Complaint Review: Embarq Century Tel Also Vonage

First of all I am a work at home employee for Embarq. My company has me set up as "BUSINESS" to work for the "BUSINESS"

I take around 120-150 calls a day averaging 4-10 minutes based on the type of call. In minutes that is about 8 hours a day on the phone taking care of "BUSINESS". No one is spending 8 hours a day talking to friends and family which is what residential is. If you are then you have issues. lol

The problem here is that you company is scamming the phone company by trying to pass employees off as residential users. Your company does not have to pay lease, utilities, communications or anything for you to work from home using your own private service. That's the reason you got flagged because it states not used for business purposes. Ebay and things like that are different because it is mainly used on the internet and they are for personal gain only in most cases. You however are using a personal line to make money for a larger company. That's why we have the business lines. Also your company should work out a deal with the phone company for special packaging for employees as that makes it ligit and your company would be honest.

To blame only Embarq and Vonage is absurd seeing this line is used to make money for another business. If the company that you work for is so honest about their practices it should have provided you with an account that can be tracked through the tax system as it IS beeing used for business purposes, making money for a larger business. By working from home on your personal equipment you save the business that you work for a ton of money. For example: no building lease, no utilities, no communications services etc etc etc that a business that requires employees to be on the premises. If you take away all of the expenses for having an actual facility, your personal equipment and account is not reported.....you get my drift? They do not tell you this but they know that this happens because they all have rules and bylaws they are supposed to abide by. They know also that there is fine print in most contracts that explain caps on calling and data. Nothing in life is for free. There is always going to be a catch. By letting you work for them on your personal account they are not held accountable for any issues that may arise. Basically you work for them and if something happens and you can't oh well, they'll just hire someone else. These are more of a "work at your own risk" or "until you get caught" types of business. A good ligit business that really needs it's work at home employees will have some sort of partnership deal with the phone company to allow exceptions and also discounts. Bottom line is if I was selling  or generating revenue on my own for 8 hours a day eventually someone is going to notice that this is not a service I'm using to talk to family and friends with. That's why there are 2 different types. RESIDENTIAL: which is for family and friends (NOT 8 + hours talk time each day). Or BUSINESS: which is self explanatory (8+ hours a day to generate revenue). those are in the dictionary too but really didn't think anyone would really need to hear the difference. If you're calling grandma to see how she's doing ..that's residential. If you're speaking with people you don't even know for more than 3 minutes and making money doing it...sorry but that's a business. Since your company was reaping the rewards from your residential service they should be the ones paying the bill. As honest ligit busines do and are required.

Here are some phone numbers to the only two honest phone companies I have found so far!!

Well I am already signed up with one of these companies for TRULY, TRULY, "UNLIMITED" Residential Nationwide long distance and internet, Cox!!!!! Yes Cox knows I work from home and I told this to them from the BEGINNING!! Just like I told embarq and vonage from the start. Only Cox has in just this first month of having their service SURPASSED the 7 months of torment I went through with embarq and the week of torment with vonage!!!

Cox can be reached via internet at: www.cox.com

One of Cox's Phone numbers are: 1-877-888-5906

When calling Cox for any of their services, BE READY TO GET TAKEN CARE OF WITH HONESTY and the MOST IMPECCABLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!!

The other company I did "some" research on and called several different customer service reps is Bright House!

Their web address is: http://www.mybrighthouse.com/corporate.aspx

One of their phone numbers is: 1-866-309-EASY (3279)

I do not know all their areas they cover so please inquire within. I DO know that they, also have an UNLIMITED National Call Plan!! When I called I spoke directly with a Supervisor who told me You can pick up your phone at the beginning of the month and NOT hang it up until the end of the month and only be charged their low FLAT RATE!!! I searched ALL through their Terms of Service and found NOTHING that LIMITS your talk time or phone usage!!!

In my first report I apparently did not give enough details (at least not enough for ARTHUR)! Especially to receive a rebuttal as foolish as the one Arthur posted, "Plenty of Blame to Go Around Here"! So to anyone and everyone else please excuse me for not being specific enough. Please read my updated complaint report. I am NOT at liberty to nor do I have the time to explain myself to Arthur however, I am willing to indulge him in some facts pertaining his DISGUSTING rebuttal!

Arthur says in this portion of his rebuttal, and I quote, "You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity."

My answer is this: It does NOT matter who the specific people were that we spoke to regarding these matters. As it was NOT their fault they were dealing with us, it was the manipulative companies they work and LIE for, Embarq's and Vonage's faults!! These employees were just doing there jobs!! Our complaint DOES NOT rest with these employees,but the manipulative and deceitful companies they lie for and represent....Embarq and Vonage!! These employees did not write the companies "Terms of Service", they just lie for these companies or are not even aware of the tariffs and are under trained (good excuse for them anyway)!! However,there IS DEFIANTLY someone in these companies who can fix their deceit and lies and stop falsely advertising and manipulating to gain revenue!

Even though Arthur states, and I quote, " I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer,...." he CLEARLY is trying to justify the deception of these scamming companies!! One can read Artur's idiotic and moronic justifications throughout his ENTIRELY OBNOXIOUS rebuttal!!

Artur goes on babbling, and I quote again, "You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company."

