Direcway HughesNet ripoff, terrible customer service and fradulent advertising Ohio
In August of 2005 I made the decision to purchase DirecWay for our home business. Since no DSL was available I was left with DirecWay as the only option for high speed internet. Being a DirecTV customer I had seen the ads on a daily basis claiming "superfast connections", "always on", and the best of all "life changing" due to the amazing speeds and surfing abilities.
I placed a call directly to DirecWay and was put in touch with an installer in Akron/Canton Ohio. The installer backed up everything that DirecWay claimed and scheduled an appointment to install the dish.
On the day of the installation I was told that the installer would arrive between 8am and 10am because I was the first appointment. He showed up 7 hours late and offered no excuse as to why. He then said that he had to mount the dish on a metal pole costing an extra $100.
After it was hooked up, the speed seemed extremely slow. I was told it is always slow for a day or two. After a week things had not improved and I made my first call to customer service. I spoke to a man in India that didn't speak English very well. No problems were solved and I continued to call until I was finally transferred to "advanced support" in the states. This individual also spoke very limited English. The result was the same.
After nine months of fighting them for better service I finally spoke to an American. He told me that upload speeds were not guaranteed and that 21kb was "normal". Normal! That is much slower than my dial-up connection. Web pages take minutes to load and often time-out. I understand that during a storm satellite connections are poor but that doesn't explain the slow connection on a sunny day at 2pm.
I then tried to get help from the billing department. I suggested that the contract was not upheld and I wanted to cancel my service. He said for $640 I could be released from my contract. I explained to him that their advertising included an "implied warranty" if I remember my business law 101. You can't make claims like they do and not deliver on your promise. He said that I had no leg to stand on and would either have to pay or contiunue service.
Now that my wife has quit her accounting business due almost entirely to the slow internet, I have no use for this dish. It was being used to connect to her office server. She was working from home part-time so that she could watch our children. Now I am stuck with a $106 bill for six more months.
This company is the worst that I have ever dealt with. I would be very interested in seeing them taken to court over their "business practices". Good luck to anybody that tries to get out of their contract.
Keith
Vincent, Ohio
U.S.A.
8 Updates & Rebuttals
Larry
Brentwood,California,
U.S.A.
Netzero free ISP Smokes Direcway
#9Consumer Comment
Wed, November 22, 2006
I too took it in the shorts for $600 setup & equip, and $60 a month for a service advertised as being fast, when all it does is increase your naptime between web sites. Nobody speaks english in cust (no) service and their solution to slow speeds is updating the modem for $$$ and more monthly.
PLEASE don't get boned by these people, they do not deliver what they advertise, which in my opinion is breach of contract. Thankfully I now get dsl and told Direcway to shove their tin can & string internet service. I can't even give the dish & modem away, because I would feel too guilty.
Keith
Vincent,Ohio,
U.S.A.
Dreams do come true!!
#9Author of original report
Tue, November 21, 2006
Finally, after 15 months of this garbage, I am almost done. Yesterday I recieved in the mail a notice about DSL in my area. I called instantly and will be having the service start December 5th. But as a last insult by Hughesnet, when I called to make sure I wouldn't be charged any more they couldn't guarantee that the withdraw would quit before that date. Two weeks notice and they may still be charging me!
When I signed up with the DSL provider, the man said that he actually worked for them a while ago. He said that the customer service was so bad that he couldn't work there anymore. I hate HughesNet and I hope that they go under really soon. Needless to say I was not very nice when I canceled my service.
Good Luck!!
