Didn't need to return equipment, still charged for not returning equipment
You all have a serious issue with your system and I'm just hoping that this gets passed on to the higher ups. I've seen so many posts on this forum over the years of people saying they were told they didn't need to return equipment, but they still got charged for the equipment. It wasn't much of a surprise when it happened to me. I was a customer for over 10 years. I hadn't upgraded to Gen 5 because I knew my area was getting fixed wireless soon. Because of this, I didn't have any new equipment that needed to be returned, and I was told this by 2 different reps. that I would not have to return any equipment. That was in April. On July 15, I get a charge on my credit card for $318.00 from Hughesnet. I called and was told, "Yes, we see in the notes that we told you that you won't have to return any equipment, so we will manually receive the equipment in the system which will take 24 hours to process, and you will need to call back in 24 hours to process the refund." I asked why the equipment wasn't "manually received" when I cancelled, and the rep said there was an error in the system.
If this is the case, it is clearly a system error that has repeatedly caused this issue for customers over the years. Why doesn't Hughesnet work on fixing the error, instead of waiting for it to trigger a $318.00 charge? Why is the system able to automatically charge former customers, but it can't correctly process a cancellation with no equipment return fee? It makes Hughesnet look really shady when they are more concerned about processing charges that earn them money, than holding up their end of the contract.
My credit card payment was due today, and the amount that I had set it to pay did not include the unexpected charge of 318.00. What may seem like a minor system glitch for Hughesnet, is a major problem for me. I don't have billions of dollars to absorb that charge. $318.00 is a large sum of money for me to have missing from my bank account. I did everything right as a customer. I didn't owe anything on this account. I had fulfilled my contractual obligations. I had done what I was told (keep the equipment) by Hughesnet. Is it too much to ask for Hughesnet to hold up their end of the contract and not take money from customers that isn't owed to them?
I was also told that my email address would stop working immediately upon cancellation (it's still active today), so I ended up paying for 3 extra months unneccessarily to make sure that I caught all the accounts that I used my Hughesnet email to sign in with. The rep actually went and asked a supervisor and came back to say that email would be cancelled immediately. That incorrect answer cost me an additional $273.00 that I wouldn't have paid, had I been told that the email would remain active for some time.
Hughesnet, in this time especially, when people are strapped for cash due to no fault of their own, please consider that all the little mistakes, poorly trained reps, neglected system errors, phoneline glitches, etc. have a serious effect on your customers, costing time, money, and mental & emotional stress. When people come on here angry and lash out, understand that your carelessness in communicating with customers, in training service reps, and in managing your system is costing them money that they haven't budgeted for. Your customers deserve to have confidence that they can trust Hughesnet to be considerate and careful with the privilege of having their business. I know that you're the only option most people have for internet, but don't take advantage of that and be careless with delivering on your promises. That includes allowing known system errors to persist. Fix it. Do better. Honor the people that keep you in business and pay your salary. Please.