My answer for this NONSENSE is: My full complaint report and my updated one also, did not all get posted properly.? My husband and I told EVERY rep we spoke with that I work from home UPFRONT FROM THE BEGINNING!! EVERYONE of them ensured us their unlimited plan is good for 24/7 talk time be it if we went with their residential or small business un"LIMITED" packages! For that FACT,we had Embarq's Nationwide un"LIMITED" long distance package for approximately 2 months, BEFORE I got my work at home JOB, and had their home phone service for about 7 moths total. Furthermore, when we signed up with Embarq for their un"LIMITED" nationwide long distance (AFTER ALREADY BEING A CUSTOMER FOR SEVERAL MONTHS) we were UPFRONT about my new job working from home!!

These phone companies were NOT the ones being ripped off!! It was us, the CUSTOMERS and potential CUSTOMERS PERIOD! As for paying a commercial rate, well we did the math and what these companies were aiming for was TERRIFYING and OUTRAGEOUS, in the least to say!! We were told from Embarq, even though we complied,(at least we THOUGHT so)that NONE of this will even allow me to work from home for much longer through them!They gave me yet another alternative that they said I would have to switch to in the next few weeks or so!! They said I will have to get an account with .5 or .7 cents a minute long distance charges!! Well either option EXTREMELY OVER EXCEEDS my weekly pay check by SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS per week!!

Arthur's pre-school version of the math is this; again I quote more of his STUPIDITY,... "So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider 'normal' use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world."

With Embarq it was WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" More like this: With our internet and un"LIMITED" long distance including taxes and surcharges came to approximately $75.00 - $80.00 per month in the BEGINNING. Then we got our letter and was forced into converting to a FAKE business account. Well we were QUOTED what our new monthly charges would be (as we just started the fake business account) and they were SURPRISINGLY just about the same as they were before...wait not done... roughly $90.00 - $100.00 per month. OMG only $10.00 - $20.00 more than our residential un"LIMITED" plan!!!....still not done there is more to come....we were suddenly relieved, what we thought would be a nightmare actually turned out to be somewhat of a sigh of relief! YEAH RIGHT!!

Now here is where it all gets REALLY INTERESTING!! Within ONLY ONE OR TWO DAYS of what we THOUGHT we were doing complying with them, turns out another call and e-mails from.....guess who.....that's right EMBARQ. Now is when we are being told we need a SECOND FAKE BUSINESS PHONE LINE MIRRORED OFF of the first one! Wow that is only "roughly" $60.00 or so more per month. OK we agree to this. If not we loose our services through Embarq and risk loosing my JOB. Hey I make approximately $1,400 - $2,500 PER MONTH BEFORE taxes, I can afford that.

Oh by the way my pay varies depending on these factors:
1. How many weeks are in a single month.
2. My work performance varies, and my pay is based in PART by performance. So some weeks my checks are as low as approximately $350.00 and are as high as $500.00
3. The amount of taxes taken out

OK, back to the part where it all gets "REALLY INTERESTING." During my conversation with this "trained to be THIEF", she....OK if you want her info, here, this is all you're gonna get...Stephanie operator # E99 her work e-mail is Stefani.D.Choi@Embarq.com,....she begins to tell me what I wrote earlier, about time I am quoting myself :) "They (she Stephanie) said I will have to get an account with .5 or .10 cents a minute long distance charges!!" I say HELL NO!! That is the final option for me to have Embarq's service!!!

Can we do some GROWN UP math here!! I work 5 nights per week and NO LESS than 8 hours per night!! Some nights I put in about 2 hours overtime. On my normal 8 hour shift I get three breaks, first I get a 15 minute break, next I get a 30 minute break, and finally I get another 15 minute break. My schedule is from 11 p.m. EST to 7:30 a.m. Unless any of us are Arthur the we all know that there are 60 minutes in one hour! Times 60 minutes by 8 hours 60 x 8. We will get a sum of 480. So far we are at 480 minutes of talk time per my normal nightly eight hour shift! I log in using my home phone to a LAND LINE out of state for 480 minutes per night minus my two 15 minute breaks. So now we subtract (Arthur) 480 - 15= 465! That is now 465 minutes nightly times 5 nights per week!! 465 x 5 = 2,325 minutes per week!! Now 2,325 x 4 weeks per month NOT including my overtime and the months that have 5 weeks = 9,300!!

I work my 2 hour overtime three nights per week at my JOBS request and have noticed if I decline their offer of over time too much they get upset with me!! So I am worried to lose my JOB!! That makes an extra 1,440 minutes per month added to the 9,300 MANDATORY minutes I work!! In total that is 10,740 minutes per month!!!

"Now with that said" , ARTHUR, .5 cents per minute calling plan times 10,740 comes out to be $5,370 dollars per month phone bill!!!!! The .7 cents per minute comes out to $7,518 per month!! H. T. F. IS THAT RIPPING OFF the MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY!! Huh, tell me you COWARD!! They knew from the start I work from home you jerk. We had told this to Embarq BEFORE we asked for their un"LIMITED" plan!!

Vonage was even WORSE!! Not only were they also WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" Vonage just STRAIGHT OUT LIED ALL TOGETHER!! We had to tell EVERYONE of the customer service reps we spoke to their own companies Terms of Service!! My husband asked the Vonage rep (THAT AT FIRST "SUPPOSEDLY" HAD NO CLUE OF THEIR LIMITS), what happens when we exceed their monthly 10,000 minute business LIMIT. He had to transfer my husband to someone named Melissa, who said after we go over their monthly business 10,000 minutes the next step would to go to per minute rate plan!!!!! Same thing all over again !!!! So Vonage deceitfully gained my credit card numbers by telling me that I didn't have to get a business account because their terms of service was old and not updated!! Then went and promised me 24/7 talk time, and no start up fees!!!! What crap!!

