HUGHESNET RIPOFF?

Here’s my experience with HughesNet High Speed Internet service.  The service was already installed when I moved into my father’s house.  He’s 80 years old and knows nothing about computers, much less high speed Internet services, but he was determined to have access to the Internet.   We live in the country so reliable high speed Internet services are not available.

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So he had access now and could get email, although he barely knew how to read or write email.  He logged in probably no more than once a week and wouldn’t have known good service or bad service.  He thought he was doing something really big just turning a computer on and getting to the email.

HUGHESNET FAIR ACCESS POLICY (FAP)

Then I moved in and I have an online business.  I’ve been using high speed Internet for years and rely on it to upload and download websites that I create for sale.   My first big shock with HughesNet high speed Internet service was the restriction to 200 MB per day bandwidth.  I wasn’t aware of that, so I quickly exceeded that and BAM … Internet stopped … I couldn’t access anything.  When I called them up I was informed that I had exceeded the Fair Access Policy (FAP) and my Internet would crawl at a non-functional pace for 24 hours.  Of course, if you keep your computer on and get an email, the timing begins again … it’s 24 hrs of NO use.

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The genius customer care person decided to give me some tips on not exceeding HughesNet FAP.  She spoke to me as if she were talking to an idiot, someone who had no knowledge of the Internet and computer use.  She informed me that my anti-virus and anti-spyware programs as well as Windows would automatically update and I should disable all updates to those programs to avoid using excessive bandwidth.  It wasn’t until much later, when I got a customer service rep on the phone with a brain that I was informed that you could update those services at 3:00 am to 5 or 6 am … the limit was lifted during that time.

So now I’m knowledgeable about HughesNet FAP and know the bandwidth limitations and have to conduct my business accordingly.  I had to outsource uploading and downloading larger sites and give up watching ANY videos completely.  I used to love to watch stupid Youtube videos or buy video courses, but now that was gone.  I couldn’t view videos or download video courses without exceeding HughesNet FAP, and this service costs us around $75 per month, so it wasn’t cheap.  I could, of course, upgrade to a higher price service level, but I wasn’t happy with what I was getting for my money, so I decided not to give them even more money for very little service.  Plus, their “upgrades” say they provide faster speed, but they do not bump up the bandwidth allowance significantly.  It simply isn’t worth the extra money. So when you see their TV commercials talking about downloading whole albums of music and watching videos … don’t believe it. If your service actually does function, you’ll soon be in FAP and have NO Internet access at all.

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HUGHESNET SPEED

I don’t even like to use the word speed in the same sentence with HughesNet Rip-off.  It is by far the slowest “high speed” Internet service I’ve ever used.  Not just a little too slow … a whole lot slow.  You know their TV commercials where they show a photo creeping in slowly using dialup?  Well, that’s what our HughesNet Rip-off service was like … it was like using dialup, only a lot more expensive. It was horrible.

I called so many times about the speed. At first, I got their basic level support, which is really basic.  These characters could just play a recording … turn your computer off … turn your computer on … turn the modem off … turn the modem on … run 6 speed tests ….  still not fast?  Hmmm …. turn your computer off … turn your computer on … turn the modem off … turn the modem on… run 6 speed tests.  You get the picture.  If rebooting your computer doesn’t make HughesNet Rip-off function at a normal high-speed Internet speed, well, you’re sh*t out of luck with HughesNet basic customer support.   Several days later I would call again and report the same mind numbing slow service that I had already reported many times.

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Finally, I was bumped up to another level of HughesNet Rip-off technical service.  These are guys who go beyond the basics and probably have more tools to work with.  It was much more pleasant working with them because they actually have a brain, but it was still pretty useless.  Although according to the miserable speed tests I routinely performed for them, they admitted that the service was far too slow, they actually did nothing that fixed it.

At about this time, all downloading ceased to function as well.  Every time I attempted to download a file, even a file as small as 5 MB, it went half-way and then stopped.  My business was being seriously affected by HughesNet high-speed Internet service and I was losing hope that they would ever actually fix it.

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I called billing and asked them about the monthly charge for service that was not delivering what it was supposed to be delivering.  They assured me that as soon as my technical problems were solved, they would refund me for the two months of hellish service that I had to endure.  That was the best answer I got from them.

HughesNet Rip-off advanced technical support left my case open and called me about every two weeks, basically just to chit chat and ask me if it was fixed yet.  What? Was this problem supposed to just go away by itself?  Fixed?  No, it wasn’t fixed.  Would it ever be fixed? Is anyone fixing it?

