As if the other customer reviews weren't bad enough let me add to the pile! I have NEVER in my life dealt with such a horrible and shady company!!! Do not sign up for HughesNet even if it your only option!!!
This is our story. My husband and I moved to a semi rural mountainous area of California. We were told that HughesNet was our only option for Internet service. My initial call to the customer service line (thru earthlink) was to India. I felt very very discouraged with this call because the man on the phone was speaking very fast and was very hard to understand. He kept trying to sell me packages and other add ons that I did not need. I explained to him that I wanted the fastest and most reliable service; and that I wanted to be able to stream hulu and Netflix through my blueray player. I very simply asked of this was a service they could provide, and he said yes no problem. He further went on to explain that he needed a credit card on file to secure the installation fees and that my card would not be charged that amount until the day of installation. I felt VERY weary of giving out my card number to him because the call was to India and it felt very unprofessional. I should have trusted my instincts. After giving all my information he told me someone would contact me in 3 business days to set up an installation time. When the installer called me I again felt a bit uncomfortable because it was not done in a professional manner and he seemed to be calling from his home. He set my installation date very quickly so I was pleased with that at the time. At that time he asked me if I had any questions and I told him that instead of the credit card they had on file I would like them to take out our installation fee from our debit card and take my credit card off file. He told me to call the customer service line and they would be able to help me. I did call that day and the woman removed my credit card information and replaced it with our debit card. I again asked her to confirm that my card would not be charged and she said yes. I also confirmed with her at that time the amount that would be charged on our debit card. I also confirmed with her that was the ONLY charge that would be taken out of the debit cars and we would be billed monthly for our services. She said yes. Once our service was installed we quickly realized that we were unable to stream ANY video at all!!! We even gave it a couple days and tried different times of the day to no avail. This was EXTREMELY frustrating since the service isn't exactly cheap and we were not given what was promised.
This leads me to the absolute most deplorable customer service experience my husband and I have EVER had in our lives! He called to speak to someone about the problems we were having and got the run around of his life! The woman he initially spoke to basically told him there was nothing he could do. Then after a lengthy conversation full of complaints and a request to talk to a supervisor she offered to upgrade our service so we would be able to download videos. My husband's frustrations grew because he had told her MULTIPLE times that we were told we could stream video and that's why we got this service. He continued to ask to speak to a supervisor and was put on hold MANY times and never helped any further. Another rep told him she couldn't cancel his service today at all and we needed to pay $170. (I'll get to the improper billing later! Can you believe this?!) Finally after being pushed around from rep to rep and on hold for a very long time the woman told my husband that her supervisor was unavailable and the computers were down. She told him she would call him back later in the day. He very specifically asked if they would be calling him back today with a solution and she confirmed that several times. No one called us back of course. That brings us to today. My husband called and had to basically start all over with a new rep!!! It didn't appear they had any of the previous call or complaint in their computer!!! After again getting the run around and demanding to speak to a supervisor he got on the line with a manager named Roland. After another very lengthy discussion he agreed to remove the monthly charges but still was insisting we pay the installation fee. At this point I think my husband is the most angry I have ever seen him! He explains to the manager once again that we did not receive the services we were promised and that he was not paying for anything. He asked to speak to Roland's supervisor and he told my husband no. He then asked for the corporate number and address to speak to someone else about this matter. Again, Roland refused to give him any further contacts. He then explained that they could do a "call review" and get back to us regarding the installation fee. My husband said if that was his only option then he would like to move forward with that process. He asked how long that would take and the manager could not give him any sort of time frame. At this time he told my husband he would have to call the sales dept. On his own and report this and gave him a case number and a phone number. My husband called the phone number given and it was to an EMT service in Washington!!! He then called the manager back and told him it was the wrong number. Roland told him it was the only number he had and that we would have to look it up on the Internet (which was just cancelled) ourselves.
This company is an absolute scam! I have never in my life dealt with such a horribly irresponsible customer service company! This is the worst experience of my life!
Now to the improper billing! I checked my credit card and I had a pending charge for $40. I have no idea why or what the amount was for. The first woman I spoke to told me that it wouldn't go thru but she could not remove it for me and also didn't know how long it would take to be removed from my statement. The second woman I spoke to said I would be sent a mail in rebate for the amount! I was never told of this charge and certainly not of any rebate. No one could explain to me what the charge was actually for. Our next issue with the billing was the charge of $170 they said we owed before we could close our account.initially they told us $99 for the installation and $9.95 for the first month service charge would be billed on the day of our installation. Since I switched the card to our debit card information I was expecting the roughly $110 to be taken out of our account on that day. Again let me tell you that I confirmed with the rep that this would be the only charge taken from the debit card! However they were trying to charge our debit card $170 instead of sending us a monthly bill for our services as I also confirmed would happen! That charge is wrong anyway, since our monthly service was supposed to cost $39.99 for the first three months and $59.99 after that!
I hope this is helpful for people and I wish I would have done more checking up of HughesNet before I got into this mess!
I will be reporting them to every agency I can and will continue to fight the charges!
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