How dare you ARTHUR!! How do you sleep at night? So kudos Arthur, kudos to you for posting something so NAUSEATING and proving to be WORSE THAN ALL THESE COMPANIES!! It is pathetic excuses and human waists of life like YOURSELF Arthur, who make up these scamming and manipulating companies to gain ILL GOTTEN REVENUE!

In my first report I apparently did not give enough details (at least not enough for ARTHUR)! Especially to receive a rebuttal as foolish as the one Arthur posted, "Plenty of Blame to Go Around Here"! So to anyone and everyone else please excuse me for not being specific enough. Please read my updated complaint report. I am NOT at liberty to nor do I have the time to explain myself to Arthur however, I am willing to indulge him in some facts pertaining his DISGUSTING rebuttal!

Arthur says in this portion of his rebuttal, and I quote, "You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity."

My answer is this: It does NOT matter who the specific people were that we spoke to regarding these matters. As it was NOT their fault they were dealing with us, it was the manipulative companies they work and LIE for, Embarq's and Vonage's faults!! These employees were just doing there jobs!! Our complaint DOES NOT rest with these employees,but the manipulative and deceitful companies they lie for and represent....Embarq and Vonage!! These employees did not write the companies "Terms of Service", they just lie for these companies or are not even aware of the tariffs and are under trained (good excuse for them anyway)!! However,there IS DEFIANTLY someone in these companies who can fix their deceit and lies and stop falsely advertising and manipulating to gain revenue!

Even though Arthur states, and I quote, " I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer,...." he CLEARLY is trying to justify the deception of these scamming companies!! One can read Artur's idiotic and moronic justifications throughout his ENTIRELY OBNOXIOUS rebuttal!!

Artur goes on babbling, and I quote again, "You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company."

My answer for this NONSENSE is: My full complaint report and my updated one also, did not all get posted properly.? My husband and I told EVERY rep we spoke with that I work from home UPFRONT FROM THE BEGINNING!! EVERYONE of them ensured us their unlimited plan is good for 24/7 talk time be it if we went with their residential or small business un"LIMITED" packages! For that FACT,we had Embarq's Nationwide un"LIMITED" long distance package for approximately 2 months, BEFORE I got my work at home JOB, and had their home phone service for about 7 moths total. Furthermore, when we signed up with Embarq for their un"LIMITED" nationwide long distance (AFTER ALREADY BEING A CUSTOMER FOR SEVERAL MONTHS) we were UPFRONT about my new job working from home!!

These phone companies were NOT the ones being ripped off!! It was us, the CUSTOMERS and potential CUSTOMERS PERIOD! As for paying a commercial rate, well we did the math and what these companies were aiming for was TERRIFYING and OUTRAGEOUS, in the least to say!! We were told from Embarq, even though we complied,(at least we THOUGHT so)that NONE of this will even allow me to work from home for much longer through them!They gave me yet another alternative that they said I would have to switch to in the next few weeks or so!! They said I will have to get an account with .5 or .7 cents a minute long distance charges!! Well either option EXTREMELY OVER EXCEEDS my weekly pay check by SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS per week!!

Arthur's pre-school version of the math is this; again I quote more of his STUPIDITY,... "So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider 'normal' use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world."

With Embarq it was WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" More like this: With our internet and un"LIMITED" long distance including taxes and surcharges came to approximately $75.00 - $80.00 per month in the BEGINNING. Then we got our letter and was forced into converting to a FAKE business account. Well we were QUOTED what our new monthly charges would be (as we just started the fake business account) and they were SURPRISINGLY just about the same as they were before...wait not done... roughly $90.00 - $100.00 per month. OMG only $10.00 - $20.00 more than our residential un"LIMITED" plan!!!....still not done there is more to come....we were suddenly relieved, what we thought would be a nightmare actually turned out to be somewhat of a sigh of relief! YEAH RIGHT!!

Now here is where it all gets REALLY INTERESTING!! Within ONLY ONE OR TWO DAYS of what we THOUGHT we were doing complying with them, turns out another call and e-mails from.....guess who.....that's right EMBARQ. Now is when we are being told we need a SECOND FAKE BUSINESS PHONE LINE MIRRORED OFF of the first one! Wow that is only "roughly" $60.00 or so more per month. OK we agree to this. If not we loose our services through Embarq and risk loosing my JOB. Hey I make approximately $1,400 - $2,500 PER MONTH BEFORE taxes, I can afford that.

Oh by the way my pay varies depending on these factors:
1. How many weeks are in a single month.
2. My work performance varies, and my pay is based in PART by performance. So some weeks my checks are as low as approximately $350.00 and are as high as $500.00
3. The amount of taxes taken out

OK, back to the part where it all gets "REALLY INTERESTING." During my conversation with this "trained to be THIEF", she....OK if you want her info, here, this is all you're gonna get...Stephanie operator # E99 her work e-mail is Stefani.D.Choi@Embarq.com,....she begins to tell me what I wrote earlier, about time I am quoting myself :) "They (she Stephanie) said I will have to get an account with .5 or .10 cents a minute long distance charges!!" I say HELL NO!! That is the final option for me to have Embarq's service!!!

