HughesNet Reviews

The tech support is a joke. They take you to a site and run a test that always comes up with some number under something, and they say "That's okay." I don't care what the number says. (They won't tell what it means.) All I know is everything is damn slow and for $70 a month! These folks are criminals. The other thing I hate is tech support in India. I love all peoples, except Hughes' people and have nothing but good to say about the Indian people. But I cannot understand what they are saying. It's me, I'm sure. But they should have an option to speak with someone without an accent. Get Hughes only as a last resort.

Our bill was up to $1,500.00 plus when I finally told them in panic to stop the service and get it off my computer. This is crazy. They wanted to offer me $20.00 per month for a year off my bill. I said that didn't come close to resolving the problem. So I no longer have internet and they tried to bill my account for the money they say we owe. I had to close my bank account to be sure they can't charge me that amazingly crazy amount for three months of service. The service for a while was okay, I don't say great, but okay since we have no other choices. I don't know what happened, but watch out for those tokens!

It takes about an hour to complete a service call with Hughes Net to get them to check the performance so of course, who is going to repeatedly waste their time making a lot of calls? I checked their plan offerings as of April 2012 and was surprised to see the top plan offered is now a 2Mbit plan for $110/month. I chatted with Hughes Net and asked for a credit of $80 for every month I have paid that much more than their top speed plan. I was only offered $20/month for 12 future months. Since DSL had just become available, I suspended Hughes Net and plan to contest any contract cancellation fees. I now pay $30/month for 1.5Mbit verifiable service.

When they attempted to withdraw from my account early and it was returned back, they started blocking my service (partially). They have interrupted many communications of an important nature and caused a lot of misery for me for no reason. Their phone personnel have been rude and argumentative. I always pay my bill, and I do like their service. It is probably the best internet service I've ever had in the last 15 years! But I get the feeling they are bullies. I am 69 years old, disabled and retired. I want them to please get this straightened out. Thank you!

If you can avoid these Hughes Network, please do. The picture is this. Hughes Network promises speeds up to 1.0 Mbps for $59 99 a month. That speed will be reached, if the amount of people on your cell (group of people accessing the internet through that particular spot on the satellite) does not exceed a certain amount. When the cell amount is maximized, new customers are supposed to be routed to a different (less populated cell). But in today's economy, why honor their commitment to the customer when they can squeeze more people on an already overloaded network instead of opening a new/different cell?

If it's easier to explain, the price of canned tuna is the same over the past years. It's just the size of the can that got smaller. People express their dissatisfaction with the big government. Well, here's an example of big business. They just don't care. Never give them an auto payment credit card; they cannot make you pay for what they did not give you. It`s called reverse theft of services.

In the past few months, we have been losing service and slow service. When we called and complained to them, they said they will credit our account for 1/2 the cost because they was having Sat issues, a sun burst. Yeah right.

Now up to date, we were still having slow and getting disconnected, unreliable service. So they said, the Sat we have is outdated so we will need to update all our equipment. There will be a $10 a month rental fee. We told them why we should pay a rental fee when it is at their end and our equipment is still good. They said they will not charge us the rental fee and they will give us a full month credit. When we got our bill, we were charged $117.00.

Well, here goes another 2 hours on the phone with them trying to get this straight. I have about 10 reference numbers ok, so then she said, “I will credit you $130.00.” Well, this is yet to be seen and needless to say, we are out looking for new service and we will be telling them to go jump in a lake. I will be canceling my credit card so they cannot charge me and steal money out of our account. That is stealing when they say and charge you for bogus items. They should be shut down.

I got news for you Hughes Net, I will be calling your direct line in the US everyday until I get something done about my service! I am not paying one more cent for a service I am not getting! If you don't have Hughes Net, do yourself a favor and never even think about getting them. For those of us who are stuck through the contract, go to their FB page and complain and call as often as possible. Call the Better Business Bureau, the FCC and local and national news networks! Flood them with our daily problems until they fix it for us all!

So, I again called customer no-service to verify the fax # I was given and after several more tries, I called again to get an address that I could just mail it to. I was told that it had to be faxed and there was no address. I'm still trying and I’m still getting a busy result. I'm so flustered right now. They have simply stolen our money. I refuse to double pay because they have crappy record keeping skills and don't offer a way that works (their fax machine) to resolve the problem.

Then I made the mistake of trying to get things straightened out by calling Hughes "Customer Service." (Boy, now there's an oxymoron, if there ever was one!). I ended up trying to communicate with outer Bombay, India. Since when does an honest American company hide their operations in another country? My contract will end this year, and I'll guarantee you that I will not renew!

I have tried to get along with these people, but they only recognize their demands for payment. Actually having to do something to earn their outrageous fees is out of the question! I spent every day for three solid weeks, attempting to get either accommodation or service. I got neither. Unfortunately, it was at this point that I suffered my first heart attack.

Hughes obviously feels that they can outlast any complaints, because there are new fools, idiots, and suckers out there to take the place of the old customers who wise up and leave. Personally, I hope Hughes goes bankrupt, because their service is pathetic and they don't care. Negotiated credits never appeared and neither did the service. If you decide to do business with these people, you are a total fool! Go elsewhere! Good luck! If you do business with Hughes Net, you'll be needing it.

After another 30 frustrating minutes and a lot of dead silence while she consulted with supervisor, it appears $125 was for repair truck service but the rep could not email me an invoice (since I could not open one on Hughes website due to low availability of bandwidth), but if I would call back in two hours for tech support and start over. This was as bad as Hughes tech support that we suffered through in January when suddenly there was no internet connectivity, all the usual ** checks with router, plugs, etc. were done and after several calls, we were told that for $125 plus parts, a service truck would be dispatched and to call back for details in 24 hours. The service crew realigned the satellite dish, but the hassle in going through Hughes to get them was painful. Please American ingenuity, someone, somewhere, provide Hughes with some real competition and end their stranglehold on the small town/rural consumer who has no other choice!

That by any reasonable person’s stand point would mean there would not be a bill due until March. But instead, at the beginning of February, they claimed I owed them $94? That’s strange, when in addition; my bill was only $46 a month. But according to their records, they are right. I still didn't feel I owed it but I needed internet and reluctantly paid. And then, on 2/29, they charge my card an additional $166 and change!

I called. He reminded me that we had discussed some time ago about upgrading the account because I was not getting the service I was expecting or promised. So, without knowledge or notice they chose to charge my card for this new plan, $97, and the closest as I could get for an explanation on the remaining $87 was a transfer cost? Now, I see no reason to pay more for something that is already not providing me with what I need.

The call ended with me telling them to fix my account, to put it back, and to refund my money, which they still have not. I am still experiencing the same slow and continuously interrupted service. Warning to shoppers: This is not an internet service provider which will allow for those who do just about everything online including any type of video watching or game playing. Regardless of what they tell you. They are now trying to charge my card again, claiming I owe them another bill?!

Perhaps, I could have lived with the screw ups if the satellite service actually worked anywhere near as well as it was advertised. Our service is extremely slow, pages time out, service is not available at times, and several large websites such as American Express don't load at all. After numerous calls to Hughes, I've simply concluded they are not an honorable company. Now we are switching to another satellite company and Hughes is charging us $940 to terminate our contract ($340 for a termination fee and $600 for a lease termination fee). All the things other people have written in their complaints on this website are similar to what I've experienced. If you're considering installing a Hughes dish, I recommend you find another company.

Over the last two years, I have been experiencing degraded service and when I called the Hughes technical service. I was told that a technician needed to come out and would cost (first time) $39 or (second time) $29. I have been paying a maintenance fee of $5 per month for the last 7 years. In November 2011, my service degraded to the point that I had to use my neighbor’s dialup connection to complete banking etc. Hughes finally sent out a technician to "adjust" the antenna. After this, I basically lost all service.

In January, I submitted a complaint via BBB. In response to this complaint, Hughes constantly called me with a number of "ploys" to resolve my issue. I finally agreed to an equipment upgrade which would "grandfathered" into plan if I signed a 2 year contract. When the OKC contractor came out to replace the equipment, he told me that the transmitter was shorted and non-functional.

Today, I noticed that Hughes charged me for the upgrade and when I contacted the billing department, they could not figure out what the problem was. I have submitted another complaint to the Washington Area BBB and plan to file a complaint with the FCC. This company provides a critical service to the rural community that the local phone companies won't, but then nickel and dimes their customers to death. My life in rural Oklahoma is equivalent to the Third World. I know as I lived in the Third World for 12 years while employed by the USG. Someone needs to stand up for the rural Oklahomans.

So my husband Cory called 3/8/12 to cancel the service and they do not want to refund us our money. When we asked to speak to someone higher than the manager, we were told there was no one else we could talk to. This company is a rip off and does not follow what they say they will do. At this point, I am going to be out over $200.00 and they want me to ship the equipment back to them at my expense. Not acceptable for something that is not my issue, it is their issue.

We called customer service to cancel the order and, after waiting on hold for over 45 minutes, they said they would send a box and a prepaid shipping label to us. But we would be responsible for getting on the roof and removing the equipment ourselves or pay an additional $100 for someone to come back out to our house to remove it. Once they received the equipment, we would receive a refund of $240 of the $366 we were charged because don't you know they charged us for 3 whole days of service, even though it never worked! Plus, of course the charge for the installation that we wouldn't get back.

The order was cancelled on January 16 and now it is March 5 and we are still waiting on the shipping label and box. We've called no less than 15 times and they have lost our box twice with no shipping confirmation or routing number to confirm anything. They keep trying to get us to pay for the shipping ourselves and they will 'supposedly' credit our account the shipping costs after we fax them a copy of the shipping receipt. Yet, a credit will do us no good, considering we closed our account and do not want their service. How does that even make sense? I've now been on hold for 45 minutes and have been transferred 3 times. They are trying to open another ticket and send yet another box to us. But of course it will take another 15 days to arrive! Nothing takes 15 days to ship, especially not via FedEx or UPS. HughesNet is a scam! They just want us to spend more money out of pocket and I really have no faith they will ever refund us for the service, the setup costs, or the shipping. Nothing has been resolved up to this point.

This is what’s wrong with companies in America. Hire people in the USA, keep our people working, and keep customer service where we, as Americans, can understand what is being said to us and they understand what is being said to them. I had my service for 2 months, and wow, that was six months too long! They put these satellites in way up places and then tell you to go take it down and send it in when you cancel your service. The speeds are so slow dial up would have been better. Overall I am so dissatisfied and angry that I have been taken and treated this way, but am so glad it’s done and over.

I called the Geek Squad, who came out promptly and couldn't do anything because it was a Hughes equipment problem and told me I need to have them out. So back on the phone with them, they tell me that after only having the equipment for 7 months; it is no longer covered under warranty for it ran out after 6 months. I will have to pay $125 for a technician to come out and work on their crappy equipment. No call from technician yet, still without internet except spotty AT&T service on my 3G iPad, and counting the days (and service charges left on my 2 year contract).

Oh, the faster service promise - never happened. Don't believe the promises.

We purchased a new home in December of 2011, I called HughesNet on December 19th 2011, to have my service moved from my old home and set up at my address. This is the first time I got to experience HughesNet's horrible, and I mean horrible customer service. I spent 2 hours on the phone that day and got nothing other than transferred from one place to another and at the end, I was back to square one. I was so aggravated, I didn't call back again for another week, this time I was on the phone for 3 hours! At the end of the 3 hours, I still had not got a hold of anyone that could do a simple move for me, something I had no problem with from my TV company or phone company.

I called back again multiple times after that with no results, just some call center in India that the employees are extremely untrained and they don't understand you and you don't understand them. I actually asked for a phone number to a call center in the USA, they don't have one! I called back again in mid January and was told that I could not be transferred to someone who could help me until I paid my bill that was just generated 3 days before, I haven't even received it in the mail yet! I called again, and again, and again, finally, the beginning of February, I got a hold of someone and they set up the move, my installer called and informed me that it was going to cost $350.00 to move my service. I asked HughesNet when I signed up, if it will cost anything to move and they said "no, one free move." So I had to cancel my install and call HughesNet to see why I was being charged, surprise they have a move program... you just have to sign up for another 12 months of crappy internet service and customer support. With this being the only internet service I could get at my home, I signed up for another 12 months, some internet is better than none, I thought.

On February 27th, 2 1/2 months after the first phone call to HughesNet, a tech came to my house to set up my service. After walking around my yard for a little while, he came and told me that we get zero reception where we live, and that I would have to call and cancel my service and it wouldn't cost me anything. Later that night, I called to cancel just to find out that if you move and you don't get reception you still have to pay an early termination fee?! I have moved and if I don't get cell service, I automatically am let out of my contract with no fee?! Another screwing from HughesNet?! So I explained to the lady everything I have already said and to be "real generous", they had not made me pay for the 2 1/2 months I have lived at my new address and not had service and they were going to take one month's bill off my fee and charge me the rest of the fee to my debit card in 24 hours? I am just speechless, I have gotten screwed over and over by this company.

The customer support is zero, you might as well be talking to someone deaf and blind and why would I ever recommend this company to a family member or friend, or if I moved to where I did get HughesNet signal, I would never get it, I have paid, and paid well $94.00 a month for terrible service and a real nightmare! So now they are billing me $160.72 in the mail and I just feel, after all I have been through, that it was just another smack in the face, I don't think I should have to pay a fee.

I was afraid to even watch them install it, and just crossed my fingers that they would not fall and sue me. When he got it installed, and was connecting to their main site, it timed out several times, and he almost could not connect. He also told me that the signal strength was 1 point away from not being acceptable, even by them, but didn't adjust it or anything, telling me that its overcast, and on a clear day it will be better. Once they left, I looked at my bank account, and they had charged my card that day for $375.29! Giving them the benefit of the doubt, I said nothing, used it for 2 weeks, and it was never faster than dial-up. Not one day! I called them and explained that the tech had even told me it was pointed wrong, but would likely work. I asked if they could adjust it. They told me absolutely not, and walked me through testing it. Earlier that day, I had done their speed test, and it came back 6.1 seconds on the average. When they did it, it came back 0.48 seconds every time. After the test, they proceeded to tell me that it was my fault, and that my computer must be the problem.

