Vonage The Broadband Phone Service Ripoff! Vonage you really get what you pay for, almost nothing! Internet
My husband and I heard the commerical for vonage and decided to try it. First you have to pay all these fees and your first months bill in advance. And you cant get a bill every month in the mail.
They require that you have charged to your credit or debt card. And then when they send you the equipment you have to make all the outgoing calls on the vonage line and answer your incomming calls on your old land line for the first month or two. So at this point you are now paying both companies for a while.
I would have been more than happy to deal with the trouble of having the two different phones if I could eventually have a much cheeper phone bill. And I tried this, and did as they had instructed me to do. But every call I made was dropped. Suddenly the other person on the other end could no longer hear you. You could hear them, but to them you were gone. It would not correct itself either. You had to hang up and call again. And this was on every single call I made with the service the whole month I kept it.
My husband is in the military and when he is gone if he calls and the call is dropped he doesnt get to call back. It's tough luck at that point. So I knew this wouldnt not work. So I tried for a week to reach vonage. After you are already a customer calling their regular advertised phone number does not help, you get directed to a voice mail or put on hold for hours. In on day I left my phone on speaker on hold with them for over 8 hours till finally it was time for bed and I hung up. I could not get in touch with them to cancel the service or even complain about the problem.
Finally I turned back to my old phone company for help. See with Vonage you dont cancel your landline serivce, they do it for you. And they had already had my serivce ordered for shut off. I explained what was going on and thankfully my old phone company restored my service and made it to where vonage no longer had control of the account.
They suggested to avoid other charges from Vonage to keep tring to call them to cancel with them. So this I did for another few days. Finally I reach some sort of call center that seemed as if it was in the Middle East or India somewhere, where the people hardly spoke english.
I told them about the problem's I was having and that I had been tring to call them for days and at this point I just no longer wanted the service. And then they told me they could not speak with me because it was my husband's account. I set the account up myself, I gave them my name then too when it was set up. I was the one speaking with them the whole time during set up.
I then explained to them that because of the war my husband was not there and was over seas with the air force. He could not call them. He was lucky to even get to call home every once in a while. This woman then told me, and I quote. "We have no sympathy for your countries military." Like I care what her 3rd world country political veiws are in a customer service situation.
So at that point after they had brought me to the point of extream frustraition and they insulted our troops who personally have no say where they go or what wars they fight. I had, had it. I ripped into her and they let me talk to someone else. After everything was said and done I got them to cancle the service, I send them back their equipment and they gave me all my money back. But please take my advice and dont waist your time on this.
Yes it's cheep and if it worked right it would have been fine. But it doesnt, and all the trouble is not worth the money saved. Plus as a american that is proud to be an american, I dont think I want to give my business to any company that hires employees or contracted companies that have such a hatred for America they have no problems in telling their customers about their views.
Amber
Wichita, Kansas
U.S.A.
15 Updates & Rebuttals
Virginia
Creve Coeur,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Reply to Candance
#16Consumer Suggestion
Thu, March 16, 2006
Candance I see where you have rebuttaled other postings. You must work for Vonage. I'm with the original poster of this complaint. Vonage is a scam. Read my posted complaint. How can several other people have the same complaint from all over the USA.
Virginia
Creve Coeur,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Reply to Candance
#16Consumer Suggestion
Thu, March 16, 2006
Candance I see where you have rebuttaled other postings. You must work for Vonage. I'm with the original poster of this complaint. Vonage is a scam. Read my posted complaint. How can several other people have the same complaint from all over the USA.
Virginia
Creve Coeur,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Reply to Candance
#16Consumer Suggestion
Thu, March 16, 2006
Candance I see where you have rebuttaled other postings. You must work for Vonage. I'm with the original poster of this complaint. Vonage is a scam. Read my posted complaint. How can several other people have the same complaint from all over the USA.
Virginia
Creve Coeur,Illinois,
U.S.A.
Reply to Candance
#16Consumer Suggestion
Thu, March 16, 2006
Candance I see where you have rebuttaled other postings. You must work for Vonage. I'm with the original poster of this complaint. Vonage is a scam. Read my posted complaint. How can several other people have the same complaint from all over the USA.
Candace
Odessa,Missouri,
U.S.A.
vonage complaints
#16Consumer Comment
Sat, March 11, 2006
I too am a current vonage customer and have carefully read all the complaints from this site. I have had no problems with the service i recieved my router hooked it up and have had phone service ever since. As for being theives because they only use credit card payments and dont send a bill, well people you pay 30 dollars a month for phone service that anywhere else you pay three times that amount. As for no bills its a convience and cost factor not a ripoff and you can pay your vonage bill with a check because i do. After reading some of these complaints it seems that there are alot of consumers that want eveything for nothing. If you are not happy and do not want to continue with service then it is also your responsibility to make sure you are not still charged as vonage IS NOT the only company that does this.
Lorraine
Phoenix,Arizona,
U.S.A.
Check your cable modem
#16Consumer Comment
Fri, December 16, 2005
We went with Lingo instead of Vontage since it is quite a bit cheaper, but both work the same via a VOIP box connected to your cable modem. We had the same problem at first, no one could hear us, but we could hear them fine.
It wasn't the VOIP at all, it was due to having an older cable modem from Cox Cable. (3 yr old one.) As soon as we bought a new modem and hooked it up, the phone has worked perfectly. The sound quality is clear as a bell and we couldn't be happier with it.
The cable companies upgraded this past year and gave their customers more bandwidth up and down. The VOIP phones require a LOT of bandwidth, so you must have a new cable modem or they won't work correctly. If you are experiencing problems and your cable modem is over a year old, get a new one and that should solve all your problems with your VOIP.
