Approximately 3 weeks ago I ordered Hughes.net Sattelite as I am unable to obtain cable high speed internet in my area. At that time I was advised of a number things regarding Hughes.nets "POLICY", one of which was that "NO PAYMENTS WOULD BE TAKEN UNTIL THE DAY AFTER INSTALLATION AND ONLY ONCE THE SERVICE (SATTELITE) WAS WORKING" and "A 30 DAY MONEY BACK POLICY". I accepted the installation policy and signed up to be connected.
Last week (Tuesday the 15th of April) an installer arrived and, after some 4 hours, finally had the sattelite installed and "apparently" working.
From the beginning I found the connection slow and inconsistent (we were on a 1500kbps home pro plus plan) but found it to be better than dialup but no where near the stated speeds claimed by Hughes.net.
Around 7 hours after having the sattelite installed, my wife and I went back on the internet to discover that we could not connect to anything and continually received "SATTELITE IS BEING BLOCKED" error messages. I immediately contacted Hughes Technical Support to ascertain what the problem was and got through to an "out of country" person who I could barely understand. This person (a supposed technician) continually placed my call on hold while he (and I quote) had to check his trouble shooting guides. Eventually a number of changes were made to my connection resulting in everything being WORSE than when I first called. Finally I was put through to a LEVEL 3 Technician who spoke english and was based in the US.
After spending around 2 hours on the phone with this Level 3 Tech he informed me of a number of issues, all relating to the installation of the satellite. Firstly, we were installed at the incorrect mhz of 990 instead of 1190 (which may explain the slowness); that our signal strength was only 15 and fluctuating instead of being at the normal of 56/57 and finally, that an error message stating that the sattelite had nto been locked in came up.
Obviously these problems are all related to the installation and Hughes net did arrange for the installatioin to be corrected (we are still waiting for that to happen by the way).
These problems were all identified within 8 or 9 hours of the sattelilte being installed and reported to Hughes.net within the sme time frame; HOWEVER, Hughes had already taken the payment for the satellite and installation depsite it NOT WORKING at the time or any other time since then. Hughes.net has refused to refund the money and ONLY claimed they will offer a CREDIT on the service DEPSITE THEIR 30 DAY MONEY BACK POLICY. They have also claimed that they cannot control the installation process, alluding to them not being responsible for it.
As of todays date, we staill have no Hughes.net and Hughes still has our money ($550 approx).
I had heard and read stories about Hughes.net's technical support and customer care and VERY FEW of them were positive. I take a lot of such reports with a grain of salt but am now inclined to believe that Hughes.net is only intersted in one thing - getting your money and running so to speak.
Hughes.net appears to not want to held accountable for anything once they have your money and appears to "palm" responsibility onto everyone else. They refuse to refund in accordance with theri policies and they offer NO effectual after sales support.
In conclusion - buyer beware, if you have an alternative, use it. Hutghes.net cannot be trusted and should not be trusted at this point
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