My computer was a one month old Vaio laptop, with 2.6 ghz dual core processor, and 4g RAM. I use this computer just fine on any wireless. I always have, and still do. So in good faith, I had them upgrade my account to their best plan for $109 per month. I tried it for one more week, and it did not change one single bit. It seemed exactly like the $79 service I had originally. After that week, I called to cancel and get a refund (mind you it has only been 3 weeks at this point, Jan 31 to Feb 23). The rep just kept trying to keep me as a customer, and would not listen to me. After some time, she finally offers to do a "complimentary overhaul" to tweak the service to work better (they did not have this service a week ago when I asked for it). I declined, as I was already fed up with all of the lies and cheating. I told her I wanted a complete refund and that I have only been here 3 weeks, and it should be no problem. She just kept arguing and throwing policies at me, telling me that all they can refund is the $200 for the equipment, and I have to take it down myself, and ship it to them. Yeah right! Remember the dangerous place they put it on? I will not be caught dead climbing a ladder where they put it, and I have been up and down ladders my entire life!

We went back and forth for some time on this matter, as she just refused to be in any way helpful. I told her that she was asking me to put my safety at risk in a huge way, and there must be another way. She kept regurgitating the same response. I finally demanded to speak to her supervisor. I had to demand this over 6 times, before she finally put me on hold, acting like she was talking with a supervisor. When she came back, it was the same story as before (clearly showing that she never spoke to anyone), and told me the supervisor was busy. After going back and forth again for some time, I demanded yet again to speak to a supervisor. Reluctantly, and not without arguing profusely, she did the same thing. When she came back, she had exactly the same response, and I mean word for word, that she gave the first time she "spoke to the supervisor". I just kept demanding supervisor, and not even letting her speak, until she did at this point, because she was clearly lying. She "spoke to the supervisor" three more times, each time the exact wording, as if she had to memorize it when she was hired. Finally, I spoke with a man named Robert, who claimed to be a supervisor.

Calmly, I explained my situation start to finish, as I have had to do a few times in the past with other companies. Usually, the supervisor will try to resolve the issue, even if it means bending a policy or two to keep the customer happy. Not Robert, he just kept telling me I had to dismantle it myself, and ship it to them. He told me that if I want them to take it down, they will charge me $100, and I still have to ship it, or I could find and call a private tech of my choosing, if I wanted it to be cheaper. He said the tech (who brought the dish to my property in his truck himself) could not take the dish to them, and I would have to ship it, even if I pay $100 to have it taken off of my house! I stood my ground until I've had enough lies and deceit to fill a lake, and finally asked for a supervisor above him. He kept trying to push his "policy" on me, refusing to let me speak to anyone above him, until I was so fed up, I told him I was going to call my lawyer the second I hang up, and it is his last chance.

I gave him the name, address, and phone of my lawyer, so he knew I was not bluffing. All of the sudden, he wants to "speak to higher management", to see what other options he can give me. When he came back on the phone, it was clear he had just done what the original rep did in the first place, and never spoke with anyone. He tells me he will have a tech remove it for free, but i still have to pay to ship it. By this time, I was tired and over this situation. I agreed to his offer, and this is what I get, free removal of the dish, refund for $200, and I pay to ship the thing to them. When I finally hung up, I looked at my phone, and found I had been on the line for 1 hour 21 minutes! Are you kidding me? After that, I found this site, and others, and on the first one Hughes Net had 548 bad reviews, and 158 good ones, just in the last 6 months! All the other review sites had basically the same reports. One of the complaints suggested a class action suit, which I think is absolutely necessary, given this company's track record.

Please, if anyone is a good lawyer, and can put something like that together, do it. You will have my full support, and by the looks of it, the support of thousands of other people as well. My email is **. This company needs to be shut down, and that is all there is to it! One person cannot do this alone. There needs to be class action! Someone with the power to do so, please take action. I don't know the first thing about this sort of thing, but you will have my full support, start to finish, on this one. Hughes Net doesn't have internet, they have inter-not.

So I cancelled and after several calls in to their office to fix it, I was forced to take the 30 day cancel guarantee. Long story short, I was on the phone with them for several hours begging them to just let me cancel and after several hours of badgering me, I just had to say again please cancel my account and hung up on them. I found out after talking with them today on the phone a few days later, that they finally canceled my account but I was shocked to see that they actually charged me for the activation fee and the first month of service, $99 plus $49.95.

After talking to them several times, they refuse to credit my card back. And now I am so upset that I even gave them my card # when I ordered the service as they make everyone do. That should be against the law to take a person’s bank card and bill it without authorization.

Worse, upgrading meant I was billed for a more expensive service, but they never stopped billing me at my old rate too. So I was being double billed and the money was drawn straight from my account. When I caught the double billing, it was the run around until finally being told they could not fully reimburse me for the double billing because there was no way to prove I was not using the old service and the new service at the same time! The new service required a different modem, so it is hard to imagine how I could have kept using the old service. It is painfully obvious they are just double billing me, but would not fully correct the error. This is obviously a deliberate scam to rip off the customer.

They also sell you on a rebate when you get new service, but be forewarned; actually getting the rebate is a real pain. You have to go to several different websites, get the secret form, and then mail it (can't do it on line) to the secret address in Maine along with photocopies of past paid bills. They make it difficult because I'm sure anyone even slightly busy doesn't have the time to figure all this out for a hundred bucks. Avoid them if you can!

Bottom line: apparently the District Attorney gets the attention of these guys. Good luck to all of you who have been ripped off by this horrible company. I have forwarded this link to the District Attorney's office to show them just how corrupt Hughes is. Hopefully, this will help some of you. Don't give up! Fight for what is rightfully yours!

I was assured profusely by some guy over in Bombay that this would not happen. That was the beginning of December 2011. I just checked my bank account online (February 2012) and guess what?! HughesNet deducted $108.25 ($8.25 tax). After 3 calls where I was promptly put on hold for 10 minutes each, I tried online chat. The "reply" box I was trying to type in was so slow and difficult to type in that the customer service rep kept asking if I was still online. That was just plain weird. I was told to fax the de-install receipt to them and they'll investigate it. I can't access my old account online to remove my bank info (had auto payment), and customer service reps are useless even when you can understand them. This may end up being another $100 and 3 hours of my life I'm never getting back. This is without a doubt the worst company I've ever dealt with. Period.

Apparently, they had made a mistake and had me down as purchasing the dish rather then leasing it and also did not give me a credit for the installation. Rather than reversing the charges, they said I had to wait 5 to 7 days for them to evaluate the recorded call when I setup the installation. This large amount caused my account to be overdrawn and they said there was nothing they could do. I have now canceled my account and I am now battling to get my money back. Do not do business with this company. There is absolutely no reasoning with them. You will be talking to some overseas that you can even understand!

Living in Rural NC, I had 2 options which are 56k Modem or Hughesnet Satellite boasting 1.5 MBS. I chose the latter. Hughesnet promised connection speed of upwards of 1.5 mbs is a joke, the best I ever had was 974 kbs and always had error messages of "web acceleration error" couldn’t rely on it to do anything time sensitive. My kids had to go to someone else’s house to do their online collage courses. I also had to contend with FAP [not so] Fair Access Policy, that limits your daily allowance to 450 mbs a day. This has only recently been increased to 1 GB a day.

I have never been able to stream a movie because if I did I would go over my daily limit and be punished for 24 hours with even worse download speeds than I already had. Or I could buy a token for $10 to restore my service, sounds like a bunch of crooks to me. Calling customer service brings you to an outsourced company in India and the language barrier only further aggravates the poor quality of service. I wish I had a way of billing Hughesnet for all the time my internet connection failed or was so slow, that watching grass grow would have been faster. This company sucks.

Everything you read in post below has happened to me also. I can so relate it is frustrating living in Rural America and feeling you only have one choice and that choice no matter how much it sucks is all you got, and to top it off I paid $80 per month for this crappy service. But now I do have a choice VIASAT a new company and a new Satellite launched Oct of 2011 just beginning to sell now, January 2012.

ViaSat Promises 12-Mbit/s Satellite Broadband starting at $50/Mo PCMAG article Jan 5, 2012 see link http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2398450,00.asp

I said that I had only 2 options, I should have said three 56k modem, Hughesnet Satellite or its rival WildBlue Satellite (wild blue had almost identical prices and service speed of up to 1.5 mbs) but now ViaSat has Acquired WildBlue Communications and looks to reposition WildBlue as Higher end Service Offering to deliver its broadband service through ViaSat-1, a single Ka-band satellite with 140 Gbits/s of available bandwidth. It promises to cover 75 percent of the United States, including Alaska and Hawaii, plus Canada. Long live VIASAT! and the end to Hughesnet.

Now I do fear one last problem with Hughesnet, the cancelation process I have read in other posts that they continue to charge your credit card even after you cancel and that if you don't return their equipment within 45 days you will be charged $300 on your credit card (the sad thing is you have to wait for them to ship a prepaid return Label that they tend to forget to send you). Upon calling the customer service, you have long wait times and the language barrier problems, and empty apologizes. in the end your credit card gets billed anyway for $300.

I hope that I do not have to go through this but am prepared. I have cancelled my credit card so they do not have access to my card and make any unjustified charges. And when I get my final bill, l I will get a prepaid visa card and load it with just enough to pay that bill (you can buy these at Wal-Mart) so Hughesnet will not get anything more than they deserve. Also, all my phone conversations will be recorded and documented. My last day with Hughesnet is tomorrow, Feb 2nd 2012, and they don't even know it yet. I am so happy wish me luck and do yourself a favor switch to VIASAT by way of WildBlue at 1-877-362-7244.

I called him at least he was an American and spoke English that I could understand. He told me that no appointment had ever been scheduled and wasn’t Hughes net great, and the earliest they could come out was another 8 days away. I called Hughes net back to get a credit for the over two weeks of no service and ended up being told that I would have to call them back after the repair was done and figure it out then. OMG!

It took a half an hour of broken English to get to even that. I can't imagine the nightmare after the repair is done, which, by the way they are charging $125 for the trip, since they say the equipment is out of warranty, despite the fact I spend $100 a month on internet. Run as fast as you can away from Hughes net. I cannot think of a worse experience I have had with a company than the uncaring, unprofessional dealings I have had with them.

In August 2011, I was living in a temporary rental and would be moving into my permanent home within the next few months. I spoke with a HughesNet customer service rep who told me that was not an issue and they could have an installer move it. I specifically asked what would happen with the contract if the service could not be installed at the new home, which is in a very remote setting. I was told that there would be no early termination charges if that were the case. I believed what I was told and agreed to the contract.

In November 2011, they did send an installer to move it at my own expense. And when the installer did say he couldn't get a line of sight and internet service could not be provided, I called HughesNet. They told me I had to pay $350 to end the contract. I told them what they had told me before signing any contract and they just told me I was misinformed! I was transferred over and over again, put on hold repeatedly, one time for 45 minutes straight, told to call back in a few days, again and again, and each time having to explain my story all over again. I gave them reference numbers that they gave me from previous calls, which were completely useless.

Finally, after being so tired of dealing with them I paid the money, or should I say, they took it from my account. Now, I'm trying to deal with returning their equipment which they said they sent a box for. Well, that was three weeks ago. I've called back twice and asked where the box is. They said it should be on its way. When I asked, "I'm not going to get charged for this equipment am I?" They actually responded, "You shouldn't but if you are, just call back and speak with one of our customer service representatives." This is a horrible company! I wish they would be held accountable!

I called the company and spoke to them about it and they looked up my account and told me that they only received two pieces of equipment, not three. I said "why in the world would I send two pieces if I wanted to get a refund and had to return three?" I was furious! How was I supposed to prove that I sent what I had been told to send? Their website indicated if the correct equipment was returned that the box should weigh approximately 10 pounds, which it did. I was so angry at this development, just furious. Part of the equipment they wanted had to be removed from my roof - this was no picnic packing up this stuff.

Since that time, I have spoken to numerous employees, all very polite, all assuring me that I would receive my $200, apparently believing me when I said I returned all three pieces of equipment. But the money is never placed in my account. The last time I called Hughes (approximately 3 weeks ago) I told them I was going to file a complaint with the Attorney General in the state I live in. Oh, they had me go through the entire process again; assuring me the money would be in my account within 5 business days. But 10 business days have gone by and there is no money from Hughes applied to my account.

This company is unbelievably irresponsible and does not keep their word. I have spoken to many employees who are all very polite but never have gotten the money promised to me. I will never recommend Hughes Network Systems to anybody. They are not trustworthy.

After I was linked up to them through my computer, they then said they saw the problem and could correct it but would cost $129.00 for a complete repair and they would throw in a complete lears service for free which would keep my computer clean/repaired for the year. All I had to do was agree which at that time I did thinking my computer was bad.

They spent about 7.5 hours with control of my computer without doing anything for my computer. I did not feel right about giving them access to my computer and don't know if anything was changed. I know my passwords were changed because I had to contact them again to update my password. I contacted them on the 24th day and cancelled the service. I am still waiting for the box to return their junk as I think that is what it is. I sure hope that the contract is cancelled and I don't want anything to do with this company ever again.

Such a little thing; I just want to know what the charges are for that have been added to my account the last two months. Now, I want to know what they are hiding that only low level authority are the only reachable people in what is probably a large organization. Somewhere out there, how can I talk to someone? I can do nothing in the timeframe they have given me in their cut off email since I am not at home and do not have accesses to my contract information. Even if I did, who would I talk to about it? I can't accept a no from someone who can't say yes. They have a death grip on the receipt of funds.

I agree with a prior complainant they don't want the customer to be involved. "Just let us take whatever money we want from your account" is the attitude. Nice, I signed a two year contract and it seems I will receive no service and be obligated to pay whatever they feel like I should pay. Any lawyers out there for a class action suit? The billing service thought it was a good idea to contact a lawyer. For $6 a month, they know it would have to be a class action suit. We do have an active sheriff in our county that spoke to us recently about fraud, small or large and encouraged us to report to law enforcement situations like this, even up to medicare fraud. Sounds good to me. That is my next step. I can't do much from here if I lose my service. Help.

