Poor Billing Practices and customer service

[Deb Sanford]

I have never in my life dealt with a company that withdraws the payment from your account on the day they send you your bill, which clearly states the due date is 10 days later, leaving you no time to dispute the charges or make sure you have enough funds in your account.

Also the two times I contacted customer service about this I was lied to or not given all the information. The first time the woman neglected to tell me that they would pro-rate my account because I wanted the payment pulled on the due date not the issue date, but all they did was change my billing period. The second time a different woman said she would send me an email with my invoice 10 days before it was pulled and I never got any email until today when they pulled the funds out of my account. Because of this I incurred $70 in overdraft charges on my bank account and received a measly $30 credit. But the biggest thing is that if you want to cancel your automatic withdrawal (which I never signed up for in the first place) you have to pay an additional $5 a month.

I am very disgusted with this company and their business practices and I will not recommend Hughesnet to anyone.

[Deb Sanford]

Yes I found all that out AFTER I had my account overdrawn. your people do not explain these things to the customer when they call. The first person said "we will debit your account on the 11th for your next bill, no problem" She never said my account would be prorated nor did she tell me it would be another month before this happened, hence the second overdraft.

But the main thing is I NEVER signed up for automatic payments. I was never asked and I did not authorize it. And the other thing that is not right is the salesman that I spoke with when I signed up never said that the account would be debited when the bill was issued. Your bills have an issue date and a due date, That is the day the bill is due to avoid late charges, we should have that 10 days to view the bill and contact customer service for an explanation if we are not happy with it.

No matter how you slice it up its still poor billing practices.

[Melissa6]

Hi Sarah, I'm not sure if your aware of it or not but your free year does not start till the end of your current contract. I found this out through an inquiry I'd sent to support on the issue.. I did not howevever know that it didn't include the lease fee, that sure is a bummer 😞

[Sarah1]

Now I can't access my invoices to check it out. But I still got the same charge as last month and the month before.
That doesn't sound good, Melissa

[Sarah1]

Finally got into seeing my bills, and I have been charged the service fee. 

[LaurelTreat]

Same thing happened to me. Did not sign up for auto pay but got unexpected withdrawal (for twice what I signed up for) the second month. So I requested a paper bill and get charged $5 a month for it. Which, since they don't provide actual paperless billing (ie they send you a bill in the mail with a due date) I do believe is illegal.

[Deb Sanford]

I'm not sure its illegal to do that but it surely isn't good for business. I do know if someone asks me about them I will give them the full rundown of my experience. My service has been great the last few months I've had it, but I will let them know about the billing issues.

[Warren]

Hi Deb,

We hoped to have answered your question regarding our billing protocols. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

-Warren