vonage is a bunch of crooks! Options

[UNDEAD 1]

dont ever get vonage! i have been ripped off and treated in a mannor in which ive never been treated before.when i finally googled F**K Vonage ,like a few thousand links came up. they wont let you cancle and this is where it gets funny,almost hilarious.

i got vonage in jan for a fax line,i have no use for a home phone at all.i used it a bit for work and then in july i got real slow but noticed it didnt work anymore so i called tech assistance and he couldnt get it going so i said just cancel it because i have no use for a line anymore . he then said well how about if i work it so you wont get a bill untill december and then itll be 14 a month after that? i figured what the hell so i said yes and he sent me a new modem right away.i recently joined with a corp builder so i was no longer working from my home and never even took it out of the box.

last wed i get a bill for $43.00 from vonage which i thought was weird, so i asked my wife to call thusday and cancel it.she called the next morning at 11 am and told him (bill) she wanted to cancel and he said he had to transfer her to cancelations-28 minutes later he comes back and says that dept is closed today and shell have to call back,lol. she asked for a suprivisor and he told her he was not in the building.then she cussed him out im sure ,lol.

so today i had the pleasure of calling and they tried the same thing with me puting me on hold,so i hung up and called right back and reamed him out and they transfered me right to cancelations.this is where it gets funny.every customer service rep is foriegn but swears their from NJ ,not kidding either. so i get yen(from NJ) and no matter how much i yelled or pleaded they wouldnt let me cancel,they kept offering me a different plan.at one point i said"YEN ,CANCEL MY ACOUNT,CANCEL MY F**KING ACOUNT PLEASE-IM BEGGING YOU TO JUST CANCEL MY ACOUNT)this was at the 40 minute mark.every time i would say something she would click a hold button and then come on with a retarded answer ,obviously a suprivisor is there coaching her what to say next.reminded me of the movie the boiler room .so get this-after 45 minutes (44445555) they finally say ok lets cancel and its going to be 90 some dollars .

when i started with vonage no one told me theres a contract nor did i sign one.also the modem that was broken i was suposed to send it back within 14 days or i have to pay for it,that wouldnt of been a problem had they told me . ive read quite a bit today on google and it seems they lost a case with the phone companies and comcast ,which means their going to be done and is probably the reason why they are trying to make it real hard to leave .its not the money ,its the fact its allowed to treat people this way so i thought id post this her incase any one has or was thinking of getting vonage....dont! i for sure will google any company or service i intend on getting in the future .

This post has been edited by UNDEAD 1: 11/20/07 10:13pm

[Genocide Junkie]

Wonderful. Another company that does not have english speaking customer service. I refuse to shop at Circuit City because of having called their CS and could NOT get someone who spoke english as their native language. It's gotten to where you can't understand anyone you get on the phone for help from anywhere. I dread picking up the phone to dial anything that starts with 1800. Sorry to hear you are having such a bitch of a time with them. Seems it's impossible to get adequate products and services these days....

[T/A6Pak]

Hey Undead,

You might find this interesting...

http://blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating/vo...ifficulties.asp

What's with the $90 charge...sounds like bs that you should not pay!!!

[UNDEAD 1]

it was mostly the process they follow to make it hard for you to cancel that ticked me off.i was on the phone 45 minutes ,no exageration at all . so i decided to post it here and im in the process of writing an email and ill send it to everyone i know and then my outlook client list ,its like 1156 people. as for the 90 bucks ,i guess im sol .



oh and geno,its funny because everyone ive talked to was named mary ,bill ,arthur ,tim and yen (the only one who spoke perfect english) and they were all from NJ-i asked.

[steel]

I've had Vonage for 3 years and have had no problems whatsoever. It reduced my monthly phone bill from $300/month down to $20 ($14.95 plus tax), and I got to keep my home phone number.

Everything you want to do with Vonage is done via the internet, in your Vonage control panel. There's rarely any need to call customer service.

A couple of years ago, lightning took out my original Vonage modem/router. I did call customer service for that. They overnighted me a new modem/router and right there in the box was a paper saying to put the broken one in the box and send it back to them, and they even paid for shipping. The paper said if I didn't send the broken one back, that I'd have to pay for it, but I did send it back, no problem.

One of my favorite features about Vonage is that calls to my home phone automatically also ring on my cellphone. This is so cool because everyone only needs my home phone number to get me on either phone.

Sorry you had problems Undead.

[Hellfighter]

.....dont! i for sure will google any company or service i intend on getting in the future .

While I agree with Steel that it usually comes down to who the particular people at support [and different tiers of support you get sent to] you have to deal with and their [training/or lack thereof as it looks like in your area compared to steel's location], I do research the hell out of companies before signing up- paricularly the reviews type of forums. Not only that, I'll leave blasting reviews [of course I would ] for companies that are crappola especially in support areas. That way I don't later say "if only....I should've , would've, could've". In one forum I was at for Bell Canada [horrid for customer type tech support] is referred to as Bell India since India where all customer calls get transferred to at opening tier level support. Now I know they work extremely hard to get their jobs, but these companies train them stupidly in diagnosing problems/resolution.