They said maybe the guy was at the wrong street but I looked up all the variables of my streets' name in the area and there were none! He just straight up lied. Hughesnet, let me talk to you about their blatant lies. I called and signed up for the $39.99 deal per month. They then work so hard to *** you into doing the $79.99 plan. I said no, I want the $39. They also tack on $9.99 for the equipment. They put a hold on my card for $40 to get started. I said I sell on eBay and Craigslist. I upload a lot of pics and information. They said no problem.

After reading all these complaints on this web site, thanks to a wasted day waiting for the installer. I called Hughesnet back for the sixth time and questioned them about the complaints I read here. I asked how much will I be charged per month actually. Mandy the operator said $59.98. Well that isn't $$39.99 at all, even with the added equipment charge it still is 50. Something's screwy. I then asked about the tokens, she said I get a free token per month (I think this is some kind of joke).

She then tells me every page I click on is a download and I only get 1mb per day for downloading or surfing the web. I asked her how many pages I can look at until I use up 1mb because I don't know and most don't either. So she says she doesn't know. I asked if there was a study or research that the company did and she said none and she had no idea how many internet pages I could look at in a day. She just said with my plan, I could look at "this and that" and download some pictures. What does that mean? I don't know.

I then asked her how much my card would get charged when installation was complete. The guy put a hold on my card for $40 and he said that is what I would be charged. Mandy says I will be charged $59.98. Lies! Well, since waiting here all day and only having 50 in the bank, I will be charged an overdraft fee for sure due to the lies the first guy said. I then asked her how she could work for a company that was so full of lies and deceit and then canceled my set up immediately. My blood pressure is high. I hope this company burns to the ground and I hope that when you read this that you seriously reconsider going with this scheming crooked, lying, stealing, bad, American People Screwing Co. Thanks. I've said my piece.

98% of all HughesNet customers are received thru the national dealer program, dealers that telemarket all over the country. Yes, they will tell you anything to get the deal. But you should have taken the time to find your local dealer and they would sell it to you and install it. They are the only ones that will tell you the 100% truth about the services limitations and abilities. HughesNet is not for gaming, VOIP, Netflix, Magic Jack, Vonage, nor is it faster than cable or most DSL's.

HughesNet is faster than dial-up and most wireless services. HughesNet is so reliable that almost all 50 states use it exclusively for their lottery systems. The US Government and military use it. To those who complain about the daily limits, try downloading 250 mg on your dial-up. If you can do it (which you cannot), then you can complain. Cell phone companies charge you an arm and a leg when you go over their usage limits, HughesNet does not. If you simply manage your usage, you will not have a problem. This is coming from 90% of HughesNets’ happy and satisfied customers.

Every new HughesNet customer has 30 days in which to find out if the salesperson lied to you or not, to decide if this product works for you or not. All you have to do is call them and cancel your account within that 30-day period and you will never be charged again and will be released from the contract. Most states have lemon law which gives consumers 3 days to decide if they received what they ordered, HughesNet gives you 30.

He apologized stating "I was going to see if I could reinstate the service". I told him he should have read the cancellation letter I sent. It upset me greatly that this company could be so insensitive as to not follow my request, and allow some clod to call, requiring me to explain once again that someone I loved had recently died. As I type this email, the service has not been discontinued. My next call will be to the credit card company that automatically debits my account. I'll let them handle this fraudulent charge. My service has not been cancelled yet, which means Hughes will be billing me for another month. I fulfilled the contract requirement years ago. I now regret any involvement with this company.

This is according to the conversation with the individual I spoke with until after the 30-day free cancellation period was over; therefore, real issues did occur until after that. I called them on day 46 to complain. Their remedy was buy more tokens. They thought giving me 3 extra tokens would appease me. When I used these and found I still could not access more than a couple of pages, I called them back requested a supervisor which took 40 minutes to come to the phone. Her solution was three months free at the increased usage. I wanted nothing more to do with the service and wanted to drop it all together on day 46. She said I would have to call a certain number to verify through the initial conversation that I was not told about the things I had issues with. What a joke.

If I had known that their definition of downloading material included simple text and that even at their normal speed it did not come close to the high speed as they claim. When my allotted ridiculous usage is up my internet access is basically shut down for 24 hours. Unless I buy tokens, which I was never told about, I would need many to recess and do normal internet activity. I did not download movies, YouTube, etc., things you would normally considerable downloadable material, not just regular text. So I am paying for internet access I cant access unless I want to do it between 2 am and 7 am.

For the rest of Friday and almost all day Saturday we kept getting disconnected. I tried different things, like our existing wireless modem, then a new wireless modem, back to a network switch. Nothing worked. It would kick you off line every five minutes, and sometimes you could not get back on for 15 or 20. Of course, their usage information does not reflect this. Web pages would load like the old DOS system, just text and no images. You could have one of their web pages open and click a link and it would not load; then when you went back to the original page it would disconnect or freeze. Great fun. On the Saturday morning we went down to the office supply store to get the new wireless modem; we were gone for two hours, and their usage info states we were online for 66 minutes during that time and downloaded 21.64 megabytes of files. There were no updates downloaded on any of our computers during that time.

On Friday evening I downloaded two program files to install on my wife’s new computer, and we exceeded our download allowance. Of course, we got kicked off, and two files had to be downloaded again; so we used/downloaded 223 megabytes. Their usage info says we downloaded more than 636 megabytes during that time. This exceeded our Fair Access Policy, but since we quit computering about the same time, did not notice any more slowness than normal. That’s another thing, the service is slower than an air card, or cellular broadband, and their speeds were much slower than advertised. I started researching complaints about HughesNet about 4 p.m. Saturday, and I pulled the plug on the modem at 5:30 p.m. I had decided to cut bait and get rid of it. Their usage plan still shows 00.01 megabytes being downloaded every hour with no modem hooked to the antenna/radio. I called to cancel service, and they informed me I had to send a fax in writing to cancel, and someone would call within 2-3 business days.

No one called. I then followed up with an e-mail (you can’t e-mail them directly, only through their web site, which limits the amount of information you can document). They responded by e-mail that they had received the fax and someone would be calling me within 2-3 business days. Tried chat and the chat person could not even officially close the account. Bottom line is if you purchase, you have to pay for the box, shipping, and you may or may not get your $200 back. Leasers get a better deal; they get a box, customized packing material and a paid shipping label. Even if you cancel within a day and a half, you have to pay for the installation and a full month of what they call service. I have heard they just keep billing and billing and billing. We shall see. This is a predatory company that should be in prison instead of the free market.

It is always the same ole 6 and 7 with these people. They make it sound like the issue is your equipment. Heaven forbid if you have a router, then they blame it on that and say to fix the issue is going to cost you more each month to have a special kind of service. This company is ripping the American Consumer a new one and should be stopped and held accountable for highway robbery with the outrageous monthly charges to have their service. I would love to see a class action lawsuit against these clowns. After spending an hour on the phone with this company, I still have no resolution to my problem. Par for the course with HughesNet. I say Boycott! Please respond if you have any suggestions of what we can do to stop HughesNet from repeatedly ripping off consumers.

If you don't pay, even using the pay now only with the account number, it's not a one time deal. This company is pathetic. The lying, and deceiving way they do business, only lowers their amount of customers, and that ensures anyone still using it, will get terrible service. They could do so well. Some of us don't have another option for internet, but their big corporate attitude is pathetic. Lie, treating people like **, and never providing the truth before they install, all this shows how they do get people signed up, and when they lose them, is how they really cash in on equipment charges, and higher than promised bill rates. See for yourself. This company's best avoided, at all cost.

We moved in August. I called Hughes to have the service disconnected. The CSR instead told me she would give us one free month of service, but never discontinued. We have been getting billed so I called again. They are going to send a package to return the equipment, but I have to go back to my previous address and retrieve it myself and it is 150 miles away. Prior to having Hughes, we had cable internet. We rarely had problems and never had issues exceeding our daily usage. I can't believe it is legal for Hughes to get away with this. I would not recommend to anyone to get it. You may think dial-up is slower, but it is about the same speed and more reliable. I enjoy rural life and don't think where I choose to live should be predicated by technological disadvantages, but I also don't think that choice should enable companies like Hughes to take advantage of their customers. They should make their customers aware that if they want to download, they will have to get up in the middle of the night to do so. I don't see how they get by operating in this manner as legal.

I specifically told the sales person that I needed to do a lot of video work and he never bothered to tell me about the fap. I had never heard of it and didn't know to look at it prior to signing my contract. Had I known, I certainly would not have signed up for Hughes Net. If I had $400.00 to get out of the contract, I would do it but instead, I have to pay monthly or they will steal the money from my bank account if I cancel.

I don't understand why this company is allowed to operate the way it does. They deceive customers and then we're helpless to do anything about it. This is a complete scam. Whatever you do, don't get Hughes Net!

Also, we paid $109.00 a month (highest service fee) for an allowance that was always low (or exceeded) for some reason. I called approximately 10-14 times a month until cancelling (I honestly just couldn't deal with them anymore) and paying the early termination fee. If you have any other option, don't go with HughesNet.

I have been fairly pleased with the internet service when it is working, other than the limited gb per day for the price we pay. We simply have to limit usage and I do as much as I can from work. (We do not have the lowest priced plan!) Our main issue is repair service when it does go out. It takes a full 24 hours for them to even get a work order submitted through their red tape and work being contracted out. Then they give the technician 2 days to call and set up an appointment to come out, which they absolutely never keep. If, and let me stress the if, the technician calls you will have at least 2 - 3 appointments that they fail to keep before they make it out.

All the while, you are constantly calling Hughesnet to find out what the problem is and each time given case numbers so they can go back to see how many lies you have been told until they manage to get out. They will tell you that they have no way of contacting the technician directly so you are asked to please wait to give them time, which adds up to another day without service. I have been told numerous times that I will receive a phone call from the technician by a certain time, which never takes place. Even though you must sit and wait in case the phone call is attempted, because if you miss it, chalk up another day!

I love living in the rural area, but sometimes the prices you have to pay for service is very frustrating. I would gladly change companies if I could get any other option.

I have sent dozens of emails about the slow speeds, loss of internet, disappearing download allowance and the random changing of the download allowance times. All I get back are canned emails that fault me. If you call customer service, they tell you the same thing over and over, unhook your wireless and ping the server, which has no results and they can't answer why it's happening. The worst is the DL allowance disappearing all of the time when the computers are off and their blaming that someone stealing it via wireless.

I live 1 mile from the nearest neighbor and my router will not reach outside my house. I keep telling them this but they don't believe it when I tell them anyone stealing it would have to be standing next to my home. They will give you free tokens that are only good for 2 weeks and of course, for that 2 weeks your DL allowance hardly moves. The last blatant stealing they did was during the Daylight Savings Time change. They did not roll over and from 5 am to 6 am (when I usually watch YouTube videos), it used up all of my allowance.

When I called them on it, they sent me an email explaining how the FAP works. They cannot or will not answer a straight forward question. Why is there not a class action against them? They are actually stealing from their customers and most that are not computer literate do not realize this is happening. The myHughesNet diagnostic page is also a joke. If you run a connection test (even when the internet is down), it shows you have an excellent connection every time. I questioned this and they actually told me not to pay attention to that!

Why have it then? They have upped the DL allowance from 350mb to 750mb a day this month but the internet has slowed down to just above dial-up so what was the point? Just yesterday, it took 4 mins to load a 1 min 44 sec video on YouTube. That is not the 1.5mbs I pay for a month. Come March 2012, I am done with them and recommend to anyone looking for "broadband" to avoid HughsNet and just go with dial-up or cell hotspot.

In my case, I lost valuable email data, still in the hughes.net database which I paid for during the duration of the service. After cancellation of account, email data should be accessible to account holder or there should be a way for account holder to be able to transmit all email data to another email address, ie, gmail or hotmail, you name it.

Google, yahoo and others do not charge for email, it is free. Therefore, the retained email records of a former email account holder with hughes.net should be of no value to them.

Future customers of hughes.net should be aware of the consequences if they ever have to move and of not being able to continue using their email address or forwarding their hughes.net email database after cancellation of account. Conversely, while active if needing to use broadband ensure to forward automatically a copy to another email database like google or yahoo. Do not just depend on hughes.net . It is absurd to offer just service for equipment money. Hughes.net can be more friendly to its customers

Asia-based customer support is extremely poor with tech support people reading from scripts. In order to resolve technical issues in the past, I have had to insist Hughes escalate the issue in order to receive US-based support that is actually helpful. Recently, Hughes has apparently instituted a "rolling" FAP policy in which your plan's daily download allowance is no longer based on a fixed reset time per 24 hours. Reading the explanation of the Hughes FAP is like trying to interpret the legal ramifications of an insurance policy. It seems though that depending on your usage, you can actually end up with a larger download quota per 24 hours than your plan ordinarily provides.

According to a rep in India I spoke to today, their new "adaptive network" technology permits Hughes to increase allowances when network conditions permit. But it also appears that Hughes will actually strip away some of that "bonus" download allowance if network conditions change. We noticed today monitoring Hughes' usage tool that our 24-hour download allowance had suddenly jumped from the usual 225 MB to 500 MB. But then we noticed a rapid emptying of the gauge to about 360 MB while there was no download activity on our end.

The Hughes rep explained this as a part of the new adaptive network process, though her explanation was fairly incoherent and didn't really coincide with what we've observed. I continue to hope that DSL or cable options will become available; but that could be years in my mountainous, sparsely populated location. In the meanwhile, ViaSat launched the ViaSat 1 satellite in early November 2011 and plan to offer service through Wild Blue at speeds vastly higher than Hughes in early 2012. It could be hype, but here's hoping there will be a viable option to Hughes.

The tech told me that happens a lot. I was also told that if I didn't like the service, I would get a full refund, if canceled within 21 days. I bought the equipment, wish I would have leased it. When I went to return the equipment, the agent said they would send a return box. I waited almost 2 weeks for it, and never received it. After reading the return instructions, it was clear the equipment better be packed good, or I wouldn't receive a refund, plus make sure I insured, and got delivery confirmation.

