSat has something similar in place. It may be a requirement by law, though that I'm not sure of.

The bottom line is, people should research what they're buying before they do so, especially if it's a service with contract. Unfortunately, too few people do.

MarkJFine · ‎02-09-2019

You have to remember there was a period in the 'naughts' where banks were giving massive high-risk loans to anyone and everyone and got caught with their pants down when anyone and everyone defaulted. Think the more reputable banks are being a bit more discrete wrt credit ratings now, despite having the regs ripped away again. The less reputable banks and the new crop of smaller, legal loan sharks will still give short term, high risk loans at exorbitant rates.

* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.