Hughes
Reviews and Complaints

I has a home office with internet service hook-up via Hughesnet satellite. When I have had reason to call tech support, I have been connected with someone in India, someone who speaks English with a heavy Indian accent, making it difficult to understand said person. In my experience with these tech support people, I am made to feel that I am somehow at fault. I am talked down to, as if I am either a child or a person below the technician's station in life. I personally believe that something like tech support should be handled by someone who speaks English with an American accent. Perhaps I should say that when a company covers multiple countries, the tech support in each country should be privided by people inside that country, who speak that country's major language as a first language. American companies do damage to themselves when they outsource phone support.

Hughes net is the worst company I have ever dealt with bar none. The customer support is in India and the service is terrible. I was a customer by force for 7 years because of my area. I had no other choice. They are a little faster than dial up but about one tent the speed of anything else. If you have a problem the tech support can’t even speak or understand good English. If you have any other choice take it or you will regret it. After 7 years they treated my like crap over a system hardware problem and after a month of no service I found that I had a DSL available in my area. The speed is night and day difference and 1/3 cheaper. If you can avoid using them you will be much happier. I would not trade my DSL if they gave me Hughes net for free.

I recently was sucked in and got hughes net. After 2 weeks I canceled ( still in my 1 month trial) because it was horrible. After canceling with them it has been worse than the internet. No on said anything about returning the equipment myself?! A few stray debits of a few dollars went through on my account from them but it was no more than $8 so I didn't think anything of it. Then after being without them for 2 and a 1/2 months they charged my account $315 (2/11/10) When I called them to find out why I was being charged this they told me it was because I had not returned the equipment in the 45 days that they give you. I explained to her that I did not know I needed to return the equipment myself and I was told that I should have called and asked them and that it was my fault. In the end they extended me a week or so to return the equipment. When the received the equipment and if it was in good condition they would return my money immediately.

After figuring out how to get on my roof and remove the antenna from the satellite dish, risking radiation poisoning, I was ready to send the package to them.

Of course I did a receipt of confirmation of delivery and insurance on the package. Now when the receive it they tell me that they haven't days later. There is no record of it. When I tell them I have a confirmation they "find" the package. Now they tell me that it will take 30 days for them to find out if the package is in good condition and then they will refund $300 of the $315. Also if the package is not in good conditions they will NOT notify you... Thanks hughes net.

10 days later after receiving the package I call back to check on the status, let them know that I am not going to forget about it. They tell me that they still haven't received my package. We go all through it again, and again mysteriously they find it.

Now they are telling me that they are not going to return me my money because I am not under lease they will not give me a refund. I was mad at this answer and I could barely understand this person so I hang up and call again.

This time another representative tells me that it is 7-10 days to process the package. 30 days to check and make sure it is in good condition, and 30-45 for the money to be debited back to my account.

So at least the last person told me that I would be getting my money it is just now going to take a lot longer than I first thought. I want to file fraudulent charges on there behalf with my bank, but I am trying to work with hughes net. I only have 90 days after the charge has been charged to my account to file fraud.

DONT GIVE THEM YOUR CREDIT CARD NUMBER, ACCOUNT NUMBER

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY IT IS A SCAM YOU ARE BETTER OFF WITH AOL

Although when we signed up for this service, it was the only high speed internet available, it is no longer high-speed.
We have been on Hughes Net for 18 months. Our usage has not changed in any discernible way. Yet, in the last 8 weeks, we continually are being moved to a worse than dial up speed because we are said to have "exceeded" our 200 MB download capacity allowed per day. This limit was never pointed out to us when we signed the two year contract. The enforcement of the limit is obviously something new, or we would have encountered the problem long ago. Our guess is that Hughes Net cannot afford to invest in additional capacity for all the customers it is attracting, and is now putting a band aid on the problem by limiting the amount of download its customers can accomplish. Eventually, they will be forced to invest more in their infrastructure, or go out of business. However, now they will collect all the $5.00 extra fees to restore service each time the "limit" is reached. We are already entitled to this by virtue of our $75.00 per month fees. Just recently, Hood Canal has come in and put cable in our area. When our two year service contract expires, we will immediately go to Cable. And hopefully, hear the last of the Calcutta Customer Service people!