By the time I bought a box, packing material, tape, insurance, delivery confirmation, it cost me $102.00 to send the equipment back. After 3 weeks of waiting for my refund, I called Hughes Net to ask why I haven't received it. I paid $468.78 originally, they are only refunding $255.24. They are charging $213.54 for installation and other fees, so after I deduct the $102.00 it cost me to ship it back because they would not send me the return box, I ended up with $152.24, out of $468.78. This company is nothing but a scam! I will do my best to spread the word about this worthless company, so other people won't get ** the way I did. Do not believe what you are told by the salesman or the company. The service is pitiful. They are liars!

I assumed that they could get boxes to me for their equipment, that was my mistake. Hughes Net, 3 months after cancelling service charges to my account, $318.75 for equipment is not returned. I called Hughes Net and they said boxes where returned to the company empty, so they charged my account for the equipment. I asked for the boxes to be sent to the correct address, and they said that they can't create new shipping boxes, because if they are returned empty again, I will be billed for not retuning the equipment again.

If they are sent to the correct address, I will return the equipment. It is of no use to me, nor do I want it. So far, Hughes Net has charged my account $628.75 for a service I haven't used since last June. I had to cancel my debit card at my bank, which has cost me an additional $15.00, and since I don't use credit cards, this has caused additional grief, since I will have to deal with cash, until the bank can reissue a new card to me.

With Hughes Net charging my account on two separate occasions, and me being a single parent on a pretty tight budget, it has cased overdrafts to my bank account, causing additional fees of $30.00, 3 times, plus additional fees of $5.00 a day for 3 days, because I didn't have funds to deposit, to cover overdrafts, caused by Hughes Net charging account. So now, Hughes Net has charged me $628.75 in fees for not retuning the equipment, and early cancellation of contract, and I have bank fees, because of the charges of at least $100.00.

Tried reaching someone in Hughes office. Took me three weeks of looking around on the internet to finally find a current phone number. Talked to a Jeff at 05:30PM eastern, and he gave me a reference number, but no help! I kept trying to reach someone via the internet, leaving messages with phone numbers. No calls, and messages were vague on the internet. I found no one who could help to improve our internet, so I cancelled Hughes Net.

Then, I received nasty phone call, saying they would take a payment out of our credit card with automatic withdrawal. When I told them, I never said okay to an automatic withdrawal, they informed me that I had signed a paper stating that, they had the right to get into my credited card. I have no copy of said paper. I received an installation reference sheet, which has my name, address, and phone number, as well as the installer's name, date of installation, and dealer information.

The lower half of the paper, that should have my (customer) signature is blank. Checklist blank, itemized list is blank, installation Type: Customer's Initial Required: is also blank. I blocked them from using my credit card and wrote to Hughes Net, and explained I was doing this.

They then sent me a Cancellation Bill, for $335.54. These fees included property taxes-prorated, and other fees, rental fees, another prorated service fees, lease taxes, and additional property taxes. They are going to be waiting a long time. Because I can't pay that much for their mistakes. No return calls, no returned messages via email, and no return letters from company.. So, lots of hidden charges and no explanations. This company needs to be audited. False language as far as their adds, false wording in their billing, and false information as to how to cancel.

Today, they confirm that they did receive it but it would take 2 to 3 weeks to put the money back in my account. This has been the biggest hassle I have ever gone through. And, you cannot talk to anyone in the US or a manager. This will never be again. I am not sure why the state's Attorney Generals have not shut them down, based on the number of complaints I have read.

From the very beginning, this company has been a problem. Let's start with the price. I was quoted one promo price but when I did a follow-up call after the equipment was installed, I was then told that my price would increase by $20.00. Then the service is bad. I couldn't open up any sites, couldn't do anything online without the service being interrupted. And I've only had the service for about 3 to 4 days.

I cancelled the service back in the 1st week of September. It took this company to send me a return box two months later. Now I have the box but they failed to put the proper tools that I needed to take apart the equipment. Now I have been on the phone with this company for almost 2 hours and they expect me to go and buy the tools that is needed to take apart the equipment, or pay somebody to come to my home to take the equipment. I would understand that, if I were at fault and my service was cancelled due to me not paying my bill but in this case, it's not.

This company lied about the pricing and their service. Needless to say, they are not a trustworthy company and I would not recommend them to anybody. Good luck if you do decided to use them. Hopefully nothing goes wrong.

In Oct 2011, Hughes Net finally emailed me a link for the rebate (**, included so others are not treated as we were). The rebate we were entitled to expired September 2011 --isn't that convenient for Hughes Net.

You don't have to be a victim. Check out your state's Attorney General Website (for Texas **), there should be a tab for Consumer Protection where you can file a complain. Also, rebates are governed by the Federal Trade Commissions Act, Section 5 (**).

Let me emphasize that I have never applied for any auto-billing option with any company, as I want to have control of my bank account. I ended up speaking to a "Yogi" in India I assume, who told me that by my past payments via my debit card I had given Hughesnet implied permission to collect on the balance of my billing debt. I accused Hughesnet (not Yogi personally) of robbery. Yogi said this is how it all works and the best he could do is give me a free unbilled month. I did not accept as I thought that this would imply acceptance of everything on my part. He told me I could call back and refer to Case# 28801656 for my free month.

My banking institution said that I have to wait for the pending charge to clear before I can file a dispute form, which you better believe I will do. I might miss my monthly home payment. This certainly seems wrong to me and if there isn't a law against this kind of practice, there should be. Can anyone help me?

I feel like we are paying for bandwidth we cannot use. We were told the internet would "slow down" once we used it up each day unless we bought a token, but it slows down even if we just got home and no one used it all day. With 100% allowance, five hours before refill, everything goes at a snail's pace, and no video will run at all! What's the use? And we're stuck with this for two more years. We may as well have dial-up.

Needless to say, none of my printers or other work stations functioned correctly. After I rewired the network, exactly as it was configured previously (had a drawing of connections stored in my safe) I now have the slowest connection to secure websites ever, Web pages are okay, its just through Citrix and ADP that are painfully slow.

He also asked if I was willing to pay him the $30 he was going to lose on the new pole for the dish as Hughes does not cover the cost to him. Being an engineer myself, I felt sorry for him and wrote him a $30 check.

The installation took about two hours and everything looked great. I checked the connection to my secure sites and it seemed slow. The installer said that it might be slow at first, but would speed up in the future (not sure how that is possible?).

I signed all of the paperwork and he left. Then I noticed he never removed the old dish and pole, leaving it in my front yard. Next, I noticed that I can no longer stream music or video and downloads from secure sites are very slow. I called customer service today and an hour and a half on the phone with Hughes resulted in the great fix, call back the installer that screwed it up and see if he knows why my system does not function as it had before the upgrades.

What a poor excuse for customer service. If I had any other choice for service, I would switch. I will no longer recommend this service to anyone.

I am a 60-year-old widow and now, they are telling me that I must go up on my roof and dismantle their dish and mail them the pieces that they are asking for, or I will be billed $300.00. Is this really acceptable business practice? I cannot find nothing in the contract that I signed that requires me to do this, but if you go to their website, there is the information.

Since Hughes Net doesn't work any longer and they couldn't make arrangements for a service person to come fix it, I cancelled after three weeks of inability on their part to fix their equipment.

My current internet connection works so well, I kick myself daily for even going with Hughes Net.

Anyway, I think the $70 a month was a bit over the top in price, considering we have the lowest available packages. I paid less than that for Time Warner Cables Road Runner Turbo at another home we lived in. Then, I found out they are doing automatic payments off my card. It was because they are doing away with paper billing. I would be charged yet another $5 a month to receive it in the mail. It is ** if you ask me. Of course, in order to view your bill online, you have to do what? You got it! You have to download it, which goes against your allowed amount.

Companies like Hughes Net know that they have us by our southern regions, because we live in rural areas and have no other choice. So, they sodomize us with their outrageous prices just to have access to the lowest speeds. I thought there were laws against this kind of stuff. We have three children living at home and all of them are in school. The school district we live in mandates that our children have school issued laptops that has school related stuff on it. We live 17 miles one way from the library. So, it's not like we can just jump in the car and run down the road for the kids to use the internet service at the local library to do certain homework or assignments. I am madder than a 3 legged dog trying to bury a bone in the back yard. The government needs to put a stop to this. Like I said, Hughes Net, along with other companies, knows they have us rural folks by our southern regional parts. If they do not get their ** in a group and do something soon, I won't be surprised if they end up with a class action lawsuit on their hands.

I'm just gonna give you a head's up. The moment that this new, nearly complete option, DSL comes available out here, I am out! I am done with Hughes, and its low quality, stingy bandwidths. I mean, soon as I have another option. Slow me down again, for no legit technical good reason, and I will drop you right now, and simply go to the library to hook up with the world.

With over $1000 and 9 months of frustration, loss of use of my only phone for 2 weeks at a time, a letter to the corporate office to no avail, the inability to use my computer much, never able to view a video, all I ask is for them to waive the cancellation charge. I am a senior and feel I've been used badly.

Next day, I had a pop up saying I still owed. I called billing and they have no record of my payment. I was said to send a fax of my statement from my bank and I did that. They claimed they never got the fax. After numerous calls and being told to call the dealer back, the dealer told me to call Hughes Net back. Finally, the billing department with the dealer, told me that they had gotten my payment but that it was just for installation! This was the same woman who told me a few days earlier that it was for installation, activation fee and 1st month's service.

I said, "so you lied to me about it being for the 1st month's service and activation". She said, "Yes ma'am, it was only for installation so you still have to pay the other $100 to Hughes Net for your service". I even asked the installer if the money that was charged to my account (which I thought was very high for only 45 minutes of work) included my activation fee and first month, and he said "yes it is"!

The system was installed and immediately, I could tell that it was not very fast. It kept getting slower and slower. Before I knew it, I had used up the allotted 200MB. I called and brought this to their attention and told them I was not impressed with the service so far. They gave me more MB, so I thought I'd give it a try again, but the speed was terrible. I downloaded a file that was 44MB to see what would happen and it took a very long time, the download speed is around 11 KBS. When it did finish, it had used 94 MB from the plan. This was the last straw, so I called to cancel.

I was passed from one person to the next for over 2 1/2 hours (11 times and I have the confirmation numbers if needed). I was offered several incentives to get me to stay after the first thirty days, so I would be locked into the contract. I continued to refuse and was eventually sent to the person that could cancel my service. I was told that if I canceled, i would have to pay $430 dollars for early termination. I told her that I was told I could cancel it at anytime in the first thirty days, at no cost to me. She said that I was in the form of a rebate and I would have gotten, after the thirty day period. This made no sense and I told her that I would not pay it. I told her that I would pay for the two days of service and nothing further. She said I needed to file a dispute. I did file the dispute but never heard back from them. I called them after two weeks and was told I was given good information, which was an absolute lie. I was directed to collections who told me that I was out of luck and needed to pay them and send back the equipment. I had already sent the equipment back at my expense. I still refused to pay the $430 and said I would pay for the two days of terrible service and nothing further.

This burns my butt because I can't tell them to take a jump off the nearest short bridge! I hate and I mean hate HN. I am actually going dial up so I don't have to pay the outrageous amount of money they charge for the worst service that any service provider could ever provide. If I have anything that I am trying to convey, the most it would be is -- whatever you do do not waste your money thinking like I did that HN is better than nothing or better than dial-up because it's not! Save yourself a ton of money and a ton of frustration and just do the dial-up thing if you have no other choice. HN is not worth either! My HN contract is up at the end of this month and I'm finally going to take the plunge and go dial up and finally tell HN to kiss my butt! Also, if they try and charge me for canceling my service, I am not going to pay them. I don't care if they turn it over to the credit reporting companies. I'll just dispute it until it goes away!

Why so long? I'm sure FedEx delivered it long before then. Did it just sit around?

Then 6 weeks later, I get an unauthorized draft for $218 for missing equipment! It was all included per their instructions. I suppose I should have videotaped that and had affidavits sworn out by each courier who handled the package. Or more likely they lost it in their warehouse.

They supplied a pre-printed paid return label and are demanding that tracking number, which frankly I don't have as 6 weeks ago it showed received, so I tossed it. FedEx says they are the shipper and should have it. They say they don't and demand it from me! I can't verify the package weight without it. So, they either lost it in their warehouse, or FedEx lost part of it, had the package come open with their enclosed tape to use!

Either way, that’s their problem or had the package arrived opened with FedEx as a claim. They completed the closing of my account and everything seemed fine, until they spring an unauthorized charge on my credit card. They refuse to give me the tracking number so I can verify delivery and weight with FedEx and refund the money drafted.

They keep demanding a tracking number for the transmitter, which was enclosed and they presume is coming separately. Perhaps, I should take a picture of the dish with the 2 wires dangling minus said transmitter that I will take down off my roof and place on my fence with a "SUCKS" painted on it right under their HughesNet logo.

Customers beware! Unprofessional company with poor customer service out of India, with people you cannot understand, who don't have an ounce of common sense among them. The service was terrible, which is why I canceled it after completing my 2-year contract.

When we called Hughesnet because our service was out three days after installation they told us that they could have someone here in two days if we paid $30.00, even though we had a service pack! If we didn't want to pay the fee it would take five days for them to get here. Go figure. We went back to our local ISP which is faster, more reliable and cheaper and will cancel Hughesnet today.

By the way, after reading all the horror stories about this company, I had a new credit card issued so that Hughes cannot make any unauthorized charges to the one they had access to because I know they'll try. I would advise anyone preparing to battle them do the same before attempting it. It costs nothing and takes 4-6 days before receiving your new card and account number. Just call and say you lost it.

We live 30 miles from the installation company that put it up and I will hand deliver the equipment personally, and get a signed receipt as proof of the return. It'll be cheaper than the shipping charges to mail it. In the end, Hughesnet is slower than dial-up, unreliable, more costly and the service is a joke as there is none!

Be smart and don't deal with this company at all.

This is my story:

We have HughesNet as our Internet provider because we live in a rural area and this is the only high-speed Internet service we can get. We signed up for this service because we received a notice giving us a special price as part of the U. S. Government Recovery Act. Because of the special price we were given, we have a download limit of 200 MB per day. We have had the service for about seven months.

