I had DirecPC one way satellite internet service for five years. On October 6, I called to cancel my account. After over 2 hours on the phone and being hung up on once, the rep told me she finally found my account and cancelled it. Feeling uneasy about the experience, I also cancelled the credit card which Hughes Network Systems was automatically billing. I stopped using the service, disconnected the modem, and uninstalled the software.
On February 20, I received a letter that I had a past due balance of $139.32. I called Hughes and was told that I had a master account and a child account. The master account was closed on 10/6 but the child account remained active. I told him I only had one account, one service on one PC, and was only being billed for one account. He could see the record that I cancelled on October 6. I told him I had not used the service since that date.
He could see that this was Hughes' error. Nonetheless, he told me I owed the money. He told me if I wanted to dispute it, I had to write a letter stating all the facts and fax it to corporate, which I did. I waited and heard nothing. Fearing collection charges and damage to my credit, I decided to pay it just to get clear of this company. So..
I called and spent another hour on the phone. I again verified that all my accounts were cancelled, then attempted to pay by credit card. THEY EVEN HAD TROUBLE TAKING MY MONEY AT THIS POINT, saying the computer says The amount you are trying to collect exceeds the balance on this account. The rep told me it was a problem with my credit card. We tried another credit card and he got the same response. Finally he went to the main system and charged my card and took my money.
I feel Hughes stole my money for services they did not render. They knew it was a billing error but refused to put it right. This company is unethical, has horrible information systems, horrible customer service, and I will never, EVER, deal with Hughes again.
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