Complaint Review: Hughes Network Systems - Germantown Maryland
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- Author Confirmed
- Hughes Network Systems 11717 Exploration Lane Germantown, Maryland U.S.A.
- Phone: 301-428-5100
- Web:
- Category: Internet Services
Hughes Network Systems - Hughesnet - Direcway Strongarm Billing and Slow Service by Hughesnet Satellite. Don't use them!! ripoff Germantown Maryland
*UPDATE EX-employee responds: Regarding Hughesnet
*UPDATE EX-employee responds: Regarding Hughesnet
*UPDATE EX-employee responds: Regarding Hughesnet
*UPDATE EX-employee responds: Regarding Hughesnet
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I originally had contact with this company when living in Wylie TX in 2003. I signed up for their system because it was the only "broadband" solution in my area. This was when the company was called "Direcway".
I paid for my dish, modems and installation (about $500) happily believing their claims of high speed internet service only to find that it was only a tad better than dial up. upload speeds were always less than 20k and downloads never reached much more than 384k. still, it was a little better than dial up so I stuck with it. When real broadband via Cable came to my area I immediately dropped this service. I cannot rightly remember but I believe I paid an "early termination fee" to drop their service. I eventually sold the equipment I bought for $75.
Fast forward to 2006. I moved to a remote location by the lake but lo and behold, no broadband available here. Because of perceived changes in the technology and promises of a much advanced system I signed up again with the new Direcway aka Hughesnet. Again another dish purchase was necessary. $581 later I had my "high speed internet". This High speed internet service provided me the "blazing fast speed" of 900k down and at most 22k up. I signed up for the "Professional Plan" with a static IP address and speeds "up to" 1.5 mbps download speeds and 256k upload speed. In all the myriad of testing I did on this connection I NEVER received this level of service.
I called numerous times to "tech" support. some fool in India, reading from a script always answered the call and always told me that my speeds were "within the acceptable range". This was not acceptable to me. On one occasion I had a tech tell me that I had to put a proxy server on all my computers. the "proxy" was the local address of my hn7000 modem and yeah, it made the download speed a bit faster. but those of us that know about networks know that this was only because of a cached webpage and not a real measure of bandwidth. I finally gave up on trying to get what I was paying for and lived with it until I found a better solution.
I then called to cancel my service. I was told I would have to pay an early termination fee of $300. I refused to pay this fee and told the person to have a supervisor contact me about it. nobody called so I called back a week later. My account was still active, no termination took place. I then told them to cancel my account again and spoke with a "supervisor" who told me they would be charging me $300. I told him I would refuse this charge and he laughed at me. I awoke this morning to a $280 charge to my debit card.
After speaking with many "supervisors" who just laughed at me and told me there was nobody else to speak with who would reverse this charge I dug out the agreement they sent me. It states "Termination: If you cancel service more than 30 days after activation and prior to the completion of the 15-month commitment, you will be charged a $300 Service Termination Fee and are not eligible to receive any refunds." Although you never sign an agreement it is implied that you accept this strong arm statement by accepting the service.
On the subject of speed: "Actual speeds vary based on the amount of traffic on the Internet, content on a particular Web site, or by the overall performance and configuration of your computer." and it goes on to state that you cannot use it for most functions that broadband users want a high speed connection for. "Stated speeds are not guaranteed. HughesNet is optimized for browsing and downloading files. HughesNet is not recommended for use with Virtual Private Networks (VPN), twitch or RPG online games, online trading, web hosting or heavy file uploads." NoVPN?? no Gaming??? No file uploads?? no online trading? d**n, what do you use it for?
So, anyone considering using Hughesnet or any other iteration of this company or it's services should "JUST SAY NO" and stick with your dial up.
I would love to see a class action suit brought against this company for failure to provide service that they advertise.
Robert
corsicana, Texas
U.S.A.