During this period, their modem has locked-up on average five times a week, which requires us to unplug it and then plug it back in and wait until it resets. Now, for the past week, we are losing our download allowance without even being on the Internet. I did as they suggested and unplugged their modem from our router and we still lost download allowance. Again and I stress, we were not even connected to the Internet. It doesn't seem to matter whether we are connected to the Internet or not, we quickly lose our download allowance. I have turned off all automatic updates for our software and it is still happening. We have a wireless router that is password protected and I have changed the password several times but this has made no difference. We have a virus protection and firewall so the possibility of a virus causing this is slim.

I have called their so-called "customer service" department every day this week hoping I will finally get someone to help me but so far they all just tell me it's basically my problem and they are not going to do anything. I have complained about their faulty modem numerous times but they don't seem to care. Each time I call, they tell me to do something like stop all automatic update, unplug the modem from the router, etc. I do this and when it makes no difference, I call them back and they just come up with some other excuse as to why this is happening.

HughesNet has a monopoly in rural areas because we have no choice other than dial-up, which is like having no Internet service at all. It seems to me like they are ignoring our complaints because they are causing this to happen in an attempt to force us to upgrade our service at $25-$30 more a month. We seem to be at their mercy.

I'm madder than Sandra Bullock finding out if there was a whole new Jesse James gang. If you could email me at ** please do so. I need help on this mess.

I never received an invoice; so, I called them just to find out that they charge you an extra $5 to mail an invoice. When I wanted to cancel, they said I would have to pay over $500 to cancel. So, I just decided to ride out the 2 years. I am 3 months away; I called to make sure of the day and they offered me a $20-off each month. I wrote the confirmation number on my bill and sent in $20 less; and the next month, they show me as $20 past due. When you call, you cannot get a straight answer. I ask them how much it would cost me now to get out of the contract. They said that I would owe them the last 2 months, plus a $59 cancellation fee. I have never been so mad.

I can't even do work from home or listen to music videos or shows I might have missed. The meter status icon runs out after one or two downloads. Just printing out copies of my work schedule or just printing anything runs the meter down to zero in a hurry. You are asked to purchase tokens to buy back your speed so you have a 100 percent again. What a scam because I already pay almost $70 a month. I think that this is enough already. I was left with very slow internet speed for the rest of the time until 24 hours is over.

I filed a complaint with the BBB against them. They came back with their fair trade policy which allows equal access to everyone. I live out in the middle of nowhere and I depend on this internet service for work and cattle business. If I had been told about this upfront, I would have never got them.

I initially signed up for Direcway satellite internet service back in 2002 (I am terrible with dates so I don't remember the exact month). There were issues with the installer being unprofessional. First of all, he did not arrive on the day (or even the week) of the scheduled installation. He didn't even arrive until 5:30 in the evening and he brought his cousin (who apparently lived somewhere in town). I live out in the woods down an unpaved road. I don't even get mail delivery out here.

My phone lines are so badly spliced by Bell South that dial-up won't even work. Instead of installing the satellite when he first arrived, the installer sat in his truck and chatted with his cousin for over 45 minutes. I presume because he hadn't seen him in a while-- but he was at work and should have done the socializing after the job. The installation was supposed to be free. They failed to mention that was only with the installation being on the roof-- it was $100 for a pole on the ground. When I saw the installation point, I asked the installer if the nearby power lines would be a problem.

He said they wouldn't. He drilled holes in the roof and placed the satellite. He then entered the house with his cousin. Lo and behold the internet would not work and he determined that the power lines were interfering so he had to put it on a pole. But he had wasted so much time that it was now dark and he couldn't see well enough to install it. He hadn't brought a pole with him and the only hardware stores in town were already closed. So he said he would come back another day to finish the installation.

I don't remember how many days were in between that, but the installer did not come back. Instead he sent his cousin to install a pole. Even though the installer didn't do the work he still charged $100 for a pole that was not worth nearly that much, used our cement instead of bringing his own, and didn't even install it properly. Our internet did not work for the first 3 weeks from the first date that it was allegedly installed. They started billing us when it was supposed to be installed but was not actually installed. Obviously at this time it was Direcway so that is water under the bridge.

Nothing in the contract said anything about the FAP and the installer said nothing about it. I had to learn about it while browsing online. Light rain, clouds, wind, and no bad weather at all seemed to stop the satellite from working. But it was better than the dial-up which I'd had (it was only 6.2mps when it actually worked- I had to cancel it bc it just stopped working after my neighbor tampered with the phone line box down the road). With the base plan of Direcway (which was about $59 a month) I was allowed 450mb per day and if I went over I would simply have to stop downloading for 4 to 6 hours and it would be restored. For the record my modem was a DW4000. It was a nuisance but it was manageable. Note: My signal strength was at 80-- I was told anything below 52 would prevent the internet from working at all.

Then along came Hughesnet which bought out Direcway and everything started to go downhill. The DW was never that fast or stable, but he FAP was not so bad. When Hughesnet bought it out they reduced the limit to 200mb per day and locked in the FAP for 26 hours. Tthey tell you it is only 24 but I kept track and every time they capped me for 26. At first the cap was just slower but I could still load webpages (although barely). Signal strength dropped to 70 instead of 80. When Hughesnet took over I was not given any paperwork to sign or sent any information to notify me of the changes in the service. I suppose it is legal for a new company to change the rules when they buy out an existing company but I wish there had been more notice and perhaps something for me to sign to say that I agreed to the changes or to have an option to get out of the contract without any penalty fee (not that backing out was even possible because there are no other options for me -- even dialup is not viable out here).

I should note that under Direcway, the software updates for the modem did NOT count toward our bandwidth usage but with Hughesnet the software updates did count-- and it kept miscalculating. Mind you we weren't downloading movies or music or any large files- but basic images and webpages were eating up bandwidth (it didn't help that bc the internet is so slow many sites timed out and had to be reloaded over and over to actually load all of the way). At one point when I tried to use the online chat tech support it timed out and I was unable to communicate with tech support in the chat bc the internet was so slow. The upload latency was absolutely abysmal (it was slower than dialup).

Over the years, I had to call tech support more times than I can remember. The service I got varied from very good and friendly to absolutely atrocious. At one point while I was having an issue the technician told me to unplug the modem from the power and leave it unplugged for several hours (bc it was miscalculating my usage and saying I loaded 50mb when I loaded 5mb--The miscalculating always seems to get the worst in April every year for the past several years.). When I finally got to speak with advanced tech support the technician was upset that I had unplugged the modem. He said that I shouldn't do that as the virtual "bucket" of bandwidth would not refill while it was off.

I told him I had only done what I was instructed to do and he was frustrated that I had been told that-- he said the lower level tech support guy in India was wrong. At a later date I called about the same issue and was told that I needed to unplug my modem for a few hours. I pointed out that advanced tech support told me not to do that. The Indian tech kept insisting that I should do it and I asked to speak with Advanced Tech support to confirm that it was indeed what I should do. They refused. Apparently it is their policy (or at least so this guy claimed) that no customer currently subjected to the FAP could speak to advanced tech support.

I was also told that I was not allowed to speak to a supervisor even though I insisted on it. I had to hang up and call to get a different techie to speak with a supervisor who claimed to be named "Elvis". Again I was denied access to advanced technical support. Even when my modem was unplugged from all computers it said I was downloading 5mb every hour for 10 hours. Although it was clear I had not downloaded the data which they claimed I had (bc of the misreporting) they claimed that there was absolutely no way to remove the FAP until the time expired. One of the common questions they would ask was "Do you have a wireless router" (prepared to tell me that perhaps someone was hijacking my internet).

They always sounded disappointed when I said "no". At that time (before they improved wireless devices) they would not work in my house. They always sounded disappointed and tried to suggest some possible reason for the large download amount. It was a constant battle and eventually they conned us into getting the next higher plan (which I think is $79 a month or so) to get a whole 425mb per day. Even with the increased limit we STILL had the miscalculating problem.

I would call when I had problems with the internet not working or being slow (they did conform that it was not working at the proper speeds for my service plan but they never did anything about it). On more than one occasion when the weather was clear the internet just went out-- I was told after three hours of being on the phone that the main satellite had "degraded" and needed to be fixed. On sunny days they claimed that "solar flares" or "wind" must have been interrupting my connection. They always blamed it on everything but themselves (except for the one time when it took me three hours to get the truth out of them). Also after reading the installation slip and measuring the height of the pole I realized that the pole was not tall enough. I called them about the issue but they assured me it wasn't a problem and refused to send someone to look at it.

When the HN7000S came out they convinced us that it would be faster and more reliable than the HN6000 so we bought it (a week before they reduced the price by $100). It seemed even less reliable than the old one and I had frequent problems with it. After a large power surge the modem seemed to have been damaged and was not working properly so we ordered a new one (we did have it in a power backup unit but it was a massive surge). The new one seemed to work better than the old one but we still had the problems with the miscalculating of bandwidth, terrible latency, and frequent outages.

Sometime between 2006-2008 the radio transmitter in the satellite finally died. It took a week to get someone to come out to look at it. Unfortunately the new transmitters would not fit the old satellite so we had to get a brand new satellite. We did finally confirm that the pole was not only incorrectly installed but it was a very flimsy cheap pole that wasn't sturdy enough and wasn't installed properly (thus it wobbled a lot when it was windy which was interrupting the signal). Apparently he was unable to get it to lock to our old satellite so he had to point it to one a few degrees to the east. Unfortunately this made the signal strength only 60.

The problems I had in the past still persist. Additionally I am getting more and more errors when I try to load pages. I get everything from DNS entry issues to TCP Acceleration errors to something about the Backbone and all manner of issues. I am completely unable to download store items for Sims3 because of the timing out problem. It does not stream downloads properly (I have seen on the Sims 3 forums that many Hughesnet users can't download Sims 3 store items and that it has to do with the way the web acceleration software is set up). If the web acceleration software stops working properly I can't get anything to load. I no longer have to static discharge my modem (I used to be required to disconnect the coaxial cables from the modem, touch the pin in the middle, then screw the cables back on). In the last year I started having a problem with the modem not sending a signal out through the ethernet port. I even plugged a computer directly in to it to test it (and used different cables). The solution seems to be to power cycle the modem manually (by unplugging it and plugging it back in after 30 seconds). Before I figured out that I needed to unplug it, I had pointless calls to tech support who tried to blame it on my cables or some other issue.

Hughesnet did extend the free period of time where people can download without it counting toward their bandwidth, but it is very slow (allegedly it is supposed to be less reliable during normal hours but I've found that starting around 6 to 8pm it gets unbearably slow and unusable of late). They apparently can cap the bandwidth usage at 0 when people are "capped" which resulted in a rather comical situation when they instituted the free uncap. I spent hours on the phone going in circles trying to explain to the guy in India that I wanted to use my free uncap but that I couldn't use it because I was unable to load the Hughesnet webpage to uncap myself. Finally he spoke to a supervisor and he used the free uncap for me.

At that point I realized that they are able to uncap people from India. At one point due to bogus download reporting (it claimed I loaded 1500mb in an hour-- which tech support agreed was physically impossible given my connection issues) so they uncapped me-- but it didn't fill the bucket back up it just turned it off so loading 1mb capped us again. My brother talked to tech support trying to get it resolved and ended up getting yelled at by the irate employee who hung up on him. One day a seemingly American tech support person gave me a callback (about the 1500mb download thing) and snootily informed me that it must be a virus that was "uploading" large amounts of data. She was very rude and refused to listen when I said it wasn't an upload and that it wasn't physically possible for it to upload OR download that much. She rudely hung up.

To their credit, Hughesnet did fix the catch 22 with the uncapping. They added software which allows users to utilize the free uncap via the modem rather than having to load the internet. They also made it so we no longer have to load a webpage to see our usage -- and we get up-to-date usage information. We now get to see bars representing our virtual bucket that tells us how much we have left and lets us monitor usage (so we know when we are getting close to our limit). The problem is, the bucket does not refill during the free period even if we don't download (which I understand in a way) and it does not refill if the modem is unplugged (or not receiving power due to power outages) or if signal is lost. So when it rained the other day and I lost signal for 3 hours my bucket did not refill at all. This means I get less than the 425mb per day bc my bucket didn't refill.

Since April we've been having even more problems with the connection. The transmitter keeps going out and our signal strength has now dropped to 40-48 (if we are lucky we get 51). I also found that the web acceleration software keeps having issues and it reports "uplink queueing" problems. It seems the bandwidth for transmission is now lower somehow (because we didn't get that problem in the past). It also keeps saying we have "excessive LAN traffic" even when only one computer is plugged in. we use Spybot Search & Destroy and Malware Bytes and monitor the usage carefully so I don't know why it is doing that. After weeks of the problems with the Web Acceleration Software (wherein the recommendation was to call technical support if the problem persisted) I called technical support. There was a rather long automated message greeting the customer and wasting time before asking questions. I discovered that if I said I was currently subjected to the FAP it would basically tell me I had to be out of the cap before I could speak with a live person-- and then it hung up on me.

Fortunately at that moment I was not subject to the FAP (even though my internet was behaving as if I was). The Indian tech seemed rather confused and did not seem to understand English well enough to understand what I was trying to tell him. He had me try to load a webpage and after about 4 minutes the page still had not loaded so I tried a different computer. I also had to unplug the router and plug the closest PC in to it. It was still unbearably slow. The tech support guy seemed confused as to why I had called. I mentioned that I had trouble downloading files and playing Facebook games. At which point he told me that the service was not intended to be used to download files or play online games. Ok, I get the online games bit-- my latency in World of Warcraft averages around 1500ms, but I'm not supposed to be downloading files? What the hell am I supposed to be using the service for then?

At one point he told me he could see there was a problem then he backed up and claimed there was nothing wrong with my system (from what he could see on his end). I told him, "tthen why is my signal strength getting progressively weaker when the sky is clear and my web acceleration software is having problems that prevent me from loading any webpages at all?" I had to reboot my modem 5 times within 30 minutes the other day to fix the web acceleration issue. Reluctantly he said he would have someone come out to my house to look at the equipment (after I explained that there were no leaves/branches blocking the satellite or any vines growing on it-- I make sure to keep it clear) but that there would be a $125 service fee and something about a credit to my account. He kept repeating it as if he expected the $125 would make me decide to cancel the service call. I'm still waiting to have the appointment scheduled.