My current internet was spotty in service and I work from home on VPN, so I was told Hughes net had great speed. I called them and set up an install. At no time did the salesperson advise me that VPN caused the system to work at 50 to 75 % less speed. When they installed, we noticed the speed, installer told to try it. I did for 14 days, bad !
Now, I have a new internet and called Hughes to deinstall. I find out today that I have to remove the equip from my home - a hugh dish that is probably 36 to 48 inches round and ship it back to them. WHAT? IT IS NOT MY EQUIP. Or they tell me, I have to pay another $ 100 to have someone remove the equip, but I have to pay to ship it back. But they don't want the 48in dish! What am I sppose to do with the dish? None of this was told to me when I talked to the sales person. I am out $ 99 act fee, a month fee of $ 79 - suppose to be the 3rd highest speed, and now $ 100 to dismante THEIR equipmnt and who knows how much to ship back...and have the dish in my yard as trash. I will never recommend this company to anyone...

I cancelled my HughesNet on 1/7/10 because of the high cost for basically nothing and broadband was finally available to my rural area. They gave me 4 weeks free to make sure I was happy with broadband, and told me to call back before the four weeks was up. I called back in 2 weeks and they told me they had no account for me: not by name, not by phone number, not by address - no account. So I told them to be sure they did not reinstate my account and charge me, and the non-US person on the phone said "well there is no account". Of course, in 2 more weeks, they charged my credit card! I called again - this time they were able to bring me right up - amazing! Then they argued with me and kept me on hold for 48 minutes! They refused to reimburse the entire amount, refused to cancel the service until the next month, and then begged me to remain a customer - really!?!?! Finally got them to reimburse all but about $5 which is still ridiculous since they are the ones who screwed up. I filed a complaint with my credit card company, so we'll see.

While doing a credit check on myself I noticed Hughnet had ran my credit. I called Hughesnet and found out that not only did they run my credit but there was an account in my name from an address I had previously owned. I explained that I never subscribed to there service but because I knew the address it showed that I was responsible. They send me notices and bills for equipment that was leased and the cancellation fee and the service charges. They told me that the only way to settle this was a police report claiming identity theft. After 5 phone calls and a dozen supervisors I got them to drop everything because work order when the equipment was dropped off was signed by someone with a different name than mine. I asked them over and over again to explain to me how an account was able to be created in my name and they did nothing to verify the information. They told me they don't use socials for the security of customers 9seemed to backfire here, huh!)

The customer service reps were rude, arrogant, unwilling to help beyond what their little script says, they talked down to me, questioned me endlessly about who I was and the account info and flat out called me a liar who was trying to get out of paying a bill. I encourage anyone who is or is thinking of dealing with Hughsnet to look elsewhere. Hughsnet is without a doubt the worst company I have ever dealt with.

The whole experience with this company has been a nightmare.I would NEVER use this service again or recommend it to anyone EVER.The sales person set me up from the beginning, selling me a package that was not what I asked for.The installers that came to my home had to take my computer(it crashed during their install) for the thirty day in home trial period.I Asked the company to extend that and they refused.Since I had this installed, my computer has not been right at all.So far to date I have spent $1600.00 having this installation and repairs.Not including the monthly fee So if anyone out here is considering using the HughesNet ...DON"T DO IT YOU WILL BE SORRY!

i had hughesnet installed at my house on jan 22 2010 the sales dept told me it would work fine with my ps3 game system so they come hooked all the stuff up the installer left my house with out checking the service he told me it will work great and that he was very busy and had to move on to the next one.so i hook up my wireless router and try to get online it wont work so i call tech support.the first thing they tell me is that no your playstation 3 will not work at all with there service.when i first called hughesnet to get service they sad yeah it will work great tell also said that i wouldnt be charged anything untell my serive was working like it was promised.so now i called the costumer care number and tell them my problem they tell me that the plan i got was to slow and i need to upgrade in order to play online so i upgraded waited 30 mins and tried again and u no what still wont work.now im getting mad i call them back and them whats going on they me that there is no way for the ps3 to on there system costumer service tells me this the same people that judt told me my service was to slow and i needed to upgrade.so now im done i want out of this now ! needless to say the whole i messed with there was no way there system would work i was lied to 6times by sales, service tech support and they still charged me a little over 200.00 dollars so if your lookin to switch to hughes please shop around first

For anyone desperate enough to try this system, I suggest you don't. The bandwidth speeds they promise are fully bogus and barely exceed dial-up speeds most of the time. Their customer service system is abysmal, unless you enjoy talking to people in India a lot. I know it's frustrating and slow, but dial-up is just as fast and costs a lot less money. Take my advice and avoid this company. The minimum contract is for two years and you will regret every expensive minute.

