Damien Katz

Be careful what you write online. They might decide to countersue for libel or such like. I would just present the facts.

Are they covered by the same rules as other telephone companies? Aren’t you just using your broadband connection to exchange info? I guess if it's interstate commerce then the Dept. of Commerce could be involved. Also, if you're worried about libel, just preface your statements with a good ole, "In my opinion".

Call your credit card company. Tell them to cancel the charge. Move on with your life.

Will, agreed, I won't say anything libelous. I'm stating the facts, even if I do use swear words. Even if I say they are a bunch of greedy fucking bastards, that's not libelous. My wife majored in journalism in college, we know the rules.

Ronnie, I don't want to hire a lawyer. If I sue them, it will be in small claims court. Why? Because it's something anyone can do, and as such it will make for interesting reading: One man's quest to get back a refund from a large faceless corporation while navigating the legal system. I'll show everyone the steps I take, and try to make it as interesting as possible. Lawyers are boring, average schmoe's taking on big corporations in interesting. I like leading an interesting life.

Chris, I did that. We didn't notice it in time and now the credit card company won't take it off. And it's not about the $100 they owe me anymore, it's about the wasted time and aggravation. It's about a company taking advantage of regular people. I'm in a position to show in a very publicity grabbing way what they done and the measures I'm forced to go through to get my money back.

My understanding is that you may win in small claims court but may not actually ever collect. There are government and other public resources available to help you actually collect, why not use them? See http://www.mass.gov/portal/index.jsp?pageID=ocaterminal&L=4&L0=Home&L1=Consumer&L2=Shopping+%26+E-Commerce&L3=Resolve+a+Problem&sid=Eoca&b=terminalcontent&f=resolve_a_problem&csid=Eoca

Isn't this the same Jeffrey A. Citron who is the prick that just paid $70M in fines for illegal trading in the 90's? You'd better start reading some law books.
http://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/comp17929.htm

Chris, you're absolutely right, but here's why that didn't work if you're interested: After the original problems I told AmEx that the Vonage charges were unauthorized. AmEx said I'd have to wait until the charges actually appeared on my statement, then dispute them, which I planned to do. In the mean time Vonage actually called me to say that they were going to credit back all charges. That is why I didn't call AmEx to dispute when the original charges showed up. In my experience credits can take 1 or 2 cycles to show up, and I just forgot about it until after that time. You only have 60 days to dispute a charge through AmEx.

Sounds appalling, and I hope it all works out, but:

I'll blog the whole and will be a PR nightmare for them. I'll probably increase my readership along the way.

I think you might be overestimating just how interested the world might be in a "blogger has snit with phone company" story.

I think you might be overestimating just how interested the world might be in a "blogger has snit with phone company" story.

I'll make it interesting. You were interested enough to post comment. :) And the more time I spend on this, the more bad stuff I find out about them. And the more publicity it receives, the more "me too" stories will show up. See my previous blog entry. It steadily gets traffic from Google and people still post comments to it.

And I wasn't even trying then. But now I'm angry, and they are going to pay. It might not show up on a balance sheet, but I'm going to educate as many potential customers as possible. Every educated consumer who doesn't sign up with them will be a small victory against what is starting to look more and more like criminal behaviour.

You go Damien! Just don't get their commercials taken off the air, they crack me up.

I had a similar situation with Comcast a while back. I had moved from MA to NH and remained a Comcast customer. However, I had given up on their internet (cable modem) service but kept on as a Cable TV subscriber. When the tech came out to turn on the Cable TV, I dutifully relinquished the cable modem I had been leasing.

For some unknown reason, Comcast decided I had never returned the modem and continued to charge me $180 for it. Even threatening to call a collection agency and ruin my credit rating and junk like that.

Of course, during this time, I repeatedly called their customer service number, waded through the menu, faxed copies of my work order, where the tech noted the return of the cable modem, complete with serial number!!! I was going nuts with frustration! Again, as you said, it wasn't about the money, it was the whole feeling of helplessness.

I only got it solved when I happen to notice that Comcast had a business office next door to where I work with REAL LIVE PEOPLE IN IT.

About 30 seconds with a REAL LIVE PERSON and I got the situation cleared up. I think Comcast is a reputable company and it sounds like Vonage may be quite a bit less than that but I just wanted to chime in.

If only they could put a REAL LIVE PERSON on the other end of the phone, I think stuff might get straightened out a lot sooner.

My .02....

That is so funny Kudla, we had the same charge when moved from Mass and cancelled our cable service. They claimed I never returned their cable modem, when in fact I purchased my own modem at Circuit City. The really ironic thing is I bought that modem to save me money in the long run. Which it did, except for $180 dollar charge at the end. But we got it straightened out and I think it took less than a day, not 5 months.

So at least I don't blog ALL my customer disputes. Just the really really aggravating ones. Actually Vonage is the first and only one I've blogged. They make me sooo mad!

Can't comment on the business side of things related to Vonage, but wanted to chime in about their technical support: It sucked equally bad :-)

So, I switched from Vonage to Voicepulse (http://www.voicepulse.com)

a) I had tons of problems with Vonage (ISP was ComCast in Cambridge), and Vonage's help desk always pointed the finger to Comcast, whatever the problem was. Funny that then I told them that I also tested another offering from Voicepulse, which had NO problems on ComCast, they would STILL blame ComCast.

b) at the time of switch, the configurable 'perks'/features offered by voicepulse were much better than what vonage offered, PLUS voicepulse was cheaper.

c) Voicepulse also allows you to use the VoIP box for services other than just calling over the phone. For example, they allow you use it from any SIP code or softphone apps, too. Vonage might allows that now, too, but didn't back then.

Overall, it felt that Vonage acted already as if they were 'owning' the VoIP market (more expensive, less features and crappy help), and the Voicepulse folks acted in exactly the opposite way: Extremely helpful, better service and more reliable. They even switched my phone number a couple times for free (vonage would want to charge a 'service' fee for that.). Clearly the underdog, clearly determined to beat Vonage. Awesome.

Been using voicepulse for over 2 years now, very happy with it. Screw Vonage.

Well, I am going to be the lone dissenter. I guess I have incredibly good luck with Vonage. When I have called for customer service they have taken care of my chargebacks immediately, first time. Early on when I was trying to get everything working (with the early Motorola router) and I called into tech support, the person was knowledgeable about the router and networking in general, and was very helpful (I even blogged about it).

As of now I have two Vonage routers - one for home and one for business (business one has a regular line and a fax line). I commented to my wife the other day that the service has been so reliable and "transparent" that I forgot we were actually using VoIP/Vonage. The service has been flawless for at least 6 months - but I will admit that early on there were quality of call issues, but since then it has been fine.

So, I guess I am fortunate that I haven't had the problems you have had with Vonage - but for me every call I have made to them has been handled correctly and efficiently, and the service has been transparent (as it should be).

--Rock

Rock, I can't say what happens with them on the technical side. I've heard lots of similar reports. No big problems, works as expected. As I understand it they use standard, off-the-shelf equipment, so why shouldn't it? It's when you want to change service or cancel, that it becomes a nightmare to actually get what belongs to you.

And it appears to be getting worse. All the examples I listed above are within the last month. And yet I still see their ads all over the place.

Vonage already knows darn well that they suck:

http://vonagesucks.com/

Brilliant!!

Go, Damien!

It's probably just swapping one large, evil corporation for another, but the line of thinking in the link below is that the cable/telcos will squeeze Vonage out of existence before all is said and done.

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050303.html

Sorry to hear all of you have had such bad experiences. I've been a Vonage customer for almost 3 years with nothing but great service. I have recommended Vonage to 3 clients with 100% satisfaction as well.

I would be very careful about what you say here. While you may have had an excrutiatingly difficult experience, I doubt that you are indiciative of the majority of their customer base.

Peace!

Have you posted any of your comments on the Vonage Forum? Just wonder how they will be accepted? http://www.vonage-forum.com

Damien, I applaud your efforts.

On December 2003, This American Life aired a segment where they "went after" MCI for a similar customer service debacle.

The show's senior producer, Julie Snyder, had spent 10 months trying to get credit for incorrect charges, while additional charges contined to mount. Julie's incredible frustration was palpable (I heard a rebroadcast of the show a few months ago). She really didn't want to take advantage of her position on a national radio show, but I'm guessing her anger and patience ran out and she gave in. I'm glad she did as it was a great segment.

After Julie recounted the "highlights" of her nightmare, Ira Glass, the show's host, placed a live, on-air, call to MCI customer service. When MCI found they were live on a national radio show, Julie finally got some small satisfaction. The show is a great listen and is online at:

http://www.thislife.org/pages/descriptions/03/253.html (look for Act Two)

(Amy Gahran's Contentious blog has a nice synopsis of the episode).

The telephone and cable companies are notorious for their tendencies to "screw the little guy." Your blog, Mr. Greenspun's page and shows like This American Life should give us hope that we might even be able to fight back.

FWIW, if you search Google.com for "fuck vonage," your page tops the list! Also under the heading of "FWIW," I searched Google for Vonage and your AdWords listing was number seven (I didn't follow the link -- didn't want to deplete the balance on the account ;-).

You go Damien! Horrible customer service and dubious practices such as these deserve to be seen and heard (and punished!). And don't listen to that James Kew character, he's just trying to get a rise out of you. Anyone who's ever dealt with customer service from a big corporation knows your pain, and knows it shouldn't be tolerated.

I was about to buy Vonage and saw your website. I am glad I did read things. THanks. Another prospective Vonage customer lost.

Just saw this site in the nick of time before purchasing vonage. One more point for the home team!:)

Thanks I guess I will not get Vonage. You have help make my decision.

Hey Damien, In my opinion, you're an idiot, and have no idea what your talking about.

I have just signed up for vonage. IT SUCKS REALLY REALLY BAD. The router that we bought won't work with internet or the phone. Called Linksys like 10 times (great and polite customer support by the way) then comcast (also great customer support)and still problems. Everyone told me to call vonage. so...... After 2 calls (only 2) I was getting pissed. 1 hr waits. up to 3 transfers (meaning more waiting). Lazy and Bad customer support that always lie. (4-13-05 10:00PM "I'm sorry, We're too busy now, may I get your call back number so we may call in 15-20 minutes?" tick tock.... now it's 12:00PM. No call. Next day no call. and so on.) One guy was on Instant Messenger while he was helping me. I heard the IM recieve chime in the background..... Vonage also recently sent us a new router. Which of course sucks too. Wont go online for more than 10 seconds and I get dial tones every minute that last for 2 seconds. I've called to have my number transfered and well... That never happened. So I'm paying for 2 phone services.... Vonage is bad and I would not suggest it.

No one really cares unless this situation belongs to
them. I was interested in Vonage, however, I am
currently in my own nightmare with Dish Network.
Therefore after reading the above comments, I would
not touch them. THANK YOU FOR THE INFO!!

Why is it that a bunch of my friends just got Vonage and they all love it, yet all of you hate it? In my opinion, I think that all of you have the technical ability of a garden house. Although, I could be wrong.

Glad I Googled for Vonage and found this. I had a funny feeling that I should check them out before committing, so....I'll keep my land line.

Hey DamienDogz, did it ever occur to you that setting up and using a phone should not require any technical ability?

I sure wish that I had encountered your site before I got suckered into getting Vonage. To make things worse, I convinced a friend to sign up, too. Vonage has been intermittent at best, and although people can call me, lately those whom I call can't hear me. Not good when calling work. Fortunately, the secretary has figured out that after two successive "dead air calls" she should call me back. That's how common the problem has become. I've NEVER been able to get any response whatsoever from Vonage "Customer Care" despite many repeated attempts. I intended to register the vonagesucks.com domain, but lo and behold... Vonage already registered it. Smacks of self-awareness. Kudos for your continued efforts to expose Vonage for the crooks that they are. They even began billing me from the moment I ordered service, eleven days before I got the equipment to use it. I now also know to keep my RT31P2 router when I cancel service, rather than returning it for a refund that will never be honored.

Hello, Hello, oh man, hello ??!?

I was just getting ready to order the service. Thanks for posting all of the nightmares you have experienced with Vonage, it saved me from a nightmare of my own. I will make sure I pass this on to everyone I know to save them from this scandelous company.

Wow! I am soooooo glad I ran across this. I WILL NOT be diving into broadband phone service. I emailed Vonage about a year ago to see if they would accept other payment methods besides credit cards. This is EXACTLY what I was afraid of when they came out. Trust your instincts people. If it is true good to be true, then it's probably a screw job.

Viva La Resistiance!!!!

PS. www.vonagebites.com is available. I think you should buy it and post there too :)

i just want to say that i was researching before ordering, and dannnnng, am I glad I came here. I am an outside plant engineer and can confidently say that it shouldnt take *Technical Ability* to make a home phone work. Does anyone know of any of the broadband phones that will take anyting other than a credit card?...thanks

I signed up for Vonage about a week ago. USPS lost my router shipment so I had to call Vonage support to ship another one. I did not have to wait long at all to speak with someone. They were very friendly and sent another router next day air without charge to me.

I just got the router last night and hooked everything up with no problems whatsoever. I had it up and running within ten minutes.

I am very happy with Vonage so far, and would highly recommend them.

Sorry to those of you who didn't get good customer service as I did, but I'm willing to bet that those problems are few and far between. Is there a company that has a 100% customer satisfaction rating? I think not.

I was about to buy Vonage and saw your website. I am glad I did read things. THanks. Another prospective Vonage customer lost.

I was just about to sign up for Vonage, decided to check reviews and this would be the 7th Different website with HORRIBLE reviews.

It took me only one site to decide not to, but this is so everyone that reads this can see how bad this is, glad I checked before giving up my credit card.

Do not fall for it, plus the good reviews on all 7th sites seems remarkable alike -- just a comment.

Thanks for the info.

I have already placed a Vonage order before seeing this site... I am tempted to cancel, but one thing I noticed is that many problems seem to occur in transferring old numbers. I'm getting a brand new number, and it's pretty much going to be dedicated to faxes and occasional back-up voice. So. I'll see how it goes and get back around here next month; good, bad or ugly.

I was about to sign up with Vonage but your posted info changed my mind. I will look else where for this service. Thanks.

I think with any company they are bound to have some customers that are not pleased with the service. I have had nothing but success with communicating and having customer care resolve my issues. I transferred my telephone number to Vonage and after about 3 weeks of staying on top of them it was completed. They even had a service outage in my area which caused me to miss some important calls and gave me a six month credit for the problem. It was fixed in about 3 hours!

If you look at it, Vonage is a company that is growing. They rely on our trustful and smelly friends in India to route their technical support calls back to New Jersey. The funny part about the routing is their network overseas is so crappy, New Jersey ends up calling me back, every time!

I would suggest that you set aside what everyone has posted and give it a try. They are not as bad as everyone is claiming them out to be. Their CEO might be a crook but at least they are providing a service to me that have saved me several thousands in long distance charges. I am willing to put up with that for under $50.00 a month! Again, stay on top of them and when they say they are going to credit you then make sure they do! Stay on top of it!

I've had Vonage at home for about a year. I struggled with service quality problems at first, but then things seemed to go well for a little while.

Now I have periods of time when strange things seem to happen. For example, at one point calls to my home were occasionally routed to the same doctor's office. This happened off-and-on for about a month.

Due to the continued glitches and non-responsive customer server, I decided to move my number back to SBC. It's been 45 days and so far it doesn't look good. Yesterday after 40 minutes on hold, a "customer service" rep told me I need to get a PO# from SBC for the service "Win Back." SBC said there is no such thing and that they have attempted to escalate the number transfer 11 times.

SBC also said that after 45 days, legal proceedings begin regarding the number transfer. They expect this will cause things to move along, but I'm not holding my breath.

This is all pretty interesting.

I noticed today that Sams Club is now selling the routers and service. (I wonder if Wal-Mart is aware of Vonage's issues?) I also happened to notice that the State of TX sued last month and Connecticut filed today. They're both siting misleading consumers about potential delays in calls to 911.

It appears that someone broke into the house of some little girl in Conn who tried to call 911. Her parents got shot. The little girl had to go next door to get through to the police.

The 911 call apparently went into voice mail because the local emergency department couldn't receive calls from outside of the local area. Vonage is pointing the finger at the local emergency department.

So, there are issues, for sure. At the same time, you have to admit that Vonage (and now others) are stirring up a lot of excitement. Why? Because we all hate the phone company! When we see a chance to stick it to the phone company an save a few bucks ...

Anyway, I'm sure that Vonage has experienced a great deal of growth, perhaps more than they anticipated. Rapid growth in any business is tough.

Being a software developer, you should be able to understand what happens to systems when demand exceeds capacity. Sometimes, demand can't be adequately predicted (who can guess the emotions of the American public)?

People aren't like distributed software objects. You can't just do a UDDI lookup, replicate and re-deploy. It takes time to react to market demand, staff up, train, etc.

Bottom line, Vonage may be their own worst enemy -- and not without your help! If Vonage wasn't staffed to handle the market interest, the more calls they get the worse the situation will become. The more publicity they get, the more people may be inclined to call (I've thought about it just to test what you've said -- and I'm not a customer), and the worse it will get.

So, you may indeed topple this rising giant with your pebble from the creek. As a rising giant, however, millions of hyped up Americans may be drawn to Vonage. They may experience the same displeasure that you have, or worse. I'd guess that at least half of them won't understand the issues. VoIP will take the hit and be discarded in their minds as technology that simply doesn't work.

Who wins, then? Ma Bell -- that company we all hate.

For what it's worth, I probably WON'T subscribe to Vonage as a result of this site. Congratulations!

My vonage service is like a septic tank....if i doesn't watch my IP router, vonage blows up....and shit be everywhere

I think you will win.

Damien,
I applaud your efforts. This is the intersection point of democracy and capitalism; analyzing with accurate information and voting with your dollar. It is obvious that experiences with Vonage run the gamut from good to bad, and you have every right to voice your experience and for that effort we should thank you (and everyone else that has taken the time to factually document their experiences).
Good luck to you.

Wow, I was considering switching to Vonage.
No way!! Not after what I've read so far.
Don't need the aggravation.

Sorry you all had to go through this but thanks for the FYI

I AM A SUCKER FOR CHEAPER ADVERTISED PHONE SERVICE . AFTER BEING BURNED 9 MONTHS AGO BY SWITCHING MY CEL PHONE TO CINGULAR WIRELESS , GREAT RATES AND LOUSY (NO) RECEPTION .(I AM WITH VERIZON NOW : GREAT RECEPTION).I ALMOST DID IT AGAIN WITH MY LAND LINE , WANTING TO SWITCH TO VONAGE FROM SBC . LUCKILY I READ THIS 1ST .

