Iggest ripoff! We lived in the country in oregon and had used dial-up for a year. We had DiRECWAY satellite tv for 6 months and it worked quite well even through some thick heavy clouds and seemingly nonstop oregon winter rain. We had great reception and only lost reception when there was an obvious walloping storm right outside our door. We saw the infomercial about DiRECWAY highspeed internet boasting the highest speeds 50xs faster than dsl or cable. We thought it was abit expensive, but figured that if the satellite tv connection worked so well then this company must have a powerful system. I had just recently spent $6000 to build 6 websites and time was wasting to publish them. It was too difficult to work on them with dial-up so we thought we would give the satellite a try. Don't get me wrong we didn't expect it to work awesome in the oregon rain especially since the fine print that was provided after it had been installed and activated said they don't guarantee speeds due to weather or anything else for that matter.
Never was I presented with any contract to sign or agreement to click.in fact I remember the installer rushing through a bunch of web documents on my computer during the install and clicking a bunch of stuff "chuckling" and saying that "it was just a bunch of customer service crap" and "configurations". The installer also forced me to buy a power surge protector for $60 or "DiRECWAY wouldn't allow him to plug it in". So... For $99 a month it was never faster than our dial-up was, would go out 2-3 times a day no matter what the weather was doing (in fact on the clearest of days we had more problems with it than in heavy rains) I had called tech support several times unplug it wait a minute then reboot "your good to go now". Then I would say "but what about may slow speeds?" Of course they would run me through their speed test and say "well it seems to be working just fine, look at those numbers". But the "numbers" meant nothing as a reference to the snail speeds I was getting all the time.
After many calls like this one I was refered to the advanced tech support team and felt for a moment that I had hit the jackpot so to speak and I was on my way to fixing the problems of speed and connectivity. Nope! Nothing changed except the "secret" phone number that the advanced tech acted like he was "hooking me up with" when I went to call him back. So then I was set up with another advanced tech went through the same things then I was told my problems were due to my macintosh system and that "I should go buy a regular PC to use with their system". What!!! The next day I called the billing dept. And said that I was very dissatisfied.
Through the entire 4 months thus far, the service has not worked, has to be rebooted 2-5 times a day, the speeds at best were slower than my old dial up connection, I've wasted way too many hours to count on the cell phone which ended up costing me a fortune as well. I went on to tell "Tangela" at the billing dept. That I feel I'm being totally ripped off and was considering canceling my service she informed me of the "$756 early cancelation fee that I agreed to at the time of installation". I said "I never agreed to anything like that, in fact this is the first I have heard of such a ridiculous fee". She informed me that "if I return the modem they would refund $300 of that $756". She said"do you want to go ahead and cancel service today?" I said "no I couldn't possibly afford the disconnection fee at this time I will call in a few months to take care of disconnecting my service, thanks and good day!"
As soon as I got off the phone my service had been disconnected, but this was different than the previous connectivity "crashes" I had experienced all through the 4 months of service. It would not reboot and wouldn't even connect to their bogus speed test page. I was way frustrated and at this point I had gone way over my alloted cell phone minutes with their 30-45 minute violin elevator music hold sessions.
We decided to just have our ground line reactivated and reup with our old dial-up provider, and just give up on the satellite which entailed sacrificing $99 a month to Hughes Network Systems, Inc./DiRECWAY plus $16 a month for the dial up service. Then I received a bill about a week later for a $756 disconnection fee. I called the billing dept and asked to talk with "Tangela". She wasn't available. I said "why am I being charged to disconnect when I exspressedly said not to disconnect me even though I'm discruntled as I can't afford the disconnect fee." she took a look at the notes taken about the call I had with "Tangela", and verified that it was noted that "I did not want to be disconnected, but for some reason the disconnect still went through, thats funny"she says. "No it's not" I said. So she sets me up with yet another tech support person to reactivate my account and waive the $756 fee. The tech trys to rush me through a bunch of agreements to terms of service and I insisted on reading them throughly as I already felt they were trying to screw me over. Then I see why the tech is rushing me.
On one of the many "click to agree pages their is a term of contract that states you agree to give them $700 some odd dollars if you choose to disconnect before your one year contract is fulfilled. I said "wait a minute here I will not agree to this." The tech says "well I can't waive the $756 fee if you don't comply with all terms of the contract." "Well isn't that a catch 22" I said. "So either you agree or we need to end this phone call she said." "I do not agree" I said. Luckily when I began the contract with them I requested invoice billing and instructed them to destroy my credit card number that they so sneakily got from me the first time I called to request service. So they couldn't automaticly charge my account. Then called billing back and argued with them about the situation they wouldn't budge and insisted it was "agree to the terms or $756" nothing else. So I said "at least give me the adress to return your modem." She said "we will send you a package preadressed to send it back in. You should receive it in 7-10 days via Fedex." It never came. We were forced to move in town to get on dsl so we can build our web sites, and have received 4 bills ($756) from them since.
Just yesterday I recieved a notice from a collection agency trying to recover $756 for Hughes Network System, Inc. I am pretty furious as I have spent the last year cleaning up my credit to start this web based business with my 6 websites that I purchased over 8 months ago now. Any advice for me, please. I've already started a credit monitoring service so please don't solicit. And right after this entry I plan on going to the BBB. So there you have my experience. It seems to me that this service provider is actually a very calculated methodical con-artist. I wish I knew about this rip off website before I requested their services. Seems alot of people having the exact same experience with this corporation"Hughes Network System, Inc./DiRECWAY"
Troy
cottage grove, Oregon
U.S.A.
0 comments