I need a recording of my sales call that proves they were transparent about the 24 month contract. Never was I pointed to the user agreement, or told I was signing up for a 24-month commitment. I have zero emails confirming this commitment.
Without this evidence, I will be filing a complaint to the Fed. Trade Commission that HughesNet is misleading and predatory. The commitment is not made clear, it is not documented to individuals clearly, the service provided is intermittent and does not match their commitment to me, and now they are trying to charge an early termination fee. Sounds like fraudulent practice to me and I believe the evidence on my end and within this community will verify that for the Fed. Trade Commission.
The agreements are here: https://legal.hughes.com/
The Fed. Trade Comm. may point you to the legal document that pertains to accounts that were opened during a specific term. The documents all state: "PLEASE READ THIS ENTIRE SUBSCRIBER AGREEMENT (“SUBSCRIBER AGREEMENT” OR “AGREEMENT”) CAREFULLY, AS IT CONSTITUTES A BINDING CONTRACT BETWEEN YOU AND HUGHES NETWORK SYSTEMS, LLC (“HUGHES”). BY APPLYING FOR OR ESTABLISHING AN ACCOUNT WITH HUGHES, YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT."
(The all-caps paragraph is from the agreement itself). It is your responsibility to read these things.
If your sales call is still available, the Hughesnet reps on this site can pull it up and hear both sides of the conversation.
I believe they send a welcome email that contains information. You may still have it.
In any case, the reps here are very helpful. They're here M-F, approximately during business hours.
Good luck, and I hope you hear from the reps soon.
The best they're going to be able to do is a sales call review. However, if it's been more than three or four months, that sales call may no longer be available. They don't provide recordings of the sales calls to subscribers.
If that sales call review shows that they did not, in fact, read the disclaimer, or all parts of it, you may have recourse. For reference, near the end of the sales call they read a disclaimer, which contains specifics about the service, including the 24 month commitment, and they then ask if the prospective subscriber agrees to what was read. If "yes", the sign up continues. If "no", the sign up is not completed.
Edit: For reference, you can read the Subscriber Agreement here (on the site maratsade linked to). It lays out the parameters of the service, including in "1.1 SPEED CLAIMS AND DISCLAIMERS."