Their Commercials SUCK-I want to kill them.

Thanks for the warning! Another Vonage customer-to-be lost forever!

My wife and I have had Vonage now for over a year, first in Virginia and now in Vermont and have had zero complaints. Half as much as Verizon for what we use it for, home and business line, and I love the features, especially to be able to listen to your voicemail online.

Don't know exactly why many people don't like it but I've referred several of my friends also and they have all loved it. Obviosuly the "baby bells" don't like it (hint, paid site), but I'm surprised this many "individuals" don't like it... :)

Before I say anything, I would like to say that I feel terrible for those of you who signed up for Vonage and have had nothing but problems.

As someone who works in the burgeoning VoIP industry, I share the sentiment of the software developer who said that Vonage is its own worst enemy. Their customer service issues are a direct result of overmarketing and understaffing, plain and simple. Poor phone service is probably the result of a bad ISP connection (fast connections can still have quality issues). And the phone number move problems are the result of an antiquated system that was never upgraded by Ma Bell in which a company must fax, yes fax, all requests to a clearing center where someone manually inputs the number move request. Faxing was okay in the 1970's when there were about 2 requests coming in each day but obviously the world has outgrown that.

The potential downside of Vonage's aggressive marketing is a consumer backlash like you see on this website. But Vonage doesn't have a choice, market forces dictate that the first movers will win and the investors who've poured millions into Vonage wouldn't want it any other way.

My advice is to wait and see unless you are:

1. Really into technology and don't mind a few hiccups in reliability and customer service
2. Are currently paying an exhorbinant amount for your phone service
3. You're looking for a second line from Vonage

In the long run, VoIP will mature and become as reliable as your regular phones are. But in the meantime, it has some growing pains. Nevetheless, I applaud your website as it takes some degree of backlash in order for these companies to know where they are going wrong and what they need to focus on.

I was looking at Vonage as a possibility to replace my local phone company and get cable or satellite at the same time but after seeing your blog I am staying away.

I have had a GREAT exsperiance with my broad band service! I recieve service from Jirehcomm.
Jirehcomm's service has been flawless. Jirehcomm is a telecommunications company with a twist. For $30 a month you get unlimited local & long distance calling just like all the other broadband telecommunications companies.But Jirehcomm's is owned & operated by the sales team. Jirehcomm works by relationship marketing. Anyone can buy into the company for a one time fee of $250. Everyone you sign up for any of the services offered, you recieve a residual income from that customer's bill. I have been a sales agent for one month & I now have enough encome that I have quite my other full time job & I do this now.. With Jirehcomm I have created finacial independance. I now have freedom to do the things that I've always wanted to do.
If you would like to know more contact me at

918-637-0434
jason
or check out the website,
www.jirehcomm.nett/23864

I have had Vonage for 14 months now. I used to pay about $50/month with Bell South (package was $30, but after myriad taxes, fees, and such the final bill was usually around $50). I also paid $60/month for cell phones for my wife and I which we used for long distance calls. My wife is from Brazil and would spend $40/month on calling cards for a total of $150/month for all of my communications needs.



Enter Vonage...



We started out with the 500 minute plan from Vonage, later added a fax line, upgraded to the unlimited plan, then decided that we didn't use that many minutes and dropped back down to the 500 minute plan and ditched the fax line. Every transition was simple and painless, I think I only had to actually call them to drop the fax line.



My monthly bills now go something like this: I pay Vonage $15/month for 500 minutes including long distance (my parents got it too and are happy with it), The cell phones were rarely being used anymore so we ditched the two of them and got one prepay phone with Verizon for another $15/month. My wife calls Brazil with Vonage and gets nearly double the talk time for $10 less than she got with the calling cards.



So... Without Vonage I paid $150 per month, and with Vonage I pay $60 per month and get more features. After subtracting the money I spent on extra services for some time and adding the $100 I got from referring two people, I have saved $960 over 14 months with Vonage.



As for quality, I did have the issue of people not being able to hear me. I called customer service (I waited about 5 minutes), they made some changes, I plugged my phone into the other port and the problem was solved. I also had less than spectacular sound quality occasionally, but once Comcast bumped up my speed to 4M down and 384K up, I have not had quality issues at all.



For a site dedicated to the small minority of people with complaints about Vonage, I thought it would only be fair to represent the vast majority of people that are happy with it.

if you think vonage is bad, check out BroadVoice!

This is to DamienDogz from 4/15/05. What the hell is a "Garden House"? Did you mean HOSE? I wouldn't be so fast to insult people when you can't even type! Talk about your technical INABILITY!

I had some initial quality problems with Vonage, dropped calls & dead air, but it turned out to be my own fault. I had used a splitter on one phone jack instead of installing a dedicated jack for the modem. Since I fixed that issue my Vonage service has performed perfectly. I wonder how many other people tried that trick... and are now blaming Vonage for the problem??

Has anyone any experience ti ATT CALLVANAGE? $5.00 MORE.
Sam's Club is selling the Vonage PAP2 phone adapter stating on box, "includes a $40 credit from Vonage towards your monthly service" **90 activation needed.
On the Vonage Forum a customer ask if anything is missing from the package relating to the stated credit, because nothing in box acknowledges this credit. see http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic5823.html+club&sid=f672b09e7a5044e4ce48a67beaec3a16 As a matter of fact, there is nothing in box justifying this credit, so what is to hold Vontage to what is printed on the face of the box cover in bright orange background?

CORRECTION:
Has anyone any experience with ATT CALLVANAGE? It's $5.00 more but may be worth it.

Sam's Club is selling the Vonage PAP2 phone adapter stating on box, "includes a $40 credit from Vonage towards your monthly service" **90 days activation needed.

On the Vonage Forum a customer ask if anything is missing from the package relating to the stated credit, because there is nothing in the box acknowledging this credit.

see http://www.vonage-forum.com/ftopic5823.html+club&sid=f672b09e7a5044e4ce48a67beaec3a16

As a matter of fact, there is nothing in the box justifying this credit, so legal proof is there to hold Vontage or who ever is responsible for printing the information about this credit, which stands out on the face of the package? If you buy Norton or many other products there be will some sort of documentation inclosed!

Without documentation outlining the credit and the procedure which is followed, I would not feel comfortable in following through on the purchase.

Purchased Vonage service 2/28/2005... submitted request for local number portability 3/2/2005... its now 5/30/2005 and the number STILL isn't ported. Calls to Verizon reveal requests were never recieved. Calls to Vonage state that it surely must be Verizon's fault or MY fault, but certainly not Vonage's fault. After some persistence I discovered that the LNP request had been incorrectly transcribed from my written form into the computer and a request for the WRONG NUMBER had been submitted. The request was resubmitted and still no transfer! Attempted to cancel and Vonage doesn't want to refund my service charges or pay to ship the VoIP device back, even though I've been paying all along for a line I could not use. NEVER again!

I requested the phone# transfer over 2 months ago. I get the same response that you got every time I call. I think this company is run by a couple of guys in a basement somewhere. I'll give them a couple more weeks and then cancel the service. It is by far the worst customer service I have received from any company.

I wish I had found this site Last Week, I used to work for this "Company" known as Vonage until they fired me for reasons they would not tell me. When I asked why am I being Fired they said "Call HR next Monday" What on earth is that????!!!??? If you're going to Fire me you have to have a reason!!!!!

Your a jackass - maybe if you did not call up saying you're gonna sue and you have political power and your going to call the president of the united states and he is going to come to your house - and resolve the issue for you.

Give me a fucking break - you think that will work - deal with it in normal manner and you may get results - that goes for any company fuckhead!!!

POST from TIM

I wish I had found this site Last Week, I used to work for this "Company" known as Vonage until they fired me for reasons they would not tell me. When I asked why am I being Fired they said "Call HR next Monday" What on earth is that????!!!??? If you're going to Fire me you have to have a reason!!!!!

Tim, June 2, 2005 12:03 AM

Tim - you were a fuckhead - that's why you got fired. When you act like a loser - a company fires you. There are retarded people in this world smarter than you

Well what do you know, I got my reason for being fired Thank You "Jackass".......by the way....it takes a real man to talk shit the way you did, of course you probably needed help to come up with the fake screename so maybe you're not a real man after all.

Hi Damien!
Imagine my surprise when I was reading your page about the worst company in the history of mankind....Vonage! There, for all the world wide web to see was MY quote as your personal favorite! I felt all important! lol

I just wanted to let you know that you are not alone in your hatred for Vonage. I kept at it, filed reports with the Better Business Bureau in New Jersey. The first response from them included a letter from Vonage in which they addressed me by not one, not two, but THREE different names! In a letter written by the same person, and a short letter at that! They said I had my refund. I quickly wrote back that I did NOT. I wrote letters to all the CEO, CFO, etc. I finally got all my money refunded to me at the end of May, but in their second letter to the BBB, they said that "even though I cancelled after the 14 days (A damn LIE!), there had been little activity on my account so they would refund me." So I felt like they were saying here's your money, but we are still attacking your integrity. UGH!!!

I will badmouth them until the day I die, and then some maybe, lol. I am glad you took the time to make this page and let others know....Vonage is bad, mmkay? lol Thanks! Bren

I am getting beat up by Vonage and have about had it!!!

I live in Florida and went to California on vacation. I called my neighbor for a status on the house. The neighbor replied that the police came by due to (3) – 911 calls that came from our house. I used the “Contact” page on the Vonage to log the issue. The following night the police came to my house at 1AM about a 911 call. At that point I called the Vonage customer service which NEVER did pick up after an hour. I then filed another Contact log on their web page (neither has been responded to). The following day the police then came by again (after still another 911 call) and demanded to do a search of our house under the assumption that they could be being held as hostages!!!! They interviewed my toddler son (who was home with severe stomach flu) to see if he dialed 911. One of the policemen looked at the phone message log and could see that 911 was not dialed. I then called again and could not reach the service group. I then changed my strategy and selected the phone selection options like I wanted to order a new service contract. And as you could guess the service representative answered within seconds!!

Hopefully the police will not come tonight!!

Has anyone else had this issue??

Could the issue not be related to Vonage?

I've had Vonage for about five months. I cannot remember when I felt more empowered as a consumer than when I told SBC to drop dead and take its $90/month bill (plus long distance) and shove it. I now pay a total of $27.50/month for phone service with unlimited long distance. (Actually, because I turned my buddy onto it, I got the first two months free. Righteous!) I pay no regulatory fees or any of those alphabet soup fees that SBC used to hit me with every month, and only occasionally have I had even the slightest bit of trouble with sound quality on Vonage. Furthermore, Vonage provides more features for free than what SBC even offers. As far as I'm concerned, therefore, Vonage has been an exceedingly positive experience. Go figure.

Now Cingular, on the other hand, is another story....

Regarding all the "Positive" posts about VONAGE here. It is obvious that these are shills working for VONAGE and trying to curtail the damage. WHY WOULD ANYONE WHO IS HAPPY WITH VONAGE LOOK FOR OR GO INTO A SITE ABOUT HOW VONAGE SUCKS>???

Seriously lame

OMG OMG OMG!!!!!
VONAGE PPLZ ARE MAKING IT LOOK BETTR
(just kidding....really)

it makes perfect sense that vonage would send people to sites like this.....so if there ARE people working for vonage here (and LIKE it)....i would like to say... GO FUCK YOURSELF

I have just made the switch from Broadvoice to Vonage! As bad as it might be for Vonage, it's HEAVEN compared to Broadvoice! At least my phone rings! Call quality's not POTS but hey... Broadvoice has lowered my expectations so much that carrier pigeons would do.

Yet another potential Vonage customer lost...glad I googled "vonage sucks". I work for a company that's interested in treating customers right so your situation is particularly painful to read. Thanks for enlightening, Damien...

hello people
i never had a vonage connection till now but i work as a tech support for vonage and i can understand all the troubles you have to go through as being put in hold it really irks one out and about the transfers that also is very testing and awkward but as a friend mentioned above vonage is growing and soon it will help all i dont know about corporate policies and have never been to vonage company i am from india and give support to about 30 customers per day in helping them install their device the job is fun but it is also quite sad when some customers refuse to speak to us since we are indians maybe because we are not able to communicate to your standards.so be sure that if i take any of your calls i will make sure that you will get the best service coz i know the value for money byee friends

In the future, set up a temporary credit card number with a limited amount. One such service in Safe Shopper available through the MBNA site. It gives you a card number and CVVS number and everyone is happy. The only difference is that the amount can be limited and Vonage (or anyone else) has to ask you for more, and you only pay if your happy. Very nice service for free and 100% fool proof.

I just changed the limit to my Vonage credit card to $1.00. Wait till they try to use it!!!!!

Ok, I was on hold with Vonage for 30 min and got some guy telling me that he will have them call me back. Ive had this service since Feb 05 and on average 3 out of 4 calls per day are dropped at least once during the call, many are dropped multiple times. My friends and family are just as frustrated :-( Another problem I haven't seen addressed is internet lag. I have charter broadband and NEVER had a problem before with lag while surfing or gaming but now its the norm. Could I possibly have a bad router (Linksys router from Vonage)? Does anyone else get these horrible piercing noises while talking on the phone, or the 5 second lag? Im very disappointed so far. Ive contacted charter twice and they've tested my connection. This is not a ISP issue. Is there a configuration I can change to keep me from dropped calls/getting booted while online? This lag problem happens regardless of my being on the phone or not. Ok, im done ranting TY
Ely

I am glad to read all of the posts here. I have had it with all the phone companies myself. MCI sucks , Bellsouth sucks , Cingular eats shit,AT&T sucks more, and lets not forget comcast( not a phone co. but suck cock just the same).Dealt with them all. All hated by ME. Seems like this vonage takes customer service advice from them. ( fuck'em around untill they hang up).Ill check out someone else first for sure. I'm also up for anyone that can take a bite out of the phone co. ass,though. Also, I try to support the smaller guys simply because they tend to treat their customers a little better ( or a lot better),till they get bought out by said assholes above. My DSL provider for instance is absolutly the best anyone could have. Atlantic Nexus rules. My phone service doesnt even work and my dsl keeps ripping along. Try that with ATT mci bellsouth, etc. Anyway...The best way to see how fucked up a company is....this.....see how many people bitch about them. Thanks for the info

The fundamental problem with Vonage as I see it is that finding favor with a multimillionaire CEO is a a full time occupation with the employees at Vonage. These people are technicians, programmers, VP's, etc, and that anyone who actually does anything is doomed to look for another job in disgust. I got out, and I am now happily employed elsewhere.

The frustration you express on this site, is typical of customer problems that never really get resolved at Vonage. It's truly the customers problem and not Vonages in as far the office environment goes. I feel bad for those people who have gone with little trouble for months only to experience this mess when they need "help" with anything but the most basic problems. You, at least, seemed to have gotten a good taste of the company in the first few days.

You can read my story at the link above. Feel free to pass it on.

Steve

You can read my story at the link above. Feel free to pass it on.

Steve

Here is the link for my previous post. I tried to copy the text into this post but it wasn't working so try the link,

steve

http://www.stichenor.com/vontage/vontage.htm

Dear people
i never had a vonage connection till now but i work as a tech support for vonage and i can understand all the troubles you have to go through.since i am working as Tech support in vonage division india i can understand the pain the customers are going through .And the customers are noT even prepared to speak to an indian tech. i am proud to say that I am an Indian.I BELIEVE IN HARD WORK.I AS A TECHNICAL SUPPORT ENGINEER IS TRYING HARD TO GIVE THE BEST OF SERVICE AS I CAN.BUT PLEASE DONT STOP SPEAKING WHEN U HERE UR SPEAKING TO INDIANS.I am not sure why the calls get disconnected.and how much frustrated the customers will feel when they speak to a tech on phone for hours and call gets disconnected without the issue gets resolved.I as a tech in vonage would like to appologize for what all had happened in all these days.please do co-operater with us.we are trying to endeavour the best of our service by rectifying ourselfs and the problems in calls.please dont ignore Indians.

What a total turd you are damein, I can tell from your post that you acted like an imbecile talking to vonage, probably yelling your head off, and being extremely rude. You think the ceo has time to talk to a lunatic like you and take your calls? That just shows your lack of balance in life to the extreme of putting this on the web. If some one phoned you ranting like a lunatic you think you would treat them nice, hell no, you get what you deserve.

Vonage stinks over here in Los Angeles too - I am so sick of people dropping out and I've done everything suggested on the Vonage message boards. Having a phone shouldn't mean you need to be a rocket scientist - if I hear the word "ping" one more time I'm going to scream. (Currently on hold with MCI asking to come back).

Damien - Good luck to you and your wife getting this fixed. I think some of the posters who are commenting on how good the vonage "service" is are missing the point. While technically, the VOIP service is good, it's the way they do business that is bad. I have had vonage since 2003 and as a network engineer I know the difficulties involved with this technology. I've had few problems with the phone service they provide but I've had a softphone line with them for months that I cannot get them to cancel!! It simply did not fit my needs but they continue to charge me for it even though I can't use it. I've contacted them via phone and email and yet every month the 9.99 charge keeps showing up. They seem to purposely misguide - for example when contacting them to cancel the line a CSR told me to cancel it via the web interface. When I look at the web interface it says I need to call. I call and they put me on hold for a terribly long time, or "transfer" me to a dept which seems to end up in getting me disconnected. I've been trying to cancel this softphone line since March. I have finally decided to simply quit the service altogether but I am going to attempt to port the number first. I don't have high hopes of this actually working but what the heck. If by some remote chance the number gets ported to my new provider and the Vonage people actually stop charging me, I will be shocked. If it cannot be ported, it's not that big of a deal - my family will just be a little annoyed with me for changing phone numbers again. I am expecting to have to fight Vonage to get my account canceled as well as the cancellation fee credited when I send back the equipment.