Paige
Hoover,Alabama,
U.S.A.
911
#16Consumer Suggestion
Fri, December 16, 2005
911 a few months ago was not very good because they didn't send the address to 911 dispatchers. Now Vonage has partnered up with Intrado and is providing Full E911 where it displays the Address and Phone Number.
Sherri
Piedmont,California,
U.S.A.
911 WORKS JUST FINE HERE...
#16Consumer Comment
Fri, July 15, 2005
Dialed them about two weeks ago when my neighbor's house caught on fire. You have to enable it for it to work and will get a confirmation email when it is activated.
Mark
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,
U.S.A.
Try dialing 911
#16Consumer Suggestion
Fri, July 15, 2005
Vonage is great if you never need to dial 911. They do not support that ability.
Al
Springdale,Arkansas,
U.S.A.
Vonage is the best phone service EVER.
#16Consumer Comment
Thu, July 14, 2005
I have had Vonage for over a year now and pay $27.24/mo. month after month. No hidden taxes or fees. The cell phone companies could learn a lot from Vonage. It never goes up and it has all the features that big phone company, which will remain nameless, has and even more. Unlimited long distance and I choose my own area code. What could be better?! I had my phone number and full service within minutes of ordering this service so I don't understand about the outgoing and incoming thing. I will NEVER switch back to that other phone company! Vonage service is always there and I've never had trouble with dropped calls. If I would have know it was so good I would have gotten it as soon as Vonage was in business.
Sherri
Piedmont,California,
U.S.A.
YOU CAN GET A BILL ONLINE
#16Consumer Comment
Thu, July 14, 2005
A real-time, up to the minute detailed bill of the usage, incoming and outcoming. I imagine that they require use of a credit card to avoid losing money on people who use services and don't pay. If a credit card is declined, they try it again over a period of time and don't block the service for about 10 days. I also imagine that they don't send paper bills to keep costs down. Guess they figure there is no need to send a paper bill when payments are automatically taken out and account activity is available online.
If they did bill like conventional telephone services did, the cost of the service would likely rise significantly.
I do agree that the commercials are obnoxious, however!
Doug
Houston,Texas,
U.S.A.
Vonage......What a JOKE!!! Stay away is my advise
#16Consumer Suggestion
Thu, July 14, 2005
ANYONE that would do buiness with this outfit is getting set up to get SCREWED!!!! Can't get a bill and MUST pay by credit card? Read all the ripoff reports, people. Anyone that won't send you a bill and will not let you pay by check like most all legitimate companies do is doing it for one reason. To screw you!! Once you agree to have your card drafted on a regular basis good luck getting it to stop.
Stay away is my advise. Besides, who in the world would do business with a company that has such obnoxious advertising?
Sherri
Piedmont,California,
U.S.A.
I HAVE HAD GREAT SERVICE WITH VONAGE
#16Consumer Comment
Thu, July 14, 2005
I had my installed and was able to make calls, both incoming and outgoing in just a few minutes, so I don't understand why you would have to keep your regular telephone line. Actually, both my phone and fax lines were working within minutes.
The telephone service has been fine. I do have occasional issues with trying to send a fax, but can usually fix that by inputting the area code if a local number or a 1 in front of the area code and number if not local. Theoretically, I am not supposed to have to do that, but if it works, it works.
Part of your problem could be your internet service. Every great once in awhile, I may get a bit of static, but that is usually when Comcast is working on the cable lines or there is extremely high traffic. If my cable goes down for any reason, then calls are automatically routed to my cell phone.
I will put up with an occasional problem and pay $39 a month for unlimited phone service and fax line (the $39 includes taxes!). I would never go back to SBC or the other cariers.
Sherri
Piedmont,California,
U.S.A.
I HAVE HAD GREAT SERVICE WITH VONAGE
#16Consumer Comment
Thu, July 14, 2005
I had my installed and was able to make calls, both incoming and outgoing in just a few minutes, so I don't understand why you would have to keep your regular telephone line. Actually, both my phone and fax lines were working within minutes.
The telephone service has been fine. I do have occasional issues with trying to send a fax, but can usually fix that by inputting the area code if a local number or a 1 in front of the area code and number if not local. Theoretically, I am not supposed to have to do that, but if it works, it works.
Part of your problem could be your internet service. Every great once in awhile, I may get a bit of static, but that is usually when Comcast is working on the cable lines or there is extremely high traffic. If my cable goes down for any reason, then calls are automatically routed to my cell phone.
I will put up with an occasional problem and pay $39 a month for unlimited phone service and fax line (the $39 includes taxes!). I would never go back to SBC or the other cariers.
Sherri
Piedmont,California,
U.S.A.
I HAVE HAD GREAT SERVICE WITH VONAGE
#16Consumer Comment
Thu, July 14, 2005
I had my installed and was able to make calls, both incoming and outgoing in just a few minutes, so I don't understand why you would have to keep your regular telephone line. Actually, both my phone and fax lines were working within minutes.
The telephone service has been fine. I do have occasional issues with trying to send a fax, but can usually fix that by inputting the area code if a local number or a 1 in front of the area code and number if not local. Theoretically, I am not supposed to have to do that, but if it works, it works.
Part of your problem could be your internet service. Every great once in awhile, I may get a bit of static, but that is usually when Comcast is working on the cable lines or there is extremely high traffic. If my cable goes down for any reason, then calls are automatically routed to my cell phone.
I will put up with an occasional problem and pay $39 a month for unlimited phone service and fax line (the $39 includes taxes!). I would never go back to SBC or the other cariers.