Jack
Morrison,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Non existant directway internet
#9Consumer Comment
Sun, July 16, 2006
my sympathy Keith! I too signed up with hughes directway satellite service. It was fast for the first couple months and then less and less access to the internet as time progressed. My E bay business started going downhill because I was unable to access the internet to check my auctions! Lost my feedback status and was unable to contact customers. Meanwhile the dudes from india kept up the same rhetoric about empty your cache,try this,try that,blah blah! Then they refer you to advanced tech support that speaks no english. End result,no internet access. They need a class action lawsuit for their non functioning product that is causing great distress to working folks! Total ripoff
Keith
Vincent,Ohio,
U.S.A.
update
#9Author of original report
Thu, July 06, 2006
Well I am certainly glad you are so smart about computers. The rest of us really don't care about that garbage. We just assume that when we spend hundreds of dollars on a product it will work. I challenge you to use this internet and say that you would be satisfied with it. In a way you are right. It is my fault for not understanding what all their technical crap means and for placing my trust in a company without doing all the research.
I have since called Direcway numerous times and have been told that I have only had 12 problems with my internet since August 2005. They say that is not enough to justify a credit. Only 4 months to go and I can rid myself of this trash forever.
Keith
Vincent,Ohio,
U.S.A.
update
#9Author of original report
Thu, July 06, 2006
Well I am certainly glad you are so smart about computers. The rest of us really don't care about that garbage. We just assume that when we spend hundreds of dollars on a product it will work. I challenge you to use this internet and say that you would be satisfied with it. In a way you are right. It is my fault for not understanding what all their technical crap means and for placing my trust in a company without doing all the research.
I have since called Direcway numerous times and have been told that I have only had 12 problems with my internet since August 2005. They say that is not enough to justify a credit. Only 4 months to go and I can rid myself of this trash forever.
Keith
Vincent,Ohio,
U.S.A.
update
#9Author of original report
Thu, July 06, 2006
Well I am certainly glad you are so smart about computers. The rest of us really don't care about that garbage. We just assume that when we spend hundreds of dollars on a product it will work. I challenge you to use this internet and say that you would be satisfied with it. In a way you are right. It is my fault for not understanding what all their technical crap means and for placing my trust in a company without doing all the research.
I have since called Direcway numerous times and have been told that I have only had 12 problems with my internet since August 2005. They say that is not enough to justify a credit. Only 4 months to go and I can rid myself of this trash forever.
Keith
Vincent,Ohio,
U.S.A.
update
#9Author of original report
Thu, July 06, 2006
Well I am certainly glad you are so smart about computers. The rest of us really don't care about that garbage. We just assume that when we spend hundreds of dollars on a product it will work. I challenge you to use this internet and say that you would be satisfied with it. In a way you are right. It is my fault for not understanding what all their technical crap means and for placing my trust in a company without doing all the research.
I have since called Direcway numerous times and have been told that I have only had 12 problems with my internet since August 2005. They say that is not enough to justify a credit. Only 4 months to go and I can rid myself of this trash forever.
Randy
Bossier City,Louisiana,
U.S.A.
Reguarding Speeds
#9Consumer Comment
Thu, July 06, 2006
Hello, my name is Randy and I am a network admin at a local college campus.
First, 21kilobytes/second upload (The speed at which your files are uploaded to the internet) is actually DSL speeds. Dial-up downloads at around 4.6kb/s-5.5kb/s and uploads at 2kb/s-3kb/s, if you do not believe this use any download manager. Your download speeds on Hughesnet are what really matters. (Personally tested on a Home Consumer account around 99-105kb/s. This is around the speed of a basic DSL plan.
Now, reguarding internet via sat, the sat. dishes use a radio frequency (A little bit under the speed of light)which has to go 2100+ miles up into space and back down, twice. They can not exceed this speed because it is not possible. There is around a 1000ms delay (one second) Now, the speeds also vary themselves, just like all ISP's worldwide with individial connections based on signal/connections, however the websites taking a minute to load or timing out would most likely be an issue with your network card, which Hughesnet does not provide support for.
This is stuff you should have concidered before purchasing the system. Also all of there legal information must be agreed upon before your service will even be activated according to there website, so you really have nobody to blame but yourself here.
Internet via sat is only to be used as a LAST option if you are sick of dialup. I can definatly understand your frustration here with this issue but thinking things would be realtime with a signal that has to go that far out into space and then wondering why it is not completly instant is just not using any common sense what so ever.