Comments on: Vicious Vonage

By: Jane

Jane — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 04:51:01 +0000

I was sold their phone service, the representative at the mall kiosk told me it was an aircard which would provide me with wireless internet service. Needless to say I brought it back the very next day, and I was told I had to call customer service to get a refund. I sat on hold until hell froze over and then they asked me what the problem was. I told them and they didn’t apologize for their fraud and stupidity, but rather tried to convince me to keep the service, asking me over and over how much I paid for phone service. Three weeks later and there is no refund, I had to go back to the kiosk and tell the person why, when asked, I was canceling, then they called CS again who told me the problem was with my bank and they tried to give a refund. I spoke with my bank and they said there was no reason why they shouldn’t be able to give me a refund. I guess I’ll go back a third time, do you think they’ll ask why I don’t want to keep it??

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:11:27 +0000

I can’t wait to cancel my Vonage! I just spent another hour on the phone with them (actually 1 hour 5 minutes and 59 seconds). Here’s the story:

I had a Linksys router that was defective so I called Vonage. The woman I spoke to said she would send a Motorola to replace it at no charge! When I received the Motorola router I was charged $116.94 so I called immediately. After 1 hour 51 minutes and 36 seconds on the line, I finally got a supervisor in accounts management (they all say they’re supervisors now) who told me that I needed to return the defective Linksys router (I hadn’t been told that and honestly didn’t even think to ask about it). It doesn’t work, I’m more than happy to return it, why wasn’t I told to do that before? Therese (the supervisor) didn’t know why I wasn’t told that, but she gave me a return authorization number for the router and told me that when Vonage received the router, they would push back a credit to my credit card number for the $116.94. Fine, so now I have to send them the router (at my cost) and wait for my funds to be returned (Therese said it would be within a week).

This morning I received an email that the router had been received by Vonage on August 7th so I decided to call to check on the status of the refund. After spending one hour 5 minutes and 59 seconds on the phone with Dennis I am expecting a refund but not for the $116.94, I will be getting a refund of $54.33. He said he could push back the full refund but he wouldn’t. He said the difference could be put on my account as a credit toward future invoices.

I argued with him for nearly an hour and completely feel like I’ve been screwed. The bottom line, I can cancel my vonage and get digital telephone service with my local cable company (Brighthouse) and save $17 a month! I have been with Vonage for 2 years so I’m not expecting any cancellation charge, the day I receive that refund I’m calling to cancel and I cannot wait!!

I’m thinking someone should register a domain like (www.dontusevonage.com) to provide a site for dissatisfied customers and former customers to share these experiences! It’s cheap enough to register a domain, I’m serious thinking I’ll do that!

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 10:08:24 +0000

I once emailed them and they responded to me saying that my email was very important to them but due to high email volume they were unable to accept my email and that I should try again later. Isn’t the whole point of email that it waits for you until you get around to answering it?!?!?!?

Heres a pic of what they sent me:
http://www.designerdriftwood.com/images/vonageblows.jpg

By: Matt Thomas

Matt Thomas — Mon, 29 May 2006 20:54:28 +0000

It’s a perfectly reasonable point, but one should understand that they’re getting those features at that price at the expense of customer service.

By: Jemaleddin

Jemaleddin — Mon, 29 May 2006 18:04:08 +0000

Just another data point: 1 year, no problems, and while $15 sounds pretty good, it’s be hard to get the same features (simulring, 800# for $5/month, email-alerts of voicemail, unlimited long distance) for the same price.

By: Ryan Irelan

Ryan Irelan — Fri, 26 May 2006 05:53:22 +0000

I’ve been using Vonage since the first of February and I’ve had no outages, no problems at all, actually. I keep hearing all of these Vonage stories, but haven’t yet experienced it, so I remain a huge fan of their offering.

Anytime my phone has been out it’s actually been a local networking problem (my router acted up), not anything to do with Vonage.

I won’t pretend Vonage doesn’t have big problems, with their huge growth at such a fast pace, but I remain a happy customer.

By: Jeff Miller

Jeff Miller — Fri, 26 May 2006 04:48:51 +0000

I’ve been using BroadVoice for the past five months and have been happy with their service. I haven’t really had any problems but the few times that I did they were relatively quick to respond to my emails.