I went online on the 1/03/2016 to make my payment for this month. I have manually paid my bill since opening the account in November of 2004. This time, though, when I clicked on the Hughesnet link (as opposed to the Hughesnet Gen4 link) in the Customer Care page, it took me to a totally different page than it always did. Evidently the old page is kaput and you have to use the new one. Okay, no biggie.
So I have to register with this new page, which is not unusual. I did so, and everything went fine. Under the billing section, the only option I could find was "pay now". I clicked on it, figuring it would take me to a page where I could enter the payment info as I always had, but it did not. Instead, it told me I had no payment type, so I had to input one. I did so, then clicked pay now, and everything seemed to be fine. The only problem was that it didn't give me any type of payment confirmation number, like it did for every single one of my payments for the last eleven years.
I then checked with my bank account, and sure enough, everything was fine and the payment went through (with the ubiquitous $1 charge they use to check the account, which drops off after ten days). I then checked back on the Hughesnet page, where it said the payment was still owed. What???!!!! I then called Hughesnet and was told that the payment had indeed gone through, and it was just that the website needed to update. I also was told that I was now set up for automatic billing. Um...huh? I hadn't clicked on anything that set me up for automatic billing, nor had I given permission for them to do so. She started saying something that I couldn't understand, after which I just told her to remove me from automatic billing, as I had not signed up for it. She did so. After she said a bunch of other stuff I could barely make out, I simply asked her if my payment went through and if I was taken off automatic billing, and she answered yes to both. She then gave me the reference number and that was the end of that.
So now it appears that I cannot make a standard, manual payment online anymore like I have for the last eleven years, as if I do, my payment info will automatically be kept and I will automatically be signed up for automatic billing (a lot of automatics I didn't ask for, nor want). Not only that, but there is no longer an option to be able to go and look at the past payments I've made, nor do I get payment confirmation codes. I simply want to make manual payments like I used to. Is that so hard? Thanks Hughesnet, you are doing a great job (sarcasm, if you can't tell).