Click here to read other Rip Off Reports on Direcway
This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 05/29/2007 07:45 AM and is a permanent record located here: https://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/hughes-network-systems/germantown-maryland-20876/hughes-network-systems-hughesnet-direcway-strongarm-billing-and-slow-service-by-hughes-250922. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year. Ripoff Report has an exclusive license to this report. It may not be copied without the written permission of Ripoff Report. READ: Foreign websites steal our content
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#4 UPDATE EX-employee responds
Regarding Hughesnet
AUTHOR: Randy - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ex-Employee/Billing call center supervisor Randy here. (They moved billing to the Philippians)
Wow what an experience it was needing a job and living with that kinda stress all day LET TELL YA! I didn't even really work for hughesnet/direcway and I had to deal with their problems on a day-to-day basis, and I never once put the blame on the customer.
No decisions went through us, and we did not directly work through the company. Really I want everyone to read that because thats my major point.
Nobody you ever talk to, billing/tech at any level actually work *for* hughesnet, they're not hughesnet employees they're all outsourced or insourced call center employees. You also can't get in contact with anyone from hughesnet via phone, you have to write them a letter if you want to talk to corporate
It's not a *major* problem I would say for support, but HERE is the catcher
Hughesnet has 3rd party sales vendors, which WOULD be a great thing if those 3rd party vendors went over every detail with the customer before installation.
When you call hughesnets ACTUAL sales number you're played EVERYTHING, what the service is, what you can and can't do, the termination fee agreement, the actual prices and plans, everything down to pennies. This information is then recorded and placed into a database that any billing agent can pull up at any time if a customer claims they never heard or agreed to it, this being the actual "Terms of Service" agreement, and verbal agreements are legal.
The 3rd party vendors (any website that sells hughesnet that is not hughesnet.com or hughes.com) NEVER release ANYTHING about "Speeds not a guarantee, no gaming, no VPN, or the ETF's)
You can imagine the HELL this caused me in my job, and I can't even begin to imagine the hell this caused customers, I can't even compare the two. The funny thing being I worked as a hughesnet billing supervisor for 15 months, the exact same length as their contract before they terminated me.
I can't say they're a bad company, THEY list everything you can and can't do, but their outsourced sales companies do NOT)
Regarding why you can't game/VPN, its satellite, its not wire-based or grounded, its all done through radio signals, theres ALWAYS a 2 second lag no matter what satellite internet provider you go through, even wildblue. It's got slower dsl speed, and costs more, but for just browsing it IS better then dialup.
#3 UPDATE EX-employee responds
Regarding Hughesnet
AUTHOR: Randy - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ex-Employee/Billing call center supervisor Randy here. (They moved billing to the Philippians)
Wow what an experience it was needing a job and living with that kinda stress all day LET TELL YA! I didn't even really work for hughesnet/direcway and I had to deal with their problems on a day-to-day basis, and I never once put the blame on the customer.
No decisions went through us, and we did not directly work through the company. Really I want everyone to read that because thats my major point.
Nobody you ever talk to, billing/tech at any level actually work *for* hughesnet, they're not hughesnet employees they're all outsourced or insourced call center employees. You also can't get in contact with anyone from hughesnet via phone, you have to write them a letter if you want to talk to corporate
It's not a *major* problem I would say for support, but HERE is the catcher
Hughesnet has 3rd party sales vendors, which WOULD be a great thing if those 3rd party vendors went over every detail with the customer before installation.
When you call hughesnets ACTUAL sales number you're played EVERYTHING, what the service is, what you can and can't do, the termination fee agreement, the actual prices and plans, everything down to pennies. This information is then recorded and placed into a database that any billing agent can pull up at any time if a customer claims they never heard or agreed to it, this being the actual "Terms of Service" agreement, and verbal agreements are legal.
The 3rd party vendors (any website that sells hughesnet that is not hughesnet.com or hughes.com) NEVER release ANYTHING about "Speeds not a guarantee, no gaming, no VPN, or the ETF's)
You can imagine the HELL this caused me in my job, and I can't even begin to imagine the hell this caused customers, I can't even compare the two. The funny thing being I worked as a hughesnet billing supervisor for 15 months, the exact same length as their contract before they terminated me.
I can't say they're a bad company, THEY list everything you can and can't do, but their outsourced sales companies do NOT)
Regarding why you can't game/VPN, its satellite, its not wire-based or grounded, its all done through radio signals, theres ALWAYS a 2 second lag no matter what satellite internet provider you go through, even wildblue. It's got slower dsl speed, and costs more, but for just browsing it IS better then dialup.
