Hughes Net are thrives & liars!!!!

[jmjohnson61]

I suspended my service in October because I was going to be out of town for an extended period taking care of my sick mother. I called Jan 23 to turn it back on. At that time I paid $85, which I was told was a pro rate from Jan 23-Feb 16 plus the $25 reconnect fee. I was shocked when I called on Feb 16 to pay my Feb-March bill and was told it was $211!!! I spent over 45 min on the phone with some Yahoo from Customer Service who kept telling me a bunch of bs of WHY I owed so much. When I tried to explain what I had been told when I PD the $85 to reconnect in Jan, he said "he was sorry I had been misled." Things deteriorated rapidly from there, especially when he told me my monthly service went from $75/mth to $89.99/mth! I lost it then and told him I would only pay $100 ($75 for my monthly service and another $25 for another reconnect fee). Imagine how ticked off I was when I checked my bank statement and saw the $100 payment I authorized PLUS another transaction for $111.50 that I DID NOT AUTHORIZE!!! I immediately called my bank, who wanted to charge me $50 to stop a payment I DID NOT AUTHORIZE!!! I contacted HN immediately and told them to return the $111.50 or I was charging them with theft!!!! Still waiting!!

[HMichael Hawkin]

Sounds like the experience of many. I'm going to take them to Small Claims Court if they try to charge me for early termination. And I want all the money I paid them over the past six months, because their service is beyond crap! (It's nice to have a son who is a lawyer.) The service is terrible, but their Technical Support is beyond awful.

[Amanda]

Hi jmjohnson,

Welcome to our community and thank you for your post. I am so sorry to hear about all this confusion! I looked at your account and do not see any record of suspension or calls to us in October, but I do see your account was cancelled due to nonpayment (for a few months the payments were being rejected) and reactivated ($25 fee) from cancellation as there is no fee for suspending or unsuspending.

If you can help us out by providing the case number or agent you spoke to regarding suspending your service, that would help us out greatly.

Thank you
Amanda

[HMichael Hawkin]

Good advice. I'll have my lawyer son read it over. If my only option is binding arbitration, I guess that's what I'm stuck with. But I'm yet to find a lawyer who can't find a way around contractual language. I'll let you know what I come up with. Sounds as though you have been through the process. My objective is to get HughsNet to spend as much time and money on me as possible. Even if Small Claims Court isn't viable, I may start there just to make them  show up with a lawyer and introduce the "Binding Arbitration" argument. And as far as spending my money on Small Claims Court, it only cost $10 in my County in Maryland to file a claim and get it on the court calendar.

[GabeU]

And people wonder why I won't sign up for automatic payments.  LOL.  I've been doing them manually for 11+ years and will continue to.  It keeps me safe. 

[C0RR0SIVE]

AFAIK, all they would have to do is respond to the summons and include a contract.  They won't have to send anyone to represent them, because once a judge reads the line about binding arbitration, they will dismiss the case.  The Supreme Courts have already ruled, that binding arbitration is legal, and will stand for DTV customers, which has a very similar contract about legal actions and proceedings as Hughesnet.

By the way, many states require the one that looses a dispute to pay full court costs and reimbursement fees...  I have serious doubts you would want to pay for their (Hughesnets) lawyer the moment the court dismisses your case.

[GabeU]

With regard to the last point, that's actually rarely the case.  Even if Hughesnet were to succeed, they most likely would not be able to collect the legal fees from the "loser."  But, conversely, that would also be the case if HMicheal Hawkins were to win.  No collection of fees there, either.  And with this type of thing, it wouldn't be worth it to the average consumer to go into arbitration.  Companies know this.  That's one of the disadvantages of arbitration to the consumer.  The companies can easily afford the fees, while for the average consumer it's a bit tougher, and again, not normally worth it to even bother, even when they win.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Hmm, here when I was considering taking AAMCO to court, the courts here notified me that if I had lost the case against AAMCO, that I would have to pay court fees, and lawyers fees for both sides of the case, upto $5000 maximum in fees.  That there stopped me from fighting AAMCO (used wrong tranny fluid, didn't feel like paying a lab to test fluids and bleh, would have lost more than gained).

[GabeU]

Ah, but was that a case of arbitration, or was that a standard case of suing?  That might be the difference.  During regular court cases that is the norm, but with arbitration it's not. 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Standard civil case, what I was pointing out, if the user made it to the day IN court (not arbitration), and the Hughesnet lawyers had to show up or act to have the judge dismiss/refer the case, he may be responsible for the fees associated with that one appearance if the court does dismiss/refer it to another level.

[HMichael Hawkin]

Hey, Gabe.....if you are making those payments to HughesNet, you may be safe, but you are not getting very good service. You should look into Broadband service to see if it's available in your area. I canceled HughesNet and switched to Broadband, and I cannot tell you how happy I am with the new service. Very fast, and no limit on how much we use.