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HughesNet Rip-off service was hindering my ability to get work done online, simple as that and there seemed to be no end in sight to the problems.  It was 3 months now with an open advanced support case and no action or improvement.  I had to do something quickly and get back to work.

My only other choice was dialup service in this area.  I signed up with Earthlink and have been using it ever since.  I have to outsource very large uploads or downloads, but I am now able to do quite a bit of uploading and downloading myself, plus all the other activities that my business require.  Naturally, I would have preferred to have a true high-speed Internet service, but my experience with HughesNet Rip-off was a complete failure.

DAG NABBIT* I SAID CANCEL

Now comes the good part.  After providing horrendous service for months and months and not providing any refunds for lack of adequate service, I canceled HughesNet Rip-off.  It took 4 phone calls before these a**holes got it through their head that we were canceling the service.

Here’s how it went.

Day 1: I called to tell them we’d had enough. We want to cancel the service entirely, in fact we had already stopped using it.  He asked me who he is speaking with.  I tell him.  He says, the man who is on the account has to cancel it.  I walk into another room where my 80 year old father is and give him the phone and he tells them to cancel it.  They attempt to harrass him into keeping it. He says, Cancel It, Dag Nabbit!

Day 2: I call back to make sure they canceled it.  He asks me who is speaking.  I tell him.  He says the man who is on the account has to cancel it.  I walk into another room and hand the phone to my father and this time, he is less polite when telling him to cancel it.

Day 3: I call back to make sure they canceled it.  He asks me who is speaking.  I tell him.  He says he has no record of cancellation.  I walk into another room and hand the phone to my father and once again, he tells them in no uncertain terms that he wants to cancel it.

Day 4: I call back to make sure they canceled it.  He asks me who is speaking.  I tell him.  He acts like it is news to him but informs us that we’re about to get screwed by HughesNet once again, with their $350 early termination fee.  He thought that by threatening us with such a ridiculous amount of money to get rid of a useless service, that we would reconsider.  He was wrong.

One week or so later

When it finally sank in that we were dead serious about canceling, they informed us once again that we would be screwed out of $350 for early termination fee (with no mention of the several months of refunds we were supposed to get for terrible non-functioning service), but our service has now been canceled.

So that’s my experience with HughesNet high speed Internet service.  If you type in HughesNet scam in Google,  you will see many other very unhappy customers.   Apparently, HughesNet doesn’t want anyone writing about what a scam they are because if you type in Hughesnetscam.com, it goes to the HughesNet webpage.  That’s appropriate, I guess, since HughesNet is a scam.

When you cancel your HughesNet high speed Internet service, they don’t come out to pick up their crap equipment, so you’re stuck with using or disposing of the dish yourself.  We do live in the country so we have a couple of creative uses for HughesNet satellite dishes.

• Target Practice: Paint the bulleye circles on it and shoot it up
• Toboggan for sleighing in the snow: Lots of fun sleighing down hills on a round sled
• A huge Frisbee for enormous dogs: I’m talking about a real big dog – like BigFoot size
• A lid for a trash or burn can: Perfect for keeping varmints out of your trash or burn cans
• A round surfboard: Start a new trend … round surfboards.
• Serving Tray: A really cheesy looking serving tray for large hodowns.
• Really Ugly Hubcaps: Really ugly hubcaps for a real big truck.
• Feed Stand for Animals: Mount it on a post to make a feed stand for birds, squirrels and other varmints.
• Merry Go Round: Put your toddlers on it and spin like crazy for a country style Merry Go Round.
• A Gong: Remember the Gong Show? If you don’t want to Gong people, then beat on it to call them to dinner or use it as a drum at little backyard “git togethers”.
• A Wok: Great for grilling your favorite varmints and veggies over the coals over the backyard grill.
• Finger Bowl: Having a backyard BBQ and don’t like greasy BBQ sauce on your fingers? The HughesNet satellite dish makes the perfect backyard BBQ finger bowl.

*Dag Nabbit: Country folk use words like this.  Also means Gosh Darnit.

Fair Use of Another’s Trademark (HughesNet Trademark)

The Lanham Act permits a non-owner of a registered trademark to make “fair use” or “nominative use” of a trademark under certain circumstances without obtaining permission from the mark’s owner. The fair use and nominative use defenses are to help ensure that trademark owners do not prohibit the use of their marks when they are used for the purpose of description or identification.

Trademark law permits an author of a non-fiction work to include content that is favorable and/or critical of a trademark owner’s products or services. In this type of work the author should only use the trademark to describe or identify the trademark owner’s product or service and should be careful not to confuse the reader as to the actual provider of the trademark owner’s products or services.