#2 UPDATE EX-employee responds
Regarding Hughesnet
AUTHOR: Randy - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ex-Employee/Billing call center supervisor Randy here. (They moved billing to the Philippians)
Wow what an experience it was needing a job and living with that kinda stress all day LET TELL YA! I didn't even really work for hughesnet/direcway and I had to deal with their problems on a day-to-day basis, and I never once put the blame on the customer.
No decisions went through us, and we did not directly work through the company. Really I want everyone to read that because thats my major point.
Nobody you ever talk to, billing/tech at any level actually work *for* hughesnet, they're not hughesnet employees they're all outsourced or insourced call center employees. You also can't get in contact with anyone from hughesnet via phone, you have to write them a letter if you want to talk to corporate
It's not a *major* problem I would say for support, but HERE is the catcher
Hughesnet has 3rd party sales vendors, which WOULD be a great thing if those 3rd party vendors went over every detail with the customer before installation.
When you call hughesnets ACTUAL sales number you're played EVERYTHING, what the service is, what you can and can't do, the termination fee agreement, the actual prices and plans, everything down to pennies. This information is then recorded and placed into a database that any billing agent can pull up at any time if a customer claims they never heard or agreed to it, this being the actual "Terms of Service" agreement, and verbal agreements are legal.
The 3rd party vendors (any website that sells hughesnet that is not hughesnet.com or hughes.com) NEVER release ANYTHING about "Speeds not a guarantee, no gaming, no VPN, or the ETF's)
You can imagine the HELL this caused me in my job, and I can't even begin to imagine the hell this caused customers, I can't even compare the two. The funny thing being I worked as a hughesnet billing supervisor for 15 months, the exact same length as their contract before they terminated me.
I can't say they're a bad company, THEY list everything you can and can't do, but their outsourced sales companies do NOT)
Regarding why you can't game/VPN, its satellite, its not wire-based or grounded, its all done through radio signals, theres ALWAYS a 2 second lag no matter what satellite internet provider you go through, even wildblue. It's got slower dsl speed, and costs more, but for just browsing it IS better then dialup.
#1 UPDATE EX-employee responds
Regarding Hughesnet
AUTHOR: Randy - (U.S.A.)
SUBMITTED: Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Ex-Employee/Billing call center supervisor Randy here. (They moved billing to the Philippians)
Wow what an experience it was needing a job and living with that kinda stress all day LET TELL YA! I didn't even really work for hughesnet/direcway and I had to deal with their problems on a day-to-day basis, and I never once put the blame on the customer.
No decisions went through us, and we did not directly work through the company. Really I want everyone to read that because thats my major point.
Nobody you ever talk to, billing/tech at any level actually work *for* hughesnet, they're not hughesnet employees they're all outsourced or insourced call center employees. You also can't get in contact with anyone from hughesnet via phone, you have to write them a letter if you want to talk to corporate
It's not a *major* problem I would say for support, but HERE is the catcher
Hughesnet has 3rd party sales vendors, which WOULD be a great thing if those 3rd party vendors went over every detail with the customer before installation.
When you call hughesnets ACTUAL sales number you're played EVERYTHING, what the service is, what you can and can't do, the termination fee agreement, the actual prices and plans, everything down to pennies. This information is then recorded and placed into a database that any billing agent can pull up at any time if a customer claims they never heard or agreed to it, this being the actual "Terms of Service" agreement, and verbal agreements are legal.
The 3rd party vendors (any website that sells hughesnet that is not hughesnet.com or hughes.com) NEVER release ANYTHING about "Speeds not a guarantee, no gaming, no VPN, or the ETF's)
You can imagine the HELL this caused me in my job, and I can't even begin to imagine the hell this caused customers, I can't even compare the two. The funny thing being I worked as a hughesnet billing supervisor for 15 months, the exact same length as their contract before they terminated me.
I can't say they're a bad company, THEY list everything you can and can't do, but their outsourced sales companies do NOT)
Regarding why you can't game/VPN, its satellite, its not wire-based or grounded, its all done through radio signals, theres ALWAYS a 2 second lag no matter what satellite internet provider you go through, even wildblue. It's got slower dsl speed, and costs more, but for just browsing it IS better then dialup.
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