This post has been edited by Hellfighter: 11/21/07 11:00am

[UNDEAD 1]

i know what your saying steel and there was suposed to be a mailing label for me ,which i found out yesterday ,but there wasnt one. i also was happy with the product ,i simply had no use for the line what so ever.



it doesnt matter what service you have,if they want to cancel ....cancel ! no one should have to go through 45 minutes of bs scripted ,coaching . if they require their damaged goods back ,tell the customer, not 4 months later and charge them out of spite . you may be happy now but one day if your trying to switch over to another company who has a better deal,its obvious from reading the 100s of posts on google that you should be ready to have a long few phone calls.

[HammaTime]

Sounds like the out of work AOL folks signed up for employment at Vonage. AOL service people used to use the same techniques to discourage their customers from canceling. Your conversation with Vonage sounded exactly like one I had on behalf of my mother when I was trying to cancel her account. I just kept repeating, "no, cancel the account" over and over and over.

Do you think there is any validity to the claim that Vonage is going away? Seems that they have a substantial customer base - and as Steel attests, a lot of them are ardent supporters of their service.

I just did a little research and see that they owe a bundle of cash - $120 million - to Verizon and they've exhausted the appeal process. They managed to survive a similar case brought by Sprint, but they had to sign an expensive deal with that network as well as pay a substantial penalty.

This will be interesting to watch. We can thank Vonage for pushing down the price for local telephone service, but their low prices probably won't be around much longer. Seems everyone wants a bigger chunk of change from our wallets. It amazes me how much we are shelling out every month for cable, internet, telephone and cell phone service.

This post has been edited by HammaTime: 11/21/07 1:41pm

[Cpt. Snot Rocket]

Right when Vonage starting running that commercial with the girl in the bikini at the beach and the shark is when they lost the lawsuit. I read it in Wallstreet. I thought "uh-oh! Lotsa people are going to be screwed over on this one". They have managed to keep operating and selling this system during appeals but the time in near the end. Either they get bought out or all those subscribers are screwed.

AOL!!!! Been there done that...the abslute worst company I have ever done business with. Even worse than Car Dealers....J/K! LoL!!!!

Steel - The $300 phone bill days are long over for landlines. About 3 or 4 years ago all the companies offered Unlimited Long Distance for $20 or $25 bucks a month.

[livetokill]

we currently have vonage, i kinda think its sucks, it has some fuzzyness when im talking and it gets annoying

i had to talk to one of the foreigners and i couldnt understand what the heck they were saying, i told them to call back the next day or something, but in a few hours they call back again and im like what the!

[steel]

Snot, I just checked, and where I'm at, Southwestern Bell charges for landline service with unlimited long distance $60/month. So, with taxes and line fees, that would come out to at least $70/month. Plus, that unlimited long distance is just for within the contenental US... so you can count on a big ka-ching for outside the US calls.

LivetoKill, the quality of your Vonage phone line depends on your internet connection being good, and how much bandwidth you give your phone line in your Vonage Control Panel. The rest is up to the phone line the other person is talking to you on, so like, if they are using a cellphone that is cutting out, a bad cordless phone or something, you wouldn't hear them very well no matter how good your phone service is.

My reason for trying Vonage when I did was because of my high phone bills and because since I'm already paying $50/month for high-speed internet, I figured I'd try to get the most use out of it.

So far, I've never had any problems with Vonage at all. It even works with my DishNetwork satellite receiver (it has to be plugged into a telephone line to update its TV schedule every night and get your pay-per-view usage).

I just wanted to offer another perspective on Undead's claim that "Vonage is a bunch of crooks." This has not been my experience, that's all.

[Hellfighter]

....

Steel - The $300 phone bill days are long over for landlines. About 3 or 4 years ago all the companies offered Unlimited Long Distance for $20 or $25 bucks a month.

It didn't come soon enough for me when I was phoning my overseas gf I was smitten with at the time years ago. It's too embarassing to say amount I forked out for first few months!

[UNDEAD 1]

i joined vonage because comcast and bellsouth both switched their landline billing to $35 a month with unlimited long distance,with out the long distance its $14 .the problem with that is ,if im only using it for a fax line and i fax miami ,its ld . if i fax to plantation fl (5 min drive) its ld .i didnt like that because youll end up paying just as much. so vonage was a clear choice. like i said though ,i had no problems with vonage as a phone company. i just feel if your going to cancel ,let the customer cancel. it doesnt matter what service it is,cell phone ,gym, cable etc.. a customer shouldnt be treated like that .me and my wife just think its funny now.



Vonage lost a court case with verizon and i believe comcast so they will lose alot of their buisness.this is why i believe they are making it very hard for people to leave.to be honest,screw it ill pay and be done with landlines,o scan and email all my documents now .
David ,you have a point too,when i add up cell cable and internet connection its like 400 + a month,that is alot of money.

This post has been edited by UNDEAD 1: 11/22/07 12:43pm