We are using Hughes Webmail. Begininning Sunday, Jan 10 or Monday morning, Jan 11 all of our 150+ e-mail messages on the site disappeared. On Monday afternoon I called Hughes but the message said "We are experiencing a large number of calls due to difficulties with our Webmail." I hung up expecting it to be fixed. I called on Tuesday, Jan 12 and the tech services just wanted to send a technician out to "fix a cable" (We were accessing the web site OK -though slow as usual.) E-mail messages came in and disappeared from the page immediately. I hung up and called again in the morning Wed, Jan 13. We now had only 16 new e-mails from Jan 12. Advanced Tech Support said they would be "Restored".
By Wed. evening we had only 12 messages. They were disappearing faster than they came in. Spent 1 hour on phone with The Senior Technical Dept. and still no resolution, Said they'd contact the e-mail dept. and call back within 2 business days.

Hughes net is the biggest fraud yet! At $80/mo. I can't even listen to internet radio — message came up saying pandora.com requires 64 kbps to run and my "so-called" internet connection was only running at 24kbps! It took eight 8! Hours to download drivers to my printer; file = 22 mb. This is fraud — misrepresentation of what they promised and what I are paying for! After months of frustration and calls to their so-called tech supt in some other galaxy (... What it sounded like) — I am are dumping hughes non-service internet.

Just a girl wanting a bit justice!

Buyer beware.

[protected]@live.com

B. T. W. My pc is new with #'s gb's hard drive/ram...

Hughes will say anything to sell, the system is perfect for gamming, downloading video and music, 1.5 gbps download speed and a 100$ rebate which covers the cost of instalation, . Total sell hipe, absolute lies about download speeds, enormous latency issuse's and usage limit's which reduce your speed to allow for more user's on there clearly inadaquit system, of coarse if the system is not right for you, the thirty day trial period should make you happy. Except they don't refund the instalation fee and you don't get the 100$ rebate if you don't sign for two year's. So long story short, the middle eastern customer service department has asked me to return the equipment and they will credit the remainder of the month. I must remove the lag bolts that have been drilled into my wall, take down the dish, pull the cable out of my house, box it all up and send it back to them at my own expence, I guess thats what they said, I couldn't really understand them very well, anyway what a deal huh!

Yes, many complaints from other people than myself! I am on my last 5 months, then I cut the contract up for good.
If you plan on using this internet service, you best not use it for streaming videos, you tube, or even Hulu. I download some stuff and within a minute into the downloading the spead of transmitting went down to 15 KB/s which is slower than dial-up. That is no good for anything.
I wished I had complaintsboard for any product or services that might be considered as a purchase.

I am not a type for contracts, and am very disappointed in getting this internet provider. I would have better off paying to have a phone line brought down to my land! And got a dial-up service!

Hey besides Hughesnet, all other satellite internet has the "FAP" fair access policy, , , which hinders the amount of downloading. TRY YOUR BEST TO STAY WITH A DIAL-UP, , , and check about any accelulaters that the dial-up might have to speed up your service.

I am an installer for Hughes Net. when I started it was decent honest job. I was recently informed that we (installers) are no longer allowed to tell customers about upgrades when we go to repair a satellite. What the means for you is that if you have an older satellite ( pre 9000 series), I am required to fix it, at your cost, before even mentioning the new sat. If after the fix, you want a new satellite, I can't do the install, you have to talk to HNS.

The short version is Hughes net sales are dropping off to the point that the company wants to keep as much of the income internal. Not only are the purposely making customers pay more to upgrade ( a repair is around 150, + the upgrade is atleast another 250 to 400), they are taking away the installer stippends to the point that independent installers are amking less then 200 a day Gross, (at $30 per install in parts, plus fuel), I can make more at Burger king.

As an Installer I suggest using a USB reciever from AT&T or Verizon, its the same cost, better service and its portable. If you live in an area where you can't get a signal for that, Im sorry,

hughes net and wild blue are about the same, i install them both, and the both have serious problems that are going to cost them.

Hughes net is a company that takes away every money you have and time you have. They tell you, you have a two year contract but once your service is off you are no longer on contract then you have to retart from where the reactivation started again. They sold me a used modem for price of a brand new one. My modem went out after one year then i had to buy another modem for $87. They sell used modem and use that for new customers installation. Yes, i was on the phone for two hours and disconnected me, then i called again waited on the phone for 1 hour 45 minutes again, then i called again waited for 34 minutes got disconnted and finally i gave up because my phone battery went out. This is how they treat thier customers.