I would not recommend Hughesnet to anyone who can avoid it. I really wish I could get AT&T wireless out here but it just isn't viable. I'm in an almost dead zone for cell service.

This is nonsense. I have other things to deal with besides trying to get Hughes Net to work right when I have a chance to get on here. I have contacted Consumer Affairs before about problems with Hughes Net. This needs to be resolved soon. I've had dial up service, but i can't get cable out here.

I tried for over a week, with hours spent on phone calls and emails, to get them to remove the installation charge and term commitment, all without success. I was told repeatedly that they had to "further investigate" and that someone would call me back in 2-3 days. No one ever called. I finally disputed the installation charge with my credit card company and on a 3-way conference call between the credit card company, Hughes, and myself that lasted nearly an hour, with transfers to 3 different departments within Hughes, there was still no resolution. The final word: We'll investigate and call you back in 2-3 days. Again, I got no call-back from anyone at Hughes.

Eventually, I got an email address and the phone number of their corporate offices and after nearly 3 weeks of trying, finally got them to honor their agreement. But I have no doubt that if I hadn't had the agreement in writing and hadn't had the assistance of my credit card company, they'd have stonewalled me until doomsday. After the first week of this nonsense, I decided to buy an antenna system to boost the cellular signal at my home, and it works even better than I'd hoped. I now have wireless internet for the same price as the Hughes service, but it's more reliable, with twice the speed and with no usage limits, and without the latency problems of satellite service.

And it was just in time too, since when the dispute process with the credit card company ran its course, the original charge for the modem installation was put on hold and with the credit, Hughes had finally returned to my account, they were then in the hole by that $125. The credit card company will release that to them when they complete the dispute resolution process. But in the meantime, instead of completing that process and waiting a week or two to get their money, as I'd had to wait nearly 3 weeks to get my money back from them, they tried to re-bill my credit card for that amount and when they discovered they no longer had access to my credit card account, they petulantly suspended my service, which still had about a week to run until the next payment was due -- a payment they will never get since I've dropped their service. The bottom line is that I've never dealt with a company as unresponsive, as unreasonable, and as downright deceitful as HughesNet and I've never been more relieved to be finished dealing with a company.

On 02/08/2011, I called to cancel my Hughes net service. The rep informed me that I would be charged an early termination fee because I had not fulfilled the 24 month subscriber agreement contract. I explained to her that I was not under a contract because I had purchased the equipment upfront. She agreed and said there would be no charge.

Then on 03/07/2011 Hughes net charged my checking account $130.00 early termination fee. When I called Hughes net to get a refund I spoke with a Chris (a manager) who would not give me his last name. He said too bad that I "misunderstood" the subscriber agreement but I owed the money. When I explained to him about the communication that I had with the installer and that I had the document that indicated I had not signed off on the subscriber agreement per the installer telling me it was not applicable, Chris said, "Too bad, you will not get a refund."

Hughes Net misrepresented this contract fact during the installation process and misled me by not making their agreement clear. No telling how many more people have fallen prey to this scheme.

I have documentation that shows I was not required to sign off on the "subscriber agreement". There is a line that says "I have agreed to and accepted the subscriber agreement with Hughes as presented during the process of commissioning the Hughes Net Services" You were supposed to initial this if accepted. It is blank. Hughes net was unable to re-produce a copy where I had signed off on this.

I want a refund of $130.00 for the early termination fee.

Finally, on internet support, I got the number 866-774-6580, where the problem could be fixed. However, the service lady wasn't sure that she could help me out so I asked for a manager. The female manager was agitated and rude. She said the change couldn't be made. I recounted my history of almost having it changed, and she mentioned that I had been referred by the internet service department. She responded with sarcasm. I asked for her name or operator's number, and she said, "call ended, " and hung up. This is a very irritating experience but I can cancel before getting hooked into a two year sentence/contract with this so-called service. This wasted hours of my time and I have suffered stress and frustration.

I spent $400 plus dollars and upgraded. The new system is 25% slower on web page response time and 10% slower on upload/download response. I confronted the installer on the problem and that I wanted my old system put back into service. The technician stated that Hughes will not put the DW6000 back online, as they are trying to get rid of them. I believe Hughes needs to get the older modems off of their systems for a purely financial reason and are deceiving their customers to get them off of the system. When it comes to their Hughes installers, do not believe anything they say. Ask for everything in writing. I am stuck for 2 years with a system that has less performance than my old system. Believe me, there is nothing you can do. There is no one you can talk to that will help you. If you have any other options, please do not use HughesNet.

HughesNet is by far the worse internet service provider I have ever dealt with. Their sales people have a great sales pitch that promise fast service and low costs but there is a disconnect between promises and delivery. After two months of complaining to their service staff, we have discontinued their service and contracted with another provider. We were told that an early termination would cost us $400. This is an insult but is worth not having. HughesNet continue their overpriced and terrible service. Please inform your customers to avoid HughesNet at all cost.

We paid over $100 a month for service, lost business due to inability to download emails, and the cost of the new system is $389. We had lost business due to inability to work online, with my work VPN I am only able to work for half a day, then my VPN stops working. They literally just shut down my Internet after 550 MB of download, that is not even one online college course.

Earlier this year, they arbitrarily assigned me to a different satellite than the one I was using costing me $100 dollars to have the dish tasked to a new satellite, without telling me why or giving me advance notice. Just suddenly, I had no internet connectivity. Then they tried to make it sound like it was the fault of my dish but I had the satellite information that I was originally tasked to written down. When the guy tried to task me to that one, they wouldn't let him so this was just an arbitrary $100 dollars on top of their extortionate rates and their equipment costs!

IF you have any other option, do not use their service! They obviously oversell their resource and will task you to a different satellite at your cost!

About 2 hours later, I logged onto a website at work to check student enrollment figures for the spring semester. As I was navigating to the correct page, I noticed a slowdown in the pages loading. I checked my system status and it stated I had exceeded my Fair Access Policy threshold. I had not been sitting at the computer for upwards of 2 hours, and the computer had been asleep since I went to work in the morning, about 8 hours previous. I was able to browse normally before putting the computer to sleep. I checked my downloads folder on my Mac and it showed no activity for the last 24 hours.

This had happened to me 2 weeks ago, and has happened numerous times where I download nothing and Hughes.net says their system indicates I have in fact exceeded my daily allotment. All of us Hughes.net prisoners know the drill by now: you then call the help number and are connected to an entry level troubleshooter who walks you thru the steps for about an hour and in the end you have two choices: hang up with the problem unresolved, or ask to speak to a supervisor, who then talks to you for another hour, and you end up with the issue unresolved, except they throw up their hands and say "Not our Fault".

Definitely the most frustrating vendor I have ever dealt with. I nonetheless called them last night. I had not done so 2 weeks ago when this happened, but knowing how unresponsive they are to this issue, and not wishing for the frustration, I just coughed up the $7.50, as I had used up my one free token with updating system software earlier this month. But last night I was angry and willing to complain once again because this time it was so blatantly obvious I was not at fault.

I got the same exact runaround I have always gotten, but this time it was even worse. I finally hung up after stating I needed them to restore the free token I had just used. I then powered down the modem and unplugged the ethernet connection between my computer and the modem. This morning I restarted the modem and connected to the internet again. I checked my FAP status before doing anything else and it showed I was down to 276 MB left out of my allowed 375 daily quota. Unbelievable. I then went to customerservice@myhughesnet and checked my previous days hourly downloads as recorded by Hughes.net. It stated during the last hour before unplugging last night, and in fact possibly while I was on the phone with the technician in India, I was downloading almost 500Mb of data, while of course I was doing nothing of the sort. And of course, no surprise, my free token has not been put back. Which is all I asked for.

Hughes.net really is full of it. We who live in places that do not have any alternative to satellite for our broadband services are being held hostage by these "providers". I research the other satellite companies and see similar complaints about their service. It is just good enough and problem free enough to keep you paying their exorbitant rates ($80/month for 1/5 the speed of in city broadband at nearly 3 times the price) because the alternative (dial-up) is just too slow anymore. They got us by the ** to say the least.

They cut my service off on 08/20/2010, when we were paid up until 09/11/2010. After contacting the BBB they promised to give me a refund. But when I called, Ecole Fair just tried to trump up new charges instead of giving me my 22 days refund. So after realizing that they were not going to listen to us, we went ahead and got new Internet service on 08/24/2010. And yesterday, which was 12/11/2010, I received a bill from a collection agency trying to collect over $500 for Hughes Network Systems LLC.

And if you lease their equipment (which I did), you must send everything back yourself or suffer a $300 equipment charge. I am talking about a huge satellite dish that is drilled into my roof which I must disassemble, package, and ship. I have complained to their customer service multiple times to no avail. In order to get out of the contract, I must pay a $400 early termination fee! Why in the world would you have such a huge fee to end service unless the company knew their service was terrible and have to incur such an insane price to make customers stay?

I tried working from home as I am a transcriptionist and download and upload times were terrible. At one point, it took over two hours to load a file. I went to help one of the other ladies and it took her less than two minutes on cable. To anybody thinking about purchasing a Hughesnet system: Run, don't walk! Save your money and bide your time.

Their service leaves a lot to be desired as does their Internet. They say it's 50 times faster than dial-up, what a crock! I am in the process of finding out whether I can get Comcast. If I can, Hughesnet is going out of my house! I had trouble with my service at one point and had to call technical support. After multiple attempts to get my service restored by the tech, he informed me that they would have to send out a service tech to my home to look at my system and the charge was $125.

So let me get this straight. I am paying you over 70 bucks a month already for service and you want me to cough up an additional $125? What I pay for service each month should cover everything, service and all. Anybody that has ever purchased Hughesnet should get their money back for each month they paid for service plus some for aggravation. I even cannot believe that they would have the nerve to charge a $400 early termination fee until they get their equipment back. The Federal Trade Commission and SCC should shut this place down or at least enforce some kind of regulation on how much they can charge. We work hard for our money and if we are going to pay money like that just for Internet, it should perform to the same standard. I have been disappointed since day one.

Point of this is: Save your money and save yourself a lot of aggravation. Do not listen to the ads on TV about how great their service is. Pay attention to the other posters and their complaints as well. Hughesnet should be ashamed of themselves.

I know that is not true, because there are 3 people in my apartment complex, less than 1,000 ft away from my apartment who have Hughes Net service. I also was disconnected more than once and had to make a total of 4 phone calls to their call center. I spoke with a representative named Marlene who went as far as to tell me to hold for my order confirmation number, then miraculously tell me that she needed to call me back, which of course she never did.

When I contacted them, I was advised the only remedy was to: (A) Not access or download anything for 24 hours, or (B) Purchase a "token" to restore normal speed at once. When we work from her home, we are connected through a cable modem, 100 times faster, no "allowance" for download at two-thirds the price. How can they get by with this nonsense? I believe a class action is called for.

I, like the others, at the moment have no other options. I've made the proper complaints to the proper government agencies. Insert laugh here. Like our completely corrupt government is actually going to do something to help it's people.

There is a satellite TV dish 50 feet from this dish and it never had a problem. It is sitting right in the middle of where my living room will be as soon as the house is completed and was also told this. There is 14 acres here and this is the only place he could put it? The cable is not buried, so you have to be careful operating equipment in that area. All the extra parts and the packing materials from the installation were left lying on the ground next to the dish. When we cancelled the service because of the botched installation, we were told someone would be out to pick up the equipment on the following Monday (almost a month ago).

Tonight, when I called to find out when they would come and pick the equipment up, I was told that I had to disassemble, package and ship it back to the warehouse or I would be charged a $300 non-returned equipment fee. After arguing with the "supervisor" for almost an hour with both myself and my wife telling her that we were told that someone would pick up the equipment, I asked to speak to her supervisor. I was told, "I am the supervisor." I asked her, "So there is no one there over you?" Again I was told, "I am the supervisor." I took that as a refusal to let me speak to her supervisor and told her I would call back on Monday and talk to the corporate office along with filing a formal complaint. We were never explained any of the charges about returning the equipment. Though we were offered for a technician to come out and disassemble the system for $150, but we were still responsible for getting it back to the warehouse in Maryland.

I am not getting the service I feel I should receive for the $77 a month I am paying. I called to terminate my service and was told I would incur a $400 early termination fee. I could understand if I had received free installation or free or reduced equipment but that is not the case. The $400 is simply a way to obtain more money from what I can see.

It's not to "cushion" or "make up for" anything I have received because all of it have been from my own finances. I have paid every step of the way so how can they legally require an additional $400?

The full amount has to be withdrawn from my bank account the minute I terminate the service. I cannot afford that amount all at once. So, I am stuck paying for a service I don't use.

After being on the phone for almost 2 hours I received "4" stop dates from the contract. I have been informed that the cancelation fee is not $475 so the lies just keep pouring in. Adam (front line rep) was sarcastic, laughing, put me on hold for about 20 minutes, transferred me to someone named Janelle, who gave me a completely different story about cancelling. I was then placed on hold for another almost 10 minutes and spoke to Sheila who gave me yet different cancellation information. I am now being told to cancel is $100 but it will cost $100 for someone to come uninstall the equipment (nowhere in the sign up docs does it say this).

Then we have to mail the equipment back to Hughes Net from our own pocket. When I was going through the information to finalize cancellation I got disconnected. When I called back I again got disconnected. I called back again to find they no longer have my phone number associated with my account that has been the same for the past 7 years. After calling back and going through another series of people I got transferred to Joyce who now informs me that I have a new case number as the last one was resolved.

Really? Resolved because the call was disconnected? Interesting. Again, lies, lies, and more lies about information, I again receive a totally different story from the one I just received not 10 minutes ago. I am promptly told I have to speak to a manager to cancel my service. The manager immediately starts talking over me (Jeanette) to tell me that I will be responsible for service through the end of January.