Can we do some GROWN UP math here!! I work 5 nights per week and NO LESS than 8 hours per night!! Some nights I put in about 2 hours overtime. On my normal 8 hour shift I get three breaks, first I get a 15 minute break, next I get a 30 minute break, and finally I get another 15 minute break. My schedule is from 11 p.m. EST to 7:30 a.m. Unless any of us are Arthur the we all know that there are 60 minutes in one hour! Times 60 minutes by 8 hours 60 x 8. We will get a sum of 480. So far we are at 480 minutes of talk time per my normal nightly eight hour shift! I log in using my home phone to a LAND LINE out of state for 480 minutes per night minus my two 15 minute breaks. So now we subtract (Arthur) 480 - 15= 465! That is now 465 minutes nightly times 5 nights per week!! 465 x 5 = 2,325 minutes per week!! Now 2,325 x 4 weeks per month NOT including my overtime and the months that have 5 weeks = 9,300!!

I work my 2 hour overtime three nights per week at my JOBS request and have noticed if I decline their offer of over time too much they get upset with me!! So I am worried to lose my JOB!! That makes an extra 1,440 minutes per month added to the 9,300 MANDATORY minutes I work!! In total that is 10,740 minutes per month!!!

"Now with that said" , ARTHUR, .5 cents per minute calling plan times 10,740 comes out to be $5,370 dollars per month phone bill!!!!! The .7 cents per minute comes out to $7,518 per month!! H. T. F. IS THAT RIPPING OFF the MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY!! Huh, tell me you COWARD!! They knew from the start I work from home you jerk. We had told this to Embarq BEFORE we asked for their un"LIMITED" plan!!

Vonage was even WORSE!! Not only were they also WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" Vonage just STRAIGHT OUT LIED ALL TOGETHER!! We had to tell EVERYONE of the customer service reps we spoke to their own companies Terms of Service!! My husband asked the Vonage rep (THAT AT FIRST "SUPPOSEDLY" HAD NO CLUE OF THEIR LIMITS), what happens when we exceed their monthly 10,000 minute business LIMIT. He had to transfer my husband to someone named Melissa, who said after we go over their monthly business 10,000 minutes the next step would to go to per minute rate plan!!!!! Same thing all over again !!!! So Vonage deceitfully gained my credit card numbers by telling me that I didn't have to get a business account because their terms of service was old and not updated!! Then went and promised me 24/7 talk time, and no start up fees!!!! What crap!!

How dare you ARTHUR!! How do you sleep at night? So kudos Arthur, kudos to you for posting something so NAUSEATING and proving to be WORSE THAN ALL THESE COMPANIES!! It is pathetic excuses and human waists of life like YOURSELF Arthur, who make up these scamming and manipulating companies to gain ILL GOTTEN REVENUE!

In my first report I apparently did not give enough details (at least not enough for ARTHUR)! Especially to receive a rebuttal as foolish as the one Arthur posted, "Plenty of Blame to Go Around Here"! So to anyone and everyone else please excuse me for not being specific enough. Please read my updated complaint report. I am NOT at liberty to nor do I have the time to explain myself to Arthur however, I am willing to indulge him in some facts pertaining his DISGUSTING rebuttal!

Arthur says in this portion of his rebuttal, and I quote, "You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity."

My answer is this: It does NOT matter who the specific people were that we spoke to regarding these matters. As it was NOT their fault they were dealing with us, it was the manipulative companies they work and LIE for, Embarq's and Vonage's faults!! These employees were just doing there jobs!! Our complaint DOES NOT rest with these employees,but the manipulative and deceitful companies they lie for and represent....Embarq and Vonage!! These employees did not write the companies "Terms of Service", they just lie for these companies or are not even aware of the tariffs and are under trained (good excuse for them anyway)!! However,there IS DEFIANTLY someone in these companies who can fix their deceit and lies and stop falsely advertising and manipulating to gain revenue!

Even though Arthur states, and I quote, " I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer,...." he CLEARLY is trying to justify the deception of these scamming companies!! One can read Artur's idiotic and moronic justifications throughout his ENTIRELY OBNOXIOUS rebuttal!!

Artur goes on babbling, and I quote again, "You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company."

My answer for this NONSENSE is: My full complaint report and my updated one also, did not all get posted properly.? My husband and I told EVERY rep we spoke with that I work from home UPFRONT FROM THE BEGINNING!! EVERYONE of them ensured us their unlimited plan is good for 24/7 talk time be it if we went with their residential or small business un"LIMITED" packages! For that FACT,we had Embarq's Nationwide un"LIMITED" long distance package for approximately 2 months, BEFORE I got my work at home JOB, and had their home phone service for about 7 moths total. Furthermore, when we signed up with Embarq for their un"LIMITED" nationwide long distance (AFTER ALREADY BEING A CUSTOMER FOR SEVERAL MONTHS) we were UPFRONT about my new job working from home!!

These phone companies were NOT the ones being ripped off!! It was us, the CUSTOMERS and potential CUSTOMERS PERIOD! As for paying a commercial rate, well we did the math and what these companies were aiming for was TERRIFYING and OUTRAGEOUS, in the least to say!! We were told from Embarq, even though we complied,(at least we THOUGHT so)that NONE of this will even allow me to work from home for much longer through them!They gave me yet another alternative that they said I would have to switch to in the next few weeks or so!! They said I will have to get an account with .5 or .7 cents a minute long distance charges!! Well either option EXTREMELY OVER EXCEEDS my weekly pay check by SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS per week!!

