Vonage is turning into the AOL of VOIP
 

I called to cancel my service with them today and it was like trying to cancel AOL. Sat on hold for a half hour, then after being transferred to 3 different people I had to listen for 20 minutes to some dickwad trying to convince me to stay with them, the fucker just wouldnt take no for an answer. So finally after threatening to chargeback any future Vonage charges he cancels it. Now I just got an email from them telling me I have 14 days to return my equipment or I will be charged $39.95 for a disconnect fee. I purchased my adapter from Best Buy and now they want me to return it to them? They are one fucked up company.

oh dear. First bad review I've heard of them...

I like the product, but their service is pretty bad.

Until they start mailing you hundreds of CD's of free internet, they're not yet an AOL :)
WG

So far they work great for me as an extra line

I use my cable company's service... it's completely unlimited inside the US kicks ass for an extra $39.95 a month on my cable bill :2 cents:

:1orglaugh

True

Watch AOL buy them out and this is just a preview of things to come :1orglaugh

Last count it was either them or skype signing up 19k new customers a month...

I got an email from them yesterday telling me I was using too much of my "unlimited" plan @ 39.99, and they want me to switch to "call center" plan @ 99.99 for 5000 minutes + 0.025 per overage... sighs :disgust

wow. that's pretty damn unlimited.

Half the time when I make a call it has a fast busy signal, Vonage is a piece of shit.

fuck, that is expensive...we have $24 a month unlimited with vonage, works perfect 99% of the time...extra #'s in 3 major cities for $4 each

We have bee using packet8.com for a few years now and never a problem.

20.00 per month per line..

Free Internet, gimme gimme!!! :eyecrazy :eyecrazy

I really do not understand the VOIP stuff for domestic usage. Maybe someone can explain it all to me and why it is better.

Currently this is what I have through SBC
Unlimted US calling.
Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Waiting ID, Three Way calling, Caller ID selective blocking, Wirepro and an unlisted number for 22.23 +4.41 in taxes (26.64)
It also gets me .01 a minute to Canada, and .03 a minute to the philipines.

Well for one I don't think many local carriers offer that low of price, I was paying over $50 for what you have with unlimited long distance from my local carrier, and the taxes are fucking outrageous. The coolest thing about VOIP is when you travel you can simply hookup to any high speed internet connection and make calls through it and receive calls through the number you always use. The drawbacks are its not quite as reliable, I especially noticed this through Vonage. Calls would drop in the middle of conversations, etc. Although it hasnt happened once since I started using a different company. What I like most about it is I'm not giving money to the crooked bastards at the phone company.

You get low rates through the phone company if you know how to deal with the phone companies. Main trick is to play them off each other. Do this for awhile and you will get loaded with free gifts and an ever decreasing phone bill.
True my number is not portable, though that is why I do have a cell phone. Ussually I can get reception on the cell easier than I could find a high speed connection when traveling.
I am also perfectly fine giving money to the phone companies. They are extremely responsible for my income and my ability to do business as I do.

Personally, I'm all about SKYPE


The quality is awesome, and almost everyone that I do business with outside the US is on it, so it's free to call them on their computers.

Well not everyone has SBC. Bellsouth is what is our local carrier and with all the taxes fees etc, the total bill is $67 for phone service. I can get the same stuff with VoIP for what $25? So that's a savings of $500 a year and you ask why anyone would want VoIP?

For that I totally understand. Hell I would switch if it was a 50%+ savings.
Curious though do many areas have only 1 telco company that offers local and ld?

As far as I know in the US one ONE telco is allowed to service an area for local. As far as LD who is going to be any cheaper? Just the local from Bellsouth is a minimum of $25 a month not counting sales tax, regulatory fees, 911 fees, fee to pay off the Spanish American War( a real fee ) That's another $10 or more for all those so even if I could get LD fro MCI or Spirint or whomever for FREE, VoIP is still cheaper.

I had a problem with Vonage a few days ago -- and that was a first, for nearly a year of use. I've heard their customer service sucks. With all the money they are spending on advertising and other new customer aquisititon costs I doubt there is much left to go around, for now. They need to get a handle on service or else they will lose customers to other VOIP companies.

That must have changed lately because theere was another Local company that just entered the market here just in the last 2 months. They strung miles and miles and miles of aboive ground fiber optic wire and almost everyone one in the county can get it. And its a huge county. Also offering longdistance and cable tv on the same line.

I have vonage on my business line. I like the service thus far.

I noticed in the signup agreement that there was a $39.95 disconnect fee, regardless of whether you bought the adapter or not.

You agreed to it, you gotta pay for it. :disgust

I use www.voipbuster.com I added 1 USD, and I can call free to almost any country(that I need)

No it's always been that way ever since they broke up MA Bell in 1982. Sure there's the check cashing places that offer "local" service in my area. For $50 a month. What a deal. But they aren't "telcos" they just lease the line from BellSouth. Go up to those green boxes in front of your house or neighbor houses and you'll see there is ONE name on them. I doubt very much that your local government is going to allow 5 or 10 or 20 different companies to lay wire out.

Wrong. There is nothing in there agreement that says that. It only states if you get the adapter from them and don't return it they will charge you. And it also states:

3.6 Termination Fee (Does Not Apply to Business Plus Customers). You will be charged a termination fee of $39.99 per voice line if your Service is terminated for any reason during the first twelve months following the activation of your Service.

I've had it more than 12 months.

And in the email I received:

Device(s) must be returned within 14 days of the issuance of the RA#. If
the device is not returned within this timeframe, your RA# will expire and
you may be charged the full price of the device or a disconnect charge of
$39.99 depending on the situation.

I have 1 main #, and 3 virtual #'s

One # in Atlanta
One # in Kentucky
One # in Los Angeles
and this is the fun one
One # in London, UK

all LOCAL #'s for those in those areas that want to call

can your SBC do that?

I would like it if Vonage offered numbers for my local area. Hell they don't offer ANY for my whole area code. Packet 8 is the only one that offers a number for the town I live in.

i just charged it back.

what area?

one thing I noticed with vonage is, you kind of have to hit them when they have the #'s avilable...cause I have gone and there has been only one georgia area code avilable....then I go back later and there are 4 area codes available...it is just hit or miss depending on what they aquired at the time

I check all the time and they have NEVER offered ANY numbers in my area code. Trust me if my area code became available they wouldn't run out anytime soon.

I was asking only in regards to the usage and hype around it as some great savings tool. I already said I do not have local numbers elsewhere. Though they did give me a dedicated 877 number that also is only .02 a minute which is fine for me since its my business line anyways and it all gets writen off in the end.

thats not true, we have 3 local carriers down here. Bell South, Eatel and whatever that ghetto phone service is for people with shitty credit i think its called "homefone" or something

"homefone" is NOT a telco. When I say telco I mean acompany that actually lay lines and does actual construction and maitenances are said lines. "homefone" leases lines from telcos like Bellsouth. Eatel serves a very small area and if you also have Bellsouth do not know how that works. All I know is wherever I have lived you have had ONE telco in the area. Also cable companies are not classified as "telcos" even if they provide phone service.