At this point all I can do is laugh. Have you lost count of how many different stories I have received, because at this point I'm starting to. Good thing I keep copious notes. Jeanette tells me that I will again be charged $475 for equipment. I asked where this is in my contract and she says not everything is in the contract. Way to scam the consumers Hughes Net! I asked Jeanette to read me back the notes on my account history. Who is surprised they are not at all what my calls were about? I asked her to provide me all the requirements to cancel to include uninstalling this junk of equipment, mailing instructions so I can joyfully pay to ship it back, and confirmation Hughes Net will no longer take any money from my bank account.

She said she would follow up on that when we got off the phone. I told her I would hold for the rest of the day if necessary while she completed the cancellation with all instructions, costs, and confirmations that no more money would be taken from my account and she could email that to me. I will read it back with her on the phone to confirm all information. You won't have to guess too hard to know what she just told me is not what I received in writing. Is anyone surprised?

Contacting someone that you can understand is a challenge, everyone I talked to had a terrible foreign accent, and several times I simply had to hang up because I could not understand them. For about two weeks my internet went out, I called and complained, and they told me I had to pay an extra $125 dollars that would be added to my monthly bill to have two technicians come out and fix the alignment problem. I had already paid half a grand to have it installed, was paying a $100 a month for service, and now I had to pay an extra $125 to have someone come out and fix what I was already paying for!

I had no guarantee that this would not be a recurring problem. Finally, I called them back and wanted to have my service terminated. Apparently I had signed a contract where I had not read the fine print. Had to dish out a $400 dollar disconnect fee. They did offer a $200 dollar refund if you sent back the head piece of the satellite, the modem and the power supply but they don’t send anyone out to help you. You have to take down and disassemble the satellite yourself; you have to pay the shipping costs when you send all this stuff back for which there is no refund. And even then, I had to call them constantly and fight with them to get my $200 refund back. I do not see how a business can operate like that, and yet stay in business.

Funny how if my computer is the problem, it fixes itself two hours later and I can use it again. Plus, I pay for them to come out to my house when I need them and they won't. I have to talk to India again so they can prove that nothing is wrong again with their system and nope we send nobody to you, goodbye. Well, Hughes Network, goodbye to you! You and your product stink!

It means that since their customer service is outsourced to a country that our troops are trying to defend and their income is probably funding, God only knows who we should be able to request a strike on that area and those who employ persons in countries that may jeopardize the security of the men and women of our armed forces in other countries as a possible act of treason. Maybe some CEOs might want to think about that when they are screwing the American citizens out of their hard-earned money. I know where I would request my missile strike! Too bad, it isn't like the lottery. Again, this is my personal opinion as a US Citizen.

When I attempted to use the online chat feature to communicate with customer help, the reception of my message was so slow that the receptionist "hung up" in the midst of my writing my message. Given the lack of communication about this sleazy payment method in the contract, I wonder if this commandeering of customer credit card information is illegal. I have just discovered the US-based business address, after extensive web searching, that I have posted above.

The economic damage has been my lack of control over HughsNet's taking money from my credit account outside of my control and against my stated will to their customer help receptionists in the Philippines, who have hung up on me several times when I attempted to communicate this.

When I attempted to use the online chat feature to communicate with customer help, the reception of my message was so slow that the receptionist "hung up" in the midst of my writing my message. Given the lack of communication about this sleazy payment method in the contract, I wonder if this commandeering of customer credit card information is illegal. I have just discovered the US based business address, after extensive web searching, that I have posted above.

The economic damage has been my lack of control over HughsNet's taking money from my credit account outside of my control and against my stated will to their customer help receptionists in the Philippines, who have hung up on me several times when I attempted to communicate this.

The service tech checked the system and said there was nothing wrong with the alignment. At this time, I called Hughes and told them to put my system on hold for three months because I was going on vacation.The hold was never put on and the system never worked.Then I met the service tech at a sales display and asked if could check my system. He did and found the modem to be defective and charged me $35 for his service. I called Hughes and was told that my contract expired the same day and they would not replace the modem but they still charged me for the following month of service.

We were told not only by the local retailer/installation people that we would not have to pay for installation again in Arizona, seeing as we would be moving only 1 month after having it installed in Wisconsin. We called the national customer care line to confirm that this was the case and we were assured again that we would not have to pay for installation once we get to Arizona. So we set up an appointment to have it installed. When the technician came, we never received our copy of the signed terms and conditions (I'm not sure if we even saw one). We just got an installation reference sheet with things like the date and our account username, etc. No signature was on that sheet.

Well, when we got to Arizona we did, in fact, have to pay for installation again, or we would have to pay a $400 early termination fee. We were not happy and spent several hours on the phone with customer service, which led to a six week credit that was never actually applied to our account as far as we know. We have also recently come across another issue with Hughes Net that has been highly frustrating and quite unbelievable in my mind. When I called to set up Hughes Net, I requested the Home Plan, which is the lowest cost plan, as it was just me and my husband planning to look for jobs. We don't work or watch movies online and we had no reason in the world to request any plan higher than the lowest plan available since my mother has been paying for this service and gets automatically charged to her credit card.

That card was stolen recently, and when going over the charges on her statement realized that Hughes Net had charged her $84.00 for the month of July. I called to ask about it, but seeing as how we never received a signed contract or any kind of statement from Hughes Net, and given that my mom was paying monthly, we had no way to know that they were charging us for a plan we had not requested. The supervisor at Hughes Net said, according to our terms and conditions, we had 2 months to contest any charges to our account. Well, we've way exceeded that time frame so the most he could do for us is give us $30 off our monthly bill for the next 3 months, even though it was their mistake to begin with.

It just seems a little too convenient for them that there's no paper trail for me to follow to verify anywhere what service was signed up for and how we can get out of our contract. They told me to try the local retailer we used to set up the installation, maybe they had a copy of our paperwork on file. Well, I did call and they don't have any such thing on file. Every interaction I have had with this company leaves me feeling like I'm stuck in a Franz Kaftka novel. The national 800# refers me back to the local retailer and the local retailer just refers me back to the 800#. I don't know if this level of dysfunction and disorganization is purposeful or not, but if it is an institutionalized dysfunction they appear to be making a lot of money out of it, and leaving their customers out to dry.

After speaking with five "customer service reps," we were finally allowed to cancel the service but at a cost of $400.00. I complained because it was not our fault—it was theirs due to false advertising. Didn't matter. They charge showed up on my credit card. Do not give your credit card number to these robber barons! We made a complaint to the Att. General of Arkansas and very shortly received a phone call from an "officer" of the HughesNet Company, who said the best they could do was refund half. $200 is better than $400. We took it gratefully.

Now two months later, there's another charge on our credit card from HughesNet for $324 for who knows what. I will not speak with these liars again. They give no understanding or avenue of escape except paying them. We have again made complaint to the Att. General. Buyer, beware! They'll find some way to get your money. Our businesses both depend upon internet "searches" of suppliers and receiving "e-mails and inquiries" from websites. Of course, this no longer functioned for us as we did not have the ability to stay online for any length of time (fair access) except at 2-3 a.m. What customer is awake at that time?

The next thing is, I called about two weeks ago and they told me that my satellite was unaligned, and that I had to pay $125.00 to get someone to come back out and realign it, because my warranty was up on their product. What kind of ** is that? So needless to say, I did not pay the $125. I told them that I was not paying them $125 for their product. Every time you ask to speak to a manager, they will tell you to hold on one second, then they will come back on with a deal for you, most of the time I tell them no, that I still want to speak to a manager. I would have never, ever, ever bought Hughes Net, if I knew this was the way it was, and I can't get anything else out here. It took them 8 hours each time they have come over here, to do anything. They do not know what they are doing. The economic damage is that I am paying a lot of money for **.

Their way of handling the problems are to drive their customers crazy so they will give up. I could go on and on, but have done that for 2 years and this is the last, unless there is a class action law suit for failure to perform and misrepresentation, of which I will wholeheartedly take part! HughesNet should be held accountable for non-performance of their side of the contract-they are a terrible company and shame the name of Howard Hughes. DSL has finally come to our neck of the woods, and there have been zero problems so far. I am receiving what was promised-fast speeds, reliable connectivity, affordable-I pay $15 a month as opposed to $75 for far far far better service-it is just unbelievable that HughesNet is allowed to still operate. Isn't there laws against businesses misrepresenting in this way?

I paid over $2000 in total for bad internet service-slow speeds, no connection, they nailed the dish to my tree and damaged the tree, the cables are running all over the yard, really unprofessional installation and more unprofessional "service" spent hours (would equal a loss of $750) on the phone trying to get some sort of resolution to the problems at hand, more hours of unnecessary waiting around for the internet to do business (would equal in to the thousands of dollars lost).

This tech knew what he was doing, however, I was still charged $125 by Hughes Net. Arguing that I should not have to pay for service call when the unit was not properly installed, very rude, I asked to speak to manager who also was very arrogant and rude. If you cancel service, you have to pay $400. I can't wait till my contract is up in November. I will definitely cancel and will tell everyone I know to not use this company!

Hughesnet tech support can't even speak English. They only go through a checklist and have no clue what they're talking about. They never answer my questions to my satisfaction. When I requested to speak with someone in America that is higher up in the company, I never get a positive response. The only Americans I have ever spoken to were the ones who set up the appointment for installation and the contractor who installed it and worked on it. It costs me about $150 just to get a service call. They never find anything wrong. They just reset the ** thing and get it working. The same thing I do.

AT&T or local cable provider, please make your service available out here! I am out of several hundred dollars for service I don't receive and stuck in a contract I can't break. Is there any way something can be done to this company?

When you call the company you get some guy called Dave or woman called Mary in New Delhi India that could care less about your problem. They are like a bunch of droids reading from a set of index cards repeating over and over how sorry they are for your troubles. Then they tell you they cannot fix the issue because my modem is outdated even though they have told me that the problem was a connectivity issue with their equipment and that a service person is needed. They will not send someone unless I get the new modem and sign up for 2 more years of service. I told them the modem I have is not the problem and I just want my service fixed,but all to no avail.

I'm sick of it. Nothing has been resolved other than less than satisfactory service and equipment that needs to still be repaired. I will not purchase a new modem, nor will I sign up for more time with this lying company.

Skip ahead a year, I lost my job in February 2010 and immediately suspended my account. I have no problem honoring my contracts with people and/or businesses, but there should be some flexibility for common sense in caring for customers. I am selling my house and moving into a weekly rate motel. I call HughesNet customer care and request to have a box sent to return the equipment and extend my suspension for the remainder of my contract. I currently pay ~$10/month for the contracted lease of the equipment under suspension.

After suspension ends in a month, the best they can do is bill me ~$40/month. I explained to them that I cannot afford ~$40/month with my UI. I can afford ~$10/month. No options were given to me even when I spoke with a supervisor. HughesNet does not care! They would rather bill me $400 for early cancellation that I cannot afford right now. They go through months of trying to collect from me, instead of extending a suspension due to hardship and guaranteeing a monthly payment from me.

And when you do try to cancel, they give you lots of reference numbers, in fact, I have reference numbers for reference numbers. Their system is so convoluted and it is difficult to speak to someone who speaks English and knows what is actually going on. We are sucking it up, paying the early termination fee to be free of this mess and switching to clear.com, which also has a 2 year contract, but actually has a usable connection. We will pay the $400 early termination fee just to be done with them. If someone doesn't believe all these reviews, they should make sure they have a free trial period to test the service and exhaust all other methods of connection!

The download manager that they offer never worked. Then I was told by technical support that the download manager isn't compatible with Windows 7. When I woke today, I had 98% of my download limit. My son and myself had only been to FB and I here. My limit now stands at 68% without any download having taken place with exception of navigating a few pages. After paying $70 per month, an extra $5.00 to get back up to speed after exceeding the download limit feels like highway robbery! Especially since I have been tracking my CPU usage and diligently watching the usage meter and not allowing any downloading until after 1am CST.

I too need to know, to whom do I complain? FCC, FTC, FDA, who? This industry needs regulation because I'm certain that they are siphoning off my download limit as I watch it go away. I read a few more complaints before I decided to write mine. I know that I am not the only one in this area with this issue. A friend of mine thought it was her computer acting up every other day until I explained my issue. I need to know how I can find adequate Internet access in a rural area and how I can fight this conglomerate who I feel is taking advantage of me. I am emotionally stressed from having to call Hughes Net weekly and speak with people I barely understand to try to resolve the issue. I know that I'm paying more than other people with the same service. We need high speed for my wife's online classes, but there's stress through the home wondering when our service will be interrupted while not downloading.

He told my husband that it would cost $190 to mount on the roof, but $125 to be mounted on a pole. My husband opted for the pole mount since it was cheaper, not realizing that the roof installation was included at no additional charge! The check was made out directly to Jason. He also dug too close to swimming pool pipes and caused a leak in our system. He left us no paperwork and gave us no information regarding our rebates or online account management.

After a few days, the extremely slow service stopped working altogether. We called four times to finally get assistance from premium support! We had to request disconnection before anyone would even help us. When I originally asked for the customer service department, we were even told that there was no a customer service department and that no one could help! When I was finally transferred to "retention", the lady offered a trial period to extend to 8/28/10, a credit of $57.87 on my bill, and premium support in the US. After turning off power, resetting and trying various connections, the gentleman in Florida at premium support discovered that there was a problem with the modem.

In total, we spent a couple of hours on the phone to come to that conclusion. He said someone would come to our home and bring a different modem so that our service would work. We told him that we did not want Jason back at our home. The same company 4 hours away called to schedule service. When the man came, he only checked out the system and told us what we already knew - that the modem was faulty. We had been told that they would be bringing the modem, so this was a complete waste of everyone's time. He left and we received another call from the same installation company to set up an appointment for the modem replacement. That appointment was cancelled on the day of the appointment after we made arrangements to be home from work- the install company said their truck was broken. So, we set up another appointment and had to make arrangements again.

Then Jason showed up again - the same guy we had said could not come back to out home. He was again 2 hours later than the agreed upon time frame (2 hours after the latest time not the earliest). He said he didn't know why he was there and that he did not know what to do. While there, he called the company and loudly complained that they were wasting money fixing things that were not broken and was very rude to my family. This was after premium support and his boss had discovered the problem with the modem!