Arthur's pre-school version of the math is this; again I quote more of his STUPIDITY,... "So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider 'normal' use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world."

With Embarq it was WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" More like this: With our internet and un"LIMITED" long distance including taxes and surcharges came to approximately $75.00 - $80.00 per month in the BEGINNING. Then we got our letter and was forced into converting to a FAKE business account. Well we were QUOTED what our new monthly charges would be (as we just started the fake business account) and they were SURPRISINGLY just about the same as they were before...wait not done... roughly $90.00 - $100.00 per month. OMG only $10.00 - $20.00 more than our residential un"LIMITED" plan!!!....still not done there is more to come....we were suddenly relieved, what we thought would be a nightmare actually turned out to be somewhat of a sigh of relief! YEAH RIGHT!!

Now here is where it all gets REALLY INTERESTING!! Within ONLY ONE OR TWO DAYS of what we THOUGHT we were doing complying with them, turns out another call and e-mails from.....guess who.....that's right EMBARQ. Now is when we are being told we need a SECOND FAKE BUSINESS PHONE LINE MIRRORED OFF of the first one! Wow that is only "roughly" $60.00 or so more per month. OK we agree to this. If not we loose our services through Embarq and risk loosing my JOB. Hey I make approximately $1,400 - $2,500 PER MONTH BEFORE taxes, I can afford that.

Oh by the way my pay varies depending on these factors:
1. How many weeks are in a single month.
2. My work performance varies, and my pay is based in PART by performance. So some weeks my checks are as low as approximately $350.00 and are as high as $500.00
3. The amount of taxes taken out

OK, back to the part where it all gets "REALLY INTERESTING." During my conversation with this "trained to be THIEF", she....OK if you want her info, here, this is all you're gonna get...Stephanie operator # E99 her work e-mail is Stefani.D.Choi@Embarq.com,....she begins to tell me what I wrote earlier, about time I am quoting myself :) "They (she Stephanie) said I will have to get an account with .5 or .10 cents a minute long distance charges!!" I say HELL NO!! That is the final option for me to have Embarq's service!!!

Can we do some GROWN UP math here!! I work 5 nights per week and NO LESS than 8 hours per night!! Some nights I put in about 2 hours overtime. On my normal 8 hour shift I get three breaks, first I get a 15 minute break, next I get a 30 minute break, and finally I get another 15 minute break. My schedule is from 11 p.m. EST to 7:30 a.m. Unless any of us are Arthur the we all know that there are 60 minutes in one hour! Times 60 minutes by 8 hours 60 x 8. We will get a sum of 480. So far we are at 480 minutes of talk time per my normal nightly eight hour shift! I log in using my home phone to a LAND LINE out of state for 480 minutes per night minus my two 15 minute breaks. So now we subtract (Arthur) 480 - 15= 465! That is now 465 minutes nightly times 5 nights per week!! 465 x 5 = 2,325 minutes per week!! Now 2,325 x 4 weeks per month NOT including my overtime and the months that have 5 weeks = 9,300!!

I work my 2 hour overtime three nights per week at my JOBS request and have noticed if I decline their offer of over time too much they get upset with me!! So I am worried to lose my JOB!! That makes an extra 1,440 minutes per month added to the 9,300 MANDATORY minutes I work!! In total that is 10,740 minutes per month!!!

"Now with that said" , ARTHUR, .5 cents per minute calling plan times 10,740 comes out to be $5,370 dollars per month phone bill!!!!! The .7 cents per minute comes out to $7,518 per month!! H. T. F. IS THAT RIPPING OFF the MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY!! Huh, tell me you COWARD!! They knew from the start I work from home you jerk. We had told this to Embarq BEFORE we asked for their un"LIMITED" plan!!

Vonage was even WORSE!! Not only were they also WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" Vonage just STRAIGHT OUT LIED ALL TOGETHER!! We had to tell EVERYONE of the customer service reps we spoke to their own companies Terms of Service!! My husband asked the Vonage rep (THAT AT FIRST "SUPPOSEDLY" HAD NO CLUE OF THEIR LIMITS), what happens when we exceed their monthly 10,000 minute business LIMIT. He had to transfer my husband to someone named Melissa, who said after we go over their monthly business 10,000 minutes the next step would to go to per minute rate plan!!!!! Same thing all over again !!!! So Vonage deceitfully gained my credit card numbers by telling me that I didn't have to get a business account because their terms of service was old and not updated!! Then went and promised me 24/7 talk time, and no start up fees!!!! What crap!!

How dare you ARTHUR!! How do you sleep at night? So kudos Arthur, kudos to you for posting something so NAUSEATING and proving to be WORSE THAN ALL THESE COMPANIES!! It is pathetic excuses and human waists of life like YOURSELF Arthur, who make up these scamming and manipulating companies to gain ILL GOTTEN REVENUE!

In my first report I apparently did not give enough details (at least not enough for ARTHUR)! Especially to receive a rebuttal as foolish as the one Arthur posted, "Plenty of Blame to Go Around Here"! So to anyone and everyone else please excuse me for not being specific enough. Please read my updated complaint report. I am NOT at liberty to nor do I have the time to explain myself to Arthur however, I am willing to indulge him in some facts pertaining his DISGUSTING rebuttal!

Arthur says in this portion of his rebuttal, and I quote, "You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity."