I understand how a company grows big fast and can have a tough time - I was part of startup that went from 0 to 10k customers in a year, but when people call to cancel their service they need to get that done and not screw around with charging people for something they don't want/need/can't use!

you really dont have a clue what you're talking about with all do respect,had you read the terms of service prior to signing up you wouldnt have incurred half the problems that you did. Vonage is nearly 1 million lines strong and most customers dont have a problem with the service, or the tech/customer support. of course there is always a percentage of customers who wont be satisfied no matter what and you are obviously one of them..there isnt enough space here to say all that needs to be said, but you need to realize that the company is young,the technology is still in its very much in its infancy and we reps and supervisors on the vonage floor put up with more bullshit from ppl like you than we need which isnt in the job description. you really need to get a life

I have to say I have Vonage phone service for over two years now and have never had any issues other than my voicemail indicator light not working when first getting the service and they corrected it fast when calling in. I still have them to this date along with friends and family and I was with them last year and before when they were just a start up company so I understood the long hold times and for the price yuor paying how can you really complaine? If you want faster answer times go pay MCI or Verizon $90 for unlimited calling. Vonage has since last year highed more reps from what I read and hear from reps and now I get through to care in about 10 mins at peak hours and no hold time off peak call hours. I'm sure there is more to the stories you had with Vonage and your not putting out your part on the deal but everyone is has there say. I'm just sick of reading thigs like this and other sites where people are bitching about poor customer care or hold times and want a service that is already extreamly cheap cheaper. I have Sprint cell service and there customer care is the worst but there service is priced good and works everywhere with no issues so should I change providers, pay more and have shitty service just for customer care. You must deal with the bad side to a company and I did with Sprint and now they took like Vonage have improved there customer care and now handle things fast and in one call resoultions nine out of ten times. Like I said there are many sites with people bitching but you want a service that is $25 a month to be as solid as a land line which is not possible if thats what you want again pay the 90 bucks. If I can have quiality phone service like I do and have to deal with no service if my ISP goes out for $25 a month I have a call phone to use. If your ISP is crappy blame them not Vonage for call quiality and what not as its not there broadband. I'm sure you wont post my response or delete info to fit your website but thats ok.

I wish I had seen this post a few months ago - I signed up for Vonage on May 17 and was told it would take 20 days to port my number over. It wasn't until the 20 days passed until they told me it would be 20 business days. Fine print, I figued, and sucked it up. Its now July 24 and they have yet to get the number ported over and I'm paying for BOTH phone services. I finally told them that if they couldn't port the number to just tell me and give me any number in that area code, but they insisted that sooner or later they would get it ported and I'd be happy with a refund of any days over 20.
Well - they keep charging my darn credit card and I have yet to get my number ported. I've e-mailed them numerous times (7 or 8) asking to cancel my service and refund my money, but they just tell me that they will get it right later. I'm going in Monday to dispute the charges, but I'm pissed. All they had to do was tell me it couldn't be done, give me a new number, and they would have had a happy, yet slightly disappointed customer. Now I'm fighting to get my money back and posting everywhere I can how I hate Vonage. I want my money back and wish I never considered them to begin with.

Glad I found this site. I guess I'll stick it out with TimeWarner for a while. Just got got for $9.75 a minute for 20 minutes on an InMarSat call. Two hours on CS with TimeWarner..."Sorry, but that's the rate". At least I got through. Vonage quotes $1.92 per minute but seeing all these problems, I'll have to pass. Hopefully, one of these days we'll have reasonable and reliable phone without the "hey, we screwed you and there's nothing you can do about it" mentality...anything's better that Southwestern Bell. Keep up the good work and thanks for the info.

all of you who have had a bad experience with vonage, especially with the number transfer issues need to understand a few things. 98 % of the time its not our fault..the system is far from perfect but we @ vonage are basically at the mercy of YOUR carriers...Further its clearly stated on the letter of authorization that it is a minimum of 20 Business days..people dont read all it takes is a little patience and if you dont blow off at the handle after the 20 business days ..wow you'll get a credit. some ppl just dont get it

I'll be the first to say Mr Citron may not be Mr wonderful and the vonage system definately has its faults but then again ..for 24.95 with your virus infected computers that fuck everything up to start with, what do you expect?? most of you cant follow simple instruction and then blame Vonage because you're the ones who are inept. As I said in a previous post at almost 1 million lines strong there will be some who love it and some who hate it enough said for now

Guess what will happen, we will suspend your service for non payment and then you will be calling saying that your phone doesnt have a dial tone... Then I bet you will change that temporary card back...

You people are so funny I just sit back and laugh...

In the future, set up a temporary credit card number with a limited amount. One such service in Safe Shopper available through the MBNA site. It gives you a card number and CVVS number and everyone is happy. The only difference is that the amount can be limited and Vonage (or anyone else) has to ask you for more, and you only pay if your happy. Very nice service for free and 100% fool proof.

I just changed the limit to my Vonage credit card to $1.00. Wait till they try to use it!!!!!

Leo La Marca, June 21, 2005 12:33 AM

I would like to say Vonage is a great deal for the money and would like to invite you all to try us out at www.vonage.com/newhome Under this link you wont be charged for the activation fee or first month of service only shipping at $9.95. If you have any concerns about the service feel free to email me at jeff@vonage.com

LOL!!!½11!1

This discussion brings the term "Soap Opera" to a whole new level :P

This awesome. I don't know anything about Vonage, minus the title on the webpage, "The broadband phone company".

But, I know I won't purchase the service based on what has been said here.

To the vonage reps: while I am sure you meant well and will give all the excuses in the world, it just seems like bad business to treat your customers like crap. If you go into a restaurant and the waiter gets the orders wrong, the manager might purchase the meal for the table.

You should learn something from that:

Good luck Damien Katz!!

I signed up with Vonage in February, 05 - after being told my number could be transferred to Vonage. I have an e-mail that says so. However, every call, and there have been many, to them results in them saying "I'm sorry" but your number is not transferrabe. Like many who have posted before me I am paying for 2 lines. Vonage really is sorry. In addition, I have been waiting 6 months for the $50 rebate on the adapter which I bought at Best Buy. Best Buy won't help, saying it isn't their rebate. Vonage says the terms of the rebate are 90 days and then 120 days. I think Il'' print up some labels that say "Don't deal with Vonage until you check out http://damienkatz.net/2005/04/fuck_vonage.html and be aware the rebate takes over 7 months" and put them on all the Vonage adapters at Best Buy.

Damien - Thanks for putting up this site. I had been considering Vonage for a few months and could not find anybody I know that uses the service. No need to go through all the trouble now.

I have vonage since 4 month, never had a problem until I got to call customer service, then the problems started, I'm very disappointed and angry with the customer service.
first of all they don't understand what I was trying to explain and I don't understood what they were saying, we got to keep repeating twice or three times to understand each other.
after talk for a whole day with customer service, and they keep transferring me to the "appropriate department" and every new people that I spoke to askme the same think and telling me to do the same thing I was so mad.
in the end I fix mi self the problem, there is a short circuit on the wiring in my house, so every time I connect the whole thing the dial tone went off.
and I am a tech guy, I know and I love computers and electronics, I don't know how people who has no idea about all this can be happy with a service like that.
after that I got dial tone I call again because when I turn on my phone the display show "parallel set in use".
and is not normal, usually if it say that is because somebody is listening with the other phone, but it was not possible because I just had 1 phone connected. customer service did not help me with that neither.
after that I tried to call from my vonage number to my cell and I notice that the number that it show was not my number, the person there toldme it was fine, but is not the first time it happens then I tried again and work fine.
and the last thing
I called again and asked for a Spanish speaking person, the person there told me no problem he is with a call right now, but he is going to call you back in 10 minutes.
I never receive that call.
they never fixed my problems, they never answered my emails
now I'm checking others voip broadband companies.
so if somebody have any other company just let me now so I can cancel vonage.

Anyone else having problems in the Phoenix area?

It's been two months and no number transfer as promised.

I've called the Customer Help line and they said they would call back... Sound familiar?

What does one do?

dear whining former or contemplating customers:

have to wait for your call to be answered? cry me a river.. with a million lines and 800 reps to address the issues (and not all on duty at the same time) you will have a wait..get over it and let go of your donald trump i want it now syndromes. life just does not work that way when your call is instantly answered...stay tuned for number transfer process 101

LNP (number transfer 101)

1. MINIMUM 20 BUSINESS days. waiting more than 2 months? start a petition to the FCC to come down harder on your FCC Regulated landline carriers to let go of the numbers when they are told to. vonage is not regulated by the FCC and as a result your carrier isnt obligated to release the number in any specified period of time..the problems stem mostly from this political issue...more to follow

LNP continued

to facilitate a transfer we are bound by law to use numerous 3rd party carriers to get your numbers transferred and sometimes they drop the ball. Vonage actually has little to do with the actual transfer process any voip company involved on LNP is like this as they also must utilize 3rd party carriers to transfer the numbers..to those reading this.. do some homework prior to starting the transfer process in the industry and you'll save yourself some headaches but stop blaming vonage its simply not our fault 99% of the time any questions feel free to post here and i'll answer TVR

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=159536&cid=13361359

That link is what brought me to this site. I had no idea that there were so many people with these problems with Vonage. I thought I was alone ... my oh my oh my was I wrong.

TVR - I know you're not a "Vonage Rep", but I'll bite.

1.) Why is it that customer service and technician lines have HORRIBLE hold times, but the sales lines are never EVER busy?

2.) Why do I have to state a reason for canceling my service? Follow-up: If I don't want vonage anymore, why the hell do I have to go through a "Are you sure" song and dance?

3.) Why can Cingular and other cell phone providers roll over minutes, but vonage cannot?

4.) Why is the sales line open 24/7, but the cancelation line is only open 8 hours monday - friday?

5.) Why does everything have to be handled "online" as far as billing and payments etc are concerned, but you have to call to cancel service?

6.) After canceling vonage, why do you automatically charge a cancelation fee, why not just wait and see if the equipment is returned like other company's do?

7.) Why can you only take credit card?

8.) Why is every problem that anyone ever has with vonage due to the ISP or network hardware?

Anyways I'm done now. It's pretty simple really. Vonage is a shitty company with shitty customer service and shitty operations. I will never recommend vonage to anyone ever again.

Damien,

Thanks for the tip. I will not be ordering Vonage after all. Thanks to your website I will be saving money keeping my present service.

Thanks for your website. I know that it has taken you a lot of valuable time to put your experience on the web in addition to the time you have spent dealing with Vonage or, should I say Vonage's voicemail. I have had my dealings too, especially trying to get rid of AOL. That took forever and I could not believe that our credit card company would not help us, telling us that it was our contract with AOL. We were angry that AOL would not end our agreement and the credit card company would not stop the charges! Who was going to help us? So, anyway I was seriously looking to switch to Vonage, but looks like you have saved me some serious time and frustration, which is more important than saving a few bucks each month.
We are not 'techno wizards' at this house and really anything involving PC's and modems would only complicate & frustrate our lives further anyway. LOL! Had we joined Vonage, we would probably look to switch back to land line service soon and likely have your same experience.
Thanks & know that your website is helping people make informed decisions.

Vonage's service can take a while to get to you and sometimes can even be busy... but I've been using the service for 4 months now without any problems and loving it, especially some of the extra features!

I absolutely hate their Canadian Advertisements. Those stupid popup people "Have you got Vonage yet?" bouncing around the screen, makes me want to take my TV and throw it out the freakin window.



Glad I read up on your site before thinking about a VOIP solution - we decided to go with a unlimited long distance provider for $19.99 a month Canadian$. So, we dont really need to get VOIP just yet, however if the tides turn, I will definately not be looking in Vonage's direction.



Keep in mind, the positive reviews could be "corporate bloggers" from Vonage itself, trying to reverse the effects from your site. From a company who has a CEO with that background, anything is possible.



Good luck!

Holy hatorade, Batman.

My Vonage experience has been very positive. My main gripe is that for some strange reason, they don't provide numbers in Idaho (208 area code). Oh well.

The 911 lawsuits are a complete fucking joke. Vonage makes you *very* aware of the 911 limitations, to the point of becoming annoying about it. If they made it any more direct, you'd have to sign a form and fax it to somebody.

To the prospective customers: take these stories, and others you find, with a huge grain of salt. Nobody ever runs to a blog to sing a company's praises. Nobody calls tech support to say everything's working fine. Myself, I dropped my $90 Qwest bill to $50 ($29.99 for internet, $19.98 for Vonage + toll free plus).

Nathan

Get this out there loud and clear right now, (especially the ceo's issues) and it could end up costing them millions or tens of millions in light of their ipo. They want to raise 600 million. Good luck.

You obviously have the social skills of a mouse pad, if you can't manage to file a chargeback on your credit card. HELLO PAL, you have up to 36 MONTHS to dispute a MC/Visa charge. Ask any merchant around, they'll tell you have you must keep very accurate records for three years to dispute any possible chargebacks during this period. Looks like you take everything at face value (as evident by your comments that Vonage staff is "incompetent"). You know, there is a reason why investment bankers make off with millions while you make lengthy pages bitching about their lives (sounds like a lot of jealousy to me). Do you come from bumblefuck, alabama or something? Are your parents related? Not too quick, are we chief?

Superdug,

I can answer your questions as I used to work for Vonage in tech support (Worst employment experience in my entire life). The sales lines aren't busy, because they made sure they had more than 75 people answering sales calls and only about 10 tech guys when I worked there. They would not allow any rep terminate a customer's service upon request. All terminations had to be sent to the "song and dance" team. All management cared about was getting more customers and not helping the ones we had. When I was there, they were using the Motorola phone adapter which had terrible problems, mostly due to a memory leak in the software which caused the thing to lose connectivity about once a day and would not come back online without a reboot. While this was happening, we were not to tell the customer this, but lie to them to make it seem as though it was their personal network hardware, or ISP. If anyone has any questions about this disgrace of a company, I'll be glad to respond.

Dude ... while I sympathize with your problems, I have to admit that I haven't had ANY problems with Vonage. I've been involved with their beta program, and have consitantly had good, friendly customer service when I called. I've referred friends and family to Vonage, and all have had similar success in getting switched over.

I've been using the Cisco ATA-186 without a problem since day one. Bring on any question you might have.

I'm having major problems with vontage.
Are there anymore other people out there experiencing problems also. Please e-mail me
if so.

acretajr@optonline.net

Thanks Anthony Creta

I worked for Vonage for 6 months befor i was let go on a medical condition, i worked at vonage on Rt. 27 in Edison NJ.

The company is horrid in giving people their money back, Why? customer service is not allowed to give credit back to your credit card, they can only credit your account, so you go to billing they tell you that your credit card has been credited when it realy hasen't the Vonages computer software does not allow for emidiate refunds, and that is where the rip off starts.

They figure if you compain over and over again eventually you'll get tired and just give up and with that said your money just disapears.

I hate vonage becuse they realy do make it hard for paying customer. and for employees to realy help you. I'v tryed to be honest with the hundred or so customers i'v come in contact with and all were so disapointed by the lack luster service.

more to follow......

Vonage has a departemnt called customer retention, also known as account management dept. this department will under no secumstance closes a customer account at all, why? numbers. The longer they make you wait the more they get from your account.

As a customer care rep, If you called to cansel your account they will send you to "account management", go ahead and try it, first you will be asked, why you want to cansel your account? then you will be put on hold while the care rep talkes about you and then you are transfered to retention, oh just to let you know, this is also the same thing at verizon so prepare yourself.

more inside stuff to follow.

Hey Damien --

I was gonna register "vonage-fraud.com" to start my own blog about similar issues, but then found yours.

With this 'impending' $600M IPO runored, it appears to be clearly about the numbers.

I signed up in late June after seeing on their website that a local number was available in may area and 'verifying' through their website that I could port my number from SBC.

Bought a device retail at Staples for $60 for which I was 'entitled' to a $50 rebate after 90 days of service.

On day 34 (conveniently after their Money-Back Guarantee period ended) I am mailed with a message that my number will not port, even though the website said it could and the local CLEC partner offers dialtone and LNP from SBC. I call and inquire and four hours later an e-mail said "oops, we goofed, call us to get LNP in place". I call and was told that that mail was a mistake, LNP is impossible.

Looking over the Terms on their website and that they had mailed to me concerning their E911 dilemma, I see that my options are limited.

As far as a rebate on the retail device, I was not in the mood to fight with Staples staff on a return of a 45 day-old used device with the UPC code cut off then box for a (yet unmailed) rebate from Vonage.

I figure I'm screwed so I e-mail back to cancel. I also send a telegram of cancellation (figuring that would get their attention over other means) and someone called my home the next business day to say I needed to call them to verify my decision to cancel.

I outline my issues in an e-mail to a service rep who volunteers to credit "all the monies I have paid" but the hardware cannot be returned; and am told I have to call him or the cancellation line to cancel.

Nowhere in their Terms does it say I have to speak to someone on the phone to cancel. I'm tired of calling, being placed on hold or simply being dropped on a call. So I also send a letter with my signature, using a USPS pre-stamped envelope with my pre-printed address saying CANCEL.

Then I get an e-mail saying "good news, we can port your number!" (on an account I had cancelled the previous week). I fire off a zesty reply...

I take the now-locked and worthless (to me) PAP2 device and FedEx it off to the VP of Vonage Operations. Maybe he can unlock it and ship it back. Or use it as a paperweight.

Then after a week I get an e-mail telling me that my E911 cannot be processed and that I need to call to get it corrected. This for the address that they had no problem mailing the E911 letter to!

Three weeks later my next AMEX bill arrives, I see no credits. but it gets charged for yet another month of service.

I've initiated disputes with AMEX with copies of correspondence where it's acknowledged that there were issues and that I had requested cancellation -- three times (e-mail, telegram and postal letter). So any future charges I would consider to be fraudulent.

Like you, it's not about the money I've spent and lost with Vonage. It's about incompetence, misrepresentation, dishonesty and greed.

They're now claiming one million lines. I wonder how many are "pending cancellation"?

I love seeing the posts from the Vonage shills at vonage-forum.com.

Why should a user have to post to vonage-forum.com to get help with a paid subscription service? I think it's funny how many Vonage "evangelists" spend so much time "helping" other users with issues that the paid staff of Vonage can't seem to do.

These 'evangelists' are saving so much money by dropping the RBOC for Vonage? They must have no value for their time. People with 300, 400, 500 posts? Is Vonage giving them a 50-cent per post kickback?

Must be nice for Vonage...'evangelist' pays us money to brag about how much they're saving over the Bells and then gives us free tech support for our users. Sweet!

I signed up for Vonage in March. I still have it but I'm not impressed. I pay about half what I did to the phone company but it seems it only works about half as good so I guess you get what you pay for! My 2 cents.

I signed up for vonage recently and was expecting them to send me a bill or an email so I could go to their site to pay it.

Apparently, they will only automatically deduct your payments from your checking or credit card. I hate that crap, so what the fuck are you supposed to do when they deduct the wrong amount?

If anyone is thinking about signing up, their customer support is condescending, barely speaks english and works out of Bangalore.

They also won't let you pay every month but will take what they feel they deserve and make you fight if you disagree.

I guess I need to cancel and find a new VoIP company Verizon sucks and so does Vonage. I am not looking forward to this.

Found your sight to late :(

Superdug: in response to your Questions:

Q: Why is it that customer service and technician lines have HORRIBLE hold times, but the sales lines are never EVER busy?