Then on 8/1/10, I discovered that $500.75 was deducted from my checking account. After searching online through Google, I finally found a way to create an online account and look at bills. We had two previous bills dated 6/30 that showed $0 due. There is a new bill dated 7/30/10 that does show the $500.75 due on 8/9/10. I received no information from anyone on how to retrieve the bills, the online system or anything. We also received no emails regarding any billing activity. You cannot just create a bill and deduct it from someone's checking account all at the same time. There must be some sort of notice of the amount and date of deduction. This created a huge problem with my financial situation! I never expected that amount to be deducted.

We discontinued the service 8/1/10 as soon as we saw the deduction. I got back on the website and discovered that it will be discontinued 8/30/10. We removed the equipment on 8/1 and shipped it back on 8/2 at a cost of $39 since there is no local outlet. The service amount for the month of August needs to be refunded. I do not expect to pay for this inferior service or an installation that actually cost me money to repair his damages to my property.

My first use was at my daughter's house. They use AT& T wireless. Everything worked beautiful. Then I went home then nothing, there was no connection. I called Hughes who said that it was the computer and directed me back to Hughes. After going back and forth between them, I was ready to scream and I did at that person in Mumbai who keep repeating my answers to the questions that were obviously popping up on his computer screen. But he wasn't listening because I told him that I was plugged directly into the modem and that the router wasn't being used at this point. I told him twice and he still asked me about what lights were showing on the router and where the plugs were on the router. So yes, I screamed. Then I got to listen to the Bollywood Top 10 hits and then the little worm zapped my IP address. I had someone, who I paid, come to reset things: not the satellite, but just the settings on the computer and get an IP address back and serviced so since.

But lately, it’s been problematic again. So, I called the customer service. I listened to the newest Bollywood hits then talked to Samier or something. Yadda, Yadda, it’s the satellite, 7 to 14 days until only now, they wanted to talk to my husband which would be tricky because I've asked Hughes to change that name several times over the past year since my husband is deceased. They never changed it. Now they need to talk to him to get permission to come to my house to fix that stupid satellite. Their alternative was for me to fax a Death Certificate to the Philippines. There will be a lot more dead people before I do that. Even California DMV didn't need to see that to change the ownership of our vehicles to just myself. Just who does Hughes think they are? This should be a public utility issue and if not, why isn't it? Who watchdogs these people? Right now, having to talk to HughesNet is like having to go to the dentist. Oh no, my dentist isn't that bad.

I replaced the original modem with a supposed upgraded performance DW7000S (requiring a two year contract) on November 11, 2007. The faster DW7000S was rated at 2 Mbps download speeds, although never mind the cleverly worded Hughes Net contract which specifies up to 2 Mbps speed, as you'll never see it.

The below data from 70 nearly around the clock (5 AM to 11 PM) tests, was gathered over a 3 day period and speaks for itself. For example; I was not able to achieve the downward revised 1.5 Mbps contract speed, as has been the case, for many, many months. In the 70 separate speed tests, using PC Pitstop (Dallas server). The advertised typical busy period speeds of 1.0 Mbps to 1.2 Mbps, as stated on the Hughes Net web site, were obtained ONLY between 5 AM to 9:30 AM local time. The speed quickly trailed off to 50% and less of the speeds stated in the contract, after 9:30 AM and there it remained until some time around midnight. The stated peak period performance is a joke, with speeds well under 200 Kbps any time after 7 PM, with lowest performance falling off to 151 Kbps, being very little above dial up speed.

A realistic average speed, during moderate activity periods, is more like 300 to 500 Kbps at best. Most telling is the Ping or latency delay times, which ran well over 1000 ms (the maximum was 1714 ms), in 50% of the tests. The best Ping response was 667 ms. Its acknowledged there is an inherent increased Ping delay time in satellite systems but for comparison, cable systems typically see Ping times of 20~30 ms.

Hughes Net is quick to acknowledge that there is little correlation between receive signal levels and download speeds, but I so noted the data in several reports, including a period when moderate to heavy rain showers were experienced. Ive seen loss of signal in heavier to extreme precipitation, but that was not the case, during the tests, with a minimum indicated receive level of 67. The actual performance appeared to have experienced no significant degradation during the rain.

My interpretation of the extraordinary Ping delays seen with the Hughes Net system, is a strong suggestion that Hughes has oversold the service. Simply stated, they can not service the product they have sold and what is more, we all watch nightly TV, as they continue to sell high speed Internet. Curiously, I note that similar reports from Wild Blue satellite Internet users, typically meet the 1.5 Mbps speed, even during the peak load evening hours!

What is high speed Internet? Several reports I received from friends across the country, typically produced download speed reports, with cable systems providing speeds well over 10 Mbps and as high as 24.86 Mbps. In short it would appear there's a real serious need for some truth in advertising from the Hughes folks.

I spent hours on three calls on July 11, 2010 (I recorded all calls on a digital recorder, and regardless of the woman that hung up on me because I was recording without her consent (well her consent means nothing, as I am recording my business with a commercial company in a commercial issue), I am notifying of the recording, like I told the cop, I don't need permission. All I need to do is notify, at most. And financial issues with commercial companies are one of many exceptions to notification requirements, read the black letter law. I am going by California laws as Hughes is registered with the CA in Business Portal (Sec-state) as a 'foreign corporation operating in California' and bound by California laws!

Anyway, I was on the third call, assured (on the record) that the account was immediately canceled. I am like 12 years past the 24 month deal, and yet, this morning (July 15 2010), I check my account (with Hughes) to find that it still active and tagged with termination on the first day of next month, which no doubt, entitles them to keep the money that they stole from my account via breach of contract and virtual denial of service. I was not fapped back to minimum speed. After ten minutes or so, I was cut off totally.

It took me seven days to download one program - a big one, but still, that was one of the main sales pitches when I bought into the service. I had to download Adobe Photoshop elements 8.0 piecemeal for approximately ten minutes at a time, over seven days. That led me to decide to sign up with Beamspeed (what a relief! No fap, no **!) I will call (and record) again today. Much business is conducted over the phone these days. Protect yourselves and record all transactions! It is your right to have a written receipt for business, and to the best information available to me (California black letter law) under law, any recording is defined as a 'writing', i.e. written receipt for business transacted. Also, this applies to cops, but only for your own business with them. Recording without notice of person in custody is a felony. People, you better check out the laws before that video cam gets you in trouble!

8. So now I have to fax them proof of ownership of this house before they will send a technician out to hook up their "free" upgraded modem. By the way, my current modem works fine. They want me off of it so they can stop supporting what they've sold me.

The tech support is in India-- that actually was not as bad as some Indian support I've experienced. Billing is apparently in the Philippines. Amusing is that they have renamed all of their agents with "Americanized" names as if that will solve the language and cultural barrier. It certainly didn't help the billing department understand the inanity of insisting they had installed the internet dish at a PO Box. My problem is still not fixed. As soon as cable or DSL is available here, I will burn their equipment and have a party. They don't care about customers or what we think of them or their service. If they had competition, they'd be out of business. Stay away if you can.

No one can tell me when they will get their problems fixed. If it's the weather, they say it's beyond their control. Has there been bad weather at the satellite for over two weeks now? I seriously doubt it. I've been told they are trying to boost the signal strength. I was told the problem started in May and I bought the system in June so they knew they were selling me a system I was going to have problems with. That is recorded. Then, I was told the problem started after I got my system. Yeah, right.

I had minor problems with the 7000 system but never like this. They are ripping people off and somebody should be able to do something about them! I have some recorded conversations of all the bull crap they tell me and I have informed them I have recorded conversations (legal in Alabama as long as one party is aware of it and that party is me, already checked into that), but if I can't find who can help with them, what good do they do me? I have asked to be transferred to someone in the United States and they can't do that either. I have requested to be transferred to high-ups and they can't do that either. Keep telling me to wait 2 hours and if the problem continues to call back. I do when I can but then the cycle starts over again with the same crap. Tried to send email on their website and it just clicks the email away! I left complaints for someone to call me. No one called. I have no other option where I live except possible Wild Blue and I understand they are even worse. I paid for a system that doesn't work more than it does and pay $60.00 month and can't even get on or stay on most of the time.

Needless to say, we were billed a disconnect fee for their mistake. I called on 6/11/2010 and spoke to 4 different people in 3 different departments in India, Philippines, and India again with no one supposedly able to help me. I filed a complaint with the BBB, but have heard nothing. I tried Hughes Net again, only on line this time and basically got the same runaround. We, like a lot of other people, are experiencing financial difficulties and unfortunately have to use our credit card sometimes just to buy groceries. So, we do not need this fee added to our credit card.

I called Hughes Network and explained the problem, stating that I felt the satellite dish was not tightened down adequately when it was installed, especially since my DirecTV dish was not affected at all. Can you believe the guy from whatever country told me when I called customer service that it was an Act of God and that they would do nothing about it? I can't wait until my contract with Hughes Network is done, so I can replace them with another service.

I received a call from HugesNet on June 7, 2009 asking for my email address saying they would send me information on returning their equipment, but I never received an email. I called them on June 10 and on asking about the email but my call were never returned. On 6/6/2009, Capital One put a charge on my account for $371.71. I protested the charge as I had not cancelled the dish with HugesNet and they took the payment off for about 2 months and they put the charge back on stating that after checking with HugesNet, they had determined that the charge was legal. I wrote back that they should check my credit state men, it would show that I was paid up to 06/29/09 and they would see that I was paid up and beside they were the one who cancelled my account. But they refused to remove the charge. Now I am hit with over the limit fees and late payment charges. My only income is from retirement and any unplanned payment I have to do without things that are badly needed. It is recorded on my credit report, I have had to do without thing that are badly needed because with the inflated payment with Capital One.

A few months later, I was offered a job in Boston but was now locked into a 2-year contract with them. I returned the equipment and had to pay a penalty to discontinue the service. They were supposed to refund me some money for returning the equipment that I bought. I never received a refund and they continued to charge my card $60 a month without me knowing for the past year. My fault for not checking my account closer I know but after going out of my way to drive to their office to return equipment, I assumed the matter was settled. It was like pulling teeth to get the service discontinued in the first place and figure out how to return the equipment. And now, I find out they have been charging me for a year! As far as I'm concerned, they owe me $720 for the year of service and $200 for the returned equipment!

I know the last time I used my card, there was plenty of money there. The service is not as great as they say. Over half of the time, you cannot get connected. I never authorize them to take money out of my account. I pay my own bills. So now, I have to cover all the overdraft charges and all. They just help their self to your money ad keep charging you more and more. I think something needs to be done about businesses that can take advantage of people.

On 5/16, I could not get online and after same 2 trouble shooting sessions, I need higher level help who will call within 48 hrs(?). 48 hours later, I called.They were to look into it. The big problem is, I am at work during the day and that's when they called. This outfit should not be allowed to false advertise and take advantage of public.

This means I can only download a few items per day during a certain period of time or what they referred to as "peak" hours and online game play was definitely out of the question since, at the time I had a 3-year old at home who loved Nick Jr. online and the games associated with it and other educational websites, but we had to limit that due to "fair access policy" threshold. I also had a teenager who loves YouTube, but who had to limit that to maybe one video per day. Aside from that, the costumer service never got an English speaking person and they could get me to the department to handle my concern without me being hung up on almost every time they were attempting to transfer me. I had to tell my story to everyone I talked to just for them to tell me they were not the department that handled those issues. I needed customer service, and customer service tells me I need tech support, and tech support tells me I need billing, and billing to tell me to hold on let me see what we can do, and guess what, I get hung up on then I have to start the process over again.

I get what is supposed to be the direct number for the correct department, only to be given the same number I already had only with an extension, but lo and behold there is never an option to dial an extension, so here I am at square one. They want 285.00 on top of my monthly fee of 79.99 for me to have them move my services from one address to another, and that's if I take down all the equipment and carry it with me and all they do is connect it, but if they have to take down and move the equipment and connect it at the new location it's 385.00. This whole system is a rip-off! I would highly suggest that anyone thinking about doing business with this company think again and don't do it! You will be out of your hard-earned money, time and frustration dealing with their customer service reps and bad service. I was charged $400 which was drafted directly out of my account, for what they call early termination fee, but I never called to have my services terminated. I only wanted to have it moved from one location to the other, and never hooked my computer back up to the system because I was not living at the service location any longer. The timing of them taking the fund out of my account couldn't have been any worse because I had rent, light bill, car payment, and car insurance due during said time and it set me back.

Today, May 13, 2010, I called back and after being on the PC for for 1 hr checking mail and again, the fair access policy was exceeded. This time, they told me my dish was out of alignment due to winds, etc. We have had no winds to cause a dish to be moved, and I had to pay $125 for a tech to come out. I did not buy the equipment. I pay to lease it every month but they said the warranty had run out. I argued this point and got nowhere, and of course, they offered to credit my account 1 month service. This still does not compensate for all the $5 charges to have speed restored to use the internet, and I do not think I should be responsible for a service call due to the fact I lease the equipment for $9.99 a month. Nor do I feel that since they have a known issue with the modem I have, I should be credited back for the restore tokens as well. I am thoroughly disgusted with this whole matter and had to agree to a 2 yr contact. I would not recommend this service to anyone.

Then I got a bill for the modem which was not cheap and I called them and told them I had a coupon for it and they told me that they new nothing about a coupon for this modem and that I had requested it and would have to pay for it. The speed of the computer never did get better only worse. Since that time we have called tech support and talked to a person who cannot speak English many, many times. Many times no service and many times service so slow dial up was fast compared to this.

Then we found out about limited access a term I had never heard in relation to internet service. This means if you down load or try to down load a movie you have exceeded you what you are allowed for the day. When this happens, your computer is so slow that to just get on line takes up to ten minutes. I live out in the country and have no other service except dial up which we are going back to. I have checked into other satellite services and I read that most are as bad a Hughes net. Even that some of them use Hughes' satellites. I can't wait until we have another service and then I can take a sledge hammer to Hughes' equipment so the don't stick someone else with it.