I, in good faith, signed up for HughesNet satellite internet service. Unfortunately, I didn't do enough homework on this company. It took more than 30 days (the ONLY free out from their service) to find out all the bad things about this company, but problems began quickly after their 30 day guarantee period.
The first was the shock of the automatic payment charged to my credit card (that was required to supply to them in order to supposedly verify identity and creditworthiness). I immediately called to get this stopped, since the last thing I want to do is pay interest on something that is already overpriced. I was then informed, after cancelling automatic payments, that there would be a $5.00 fee for the privilege of having them bill me each month. I refused (and still refuse) to pay this ripoff fee that I was never informed about. I was then told that it is in the user agreement that I signed. Well, again, I never saw a user agreement, not to mention never signed anything. The system was installed when I was not at home, and NOONE signed anything.
The next was even better. One evening, while attempting to just check my email, it took over 30 minutes just to access MSN hotmail. Now understand, the system already runs slower than dial-up at 4 to 8 times the price, and goes out when it rains, but 30 minutes to load a web page in totally ridiculous. I contacted customer service, and was informed that on the previous evening (within the last 24 hours), our 'Fair Access Agreement' limit was reached, which is 200 mb per 24 hour period, resulting in a "slight decrease in connectivity". I'm sorry, 30 minutes for a web page is NOT slight. Again, another thing that I was never informed of, but, according to customer service, it is included in the user agreement that I never received nor signed.
To show how little this 200mb is, my daughter tried to watch an episode of Heroes that we missed, and only got to see about 3/4's of it before it cut off and would not allow further access. That is also less than 1 CD if downloading music. When attempting to cancel this outragiously expensive, slow, unreliable service with horrible customer service (one Representative told me that there was NOONE above her), I was informed that there would be a $400 early termination fee, since I went past the 30 day trial guarantee. Again, in the user agreement.
Every complaint that I have voiced to this company remains unanswered. They send you ridiculous answers to questions and when you follow those directions, other reps tell you the previous one was wrong and that is not what you are to do.
If you are stuck out in the middle of rural USA as I am, with only the choice of Dial-Up or HughesNet, make the smart choice, choose Dial-up.
Oh, by the way. HughesNet advertises itself as High Speed Internet, yet, it is so slow that for those who want high speed to play games online, HughesNet is NOT an option. XBox Live is not available because the 360 system checks internet connection speeds, and HughesNet never passes the test. Same thing applies to PS3. Wii has problems, but occasionally connects.
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