Invoice Generates on SAME DAY Bank Account is Debited, CausIng Overdrafts. HELP!

[Shortcut]

Hi. I have been very pleased with the reliability, and speeds I get with HughesNet. So much better than Frontier, paying for full service and buffering my life away. So nice to finally be able see a video straight through. Thank you HughesNet for that!!

This question is about my bill. I have an email txscript from Customer Service Chat, that reads like War and Peace where I have tried to deal with my issue with Customer Service, unsuccessfully.

Thought I'd try here in the community, and see if anyone else has experienced this; has a solution. Here's the situation.

I have been with HughesNet for internet/phone service since May 2016. I signed up for paperless billing, with Auto-Pay. My invoice generates on the seventh of the month, and states that it is due on the 17th of ea. month.

BIG MUTANT JUNKIE HOWEVER, the debit for the invoice is taken out of my bank account ON THE SEVENTH. The day the bill is generated. So I have no way of knowing THE EXACT AMOUNT of my bill BEFORE it is debited from my account.

Just as most folks, I live on a very tight budget, and last month it overdrafted my account. Yep, it was that tight. I was told that the best I could do was look at Recurring Charges under Billing. However this does not reflect taxes, or any discounts/additional charges/increases, in time for me to be able to make any adjustments in my budget.

I have NEVER heard of a company that does not give you a chance to view your EXACT bill before your account is debited. Does anyone know how I might change this without having to pay the additional $5 ea. month for paper billing/unenrolling from Auto-Pay??

[Gwalk900]

Hello Shortcut,

There are two billing methods available.

The more common Auto Pay that debits your payment method on the day the bill is generated and an "Invoice Billing" option (with a $5 per month charge) that follows a more traditional billing date/ due date cycle.

As to seeing your pending charges before the bill is generated you can log into your Dashboard and see accumulated charges. Your routine service charges are ... always the same unless you change plan levels.

You can find your pending charges under the "unbilled activity" link:

[Shortcut]

Thank you for the  quick response, Gwalk. I was afraid that might be the case. I live too close to the edge, not to know ahead of time exactly how much my account will be debited before it comes out. Thanks for the information. I know now what I must do. A $5 per mo. charge is better than a $30 overdraft fee.

[Chris11]

Hi Shortcut,

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community! I hope Gwalk was able to clear this up for you. The way our billing is set up for auto pay can be confusing. On top of forward billing, the bill date is the date money is charged to your account. The actual due date is 10 days from that. It is set up this way so that if our system is unable to retrieve payment, our customers have those 10 days to pay before an interruption of service occurs. If it were the other way around being a day late on payment would stop service. Then to get it back there is a bit of a waiting period and I'm sure most customers would be annoyed by this. Although invoice billing is always a good option to go with as well. If you have anymore questions or concerns feel free to let me know.

Thank you,
Chris