A: STAFFING: 1 MILLION LINES 700 REPS IN nj AND INDIA COMBINED AND 20 000 CALLS PER DAY..
DO THE MATH

Q: Why do I have to state a reason for canceling my service? Follow-up: If I don't want vonage anymore, why the hell do I have to go through a "Are you sure" song and dance?
A: MARKETING. IF YOU WERE A BUSINESS TRYING TO RETAIN CUSTOMERS YOU WOULD BE ASKING TO VIA SONG AND DANCE AS WELL. IF YOU DONT, YOU WONT HAVE A VIABLE MEANS OF TRACKING AND ASSESSING CUSTOMER CHURN

Q: Why can Cingular and other cell phone providers roll over minutes, but vonage cannot?

A: VONAGE IS *NOT* A TELEPHONE COMPANY ITS A BROADBAND DATA COMPANY THAT OFFERS PHONE SERVICE AND IS NOT REGULATED BY THE FCC FURTHERMORE WE SIMPLY DONT HAVE THE MEANS TO PROVIDE THAT SERVICE NO VOIP PROVIDER GIVES ROLL OVER MINUTES

Q Why is the sales line open 24/7, but the cancelation line is only open 8 hours monday - friday?
A: ADMITTEDLY THATS A WAY OF REDUCING THAT AMOUNT OF CUSTOMERS WISHING TO CANCEL SERVICE (MY OPINION)

Q: Why does everything have to be handled "online" as far as billing and payments etc are concerned, but you have to call to cancel service?

A: THIS IS DONE SOLEY FOR YOUR PROTECTION SO NO ONE CANCELS SERVICE ON YOUR BEHALF AND ALSO RETAINS CUSTOMERS THE WEB ACCT ALSO GIVES YOU THE MEANS TO DO THINGS ON YOUR ACCT RATHER THAN WAIT IN A QUEUE FOR A REP...

GEE I THINK I'LL *WRITE* YOUR CAR INSURANCE COMPANY OR BETTER YET YOUR MORTGAGE AND CANCEL YOUR POLICYS!

Q: After canceling vonage, why do you automatically charge a cancelation fee, why not just wait and see if the equipment is returned like other company's do?

A: EVER TRY CANCELLING A CELL CONTRACT? YOU'LL BE CHARGED IN UPWARDS OF 200.00+ AUTOMATICALLY AS A TERMINATION FEE. AS OF JULY 1 YOU CAN NOW KEEP THE EQUIPMENT AND DONT HAVE TO SEND IT BACK ITS PLAINLY STATED IN THE TERMS OF SERVICE (WHICH HAVE BEEN AMENDED) READ EM!

Q: Why can you only take credit card?
THIS IS DONE SOLEY SO THAT VONAGE DOES NOT INCUR SEVERE ACCTS RECIEVABLE ISSUES

8.) Why is every problem that anyone ever has with vonage due to the ISP or network hardware?

A:SIMPLE VONAGE IS POWERED BY BROADBAND INTERNET CONNECTIVITY IF YOUR ISP HAS PROBLEMS IT WILL DIRECTLY AFFECT THE PHONE SERVICE. THE HARDWARE IS SIMPLY NOT AS GOOD AS IT SHOULD BE MOST PROBLEMS WITH HARDWARE ARE BECUASE THE ROUTER/ADAPTERS ARE (IN MY OPINION) NOT THE GREATEST HOWEVER THE NEW EQUIPMENT THE vt100 IS OF MUCH BETTER QUALITY)

BY THE WAY I ACTUALLY DO WORK FOR VONAGE..OUT OF 700 SOME ODD REPS IN NJ CONSIDER YOURSELF LUCKY IF YOU GET ME ON THE PHONE..I RESOLVE ISSUES MOST OF THE TIME..UNFORTUNATELY MANY REPS AND EVEN SUPERVISORS THERE, HAVE THE IQ OF WALNUTS WITH MAJOR EGOS AND YOU AS THE CUSTOMER SUFFERS FOR THAT I HUMBLY APOLOGIZE..THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE COMPANY CATTLE CALL HIRES AND DONT HIRE THE THE GOOD PPL FROM WITHIN 1ST FOR MGMT POSITIONS...YOU GET INCOMPETANT PPL ON THE PHONES AND ON THE SUPERVISORY STAFF. THIS IS PROBABLY THE BASIS OF MANY PROBLEMS BUT HOPEFULLY YOUR QUESTIONS HAVE BEEN SATISFACTORILY ANSWERED

"I love seeing the posts from the Vonage shills at vonage-forum.com.

Why should a user have to post to vonage-forum.com to get help with a paid subscription service? I think it's funny how many Vonage "evangelists" spend so much time "helping" other users with issues that the paid staff of Vonage can't seem to do.

These 'evangelists' are saving so much money by dropping the RBOC for Vonage? They must have no value for their time. People with 300, 400, 500 posts? Is Vonage giving them a 50-cent per post kickback?

Must be nice for Vonage...'evangelist' pays us money to brag about how much they're saving over the Bells and then gives us free tech support for our users. Sweet!"

somedude, September 4, 2005 04:46 AM

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH somedude ON THIS.. IF YOU TRY TO SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT VONAGE ON THE VONAGE FORUM YOU GET SHOT DOWN BY SEVERAL OF THE "EVANGELIST'S." IT MAKES FOR A VERY BIASED FORUM IN MY OPINION. IT'S ALWAYS THE CUSTOMERS FAULT ON THE VONAGE FORUM. I'M SO GLAD TO HAVE FOUND AND READ YOUR BLOG!

http://www.zlk.com/vonagefax.html

I run a business from home and have been a Vonage customer for ~3 weeks. Here are my observations:

1) Most problems I've had are due to issues on my end.

2) Don't buy the Vonage-enabled Linksys WRTP54G w/ 2 phone ports (different from WRT54G, which is a fantastic product) -- the whole thing breaks if you try to use the wireless network AND the wired LAN at the same time. A better solution is to use the Linksys PAP2 device or the Motorola device and separate the VoIP function from your router.

3) Make sure your router has QoS (Quality of Service), as it allows you to prioritize voice traffic. Ever since I configured this properly, my call quality has been outstanding. The Linksys WRT54G has QoS, although you may have to upgrade the firmware (it's free) after you get it home to add the feature.

4) You can't beat $25/month for unlimited calling to US, Canada, Puerto Rico, PLUS voicemail. I also like the account management features via the web.

5) The Vonage support voicemail tree sucks my ass. It took 5 minutes of listening to canned speeches before I could talk to a live person and let them know I needed to change my MAC address.

6) Anyone who treats the Indian support people like crap are asshats. There's no reason you should show disrespect to a person who is trying to help you, nor should you disrespect your Country by giving someone the impression that people with your nationality are rude.

7) I like the Vonage ad where the kid loses his grip on the bat and takes out the sliding glass door. Laugh. It's funny.

8) If he Vonage CEO made out like a bandit at Datek, why is he still working?

9) In my opinion, Vonage is well-suited towards people who have some technical know-how. I have had a decent experience so far, and now that I have QoS I expect things to be significantly better.

For those of you who have had a poor experience, that sucks. But if you are starting a business and want to keep costs down OR if you don't care if your phone number changes, Vonage is a good choice.

FWIW.

If anyone who is not happy with their VoIP would like to try our product, VoIP – residential or small business I am inviting you to http://www.broadbandphone4you.com . We have a Referral Program and if you will be satisfied and you will recommend us to your friends, we will give you one month FREE use of your VoIP per every person who will sign up with us.
You can bring us 12 friends and the whole year you can talk for FREE. Who else will offer this kind of deal? We offer even more!!! Find out for yourself!
GetBigBucks

In my opinion Linksys/Cisco is in bed with Vonage, just hope they don't go down the tubes along with Vonage, which is inevitable. Locking their products to one VOIP provider doesn't sound like intelligent long term marketing for Linksys. Also having Vonage handle hardware problems for Linksys is obviously not working out to well. They should private label for Vonage, that way when Vonage goes bust, Linksys/Cisco name isn't directly involved. wrt54G is a fantastic product. wrt54gp2,wrtp54g are pure junk. Give e'm hell Damien.

Vonage was a nightmare for the month i had it. bad customer service, and the product itself made me understand what phone service in Sudan must be like.

Dear Vonage,
20 days is one thing, but how do you explain my number still being in limbo nearly 4 months after customer service acknowledges receiving it? I can deal with the scratchy calls, was even able to tolerate having to call my dad back 5 times after numerous dropped calls, but getting any kind of customer support has been a joke. And lately, I have the choice of using the router and making phone calls or surfing the internet - not both. I'm constantly going through internet deadtimes which magically go away when I take the router out of the loop. I know, I know, it's my fault, and I should have majored in computer science if I wanted to use Vonage for phone service. You're overworked and underpaid, and I'm just a pain in the arse who clogs up the lines bitching and moaning about silly things like paying for phone service but not being able to get incoming calls (due to number portability problems) and the equipment Vonage selected for me and sent screwing up my internet access. In the rare event that all of the minions warning against Vonage create a loud enough whisper about these issues to cause a tickle in your collective ear, here are a few suggestions.

1. If you know you have a backlog transferring numbers, let people know this. Many of the people who are complaining on this issue have waited much longer than the 20 day period specified.
2. Test the equipment you send. I know, those partnership deals are usually sweet enough to silence any complaints about something small like quality. Just consider it.

Well, thanks for reading. I'll be contacting my card company to prevent any of my future earnings from going to your coffers. If necessary, I'll have a new card issued with a completely different number. What's that? You'll cut off my phone service? The phone service which does not allow me to receive incoming calls, cannot be associated with the number I want, and the one which has me switching computer cables anytime I want to make a call? I guess you know my sentiments.

Sincerely,
Spoiled (former)
Customer

Keep it up Damien

I posted a message concerning using a temporary credit card for Vonage. Well, I am here to report that after 4 months of them begging me for money, I sold their router for $5 on Ebay and still refuse to pay the $149 they say I owe. I now have a reputable company providing phone service and have zero issues. I guess the next step is court, but hell, that's what I want.

Please, before you sign-up for Vonage, use a temporary credit card and limit the funds. If all is ok, then you can change your billing to a real card. It's great to have control over your own money.

Leo La Marca

what are you people talking about, vonage is the best voip company out there. If you dint like the service you should have just terminated your service and shut the hell up. You guys act like you where loosing sleep over a phone service. If you dont have a cell phone by now than you need to crawl under a fucking rock, so all of ya'll shut up and get over it. if you have time to write post like this than you need to start having sex.

Vonage charges $40 just to cancel, they lock you in just like the cellular companies. Cell phones are just as bad as Vonage, with limited signal inside residential buildings and rural areas. About the only thing you can depend on if you want reliable service is a traditional land line.

This is what tech support is like at Vonage..

http://www.illwillpress.com/tech.html

I have been a vonage customer for 2 years, and now i work for them almost one year. Vonage is a great company to work for. anytime a compnay is new they have to get rid of nicks in the system. If you dont like the service go with another company and shut the fuck up stupid asses. Damien go and get some pussy and stop being a fag.

I have been a vonage customer for 2 years, and now i work for them almost one year. Vonage is a great company to work for. anytime a compnay is new they have to get rid of nicks in the system. If you dont like the service go with another company and shut the fuck up stupid asses. Damien go and get some pussy and stop being a fag.

"Vonage charges $40 just to cancel, they lock you in just like the cellular companies. "

If half you idiots would read the TOS and have an ounce of brains on how to use a computer, you would have NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO problems. You get chatged 40 bucks ONLY IF YOU CANCEL IN THE FIRST 12 MONTHS! THERE IS NO CONTRACT AT ALL! You people, except for those with billing issus are the morons who ask "WHERE IS THA ANY KEY" and call tech support because the cup holder will not eject!

Only if I read your website before I signed up!

I signed up for Vonage VOIP and cancelled it in about two months, and was charged $41.19 cancellation fee (in addition to any monthly fee). Not only that, there is no refund for unused (remaining) month's service fee.

If there is anyone out there who is thinking about signing up, I say "Don't!" Sound quality sucks and the customer service and business practice are even worse, in my opinion.
Steve in L.A.

For those yelling about switching a number, VONAGE HAS ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL OVER HOW LONG IT TAKES! UNDERSTAND! IT IS YOUR CURRENT PROVIDERS FAULT! When you send back the LOA agreement, it gets SENT TO YOUR PHONE COMPANY. Once Vonage sends it, which is done immediatly, it is out of their hands. Phone companys hate this and PURPOSLEY MAKE PEOPLE WAIT! I know this for a FACT! Plus, if you have ADDED features, NOT features that originally came with your current service, this adds to the time to transfer number. BEFORE you transfer number, CANCEL ALL ADDED FEATURES on your phone, THEN submit the LOA. And the KEYWORD here is MINIMUM. NOT 20 day MAX, but AT LEAST 20 DAYS MINIMUM to transfer number.

One option for getting VoIP rates for LD and Intl calls, as well as 100% free calls, and still keep 911 etc. and no LNP issues is PhoneGnome: http://www.phonegnome.com

It works with a real landline, merging VoIP and landline calls all on one phone, and adding VoIP features (like voicemail to email) even to my old landline calls. For us DSL users who have to keep a landline anyway, this is a cool way to get VoIP benefits and still get something out of our landline too.

Try this one on the schills.

My nightmare over the past ten days has been just getting a first dial tone. Since I am anonymous I can brag (please forgive me and here the good news) that for nearly 30 years I have been an intergrated circuit design engineer designing mostly telecommunication chips for Intel, Fairchild and many other great companies. In dealing with Vonage, I have been treated like a technical idiot, insulted, and lied to by Vonage personnel repeatedly. In well over 30 calls made to them they have failed to enable my service.

I have signed up with another voip provider already and will formally cancel my Vonage "service" on Monday.

I believe the electronics industries has set very high standards for ethical behavior since long before I joined so I am infuriated by these corporate billinng scams. I expect my billing odessy to start Monday. I wish I had read this blogsite before I tried Vonage.

The Bangalore Indians I talked with were polite and professional but they refered me to American based tech support who were, with the exception of one apologetic tech, insulting, incapable of even understanding how a problem is traced and isolated, or they occasionally lied about what was going on.

I was deliberately polite but was cut off twice during a converstation and about eight times during call transfer. When I requested they stay on the line until a "live" transfer was complete the transfer always succeeded. I called them from "ma bell" lines that are clear on calls to other companies but the quality of the Vonage office phone system was the worst I have heard since the 1950's... Static, cutouts, and a very distracting echo. If they cann't manage their own office phones...

I feel I screwed myself by not investigating before I bought a "Vonage Only" Linksys RT31P2 router. Caveate Emptor. I a have mostly linksys
home-office setup and have never before been disappointed with their hardware. The only help I found in tracing the origin of the no dial tone problem was from a linksys tech via live chat in the wee hours. There was an initial delay but he helped isolate the problem witn just a few Q and A's.
The phone software on this router is solely controled by Vonage; hence no dial tone. Conveying this linksys info to Vonage Tech's did not deter them from pointing fingers in technically ridiculous directions.

I will be waching this blog site as I try to get my refund for a service never turned on. I hope VISA can help with a refund but that may not be the only way a person who wrote his first computer program in 1965, designed his first integrated circuit in 1978, hacked into a computer in 1979(by request of the computer owner), built his first wire wrap and pc board computers, in 1979. and has singlely designed and layed-out a 1.7 billion transistor chip... can extract his due from these criminals who rip of the innoscent and trusting and stain my industry. Stay tuned.

did you people ever stop to think that 100+ yrs ago when alexander grahm bell developed the telephone that the technology was in its infancy and as it grew there were of course technical issues that were resolved over time? well welcome to reality folks Vonage is the largest voip provider for a reason. Most dont have problems with thier service. you whining customers also have to understand that vonage isnt a FCC regulated phone company so you need to stop comparing apples to oranges. the system is different, and there are technical issues that always need to be addressed. if you're too stupid to understand how the technology works and the voip industry as a whole works, then go back to your landline services. thank you to duh for your post number transfers only work on time when the customer isnt an idiot and the landline companys are more cooperative.

wow brainstorm!!!!! ... I hear daily.."well the rep i talked to didnt tell me that" take ownership of your services people and read all components of the website and the Terms of service (it astounds me how its the whiners who never read anything and then dont like the bad taste when they get woken up to reality) you will have a minimum of problems if you ppl just read and educated your little minds).. someone get a pressure bandage please my heart is bleeding for the whiners if the service doesent suit your needs then simply move on with your life and stop the whining

To TVR (The Vonage Rep) .... who the fuck are you kidding ?? Now they got us hawking virtual numbers to raise Christmas money for Jeffyboy. How can we be taken seriously if we can't even keep our own internal phone systems working? How can we be taken seriously if we can't even keep our own internal customer service system up more then 50% of the time? Probably 20% of every call that comes in to us gets dropped by US (sure makes our customers happy when their phone company can't keep a phone call going). Go Avaya Go! Probably 80% of every incoming call whether it comes through India, Phillipines, Canada or the US sounds like the customer is talking underwater. 3/4 of the idiots they call "team leads" know 1/4 of what us care-reps know. Probably half the people they hire can't even spell (I'm sure you've read some of the illiterate comments on accounts and in tickets). Who interviews these people ?? The idiot team leads! Read some of the (alleged) other Vonage employee posts on here .... illiterate. Most people with half a brain leave within 6 months.

It's pathetic, it's demoralizing and it's downright sad.

I asked you to stay tuned. Here's an update. I called Bank of America and VISA before cutting off my Vonage account. They do have an ongoing investigation of Jefferey A. Citron and Vonage. They were helpful and courteous so I followed their advice when cutting off my Vonage account. They asked me to get cancelation number. I requested a cancelation number and Vonage refused but said they would immediately email it with the cancelation notice. The cancelation notice did not contain any cancellation number, however it did contain a notice of a $39.99 charge for termination of the service that they never initiated. Today I received a threat of charges for not returning the equipment that I did not receive and a least one Vonage representative claims was not sent. Again stay tuned...

Anonymous: obviously you're also a present vonage employee or former employee. I never said the system was perfect, its far from it and there are many policys i personally dont agree with. as for dropped calls its part of the nature of the business. should it be happening as much as it does? definately not! recent failures in the incoming call system are actually due to a switch problem on the T1 line owned by verizon, coming into the edison location. Couple that with the fact that vonage is moving to a new facility also with incoming T1's. bingo. deal with it and stop whining. If you truly knew the deeper inner workings of a call center environment specifically in the voip world you might have a clue whats going on and understand.