My answer is this: It does NOT matter who the specific people were that we spoke to regarding these matters. As it was NOT their fault they were dealing with us, it was the manipulative companies they work and LIE for, Embarq's and Vonage's faults!! These employees were just doing there jobs!! Our complaint DOES NOT rest with these employees,but the manipulative and deceitful companies they lie for and represent....Embarq and Vonage!! These employees did not write the companies "Terms of Service", they just lie for these companies or are not even aware of the tariffs and are under trained (good excuse for them anyway)!! However,there IS DEFIANTLY someone in these companies who can fix their deceit and lies and stop falsely advertising and manipulating to gain revenue!

Even though Arthur states, and I quote, " I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer,...." he CLEARLY is trying to justify the deception of these scamming companies!! One can read Artur's idiotic and moronic justifications throughout his ENTIRELY OBNOXIOUS rebuttal!!

Artur goes on babbling, and I quote again, "You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company."

My answer for this NONSENSE is: My full complaint report and my updated one also, did not all get posted properly.? My husband and I told EVERY rep we spoke with that I work from home UPFRONT FROM THE BEGINNING!! EVERYONE of them ensured us their unlimited plan is good for 24/7 talk time be it if we went with their residential or small business un"LIMITED" packages! For that FACT,we had Embarq's Nationwide un"LIMITED" long distance package for approximately 2 months, BEFORE I got my work at home JOB, and had their home phone service for about 7 moths total. Furthermore, when we signed up with Embarq for their un"LIMITED" nationwide long distance (AFTER ALREADY BEING A CUSTOMER FOR SEVERAL MONTHS) we were UPFRONT about my new job working from home!!

These phone companies were NOT the ones being ripped off!! It was us, the CUSTOMERS and potential CUSTOMERS PERIOD! As for paying a commercial rate, well we did the math and what these companies were aiming for was TERRIFYING and OUTRAGEOUS, in the least to say!! We were told from Embarq, even though we complied,(at least we THOUGHT so)that NONE of this will even allow me to work from home for much longer through them!They gave me yet another alternative that they said I would have to switch to in the next few weeks or so!! They said I will have to get an account with .5 or .7 cents a minute long distance charges!! Well either option EXTREMELY OVER EXCEEDS my weekly pay check by SEVERAL HUNDRED DOLLARS per week!!

Arthur's pre-school version of the math is this; again I quote more of his STUPIDITY,... "So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider 'normal' use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world."

With Embarq it was WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" More like this: With our internet and un"LIMITED" long distance including taxes and surcharges came to approximately $75.00 - $80.00 per month in the BEGINNING. Then we got our letter and was forced into converting to a FAKE business account. Well we were QUOTED what our new monthly charges would be (as we just started the fake business account) and they were SURPRISINGLY just about the same as they were before...wait not done... roughly $90.00 - $100.00 per month. OMG only $10.00 - $20.00 more than our residential un"LIMITED" plan!!!....still not done there is more to come....we were suddenly relieved, what we thought would be a nightmare actually turned out to be somewhat of a sigh of relief! YEAH RIGHT!!

Now here is where it all gets REALLY INTERESTING!! Within ONLY ONE OR TWO DAYS of what we THOUGHT we were doing complying with them, turns out another call and e-mails from.....guess who.....that's right EMBARQ. Now is when we are being told we need a SECOND FAKE BUSINESS PHONE LINE MIRRORED OFF of the first one! Wow that is only "roughly" $60.00 or so more per month. OK we agree to this. If not we loose our services through Embarq and risk loosing my JOB. Hey I make approximately $1,400 - $2,500 PER MONTH BEFORE taxes, I can afford that.

Oh by the way my pay varies depending on these factors:
1. How many weeks are in a single month.
2. My work performance varies, and my pay is based in PART by performance. So some weeks my checks are as low as approximately $350.00 and are as high as $500.00
3. The amount of taxes taken out

OK, back to the part where it all gets "REALLY INTERESTING." During my conversation with this "trained to be THIEF", she....OK if you want her info, here, this is all you're gonna get...Stephanie operator # E99 her work e-mail is Stefani.D.Choi@Embarq.com,....she begins to tell me what I wrote earlier, about time I am quoting myself :) "They (she Stephanie) said I will have to get an account with .5 or .10 cents a minute long distance charges!!" I say HELL NO!! That is the final option for me to have Embarq's service!!!

Can we do some GROWN UP math here!! I work 5 nights per week and NO LESS than 8 hours per night!! Some nights I put in about 2 hours overtime. On my normal 8 hour shift I get three breaks, first I get a 15 minute break, next I get a 30 minute break, and finally I get another 15 minute break. My schedule is from 11 p.m. EST to 7:30 a.m. Unless any of us are Arthur the we all know that there are 60 minutes in one hour! Times 60 minutes by 8 hours 60 x 8. We will get a sum of 480. So far we are at 480 minutes of talk time per my normal nightly eight hour shift! I log in using my home phone to a LAND LINE out of state for 480 minutes per night minus my two 15 minute breaks. So now we subtract (Arthur) 480 - 15= 465! That is now 465 minutes nightly times 5 nights per week!! 465 x 5 = 2,325 minutes per week!! Now 2,325 x 4 weeks per month NOT including my overtime and the months that have 5 weeks = 9,300!!

I work my 2 hour overtime three nights per week at my JOBS request and have noticed if I decline their offer of over time too much they get upset with me!! So I am worried to lose my JOB!! That makes an extra 1,440 minutes per month added to the 9,300 MANDATORY minutes I work!! In total that is 10,740 minutes per month!!!