After reading the complaints, and as a 2 year HughesNet customer, I am wondering why HughesNet outsourcers to a place that will not TRY to solve your customer service problems? I am baffled. I have so many issues over the last two years it would make your head spin. Take 90% of the problems listed here and multiply them from installation to the recent problem.
As my husband travels internationally, and as we are very rural, Internet is important, we use Skype and I also work from home. The first time there was a problem, I called and they said I wasn't allowed to talk to them because I wasn't on the account AND HUNG UP! Oh no you didn't! Yes they did. So on a three way call, I have my husband call and ADD MY NAME to the account...supposedly done. Next time there is a problem (I got FAP-ped and wanted to be released from it), and my husband is in the Turks and Caicos islands...I call and they say I AM NOT ON THE ACCOUNT. OK. So at the cost of about 29.00 I have my husband call Customer Service, TO ADD ME AGAIN, and yes, this is supposedly done. I am TOLD that the download time to avoid the FAP is midnight to three AM. So doing a blackberry download that is large I wait till 2 AM thinking this is a good time, and guess what? I get FAP-ped and cannot finish the download; it says it will finish in 6 days 22 hours. HA! Ok so again I make the call to Customer Service. NOW, understand one small detail, because we are so rural, I have to stand in the field to get cell reception, (no lie), this is why we use skype. So I am in the field, 10:00 at night trying to talk to India and they said that apparently because my husband didn’t talk to the billing department (no one told him to do this) he had only authorized me to talk to them that ONE TIME, he would have had to talk to the BILLING department to have me added so I could speak to them about the account. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I lost it, over an hour on the cell in the freezing cold in the yard (I had no internet to use skype) and that's it. As my husband is now in Brazil, I cannot call or get a message to him, I am again, out of luck. So the next day I call sales, it seems my only recourse to avoid the FAP and no internet is to upgrade, yes I am giving more money to stop this from happening> Funny now, no problem to talk to me (EVEN IF I AM SUPPOSEDLY NOT ON THE ACCOUNT) if I want to give them more money, but since I don’t have internet and have to talk on the cell in the yard, I have to write down the steps to upgrade, and since I get such bad reception, I lose the call, they won’t call me back... Oh Heaven’s to Betsy this is unbelievable!

I have not had this much insanity with a company that I pay almost a hundred dollars a month to, our hard earned money to be hung up on, told I don't exist, and then the best, when I finally spoke with someone stateside, they dissed the India customer service and that really didn't help me AT ALL, I was the one who spent all this time just trying to get internet! I tried really hard, and kept asking if all this was being documented in the case file so a supervisor could understand my problem. They kept stating the policy, verbatim, no care or no thinking outside the box, nothing. I was out of luck. Please someone; come up with an alternative to rural dial up. Please someone start a company so we don't have to be pulled by the short hairs and settle with incompetent service, slow Internet and inflated prices.

We have been using HughesNet for our small business internet access for several years. Though their literature says to expect download speeds during high-usage times of 800 kbps and upload speeds of 130 kbps, we were routinely getting a simple page that downloaded in under 3 seconds in the mornings requiring 3 minutes or more in the afternoon, a degradation of at least 60X. HughesNet was essentially unusable in the afternoons for doing research on the internet. After paying for a HN9000 modem upgrade and several episodes on the phone with people in India, I sent a letter of complaint. A HughesNet representative then explained our performance was normal due to increased internet activity in the afternoon, and emphasized that HughesNet does not guarantee upload or download performance.

Verizon offered us a 30 day no-cancellation fee trial of their WIFI internet technology. This involved placing a wireless Hot Spot (MIFI 2200) in the central area of our 2-story 30 x 50 foot building and a $300 zBoost cell phone signal booster nearby. (Cell phone reception is very weak where we are located in rural northern Virginia). Verizon literature quotes typical download speeds of 600 kbps and upload speeds of 500 kbps. I actually have been experiencing more like 200 to 400 kbps for downloads and uploads. My Trace Route tests show Verizon hops around 90msec versus HughesNet's 1150msec.

When doing research on the internet, Verizon significantly out performed HughesNet in the afternoons and was comparable in the mornings. We do not experience high-usage time performance significantly slower then at low-usage times, and the cost dropped from $90/month to $60/month. Also, when I had a problem with my installation, I called the store where I purchased the service instead of calling someone in India.

So we canceled the remaining 18 months of our HughesNet service. My credit card was charged a $400 early termination penalty even though I received a letter from HughesNet specifying I would not be charged as a result of the complaint I filed with the Better Business Bureau. So now I have to argue with them to get the charge dismissed. With HughesNet, the problems just keep on coming.