2. the majority of the team leads really dont have a clue I will agree, ive stated in previous posts that they cattle call hire anyone and dont hire internally, the good people worthy of the position if i had control of the hiring policy that would end but im not nor will i ever be in that position. reality it is what it is and any suggestions fall on deaf ears so dont waste your time complaining it really isnt worth it. more to follow later

Hey Mr. TVR ..... Verizon problem? I don't think so. Read your "flash". I don't want to post too many details or I'll risk my $16/hr identity. The MIS and NOC people all ought to be fired. I'm sure a lot of heads have been rolling "upstairs." We've been having problems since late spring before Holmdel was even concieved. The only thing that will make Vonage a viable company is if/when a REAL tech company buys them out who can put REAL engineers upstairs and not someone who just sees this as a toy to play with and then discard. At this point the company can't handle it's own growth rate. It's out of control. Employees are treated like trash by managers. Heaven forbid D sees you on the net but it's OK when his teamleads are watching porn on their laptops or playing doom 3 or watching music videos. The only way to be recognized here is if your wearing a pair of 42D's and have a nice booty. Then you'll get all the help you need. I guess when TM left a lot of us started breathing easier. Well, at least he was ALWAYS here to "lend a hand" (no pun intended) for those that looked good to him. A real "hands on" guy! LOL, dare to talk to his honey but if SHE only knew. Stop whining ..... LMFAO.

TOVR (The OTHER Vonage Rep)

I had vonage for about two months and had more problems than I can remember. No dialtone, shitty customer service, overbilling. Anyways, I am using Tomatovine now and have been happy both with their service and with their customer service when I did have a small problem.

When I first started with Vonage I had no problems. Then everything changed. Try getting a hold of a customer service rep. When you finally do the put you on hold and never come back. I signed up for TomatoVine and they made it so easy. They have great customer service. I have had zero problems and have been a customer for 3 months. James we can talk On Vine!

My experience has been identical to Damiens -- except that I never even received a phone adaptor to be able to try to use the service if I wanted to -- count me in for a class action suit. I just filed a report with Consumer affairs for whatever that is worth. Tomorrow I'm going to cancel my primary credit card just to solve this nightmare with Vonage... and sticking to my landline for the time being.

TVR,
It is your disgusting Enron-like attitude toward customers which convinces me that all these horror stories are true. You sound just like Donald Rumsfeld: "You dont go to market with the phone system you wish you had!"
Well, News flash for Mr. Market Forces, its not 1920 anymore! Consumers not only will sue you, but use the net to spread the word that you abused them. None of us buy your bullshit that you have to suck it up when the product is shit.
YOU suck it up and give the customer VALUE for their money, not excuses.

i have had vonage for over a year now and have never had any problems i love them. my 911 works i just used it for the first time two days ago. the only think i dont like about it is i live in dover delaware and i have to have a long distant number up in newark because they dont offer a number in dover. but other wise then that no problems. and when i go to cancel. i hope i dont have as much problems as you guys. thanks

Hey guys-

This isn't related to Vonage's service - more their employement. Has anyone worked there as an UNIX developer (non-entry level)? I'd be interested to hear anyone's input. Thanks.

I have a headache after scanning through most of this blog. Here's my Vonage ongoing fiasco - I've only had the Vonage product since mid Dec. 2005 and have yet to have a week of reasonable service. I've called the Customer "Who Cares" department probably about 30 times and have ended up with maybe 2 people that were helpful. My phone problems have been virtually everything that could go wrong with a phone - (these usually occur in different combinations) dropped calls, no dial tone, no voice mail, can't call out... Today it is people can call me, but I can't answer it.

I previously called and asked for a credit because the last month of service was sketchy at best and I got someone like TVR saying that I really didn't deserve a credit because I was able to use my phone and he pointed out that I used 300 minutes on my account so the phone obviously was working. Yes, but the service doesn't track the phone calls that are not received, cut off and when I couldn't even make a call. I expect to be able to use my phone when I want to use it, not when it's convenient for your company to figure out how to fix whatever problem your having because you decide to move your servers, or because you didn't plan for so many customers. If your company can't provide the service, don't sell it. I ended up talking to a "manager" that sounded about 14 and insisted that he couldn't tell me his full name probably because their customers would pay for the flight over to wherever the customer care center is and beat the living shit out of him/them. He then let me know that he was only authorized to give me a credit for one week ($6+ ). I'll bet he felt powerful.

I'm still with Vonage right now because I am an optimist who wants this service to work and keeps thinking that one more call will fix it all. I also know that it will be a huge hassle to get my number transferred back so I am waiting this out for a while.

So for those reading through these comments to see if you should get Vonage, DON'T LET VONAGE IN YOUR LIFE. Heed the warnings of other people that have no financial gain from telling you their horror stories and stay away from Vonage. I wanted to let my friends know about this great service so that I could get a few months free service from the referral, but there is no way I would recommend it to a friend and really don't know anyone that I dislike enough to put them through the trauma.

This morning the customer service is completely down. When calling the 800 number I get the message "Due to a facilities issue, customer care is temporarily unavailable." and this has been going on for an hour now. I think the stupid idiots are the ones who preach to people they need to read the terms of service before signing up. Umm.. I'm sorry but it does not mention that you will not be able to reach customer service for the service you are paying for. Also, I put my request in to cancel my account 3 days ago, however it has yet to be canceled and the Vonage demons actually billed my account again the first of the month -- that was AFTER I called to cancel! Does it mention THAT on their website? NO! So shut the hell up about people stupid for not reading the website and terms. They conveniently leave out all the issues they have with quality and service. No matter what the terms are it is fraudulent to charge for services that were not rendered. If you can't use the service, why be charged for it?

I've had the same bad experiences that Damien and others have had, and also assumed the first 3 or 4 encounters were due to incompetence and maybe a technology that's not ready for prime time. I don't know about the technology, but I now fully agree that that their 'incompetence' is intentional dishonesty. I've been told that the 30 day evaluation starts from the date the service is actually activated (not true); told my card was already credited when it never was; told I'd receive a refund within 10 - 15 business days (I didn't); told I'd receive a refund for returned equipment (got a return authorization and even several reminder notices saying it was due within 14 days, and then once they had the equipment, told I didn't qualify for a refund, etc. etc. etc. I've never filed a dispute with my credit card company or filed a complaint with the Attorney General before, but then I've never dealt with a bigger bunch of crooks. They are unbelievable - can't believe this company is still in business.

Yep, Vonage got me too. I'll not post all of the hows and whys and the screaming and whining and bitching and stuff we went through. However, I'll be more than happy to show you how my son and I dealt with Vonage while playing baseball at the park. And yes, we did send that router back to them, the bastards! :) Here's the link... http://homepage.mac.com/pefectirony/imovietheater5.html. If you'd like a high quality version, let me know. I'd be more than happy to send it. I hate those greedy bastards.

Well, this is working-I was going to sign up for Vonage, but this site came up as #1 when I Googled "Vonage Customer Satisfaction" and I am definitely running the other way as fast as I can. Thanks for the warning!

Hey TVR and TOVR- TM wouldn't happen to be a compulsive liar/sexual harrasser with a last name that was a state, would he?
He liked the ladies...
Anyway I was in Account Management last fall and winter. I've moved on, which means I stopped coming to work for a few weeks until they let me go, because the commute and bulls@#$ policies were killing me. Today out of the blue some stalker sent me an email with a forum post from a site like this one. It had my name all over it as a lying vonage rep, quoting things I didn't say, and now I'm getting griefed for it. When I was in account management (retention), I was the NICE guy, the one who charged maybe 2 termination fees in the course of my time there, after cancelling thousands of accounts. There was always a way to balance out that $39.99 ($41.19 after tax) term fee so that someone who had our service for six months and never placed a call didn't get it stuck to them. Even the people who called up foaming at the mouth like in this forum, I'd calm them down, pay them back a month or two, and send them on their way since things obviously weren't gonna work out. I hope there's still people like me working there, especially since I signed up as a customer after I quit and am shelling out the bucks now so I can use it overseas.

Don't hate; masturbate.

I was about to purchase Vonage a couple of minutes ago. Glad I found this site - will be sticking with what I have for now.

My problem started when I tried to cancel the service. The only way to cancel is to follow a lengthy menu that finally sends you to an extention that (my experience) no one answers.
I am not very patient but I waited a few times in excess of 20 minutes.
I called my credit card copmpany and got back the two months of service that I did not use. The major inconveninec is that I had to change my credit card number to prevent this thiefs from charging it any further.
After reading about their CEO I have to say a thief is always a thief. By the way I do not expect any of these comments to have any effect on this snake, he is sub human.

I was looking into VOIP and found this post. Vonage isn't available in Idaho, or a few other states. Kind of makes you wonder why they don't want Vonage in their area codes. Maybe the states that don't allow Vonage are the smart ones! Thanks for the blog and info. No Vonage for me!!!!

FAX HELP!!! I have Vonage here at my Cincinnati business (Cable) and I set it up last week in my Canadian office (DSL). The Canadian office was quite a challange to get set up but now works fine....phone line and fax....however, we cannot get the fax line to work properly here in Cincinnati. I do not know what else to do. I have called Vonage at least 15 times. Changed every setting possible. They have made changes on the Vonage end over and over. We have tried different fax machines. I am lost! Does anyone know any other tricks I can do? About 1/2 of the calls (in and out) don't work and my Canadian Vonage fax will not work at all with the US Vonage fax. I am really stuck because I am a business and cancelled my Bell numbers and sent out memos to all my customers nationwide of the number change. Email me if you can help dohara@cinci.rr.com Thanks!

I made the mistake of giving Vonage my debit card number rather than a credit card number. As of today they have charged me a total of $238.06. When we first recieved the equipment and set it up it didn't work. My boyfriend spent what probably adds up to two years of his life on the phone with Vonage's technical department to have the "technicians" decide that our device was faulty and that they would have to send us another one. After two weeks of waiting for it to arrive, meanwhile getting emails from Vonage saying that they would charge me money for not sending the faulty device to them (which I could not do because I had to send it in the box the new one would come in and it hadn't come!). Finally we went to DHL to see what happened to it and DHL had no record of our package. We then call Vonage and find that they never sent the new device. At this point I decided that I no longer wish to deal with these jackasses anymore and we decide to cancel our serviece, especially sinse we were still within our 30 day free trial. I call them and cancel and they mention nothing about charging us. That night I recieved an email saying I have been charged for the first month (in which the serviece has NEVER worked) $16.95 and a cancellation fee of $121. I then immediatly call them and they tell me that they are preimpetively chargning me for the device that I have and that they will refund the money when they get it. Fine, so we pay to send the device, which doesn't work, back. Four days later I recieve another email, exactly matching the email notifying me of my cancellation fee of $121, this time for $99. The next day I call the and spend two and a half hours on hold, no one every having picked up, and had to quite because I had to go to work. After getting off the phone with them I immediatly called my bank and had them issue me a new debt card, so they at least can't take any more of my money.

If anyone has any advice as to how I could go about getting my money back, please let me know

elm021884@yahoo.com

Vonage is the best company

Man I'm sorry to hear about your situation. Y'all want some secrets?
If you want to cancel your service, you call 1-800-860-5491 between 9am and 9pm EST. That's EASTERN standard time, the time that fucking CIVILIZATION is on. That's the direct line to their "cancel my shit now!" department.
"Idaho and other states don't let Vonage in!"
.....noooooooo, the state legislature of Idaho doesn't know or care about your phone service, but I admire your optimism. There are carriers who run rate centers and switches in every region of civilization, and even states like Youdaho. Those carriers refuse to work with Vonage and won't release their area codes to Vonage to use, hence: No local numbers in Idaho, West Virginia, wherever the fuck you Ma Bell asskissers live.
Oh and fax people- Vonage + fax is a bad combo. I am truly sorry to say this. When I left Vonage I had to fax some important documents to my new job, and we tried and tried over a regular Vonage line and could not get the fucker to talk to other fax machines over the line.
How faxes work: [Picture] turns into [data] turns into [sound] goes over the [phone line] turns back into [data] turns into a [picture].
Kinda the opposite of what Vonage does, isn't it?
Vonage faxes: [Picture] turns into [data] turns into [sound] is injected into Vonage telephone adapter as [data] travels over [phone line]turns back into [sound] turns into [data] turns into a [picture].
It's like translating something into Japanese, back to English, back to Chinese, back to English again. ("good resemble give translate Sun Root path to English Speak to Flower Speak again use English")That's why they sell the fax lines, which are dedicated data lines that cut out one of those steps, transmitting data as is instead of turning it into voice packets. They're not just trying to jack another $12.99 per month out of you for that extra fax line, they have a reason for offering something that is for faxes only.
Yo- Elmo: Call that number I posted at the top. Call it over and over until you get someone who doesn't suck. The only termination fee you should ever be subject to is $41.19. Even if they sent you a device, you canceled, and never sent the device back, there should NEVER be a termination fee of $99, or $121. Go to www.vonage.com and check your billing statement (The "billing history" link). Now you're looking at the exact same screen their billing system uses.
Yeah they probably nailed you with a $99 charge because they had sent you a replacement device. They COULD have gotten a supervisor to delay that bill for 14 business days, but they didn't. A lot of their employees don't know about that option since it's a supervisory power kind of thing. In fact, a lot of their employees don't know about the automatic $99 charge when they click the "Replace device" button. Anyway, call that number, but prepare yourself first, and when you get through keep talking until you get someone who doesn't suck and doesn't try to transfer you to billing. Also get the DHL tracking numbers, if there are any, to arm yourself with before you call.
Okay? Great. Go!

TxVR: you, like other former and disgruntled employees are no longer with the company for the simple fact that you most likely got fired for not doing your job hence the terrible customer satisfaction level and then blame everyone else..cry me a fuckin river. this company is sitting on a potential goldmine if they new how to manage it, unfortunately they dont and that will be thier demise and also why i am preparing myself to move on.

the situations have gone from bad to worse and i agree with you on some points as well as the other vonage rep. the other vonage rep being part of the acct mgmt team aka retention. ( this is where the bad reps who cant do the job and create most of the problems actually wind up)

out of 1 million + lines there will always be a percentage who cant use the service or think its terrible. thats the same with almost any business the reason that vonage is incurring the problems that it has in my opinion are due to two main factors 1) they dont know how to manage the system from a technical standpoint and 2) they cattle call hire ignoramuses like yourself who dont know anything about the system. or customer service management. when you replace a device you can hit postpone charge for 14 days and do not need be a supervisor/lead to do this..this is a prime example of your ignorance and hence why you quit or most likely got fired . if vonage is to survive it needs to improve 100 fold in many areas one of which is hiring people with intelligence and at least a decent post secondary education, something you obviously you lack. nevertheless best of luck flipping burgers at Mcdonalds

Vonage is the most dispicable company to ever exist. Please stay away from this company. I just lost my daughter last week due to Vonage incompetance. There has been some issues with Comcast and Vonage from what I gather. All I know is when I placed an emergency call through the Vonage phone when our daughter Emily started choking we got through but the voice was so garbled and intermittent that it delayed the response from the ambulance and our daughter passed away at the age of 6 Thursday morning. Emily did not deserve this and I want someone to pay. That scum Citron is going to pay if it's the last thing we do. I hope he dies in hell. We am hurting so bad. I spit on his fucking grave!

Obviously the above is not true (because I posted it) but the scenario could happen folks - something to think about! All that matters is Mr Citron gets his money, you think he cares who gets hurt? Not at the least bit and will sleep well at night. Stay far away from Vonage!!! I warned you!

>>>>>>>>>>>

Yea ok my friend wait till you need some vasiline, don't ask anyone here for it, ask Vonage or just tough it out I suppose.

I just want you all to know I have reviewed all the comments on this site and find that you all are being a little too harsh on Vonage. Vonage provides impecable services throughout the United States, canda and many other countries. I am here to say that I am sure you will love our services. The best provider of internet servises that works best with our Service is Comcast. With every knew account opened a welcome package will be sent to your home. Included free of charge will be a small jar of Vasiline so that when you need to call customer service it will not hurt so bad. In fact it will be a great experience. Please sign up now the jingle in my pocket is not loud enough I want to really hear the jingle along with the squishy vasiline noises.

Still waiting over 8 months... NO REBATE CHECK! no response from Vonage via e-mail or snail mail, ...

Lucky I still have my orginal WRTP54G box with a hole where the bar code and NIC address used to be. Fry's Electronics of California also plays the rebate "call someone else" game, I hold them as well as Cisco - Linksys party also.

Same problem. I called to cancel and they messed it up. They asked me to call again (see below). Unbelivable!
From: "Vonage DigitalVoice Customer Care"
> Sent: Monday, January 23, 2006 4:35 AM
> Subject: Other
>
>
> Thank you for contacting Customer Care.
>
> We find that, a request for call back was issued, in order to confirm
> the cancellation with you. As we couldn't find any records of a call
> back being made, we believe that, you were not called. Hence, the
> cancellation didn't take place. We apologize for not calling you
>back.

I just spent exactly 1 HOUR, 40 MINUTES and 3 SECONDS in 3 very brief conversations with 3 different Vonage reps - I was on HOLD the rest of the time. (This does not even include the 40 minutes I spent on 3/11)The reason? Vonage terminated our service 5 days AFTER the payment was deducted from our checking acct. by Vonage. I have been trying to find out WHY and get the service reinstated (till now)for 5 days. When I called on 3/11, I got customer service in INDIA. The girl on the phone did not have a even a tenuous grasp of the English language - she could only repeat my bill to me, NEVER understanding my question to WHY was it terminated. I eventually demanded to be transferred to someone in America. I was transferred to NJ, where at the time it seemed that I was being helped as far as being given a complaint reference number and someone that agreed that this was not right. I was told that a manager would review my complaint and get back to me in 24 to 48 hours. At 36 hours, I called to get an answer since I had my handy complaint reference number that I was given the first time. That reference number means exactly @#%*, hence the almost 2 hours on the phone tonight. The first rep that I spoke to was also in India and once again, the language barrier was immense. I was transferred to NJ again, where I got someone that agreed that something wasn't right. I was put on hold and after many long moons was told that I called and cancelled the service!!! But she agreed that the account manager did not have any notes and that it sounded fishy to her. She transferred me to her manager to resolve the issue so that service could be reinstated without an additional startup fee to the $41.19 cancellation fee that had already been taken out of our checking acct. Seasons went past before her manager came on the line and basically called me a liar. He repeatedly said that someone had called and cancelled the service. Well, unless my 6-year old son has learned to use the phone, navigate a phone tree, find our account number and speak the appropiate cancellation phrases- no one else has called. I have every intention of filing a complaint with the NJ BBB (pointless, I know), emailing the powers at Vonage (also, pointless), filling every blog that I come across about Vonage the evils of Vonage and letting everyone that I know personally, the issue that I've had. All a drop in the massive Vonage hate bucket, but if I can keep one person from Vonage it will all be worth it. The good news is that while I was on hold I came this website as well as several others about Vonage and the less than ethical, Jeff Citron. I read about the tact to name Michael Synder as CEO, because Jeff Citron's reputation was so bad that it was an investment detterant. However, Michael Synder was with Tyco and was part of that whole debaucle. All this lovely info on a Nasdaq site reviewing companies. As I read all this information, I realized what pond scum this company is - which is really dissing pond scum - and that regardless of the outcome with the manager, I absolutely did NOT want to do business with such a company as Vonage.