"Now with that said" , ARTHUR, .5 cents per minute calling plan times 10,740 comes out to be $5,370 dollars per month phone bill!!!!! The .7 cents per minute comes out to $7,518 per month!! H. T. F. IS THAT RIPPING OFF the MULTIMILLION DOLLAR COMPANY!! Huh, tell me you COWARD!! They knew from the start I work from home you jerk. We had told this to Embarq BEFORE we asked for their un"LIMITED" plan!!

Vonage was even WORSE!! Not only were they also WAY MORE than "about $ 25.00 per month" Vonage just STRAIGHT OUT LIED ALL TOGETHER!! We had to tell EVERYONE of the customer service reps we spoke to their own companies Terms of Service!! My husband asked the Vonage rep (THAT AT FIRST "SUPPOSEDLY" HAD NO CLUE OF THEIR LIMITS), what happens when we exceed their monthly 10,000 minute business LIMIT. He had to transfer my husband to someone named Melissa, who said after we go over their monthly business 10,000 minutes the next step would to go to per minute rate plan!!!!! Same thing all over again !!!! So Vonage deceitfully gained my credit card numbers by telling me that I didn't have to get a business account because their terms of service was old and not updated!! Then went and promised me 24/7 talk time, and no start up fees!!!! What crap!!

How dare you ARTHUR!! How do you sleep at night? So kudos Arthur, kudos to you for posting something so NAUSEATING and proving to be WORSE THAN ALL THESE COMPANIES!! It is pathetic excuses and human waists of life like YOURSELF Arthur, who make up these scamming and manipulating companies to gain ILL GOTTEN REVENUE!

Hello I work at home using my home phone. In a time of recession, when there are no jobs anywhere, I do what I can to make some money to keep my bills paid. My husband and I first had the phone company Embarq.

Since we thought we had unlimited long distance, we figured there would be no problem. After 3 months of working for this company, I got a letter from my phone company telling me that I had broken their rules and regulations for unlimited long distance!! I was confused.

I called them. They told me that there is a 5,000 minute limit for unlimited long distance. Wait a minute... let me look in the dictionary UNLIMITED- boundless, without restrictions or boundaries; infinite With that in mind, I told them that I was working at home and I don't telemarket or make continuous outbound calls. They said, oh no, you need to have a business line to run your business. I tried to explain to them over and over that no, I don't run a business, I am an employee for a company that pays me and takes taxes out of my paycheck.

I told them that this job is the reason they get their money every month. Well, they said I have 3 choices. #1 stop calling that number. Okay, this won't work, because this is my job. #2 disconnect my phone service. Okay, this definitely won't work. #3 go to a business line. Of course, they want more money. So I went ahead and said fine, I'll get the business line. This seemed ridiculous to me, but whatever will allow me to keep my phone line, and not get myself disconnected.

After I agreed to get the business line, they asked me make up a name for the business I did NOT have. I felt like I was doing something illegal. They told me that it doesn't matter that the business doesn't exist, I just need a name. They suggested that I illegally use the name of the company I work for!! So I complied & made up some crazy name, J&L ILY (Jason and Liz I love you).

Soon after getting this new upgraded package, I get an e-mail stating that I now needed to get a second phone line mirrored off of the first line!! More money!!! I was so fed up by now that my husband and I called Vonage. Vonage advertises everywhere their unlimited long distance. There is no * by the word unlimited! So my husband calls Vonage. We didn't have any money on our pre paid credit card, we were just looking for information.

My husband explained to him that we would get the service in 2 days when we had money, we just wanted to know if it was really unlimited! The man promised him the world. He told him yes, it is completely unlimited, he could talk 24/7 if he wanted to. My husband explained to him that I work from home, and he needed to make sure that it was completely unlimited.

Again, the guy convinced my husband that yes. No restrictions what-so-ever. The man was adamant on signing my husband up that seconds. We explained that there was no money on our card. The guy told us that because he valued our business, he would wave all of the first time fees, and start up our service for free. He put us on hold while he checked with his supervisor.

He came back and told us yes he could set us up today for free! So we agreed. We gave him our credit card number for later billing, with the promise that he wouldn't charge it now. Shortly afterwords, the guy got disconnected from my husband. My husband called back and got another operator. When she looked up the account, she saw that we had been charged $42!!! We were irate!

We had been lied to yet again! This is when my husband went on a mission to investigate. He read through all of the terms and conditions on the Vonage website. In very small print in the middle of the terms he found a section that said that there was a limit to unlimited. Vonage has limit of 5,000 minutes for residential lines and 10,000 limited minutes for small business lines!!!

So what is limited unlimited long distance?? We have seen the Vonage commercial everywhere and have never once seen it say: Unlimited* long distance. So that you can read down below and see that it says certain restrictions apply, 5,000 residential and 10,000 small business!! They are false advertising! I have to fight in order to keep my job with all of these phone companies! How is that right?

They are changing the English language! Unlimited means one thing, how are they allowed to put limits on it? We are not running a business out of our home, I am a wife trying to make a living for my family! Please don't take my word for it, look it up yourselves.

Here's some links to Vonage: www.vonage.com notice there is no * by the word unlimited

http://www.vonage.com/features_terms_service.php#SERVICE

then read section 5.4 and make note of their limited unlimited!! Elizabeth Ocala, Florida
U.S.A.