[GabeU]

I'm not trying to get this going again, but just wanted to say that yes, you are correct, in that if they had a day in regular court, and the plaintiff loses, then chances are VERY high that the plaintiff would be responsible for the defendant's legal fees. 

[HMichael Hawkin]

Good information. I can only assume my son, the lawyer, will know if Carroll County, Maryland exercises such a potential penalty.

The greater point everyone seems to be missing, however, is how awful HughesNet is. Those of us who have experienced the terrible service and technical limitation of HughesNet will continue to denigrate them in any way possible. Whether I take them to Small Claims Court or just join the many who tell others about how awful HughesNet is, we are all getting a part of that pound of flesh from a terrible company. If I can only contribute bad publicity for them, that may have to be enough. Terrible publicity and bad recommendations over time will cost them to either improve or fail.

BTW, I've replaced HughesNet with a Broadband Service, which works great. No limitation on usage, and it's fast enough for us to do everything we need to do on the internet.

[Amanda]

Hi HMichael,

I am sorry to say if you had broadband available, you should have gone there first. Satellite internet is mainly reserved for those who would otherwise have poor DSL or dial up as their only options.

Amanda

[HMichael Hawkin]

Can I assume Amanda works for HughesNet? If she does, her response is vindictive and not very nice. What did she accomplish in favor of HughesNet by discussing JMJohnson's payment history? I suspect he stopped paying because they were providing terrible service and refused to help him resolve the problems he was having with HughesNet. But for her to discuss a client's payment history here shows what a low class organization HughesNet actually is.

[HMichael Hawkin]

No Kidding. Not that I need to explain anything to someone such as you, but at the time we went to the awful HughesNet, Broadband was not available in our location. It just recently became an option, and I switched from the awful HughesNet to Broadband because I read an article in our local newspaper about the new service.

Instead of worrying about what people should do or not do viz-a-viz HughesNet, you should focus your energy on fixing all that is wrong with HughesNet. If you did that, perhaps you would not have so many unhappy customers.

[Amanda]

Hi HMichael

We have a private option for threads. It is never good to assume or suspect - yes I am a Hughes employee and no, we did not refuse to assist the original poster.

Amanda

[Amanda]

Hi HMichael,

I don't see that you have any posts here and I don't have your account information, so I can't tell if you actually attempted to get assistance from us to resolve your concerns or not. As far as I am concerned, there is no issue with the service but it seems there is an issue with users being unsure about how our service works and the scientific limitations of the service.

We would have been happy to help you, but I suppose it is too late. We wish you luck with your new ISP!

Amanda

[HMichael Hawkin]

"Goodwill" is a very Important commodity for any business. I'm sure you know this if you have taken even the basic course in economics in college. The point I made, which you don't seem to understand, is that Amanda, by discussing a clients financial issues with her company perhaps causes many others who might do business with her to be hesitant.  What she wrote does not enhance the Goodwill of HughesNet. If you think it did, please elaborate for my continuing education. Would you like your financial history discussed on the internet? Perhaps you would.

I'm delighted to hear you are joyously engaged with HughesNet. You are the first person I have ever heard of who is. All the others I know of who use HughesNet are VERY dissatisfied. But I do understand you are the exception who may prove the rule. I wonder if you can document your statement about for every one who is unhappy, 100 are happy with HughesNet?  I'd like to see that data. All I can provide you with is my experience with the many in this area, and in one other location out of State, who have HughesNet, and they hate it.

You claim, "Amanda Answered his question which was posted in the clear." For some reason I seem to have missed the question jmjohnson asked. Perhaps you could cut and paste it for me in your defense of HughesNet.

Independent of all that, I am delighted for you to have the HughesNet service you find so satisfying. I only wish I had had a similar experience.  But I think even you can figure out I did not. BTW, my new ISP is slightly less that $50 a month less than HughesNet. Perhaps cost is not a consideration for you, so you are getting exactly that for which you pay. I wish you well in your continued use of the internet and HughesNet.

[CharlesMcCool]

What she did was point out that op lied about why the service was disconnected

[Amanda]

Hi HMichael

Posting here in a non-private thread means that the answer you receive will not be private. I offered the original poster the Hughes side of the situation and asked for something to reference to so I could help, but it has been 6 days and there is no reply from the original poster. That, sadly, is the nature of "venting" online and why it might seem to you nothing gets fixed or that we don't care. Simply put, people just want a place to let out their frustrations and couldn't care less if we broke to pieces trying to fix it.

The numbers are 1 million+ residential customers and less than 1% call or write in any fashion to file a complaint. 

Since you are not a customer but also rather not contributing any useful substance to the community, we'll be suspending your account.

Amanda