Damien Katz, you totally rock. Thanks for giving us a place to tell it like it is!!! I only wish I'd found it sooner...

Today, I got Comcast Digital Voice. WOW--the fax actually works!!! It took Vonage over a month to port the number. Comcast had installation dates set up but had to keep cancelling because Vonage could not get the paperwork complete in a timely fashion. Did I mention that I can actually fax with Comcast!!! Comcast is supposed to cancel the Vonage service on your behalf but I am calling Vonage on Monday and cancelling it as well. They have very confusing Terms of Cancellation. After reading the many posts regarding the cancellation process, I am a bit concerned. I am going to follow the process to the letter. I have had vonage for 15 months. I am going to send them back their Router --return receipt requested. I just hope this process can be finalized quickly. I would never recommend Vonage to anyone. The voice quality was poor. Customer care was poor. The fax NEVER worked.

I am SO GLAD that I found this page.
I've been considering getting Vonage for over FOUR YEARS. In that time, I have contacted Vonage to find out WHEN it would be available here in Reno, NV. I actually NEVER got a positive answer.

TODAY (March 22 2006) I actually called Vonage and found out just how BAD the customer service is.

After checking out this AND a couple of other similar sites, I shan't be ordering Vonage any time soon. (IF EVER)

Another problem with getting vonage (At least for me) is since I have DSL, I would still be paying for a LANDLINE as well as for Vonage.

Sor SOME reason that I can't fathom, SBC says that they can NOT "turn off" the phone portion of my service and yet continue to provide the DSL frequencies of my service.

I am working towards my MCSA certification and have been working with computers for over ten years, and I just do NOT see WHY that can't be done. (UNLESS SBC is using SUBSTANDARD equipment and therefore really CAN'T do it. BUT SURELY they wouldn't do that!! [Please note tongue FIRMLY planted in cheek])

Again, THANKS for all the info
Vonage has lost yet another potential customer

C. U.

Vonagesucks.com has now been taken over by vonage.

wonder if a lawsuit happened, or a buy out occurred..

anyone know?

Vonage is awful. VERY bad static, dropped phone calls, cannot use wireless phones and have Dish TV, cannot accept collect calls, hard to reach a live person, and more. I just sent the following on 4 local news channels hoping they will investigate.

"I have never before contact any tv, radio, or other consumer watch group...but Vonage is ridiculous. It cost me a couple hundred dollars to try their FREE TRIAL!

While trying to get refunds for an account that was supposed to be canceled 6 weeks ago, they now want to charge me a cancellation fee, and the CSR refused to escalate my call to a manager - we were mysteriously disconnected. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes to reach someone and then they refuse to help. Now I'm trying again...been listening to music for 10 minutes so far...so decided to contact you. Hope you can investigate them!!!!"

Good luck!

I've put up with Vonage for far too long: I can't switch my number back to SBC because I've moved between switch boundaries, and they can't turn my number on at the new address.

The Vonage service is so utterly useless I usually have it forwarded to my cellphone. I waste $25.00 a month essentially, just to have my -6189 line forwarded to my cell.

But I do like to use it when I need to get a hold of their customer service. It's SO much fun when your call quality is terrible and they're trying desperately to not point this fact out to you.

"Sorry sir, I am having trouble understanding you."

"And I'm having trouble understanding you too, your accent is getting on my nerves."

"I am sorry, it is like you are breaking up the line. Are you on a mobile phone?"

"No. I'm calling you from my worthless vonage adapter."

Well, after lots of yelling, speaking slowly, and repeating myself 6 or 7 times he finally understands why I'm calling. Its just like having a Sprint PCS phone.

I'm switching VOIP carriers to Voice Eclipse. Then I'll be paying $19.99 for TWO lines I don't use, but at least I'll save a few bucks and I won't be paying those crooked jerks at Vonage to pierce my brain with their "woo hoo" song. I hope they go painfully bankrupt.

Vonage stuck it to me too... They have tried 5 times (they say) to switch my service from AT&T. Their latest stunt is that they say my current service is disconnected and they cannot move my service. I said I disagree because I was calling from my current service. Idiots. So since January (3 months) I have been paying for two services and have saved no money. How stupid am I?

I am so glad I found this site!


Tonight I got a flyer on my door from Vonage, so I decided that I'd do a little research. Since I already had a router and a wireless access point, I was wondering how their equipment would interface into my current network config. So I give them a call.


They IMMEDIATELY want my name and address. I told them that wasn't necessary as I just had a slight techie question (being a Mainframe Systems Programmer, my slight techie question was a little more involved). Anyway, she insisted that I give her my name and address. I'm thinking: next it will be the credit card number, but I was ready in case that happened....click...


Well, she said that I could just plug the Linksys router into my current router and everything would be fine...so much for my question. Now comes the pitch: Vonage will let me try the service for a month free, give me the router for free and waive the $29.99 installation fee that I would have to pay if I signed up online. I told her that I was just researching at this point. She proceeded with her pitch for a couple of minutes ensuring me that I'd have to pay nothing to give the service a try. I told her that I was going to go back to the Internet to finish researching the service and the company and if I was interested I would call back. That's when she told me that she couldn't guarantee that I'd get the $29.99 install fee waived if I would happen to call back and get someone else. That's when I told her that I didn't like high-pressured business tactics and ended the call.


It's also worthy to note that while I was talking to her, her voice was quite choppy. I mentioned this and she assured me that it wasn't because of VoIP...yeah, right. A VoIP company NOT using VoIP? Really, how stupid does she think I am? Well, not stupid enough to fall for a pack of lies from this company.

Now that I'm finding more and more pages like this, I'm convinced I'm making the correct decision NOT to go with this company. I've been in the IT field for nearly 30 years and it's a crying shame to see great technology in the hands of corrupt power-hungry CEOs. They are selling out America and changing our wonderful country into: "America - Where mediocrity is the norm"

Enough of my rants. I just wanted to say thank you Damien, for telling it like it is. You're a real American - one who's still not afraid to say what's on his mind. I admire that. Best of luck to you...and mostly, THANKS!

VONAGE HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE!

They tried to charge my credit card $150.00 for cancelation charges but luckly that card they had on file was cancelled so now they say I have to pay them.

What should I do? I dont want them to hurt my credit score. Does anyone have any advise?

I just went through their horriable service. I tried to get my number ported to Vonage. After 30 calls to customer support and everytime them telling me they will get back to me in 24 - 48 hours I finally sent an e-mail to the ceo and his secretary. They will forward it to the 'Executive Response Team' and my problem was solved within a day. Contacts:

Executive Response Team
1-888-580-4020
Monday-Friday
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM EST

jeffrey.citron@vonage.com - CEO
paula.pangilinan@vonage.com - CEO's Exec. Secretary

I tried to get my number ported to Vonage. After 30 calls to customer support and everytime them telling me they will get back to me in 24 - 48 hours I finally sent an e-mail to the ceo and his secretary. They will forward it to the 'Executive Response Team' and my problem was solved within a day. Contacts:

Executive Response Team
1-888-580-4020
Monday-Friday
9:00 AM - 5:30 PM EST

jeffrey.citron@vonage.com - CEO
paula.pangilinan@vonage.com - CEO's Exec. Secretary

I understand the bad customer support but over all, I've been satisfied with the system. The customer support sucks but that is the price of outsourcing. Now, here is my issue. Does any one know how, what the problem is when one can not get incoming calls to a vonage number, only outgoing calls go through? I know, call the customer service. I tried it and they are getting back to me since yesterday.

I just spent half of a day trying to get Vonage service cancelled that I had just ordered a day and a half ago. I've not even used their service and they're charging me a $42 cancellation fee. They say they'll refund my $42 modem fee when they receive that back as it's already in transit. I had a horrible time trying to get their "customer no-service" to take care of this. I will be calling my credit card company this evening to dispute both charges. What a terrible company!

I, too, regret my attempt to receive Vonage service and the costly (in terms of time, money and energy) aftermath.

After spending countless hours on my cell phone with customer service trying to get even 1 second of dial tone on my Vonage line, I attempted to cancel my "service." It took 24 days in total to cancel a "service" that I paid for, yet never received. During this time I endured endless encounters with exceedingly rude and incompetent employees of Vonage. Without exception, all 36 of my encounters left me feeling physically ill - the incredibly annoying echo/patchy reception only heightened my frustration.

Honestly, comment all you want about my lack of technical skills and my failure to read fine print. I am confident enough to know that I am not the source of the problem.

The fact that I felt a beyond giddy sense of relief when SBC informed me of my $47 reconnection fee and the fact that I would finally hear a dial tone speaks volumes.

Persistent and repeated incompetence, apathy, indolence, ignorance, and insults combine to create a feeling of disgust that defies description until you actually sit back, pick up your phone and endure it. It's not just about the $87.03. It's not just about the endless hours spent in phone help menu purgatory. It's about having no hope.

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you currently have isn't permanent. With Vonage, it starts off so bad you think it just can't get any worse...but, then it does...again and again and again.

Consider yourself warned.

MY BACKGROUND

Please note that I work in the IT industry, and have since the age of 16. I am now going to school for a Masters in IT Management. Hearing these stories seriously makes me want to pick up my Vonage router and throw it on the floor, stomp a few times, and mail it back to Vonage. You’ve all seen Office Space and the copier scene, right?

MY EXPERIENCES

At any rate, let me share my experiences, both good and bad.

1. TRAVELLING

I have been a Vonage customer since May 2005, so nearly a year. I have used my box when traveling, so in: California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York, and it has worked [for the most part] without any issues. There are occasional packet misses which sound like a cell phone blip/hiccup. Honestly, that’s the name of the game.

2. PRICE

The price we are paying is worth it for the QoS (Quality of Service)…at least my QoS. From what some of you have mentioned, I really feel your pain. And whoever mentioned Sprint being a great carrier, …wow. I hate all cell phone companies, but I have found Cingular to be the most reliable.

Do any of you miss the old AT&T wireless days? I recently heard that, even though Cingular bought out AT&T wireless…AT&T wireless is somehow going to buy out Cingular. Ok, that made little sense to me as well, but then I realized that they are playing the name switch-a-roo such as SBC has done, now being called the “New AT&T”. Please note that the fiber company (SBC/AT&T) and the cell phone company (Cingular/AT&T wireless) are totally different things.

3. TIVO/FAX/DATA

Upon purchasing a Tivo, I did need to work through that issue with the Customer Reps, which were annoyingly hard to understand. I read through other pages and learned to dial the NYC area code. The Vonage rep also turned off the bandwidth saver so that I was using the full 90 kbps. I am now using Vonage and Tivo, and all seems to be working fairly well.

Here are my settings, for those of you still having Tivo/Fax issues. Try this for Tivo. Set the dial number to 1 212 277 3895. Set the dial prefix to “,*99,” (without the quotes). Turn off the call-waiting prefix. Set to tone dialing. Turn off availability detection, and turn off the dial tone detection. Once it connects once, don’t play anymore with the settings. It should work nearly every time. Seriously, I have a 20-foot phone extension cord because I am currently moving my office to the other side of the apartment and have already moved the cable modem. I need to purchase a wired Ethernet adapter for Tivo, which I hear is definitely worth it.

For those of you trying to use the fax functions, try using the “,*99,” prefix before dialing the data call. This tells Vonage that the call will indeed be data.

4. CALLER ID

Ok, so here’s the kicker. Everything seems pretty good, right? As a recap, I received the Vonage box in May. In or around October 2005, I realized that my caller ID was not displaying correctly when calling my Vonage phone from my Cingular cell phone. This is partially my fault, I admit. I should have known that someday…cell phone providers would start carrying the Name of the cell phone user, and forward this on to landline/VOIP caller id’s.

When using the cell phone, my name displays as my real first name, not the name everyone calls me. It is kind of annoying, especially since most of my friends [unless they had a class with me in school] do not know my real name. Secondly, I have moved from my home state on the east coast to the south, and my Vonage number is an East coast number—local to my parents and most of my family members.

….[And we interrupt this to bring you a live update, LOL] Ok, this is freaky. I feel like I’m being spied on. As I am writing this post in MS word, I just received an email from Vonage. [In MS word so I can spell check—and yes, I wish many of you would spell check then paste back into the browser…] The Vonage email was something about 5 dollars and some cents. What the heck? Your posts are making me partially paranoid, only because I know how awful Vonage can be.

So, back to the issue. My sister, when calling from my home state, had her number displayed on my Vonage box in 3 different ways. One with the letters all in caps, one with caps for the First and Last names, and one as her ex boyfriend. Vonage Customer reps, I bet I’ve talked to you all.

So, this has been ongoing since October. I have since opened up 5 more trouble tickets. The last, being the 6th, I also put Cingular on to help resolve. Cingular has fixed the issue, as others can see my cell phone show up with the name I want to be displayed. However, Vonage still hasn’t updated their database…or it is a local Telco issue. Either way, it’s not Cingular’s problem anymore. And because my sister’s number isn’t showing up right, I damn well know the issue is with Vonage or a local Telco.

The problem is…when I asked them in the beginning to trace the database being used, they said it wasn’t possible. I’m not an idiot. I have worked with telephone and VOIP equipment being broadcast through a T1 carrier to a satellite carrier, shot into the sky, and then back down to a satellite into the middle of the ocean. Trust me, but I think I trust my own expertise a little more than the average Tech1. At any rate, I always listen and then plead my case. So, why then, as when troubleshooting the VOIP solution via T1/Satellite, etc. (also including a company PBX thrown into the loop to make it even more confusing)…why can’t Vonage do a tracert or some type of function to Trace the Route and determine which database has the wrong information? Is it really that tough?

It is now April of 2006, and the issue and TT #6 are still open to date.

5. REFERRALS

The real reason I came upon this site has to do with my brother joining Vonage, as a [cough]…referral from me. I really do not hate the service, but the Vonage customer service itself is terrible. Check this out.

So I went online to send a customer referral to my brother. He tried the link, called me back and said it did not work. Confused, but thinking he probably did something wrong, I asked him to forward the email to me. I clicked the link, filled out some information for him, hit submit…and the information would not go through.

Next, I tried sending a new link to myself and one to my sister in law. We both tried, same thing, didn’t work. I called Vonage, they suggested we try a totally different email account. I said I doubted this would work, seeing we’ve tried the referral program with now 3 different email addresses, and 2 computers. But, I tried again. I wasn’t surprised when it did not work.

So, I called Vonage back and asked them to do a telephone referral. They said I had to use the site, and that there were currently no issues with the Referral web application. I said, well, I’ve called twice in the same day. I think that counts, don’t you? Why don’t you open a trouble ticket now, because…I AM calling about an issue that I’ve told you about twice, and you seem not to care. I received a TT number, and asked that it be noted in the log that I was having issues with the referral link. I gave the all 3 email addresses, a date, and my cell number, and instructed that I did not want an email, but rather wanted a real live person to call me when the site had been fixed AND TESTED. I was told they would contact me, and hung up.

I never received a call back. Anyway, I [while on vacation now, using my cell phone]

tried calling Vonage again for a status. I called Vonage and spoke with another rep. Who said I would have to use the web link. I rephrased it, something like this, “Hi. I am a current Vonage customer. I am trying to use the referral link, and have now [twice] been told that there were no issues. I have opened a trouble ticket and provided all information necessary for Vonage to test and get back to me via telephone, with a real live person. I have not been updated. What is the status of this?” The lady said it was fixed. There were no issues. I said, “you are clearly mistaken. I have logged a ticket, and I can provide a number to you.”

Anyway, to make a long story shorter (hehe), I suggested that Vonage was going to lose gaining another customer [my brother and his wife], and risk possibly losing another customer [me]. In a totally different tone, the lady seemed to snap back to reality and allowed me to do a telephone referral. This, of course, while I was being lectured to use the web site.

I called up my brother, had a 3 way conference with the Vonage lady, and all was well. It took awhile, and a few reps, but I did actually get the referral money refunded to my account. It just was a really painful way, and a waste of a few hours of my vacation time.

6. NUMBER PORTA-POTTY-BILITY

And this leads me to a month ago. My brother received his Vonage box, hooked it up, and all seemed well. He also got a local number for my parents. I had not read the website in awhile, so I was not aware of the Virtual Number add-ons for 4.99. This is not a second line, but it is a second number. Hence, one number could be local for the ‘rents, and another local to your actual physical location.

Since he was given a “virtual” number—meaning not a physical number to where he was actually located, we inquired about porting his SBC number over to Vonage as the secondary number. This virtual number was the only Vonage number associated on the account, and will be referred to as the primary number.

The Indian rep was very courteous, but did not understand what I was talking about. I am not trying to insult anyone, just trying to get my point across. After me, trying not to give up and restate my request to see if his local number was portable, I finally just gave up and had to ask for an American. I felt bad, but I had to. We had already wasted about an hour and a half on hold and in between transfers. When you do not understand, repeat the question, rephrase, ask to clarify. Don’t just guess. We Americans are quite pressed for time, as I should know while working and trying to obtain a Masters degree.

The American was very easy to work with. He answered all of our questions, checked the number, and said it was portable. My brother had to cut it short, so he said he would call back to port the number and start that paperwork process.

A couple days later, my brother asked me to 3 way again with the Vonage people and him to get his number ported. Vonage made it very confusing. They said you cannot port a number to a virtual number; in other words, the ported number needs to be the account primary number. Me, being the skeptical person I am [which isn’t always a bad thing; preparation can get you far, just think of the Indians or boyscouts lol]...asked that, if we port in his physical location number as a primary, that would disrupt service to the already existing number. The Vonage rep thought, and agreed that if we ported the local number as primary, it would disrupt service.

So I posed the question, what difference does it make if the ported number is primary or secondary? Those terms (primary/secondary) are just words. Both numbers ring into the same box. So, why not then just port the number and call it a secondary number? This is not possible, although Vonage said they could temporarily port in the local number as a primary, then flag the system to go back and switch the numbers to the original primary number (virtual number) would again be the primary number, and the ported number would stay the secondary number.