I'm a former Vonage customer myself. One reason they looked good to me was due to the fact that they only charged me about $ 10.00 for an additional fax line. Residential fax, I might add. I am retired and do not make money with my phone. But let's face it. VoIP technology is actually poorer than copper wire for fax use. My FIOS TV and Internet service has a bundle price where you can combine phone with the above for a decent price, so I left Vonage and combined my old Vonage voice line number into another VoIP company that also could provide me a virtual number in Australia. Other than that, I do not have any bad things to say about their service, though it did make me nervous to know there had been some shady goings on by Vonage's Jeffrey Citron, plus the fact that the company had never made a dime in profit.

Now with that said, while "unlimited" should mean unlimited, I don't know what other word they could use to describe a plan that does not have, say, a 500-minute limit. Maybe they could say "virtually unlimited", since 5000 minutes is over 83 hours of talk time per month, and only someone with a terminal case of diarrhea of the mouth is going to exceed that.

Or someone who is using the line for business purposes, that is.

The reasons I can't sympathize too much with this report are as follows:

You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity.

You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company.

I mean technically a plumber who works out of his house and only gets the occasional four or five calls a day to go out on service calls still ought to have a business line. How much more someone who goes over 83 hours per month on the horn, for crying out loud?

Granted it sounded like you folks got pressured into giving the credit card information due to outright lying, but come on! The only way I can think of for them to hold your purchase would be for someone to write down your credit card information and enter it later at the prescribed time. Not a very wise way to do business, in my estimation. I've never heard of any computerized billing system that allowed for delayed billing of a sale, unless it is programmed to only charge when the item is shipped. But for someone to sit at a terminal and be able to arbitrarily say don't bill these people until next Tuesday or something... well, I doubt that ability exists in any programming. Can you honestly say you have seen that before?

So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider "normal" use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world.

After all, greed is evil, but so is covetousness. Nobody has any God-given right to feed parasitically off others, whether they be operating as companies or as individuals. There are quite a few rip-off reports on here of unscrupulous outfits that only succeed because they feed off the larcenous tendencies of certain people. That is to say, they exploit the dishonesty of people to take them to the cleaners.

So, don't begrudge others their due in this life, unless you are prepared to take it on the chin when others treat you the same way. I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer, but I wonder if they sensed they were dealing with people who are themselves lacking a humanity streak and gave you "the business" on account of it.

Sounds like this was a case of both buyer and seller beware.

I'm a former Vonage customer myself. One reason they looked good to me was due to the fact that they only charged me about $ 10.00 for an additional fax line. Residential fax, I might add. I am retired and do not make money with my phone. But let's face it. VoIP technology is actually poorer than copper wire for fax use. My FIOS TV and Internet service has a bundle price where you can combine phone with the above for a decent price, so I left Vonage and combined my old Vonage voice line number into another VoIP company that also could provide me a virtual number in Australia. Other than that, I do not have any bad things to say about their service, though it did make me nervous to know there had been some shady goings on by Vonage's Jeffrey Citron, plus the fact that the company had never made a dime in profit.

Now with that said, while "unlimited" should mean unlimited, I don't know what other word they could use to describe a plan that does not have, say, a 500-minute limit. Maybe they could say "virtually unlimited", since 5000 minutes is over 83 hours of talk time per month, and only someone with a terminal case of diarrhea of the mouth is going to exceed that.

Or someone who is using the line for business purposes, that is.

The reasons I can't sympathize too much with this report are as follows:

You do not include any names of the people who did you wrong. You granted them the protection of anonymity.

You tried to rip off the companies and pass yourself off as a residential user when you knew good and well that you were using the line for income-generating work. Working from home is still working. Lots of people work out of their home, but they still have to pay the commercial rate -- or at least are supposed to if they are above board and honest with their phone company.

I mean technically a plumber who works out of his house and only gets the occasional four or five calls a day to go out on service calls still ought to have a business line. How much more someone who goes over 83 hours per month on the horn, for crying out loud?

Granted it sounded like you folks got pressured into giving the credit card information due to outright lying, but come on! The only way I can think of for them to hold your purchase would be for someone to write down your credit card information and enter it later at the prescribed time. Not a very wise way to do business, in my estimation. I've never heard of any computerized billing system that allowed for delayed billing of a sale, unless it is programmed to only charge when the item is shipped. But for someone to sit at a terminal and be able to arbitrarily say don't bill these people until next Tuesday or something... well, I doubt that ability exists in any programming. Can you honestly say you have seen that before?

So what's the bottom line here? It's only about $ 25.00 per month more for a business line, but you folks tried to screw them out of it. Looks like what goes around comes around, and in this case it happened right on the spot. And by the way even with the business line they limit it to what they consider "normal" use, i.e. 10,000 minutes per month. Over 166 hours! If with all that time on the phone you can't afford to pay your way, there's something wrong... like maybe you folks are under some sort of curse for being money grubbers who try to get out of paying their fair share in this world.

After all, greed is evil, but so is covetousness. Nobody has any God-given right to feed parasitically off others, whether they be operating as companies or as individuals. There are quite a few rip-off reports on here of unscrupulous outfits that only succeed because they feed off the larcenous tendencies of certain people. That is to say, they exploit the dishonesty of people to take them to the cleaners.

So, don't begrudge others their due in this life, unless you are prepared to take it on the chin when others treat you the same way. I'm not going to excuse lying to a potential customer, but I wonder if they sensed they were dealing with people who are themselves lacking a humanity streak and gave you "the business" on account of it.

Sounds like this was a case of both buyer and seller beware.