What a freakin’ mess. We thought all was well, told em to go ahead and do this. Tonight my brother called, as the port has apparently only taken 10 business days or less, and said “you’ll never guess what happened today”. I was thinking…someone famous stopped by work, um…someone hit his truck? I had no clue. He said they DROPPED the primary number, and now he couldn’t use the phone. What freaking idiots. This is exactly what we tried to PREVENT. I’m getting mad just typing it out.

He said that Vonage tried to charge him the 10 bucks for a change again, after possibly having lost the original primary number he had given out and used for 3 weeks. Yea, ok. Morons. I asked that he at least asked for a free month for the hell they’ve put him through. He is about 2 seconds away from dropping Vonage altogether. I’d like him to get this sorted then try it. It’s really not that bad as long as you 1) don’t have any billing disputes, and 2) don’t try to port a number.

At any rate, he does not have to pay the 10 dollars for the change. I’m a bit upset that they said it will take 24-48 more hours for them to fix their own problem. Vonage now “owns” both numbers, so why can’t it be fixed in 1 hour? He wouldn’t let me call back and 3 way so that I could set things right. There are so many lame ass companies out there that make you upset (name most cell companies for example, especially Sprint—I hope they go bankrupt, seriously. That’s a whole other 3 page blog on that one).

So, we’ll see. The clock is ticking. Other than my caller ID still not working correctly, and his number port issues, we both are happy with the Quality of Service.

In summary, after reading all of your blogs, I wish you all the best. Feel free to message or ask questions to me. I am quite pressed for time, but I will try to respond to anyone that messages.

Cheers,

Mike

Ha, i typed it in word, saved as an HTML file, then opened in notepad so that I could access the code to paste into here. Looks like I forgot the header. At any rate, Damien, thanks for creating the space for us to rant.

As many of you have said, it isn't about the lost money, it is about the friggin terrible service that we are receiving but yet still expected to pay for.

Someone mentioned a waiter. I have only once refused to tip, and the service was absolutely terrible. If Vonage support was a tip type of service, they'd get a penny most of the time.

Keep on rockin and saying it like it is. I love the American blunt way of thinking and speaking.

And as with 9/11, you can kill a few of us, but it will only make us stronger. :-)

I fixed some of the formatting problems Mike. Thanks for the contribution!

Update: Well, all seems to be well. It took Vonage 3 days to fix the issue. They had stated 24-48 hours, it took 72. My brother's number was successfully restored and he supposedly got a month's credit, and they took off the 10$ charge for "restoring the number--their mistake for dropping it."

My caller ID issue has not yet been resolved. Stay posted.

I had a bad experience with Vonage as well and wrote about it and linked you--I hope your article gets the Google juice it needs.

how much broad band internet speed want to link sys broadband router model is (RT31P2) ?

plese contact my ph no 9844353148

Awful, terrible service. For three days my phoneline suddenly said "the number is disconnected and no further information is available". I was freaking out!! This was a business line. Could not get hold of anyone for two days and then finally got someone from India and we were cut off within two minutes. Found this website, called New Jersey, connected to some guy Mike who said he would have someone call me back. They did, it would take 24-48 hours to research??? and service was restored about 24 hours later....no apologies, calls back,nothing.....ex-customer...although I'm sure I will not be surprised to see they keep charging me.

i have been on hold now with this cracker jack of a fucking company for 45 min now...yesterday i was on for 40 min. then the hung up on me. peoples lives are seriously going to get threatened if and when someone answers my call. i had to switch companies before i could cancel vonage because if i called them up when i had vonage they couldnt hear me.
so if there is anyone here who works for vonage...get off the fucking computer and answer my calls.

VONAGE is FUCKING GARBAGE, what a nightmare to cancel. Called them got put on hold for about 25 minutes then get hung up on. Called back waited on hold for 32 minutes finally got a rep. End of may is exactly one year (I waited so the fuckers could not charge $49.99 disconnection fee). The rep told me that I would have to call back, he suggests that June 2nd might be good so of course I point out their fine print in their Terms of Service:

.1 (a) Monthly Term. Service is offered on a monthly basis for a term that begins on the date that Vonage activates your Service and ends on the day before the same date in the following month. Subsequent terms of this Agreement automatically renew on a monthly basis unless you give us written notice of non-renewal at least ten (10) days before the end of the monthly term in which the notice is given. You are purchasing the Service for full monthly terms, meaning that if you attempt to disconnect Service prior to the end of a monthly term, you will be responsible for the full month's charges to the end of the then-current term, including, without limitation, unbilled charges, plus a disconnection fee, if applicable, all of which will immediately become due and payable. You will also be responsible for the next full month's charges in the event that you do not provide the requisite ten-day notice of disconnection prior to the expiration of the then-current term. Expiration of the term or Service disconnection will not excuse you from paying all accrued and unpaid charges due under this Agreement. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if you disconnect Vonage service after the Money Back Guarantee period, but within the first twelve months, Vonage charges a disconnection fee of $49.99 CDN per line.

note the ten days notice crap there, the motherfuckers will try to screw you any way they possibly can.

Bottom Line: THIS COMPANY IS A FUCKING DISGRACE, and you clowns that write in here as Vonage Reps should be ashamed of ripping people off so blatantly.

i called at the beginning of april and they told me that if i wanted to cancel on that date..i think it was like march 3rd or so...i would have to pay the 49.99 cancel fee...and 150 bucks for the box thing. fuck that. i waited until the 30th. called. finally got to cancel it. now they wont tell me how to pay the final bill. anyone know? fuck i hate vonage

Interesting, if you go to the vonage-forum.com and say anything negative about vonage it is amazing how fast the post gets deleted. This is despite the disclaimer on every page:

"This Site is exclusively owned & operated by 4Sight Media LLC & is no way endorsed, sponsored, provided, owned or otherwise controlled by Vonage. For official information on Vonage Services please proceed to the Vonage website"

The site may not be sponsored but I have no doubt that Turd Burglar Dan Connor (site owner)is getting some renumeration from them. Who in their right mind would set up a site praising a product and the policing is so ferociously if they were not getting something from it.

I have had great service from vonage (including getting new equipment when house was hit by lightning (at no charge)).
I do not work for vonage or an affiliate, and I have friends with vonage that love it. I'm not saying I don't believe you guy's, I'm just stating my experience.

I to have had an absolute nightmare trying to cancell my service. I called a week ago because I have actually moved all the way across the country and no longer have cable at that location. They told me that the 10th of May was my 1 year and besides they could not cancell the account because it was not in my name. Apparently when the old phone number from BellSouth was switched it was in my husband's name so they transfered Vonage to his name. Further more when he tried to cancell they told him he was not authorized because the billing credit card was not in his name so he couldn't. I asked how I alleviate this and they said they had no clue but we couldn't cancell. Great!!!!!!!!!! Arggggggggggggg!

Well I got online and changed the account and that seemed to work just fine. I called them again today to get them to cancell (after business hours) and they informed me that I could not without incurring early termination fees (I waited on hold for over an hour an a half both times). They told me that it couldn't be cancelled until Friday. When I told them that I should be able to cancell tomorrow and that I wanted to do so before I was charged for a month of service that I could not use they told me that I had to give them a grace period of several days and that my next month's payment must be taken or I could not cancel without the charges. I asked where in the contract this was stated they told me that one year meant one year and the payment would come out before the one year was over.

Okay... I don't get it but I am so angry now it is not funny. I will call my bank first thing to make sure the payment does NOT go through but we'll see. I will try cancell again in the morning but I hold very little hope.

To make matters worse my voice mail isn't even working becuase the device is not hooked up... or so they say. It has not worked for over 2 weeks. So they are stealing my money!

I'm a software engineer and know well how the system works from the back side and am tired of being lied to.

I will keep you all posted.

Do yourself a favor and RUN THE OTHER DIRECTION BEFORE YOU GET VONAGE!

Jen, as much as I hate to have to tell you this because it means you will have to call those assholes back, I was able to get them to apply a one month credit on my account as they would not cancel it on my 1 year of service date. Essentially they will be billing me an extra month, but it will be their money as they credited me. Good luck, I hope you are able to get it sorted out without getting boned.

my goodness. this vonage is such a ripoff. they marketed this product with such vigor and made me sign up. now to cancel it they make a big stink and want me to PAY !!!
CAN WE FILE A CLASS ACTION SUIT ?

it's not that bad...

LOL, "It's not that bad..." here is another bunch of satisfied vonage customers:

http://search.complaints.com/search?q=VONAGE&btnG=Search&site=complaints&client=complaints&proxystylesheet=complaints&output=xml_no_dtd

your not the only ones, I live in a small town in Illinois, I make small money barely staying a float. I have a wife and four kids. I'm a Marine Corp war vet who just got out of service a year ago. We all are outstanding law bidding citizens. I coach little league sports and try to be the neighboorhood DAD. I've a Vonage customer for only 2 months and have nothing nice to say. I have an overdue account with the local Verizon when they would shut off my phone when my wife bought mobile phones so I could call her at anytime when I was in Iraq. So basically I had no choice but to find an alternate land line. I just recently sent this to Customer care: "I'm not one to bitch or complain about anything. Even if life deals you with the shittish of lifes, I say deal with it. I have been a customer for only 2 months, In that 2 months, it took 3wks to finally get the phone service I payed for because of a faulty device, numerous hours on hold waiting for your staff to answer my questions and solve my problems and now I was charge a fee for the device that I have not yet sent back and is sitting in a box waiting to be shipped which was never expressed verbally on how to send it back. I have bills to pay. Taking this money out of my account has made not able to pay my other bills like my mortage and insurance that is do. I work a measly factory job and am covering two income with one check because my wife just had surgery and is unable to work. I understand that i may just be a number or an account to you guys, but what I have been through with your so called Customer Service has not be pleasant. Is providing service beyond the service part or have companies gotten to the point that there's someone else that will take my spot when I cancel my service? I live in a small town and word of mouth is our advertising. What i'm I to say? My service has been poor? I guaruantee I am the only one with this service too. Folks I asked for a simple reimpursement and apromise that I would send the device out this weekend. Its sad that it couldn't be arrange."

Vontage started my service dispite the fact that after learning more about the service on my initail phone call and learning that they only take payment via credit card I declined the service. Monents later I get an email "thanks for joining Vontage". The last few days have been hell getting through to someone. On; after someone else found this site for me and I contact the exexutive responce team and rigina there helped me get rid of the service and refunded the money they already charged mu account. (at least she says she did. We'll see.) I also had reps refuse to let me speak with anyone higher up.
What an increadible experience. And "Ragina" asked if there was any way I'd keep the service" HAH!!

Many people here have valid gripes that would anger anyone. Thats understood. However, few people really understand any of the reasoning behind why you can't always compare the Customer Service, etc. of baby companies like Vonage to the big guys like AT&T, Verizon, ISPs, etc.
I suggest reading the comments from "Chriscorp" on this DSLreports forum:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,16056282

Before you cancel log in and go to Account -> Edit Payment Information.

Put in a "test" credit card # first so they wont keep charging your account. Or if you prefer find an expired/cancelled one from around the house.

Here are some test #'s from Verisign: http://www.verisign.com/support/payflow/manager/selfHelp/testCardNum.html

Cancel Vonage: 800-860-5491 - Prepare to hold for a loooooooooong a** time. Took me 1:00:39 to get a rep online, and its great that he was super-nice and all, but its a little too late for that now.

I changed to a test account # and the rep said he'd be charging me $39.99 for the cancellation fee. I said "I am acknowledging what you are saying but I am not implying consent to the charge."

He said "Sir, when I cancel you will be automatically charged."

I said "Do whatever you have to do to cancel my service but I do not consent to the charge."

I got two immediate e-mails: One announcing my service is cancelled and another one announcing that they were unable to process a charge of $39.99 on that test credit card #. Nice. If they think I am ever going to pay that they are on crack.

I had my Vonage account for 3.5 years, and during that time I had not a single issue with either phone call quality or availability. The only time I ever called the Vonage company was to cancel the service and that took 44 minutes, and I spoke to an New Jersey American guy that was pleasant to deal with. I tried cancelling last week and the call was obviously overseas (India?) and it was a terrible experience ending in a disconnection. I wish American companies would wake up and realize the great disservice they do when they outsource their support overseas, it leaves a very bad impression on their most important asset, customers.

until recently, I'd never had any problems with vonage for the 3 years I'd been using them. Then I moved to Southern CA and it got funky. My vonage phone service is still fine but some kind of way the slammed my mother's phone number in CA and assigned it to someone in Western PA!(WTF) So after finding all this out and trying to get them to revert the number back to the service my mother originally had (on their dime...not hers) it's been runaround city. So we did a little letter writin to the Vonage CEO.....and we made sure we made sure to include the following names and addresses on the cc list that accompanied the letter....California Public Utilities Commission, U.S. Representative - Congress, U.S. State Senators for CA , Attorneys General for CA & NJ, Better Business Bureau, and the FCC (forgot to include the SEC - I'm sured they be interested since Vonage is going public).

4 Days after all the letters went out...we received a call from Vonage....I'll keep you posted on how the saga concludes.......

Vonage is terrible - was on the phone for over two hours and still was unable to cancel. I changed my CC# online like the above poster suggested - I think that will probably work. I will also contest the latest charge I just given with my CC company. Maybe I'll also contribute to the barrage of letters to various govt agencies - they're an absolutely terrible company.

Jeffrey A. Citron gave out really big candy bars for halloween,and a lot of them!!! i think he is a nice guy! =)

Vonage are criminals. It just has to pass proof in a court to be official. They charge me for numbers they failed to port, block me from cancelling on time, send me insane and inane emails from Bombay and generally act like the frauds they surely are. If there was a way I could sue them, I surely would. I've never actually been able to use any of their service.

Wow, nice post Jimmy, take the really big candy bar and shove it up you ass, retard.

What about Vonage fucking customers who want to upgrade? That's a class act. Sign up for the $15 product and want to upgrade? You have to PAY to upgrade -- I shit you not.

Phone company? Cable company? Wireless phone company? Can you think of anyone who does this to their customers?

Oh -- and you won't find that printed ANYWHERE before you sign up for that $15 package. They save that information for later.

Leo La Marca, "Safe Shopper available through the MBNA site" HA, Blabbermouth, now they won't take cards within 1 mo of expire. . .

Dear Thomas, So apologies hearing your problem. What is the account number? OK what is the address? OK now please now unlpug your router and DSL modem. Please now be waiting 5 minutes. May I place you on hold please. Thank you so much sir. 10 minutes later. How are you sir, sorry you are having problems. OK now please be kind to plug in your modem again sir. OK, is it plugged in now? Are the light on? OK sir, please be so kind to wait another 3 minutes. OK, now plug in your router. The lights coming on, yes? Oh, the red light is still on. . . Is it on all the time or is it flashing? OK lets us try this again. Do you have another outlet you can put the router plug???

My dear dear man, this has nothing to do with being Indian. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is called insanity.

For all of you sitting on hold with Vonage please practice the above over and over. When you are tired, cancel your credit card and run away from Vonage. . RUN! Do not look back. RUN!!! Do not try to get your $200 back, you’ll only spend more countless hours on the phone. RUN. . .

its pretty much your fault for signing up for vonage in the first place. its like $29.99? this is pretty funny. them and Comcast charging $33.33 for the same thing skype charges $2 a month for..

Hehe, looks like vonage is crashing hard on the markets, maybe there is some justice. One little bit of bad news could tumble this house of cards, anyone say Worldcom :)

I transferred my number back to Comcast over 3 weeks ago. In the "real world", when a phone company no longer "owns" your number, they stop billing you. You don't have to cancel, they know you're gone. Silly me, I didn't have the 45 minutes free to wait on hold during Vonage's business hours (I do have a job and a life) and figure'd they'd get the point when my number was pulled. NOPE! 3 months later, I'm still being billed for a number that doesn't exist in Vonage's system anymore. Didn't one of the Baby Bells get nailed a while back for ridiculous customer service wait times? Who administers that?

if anyone is in canada i really suggest looking up SHAW DIGITAL PHONE. it is awesome. its not all that expensive 25 a month or so CDN. you get everything vonage gives you, but hold on people, HOLD THE FUCK ON....you get ENGLISH speaking reps, very little hold times(5 min at most), helpful and nice staff.......i wish i had this before i wasted my time with vonage.

I was referred to Vonage by one of my friends because their service was
so great and fixed any issue fast.

Gee I wished things went that well for me. You can see my record of
this horror story at http://www.phazerelectronix.com/voipblog.html

Guys: I'm being fucked by vonage as we speak ! They can't transfer my phone # from Comcast - it has been two months and they keep charging for the line.

They are liars: they sent me this canned email that says there is a problem with my name on the Comcast account. But when I call Comcast they say they have never been contacted to transfer the line.

I thinks vonage's systems that hook to the LECs for Line Nubmer Porting don't work and they blame other providers.
What do I do ?

Sincerley,

Roman

I wanted to pass on my recent experiences with the Vonage Internet Phone Service - which recently arrived in our area - so that other may avoid the same mistakes. I decided to try out the new service hoping I could save some money. However I have been extremely unhappy with both the phone service and customer service. Some of the many problems I have encountered include:

1) It takes more than 10 days to transfer your existing phone number. Therefore although there is a 30 day money back guarantee it takes quite a while before the customer can fully evaluate the quality of the service.

2) Once the phone number was transferred we encountered problems with quality - poor sound quality and lag time when speaking to people. I phoned technical support several times. After FINALLY getting through to tech support I found myself speaking with staff who had very poor English skills. After much effort they said they had changed some settings and to try again. This didn't help. I tried tech support again (again getting staff who had thick accents and couldn't understand me), they claimed the problem was with my internet connection.

3) I then did more research on my own and read that I may need to try Shaw Cable's "Quality of Service" upgrade to improve the sound quality. So I decided to try it and pay the extra $10 per month. This seemed to help for a few days but the problems continued.

3a) We have found that when we tried to call certain local phone numbers we got a message that "this phone number does not accept anonymous calls" and the call would not go through. My wife sat on the technical support help line (again with people who couldn't speak English very well) for an hour and a half, and she had to phone back three times. The first guy said to try a couple things and he would call her back (he never did). The second time she had to phone back and go through the whole process again - and got disconnected while waiting. The third time she got through to tech support and the person said he could not fix the problem and would submit a "note" on our file. We have never heard back and the problem was never solved.

4) Finally we became frustrated and decided to change our phone number back to Telus, our phone carrier. I phoned Telus, they said they would reconnect our phone number which would take another 10 days. I hoped that would be the end of it.

5) Once the 10 days were up and my phone service was reconnected I realized that I was still getting emails from Vonage and that the Vonage service might need to be cancelled manually. I also found out that I was now getting local calls, but long distance calls were still going to my Vonage account (I still can't receive long-distance calls to my old phone number). I tried phoning Vonage, finding a phone number on the web site. I tried one of the toll-free numbers listed but was told that I had to phone another toll free number. I tried that one and faced a very long wait on hold. As I didn't have hours to sit on hold I decided to try to send a cancellation email on-line (since your toll free number suggested that I could also get help on my Vonage on-line account). Getting back into my Vonage account I tried to find a direct email where I could send a message such as this. However, the HELP menu referred me back to ANOTHER toll free number for cancellation (a 1-888 number). I tried this number and again was told this was the wrong number for cancellation! I then tried the original toll free number for cancellation again but I was told that the number was only active on weekdays. Again I tried to phone last week on monday and then discovered that the toll free line was closed as it was a holiday in the USA! I tried back the following morning, very early in my time zone (6 AM). In spite of the early hour I got a message that I would face a long wait. This was getting ridiculous, I didn't have time to sit on hold! Finally this morning I decided to try phoning early again. After more than 45 minutes I finally got through!!

6) After speaking to the customer service person this morning they then informed me that there was a $45 cancellation fee (which I was aware of), but because I was cancelling beyond the 30 day trial period that I would face a $150 rebate fee!! I was shocked - I did not remember seeing that anywhere when I signed up. I have since gone back to the website and checked the sign up page where I signed up for the Router and the rebate. It says NOTHING about paying back the rebate fee if you cancel after 30 days. However I discovered that if you click on "more information" and then AGAIN on "Full Device Description" there is a brief mention that you have to pay back the rebate fee. This is extremely misleading and very poor business practices. If this had been clear to me I would have been very hesitant to sign up in the first place.

7) As a final insult, when I spoke to the customer service person last week they tried to convince me to stay with Vonage and to speak with their "Advanced Technical Support" people to help solve my problems with the service. I mentioned that I had very poor service with the technical support people and that they couldn't even communicate properly with me. She said that these "advanced" folks were based in New Jersey and could speak English. My question is, WHY was I not offered the full and proper technical support in the first place? Why was I only being offered this option once it was clear I was looking to cancel? And finally why would I want to continue given the problems I've encountered?!

I have requested a refund from Vonage but have yet to get a response.

I work for a company in Los Angeles named Sierra Print Media. We handle everything from signage, public relations, print, media kits to feature length documentaries and film and television production. On March 6th, 2006, we tried to move our phone lines to Vonage with predictable results. We have been stuck in a phone company nightmare and wish to get out. After finding out that their phone system does not work for multi-line office phone systems, we realized we need to move back to our old phone company MCI. It is now June 7th and our problems are not even close to solved. As a matter of fact we have been charged over $350 dollars in the past 48 hours by Vonage, even though we canceled our plans with them over a month and half ago. I could go on for days about what a drain they have been on our business, but we would much rather hear your stories.

We are going to compile a list of everyone with any gripes in email form and use it as a petition or the grounds for a possible class action suit. We will also be taking full note of your problems and are considering turning our stories into a documentary about the corporate fleecing of America.

We would love to hear from everyone on this page and if you know of others please send them our way. I know that everyone here at Sierra Print Media is thrilled to see we are not the only ones who have had to deal with the "great new long distance carrier".

Please send all your stories to vonagerelief@sierraprintmedia.com

Thank you for your responses.

How to cancel a Vonage account without getting charged... Log onto Vonage.com. Edit your credit card information so that it is a bogus number. I would change a single digit in the credit card number. By doing so Vonage will no longer be able to charge your credit card for future monthly charges or termination fees. Pack up any equipment they have sent you and send it back to them. Make sure you get a tracking number. Once you have confirmed it rec'd by them, call customer service, ask to speak with cancellations and once you get through that, give them the tracking number so they can confirm the equipment has been rec'd by them. At this point demand a refund and do not authorize anymore charges to your credit card. I cant say with any degree of certainty that they will respect your demands but future charges to your credit card will not be possible without the real cc number.

I tried that route with changing the credit card, problem was that after waiting almost an hr on hold an going through the three different levels they would not cancel my service until they had a valid cc number that they could bill my last month of service (even though the month had not started) to. So your fucked if you do and fucked if you don't I can only hope the cocksuckers go bankrupt.

If you sent the device back and had a tracking number to prove they rec'd the device then there is no reason to charge the credit card. If they still insist on charging the credit card tell them to go screw because there is no reason to charge the credit card because they have rec'd their device. The termination fee is a deposit against the linksys router they senbt you.

BUYER BEWARE! JUST TRY TO CANCEL YOUR VONAGE SERVICE.

I was able to survive my cancellation ordeal with only a $40.00 cancellation charge, another months advanced billing charge $19.00, if I could withstand the verbal abuse and harassment by “Kevin” in the Accounts Management department on 06/13/06.

I have been trying to cancel this mess since 12/05, and now consider myself lucky to only be out $245.00.

On June 13, 2006 I spoke with someone in the Philippines, then to India, I was finally was able to be put on the eternal hold pattern for another 25 MINUTES for a well trained professional “account representative” that could cancel my account. Kevin was a pro, but with nerves of steel I was not going to let another (4th attempt) to cancel my phone service go by without accomplishing my goal.

Kevin, with no last name and no manager, obviously took delight in inciting my level of frustration. I saw through his plan, and this time I was not going to hang up. He continued to ask batter me with annoying, irrelevant questions over and over again. He demanded to know WHY??? I wanted to cancel my service. It became painfully obvious that Kevin, my account representative with no last name and no manager on duty, was elated in dealing out his punishment. The mere fact that I simply wanted to discontinue service was not in my constitutional rights and down right offensive to this company man.

So we continued on for another 30 minutes line of questioning about how long have I used it, did I ever make a call out on the line, did I receive a call on the phone, did I contact technical support, did I ……..did I have to right ………..at any time to simply say stop asking me questions. The answer was NO. Could I get to the reason for my call. NO.

You MUST endure CONDESCENDING behavior towards myself in a way that show he was socially or intellectual superior to me and get his $40.00 worth of abuse out of me for cancelling. He continued to belittle me by repeating the questions from the start over and over again. I WAS NOT GIVING UP = AND STARTED RECORDING THE CONVERSATION.

I asked him repeatedly not to ask me any more questions about service—I just want to cancel the service. However trained by (AOL or the FBI) he was unrelenting in his pursuit of satisfaction. It’s now been at least 45 minutes so—I handed the phone to my husband who was then battered for another 30 minutes in the attempt to cancel the service.

(Note: we were not disputing the cancellation charge, the advanced billing charge we just wanted out. We had already spent lost over $200.00 trying to get it cancelled, lost our metro number we had with SWB for 30 years, been charged extra to try and retrieve it again, not to mention the hours of phone time with a second Non-Vontage Line just to cancel this line.)

I must have been crazy to not notice the website answers ever possible question but HOW TO CANCEL THE SERVICE.

I do question if I was really talking with a company representative or one of the “Affiliates” they so readily offer to pyramid this phone service into a work at home business. Selling Voyage to your friends and relatives for commission. So what choice do I really have — verbal abuse and entrapment with VONAGE or get ripped of by AT&T now that SBC bailed sold out.

If you can stomach the poor lines, the billing problems, the account representative—the $14.95 service is a great price unless you really need a phone line with 911 capability.

The moral of this story—if you don't have a good heart and stoke out while trying to cancel the service—have a cell phone handy to call

My wish is coming true, Vonage stock is at $9.82 today, after a $17.00 ipo a short while ago, can you say BANKRUPT.

Back in June I posted how unhappy I was with Vonages service. Hey it got worse.

They and their 3rd party Broadwing are now refusing to transfer my number away from them because they customer information does not match their records.

Funny how it was copied from the LOA form I used when I transfered from Comcast to Vonage.

Neither of the two will tell me what information has been fat fingered or changed by them so a proper request can be sent.

Since no one will freely give up this info I have filed complaints with the FCC, BBB, Consumer affairs division, and State Attorney Generals Office as well as contacted all my local newspappers and TV stations.

Gee maybe I'll add a yard sign that reads "IF YOU DON'T LIKE YOUR CURRENT PHONE COMPANY YOU'LL HATE VONAGE"

I refuse to let this pathetic excuse for a company screw me.

As for libel I have records of phone calls and e-mails.

See http://www.phazerelectronix.com/voipblog.html to see the ungoing battle.

I think that all of you are pretty damn ignorant. I mean its one thing if you read and didnt like what you saw, its one thing. If you decided to just start bashing on them because you dumb fucks don't know to use the computer, or configure what you buy, you belong in the 1940s. VOIP is a great idea. Have you seen what they have to offer these days? I bet you can't take your land line on the road with you.. that telephone pole would kinda outweigh your car, wouldn't you think? Also, Keep in mind that a brand new company is not going to be the best thing around.. do you think everyone liked T-Mobil, or Cingular or Verizon? I think not..... Yet they are probably amongst the top CELL PHONE carriers out there. You all are just a bunch of fucking cry babies who probably didn't get your way, because of YOUR OWN DUMB MISTAKE, and thats why you are complaining over the internet. Get a life. thnx~U :D

My husband and I just signed up for Vonage about three weeks ago.Since then we have had to call them every day because we can make calls but not receive them.Not only that but I live in Dallas, TX and when I call someone my number shows up as some other Vonage customers number in New York. My husband called the lady in New York and she says that our Dallas number shows up on the caller ID when she calls someone. No one can fix it...no one knows why....and quite frankly I think they are all a bunch of idiots!

Hello, I found this site while googling "vonage" and "lawsuit".

After weeks of having calls drop after only a minute or two, I spent 1.5 hours on the phone with India to try to resolve. The customer service was most professional and courteous, but we could barely understand each other.

I was asked to unplug my modem, wait 5 minutes, and they would reset something somewhere . .

In this 1.5 hours, I made numerous calls but I only head time to giver my account info, then would get cut off! I repeated that info so many times, I'm sure my neighbors all have it memorized by now.

I called customer service another day, and was able to get to an English speaking person in NJ. I can understand them, but that are all either new employees or very rude and condescending!

I was promised a credit for my troubles, but it did not show up on my account. I called again and spoke with NJ, who said she would try to make it happen, but when she attempted to transfer me to a spvr, I was cut off . . .^%$#@! THIS was from a landline at my work, they dropped the call.

Meanwhile, I made several calls to Comcast asking them to investigate, they checked the line quality, even came out, replaced my cable modem, and I tried a 3rd modem . . bottem line = It's not Comcast! I made changed to the QOS setting from Vonage, no better.

I now see a credit for $12.50 on my account, and I have asked Comcast to port my # over. I changed my CC info as prescribed and intend to send my calling history to their "Executive Response Team" and to the NJBBB.

I will keep this updated as things progress.

I cancelled Vonage and got the usual shpill . . . "cancellation fee is auto generated" yada yada. I was given the # to "Corperate" where my choice was to press 2 and be disconnected or press 1 and return to the Call Center I had just spoken to.

I was disconnected 5 times trying to get thru to someone to cancell. Only ONE MINUTE after the CC rep cancelled my account, I received an email stating "On 08/04/2006 we were unable to process a charge of $39.99 using the credit card on your Vonage account."

Then a second email "Amount of Transaction: $42.66 - On 08/06/2006 we were unable to process the above charge using the credit card on your Vonage account."

Will the amount incease every 2 days?

Does anyone have email addressed for the Executive Response Team, or the Vice Presidents, Board of Directors?

Thank you!

Vonage does suck .. all the way to India and back

It's still the same as with the former Bell companies ..
assuming new identities but still lurking in the halls of congress and the state PUC stuffing money in the pockets of regulators ..

and so .. the same attitude ..

We don't care .. we don't have to !!

Interestingly Vonage removed the link to their Executive Response Team. I have lost about $250 and it never worked!

They had the nerve to call me last week and ask me how I would like to settle my $42 bill :D

I told the young lady to add this to my account notes : "NEVER call this guy, he is an asshole and he never intends to pay the disconnect fee for a crappy service that did not work, and you will all burn in hell long before you see a dime from him"

She said "thank you" and hung up.

Is anyone seeing this on their credit reports?

The day I called to cancel, the rep said it was NOT neccessary to return the VOIP devices, a Linksys and a Motorola. I just got this email:

"On 08/29/2006 we were unable to process a charge of $140.47 using the credit card on your Vonage account.
"

I can still log on to the Vonage web portal, but there is no breakdown of what the additional charges are for.

I was robbed out of 94 dollars including a 40 dollar "disconnect fee". I was a month to month subscriber, and I did not transfer my phone number; why do I need to pay $39.99 "disconnect fee" when I did not have any contract with them?
The rest of the money is for the router which they said I didn't need to return because I was a loyal customer for over a year. Well this loyal customer is royally screwed.

If you really want to do something about these crooks, you should contact the Attroney Generals of your states, and I would suggest calling your congressmen and senators so they can force FCC to regulate them, because lack of oversight is the reason why Vonage is so cocky.

Find your Representative
http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Find your senator
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

OR

go to http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/
enter your zip code, click and email a letter.

It should go something like this.

Dear Congress(wo)man or Senator,

I am ........., one of your constituents from ....... The telecommunication industry is changing because of newer technologies, and many consumers are getting hurt because of lack of laws and regulations. "Insert your story about how you were screwed". I urge you to pass a legislation that requires the FCC to regulate the broadband phone companies. It is necessary that these companies be regulated in the same manner as land line telecom companies in order to protect consumers from fraud and abuse.
"Add anything else you might think of"

Respectfully,
xyz

After reading this, there is no way I'd start using Vonage. I can't see how they could be so obtuse!

you started all of this over about 100 bucks!? dude, you really do have too much time on your hands! Why is it so outrageous for a large company to not pass you directly to the CEO?

PEOPLE DONT BE SCREWED OVER BY VONAGES REMARKABLE SAVINGS AND CUSTOMER SERVICE.. IT FUCKING SUCKS, I VE BEEN TRYING FOR 2 WEEKS TO GET A REFUND BACK ON MY CHECKING ACCOUNT, IVE TALKED WITH 5 DIFFERNT SUPERVISORS AND I WAS TOLD THAT EACH TIME THEY WERE GOING TO PUSH MY REFUND BACK, YA RIGHT, PUSH IT BACK INTO THEIR ACCOUNT MORE LIKE IT,, NOW TODAY I TALKED TO SOMEONE ELSE AND THEY SAID THEY HAVE NO NOTES OF ME EVER TALKING TO ANYONE,, HMMM I WONDER WHY, SO NOW I SUPPOSEDLY HAVE TO WAIT ANOTHER 7-10 DAYS TO GET MY REFUND,, IT ONLY TAKES THEM ONE DAY TO TAKE YOUR MONEY OUT OF YOUR CHECKING, BUT IT TAKES FOREVER TO GET YOUR MONEY BACK, THATS FUCKED UP,, IF THEY DO NOT REFUND IT, I WILL FILE A LAWSUIT AND THEY WILL HAVE ME UP THEIR ASS WITH PR. I WILL POST THIS ALL OVER, ANYWHERE I CAN, WHAT PEOPLE NEED TO DO IS GET TOGETHER AND FILE A GROUP LAWSUIT SO THIS BULLSHIT STOPS AND PUT THEM OUT OF BUISNESS, THERE IS NO TECH SUPPORT, AND YOU HAVE TO WAIT FOREVER TO GETA RESPONSE FROM CUSTOMER SERVICE, OR THEY JUST HANG UP ON YOU AND YOU HAVE TO START ALL OVER AGAIN. PLUS THE OPERATORS THEY HAVE THERE, OMFG, HALF OF THEM CANT EVEN UNDERSTAND ENGLISH MUCH LESS THEIR OWN GOD DAMN NAME,, IS THAT WHAT U WANT FOR PHONE SERVICE,,UMMM PROBABLY NOT......DONT FALL FOR THE BULLSHIT,, LETS GET RID OF THE SHIT!!!

OMG, I was looking to read about any issues other folks have as I have had a nightmare of time with respect to cancelling.

I don't know much about the readership here in this blog but I am in Canada/Ontario. I signed up for the Vonage via a friend who referred me to the 'great service'.

I called and was up and running literally (in Nov 2005) minutes with my mastercard being debited each month.

This year, in early spring, I looked at the usage of my phone and really I noted i don't use it often enough as I could so I called and spoke with someone who said I'd have to call back 'tomorrow' as the customer service manager was not in.

I call back...too late...lines close at 8 pm and that's when I got home. Tried again next afternoon, was on hold, then again got home, on hold...so this went on for several days then a month.

Finally I get someone and he said I could get two months free credit and then be with the cancellation done in August of this year.

So, no worries. Then I start getting billed; my c/card is now expired so they (vonage) email me about the c/card not working - a standard line they use regarding payment..and thus I think to myself, they have not cancelled my service.

I try again to get a hold of customer service..they say to me that it is cancelled. I say if it is cancelled, why are you still charging me? Now I have to call back and 'Cancel' with the customer service line - I say I did! That's why (after a 1.5 hour conversation with your team) I called!

So in September I see there is still no cancellation on the emails...they bill me but I am not paying because my c/card is not valid.

I email the customer service line explaining in detail about the cancellation made, how long it took to get the guy to here me say "NO" I don't want any extension, I just want to cancel today..and I don't want to come back ...so they email me back and still say to pay up - but I must call first to cancel...this is an insane loop of hell!

Last night I come home..there is a collections letter! 67 dollars (cdn) to me. So I call vonage..they are closed as it's 7:57 pm perhaps 8 pm in their home town.

So I book a time for my lunch to make the call to vonage today and I spent 1 hour and 42 minutes being placed from one person to the next. They said they can't put me higher up to any better supervisor as that's as good as it gets. I could call back and speak with another supervisor but there is no one else above her "Celine"

After explaining to her that all I asked for was the cancellation of the service in May of this year. I did not want the two months free. I said yes after so much badgering of them (vonage) not willing to take my answer of 'no' and that the two/three month of free service would be noted on my account.

Lo and behold, I did not get cancelled. Then in september they finally do, credit the account but continue on to bill me until november of this year!

What kind of business runs like that? Note, that in september I emaled them back about the fact they did not cancel...they said, to call them to cancel...and I wrote back saying "I did my part, no do yours"...and thus more invoicing to me and now a credit collections agency.

The company wants to give me a $15 dollar credit - why? They made the error? They did not cancel my service as requested. I had to call and email them again to get it cancelled and then they still bill me! This is not customer service or correct billing procedures.

Celine said she'll have the account investigated. It takes ten to fourteen days and to watch my email account for the update of which will be the final result and response from them...

I asked her, what do I do with respect to the collections agency they have sent after me? She said to call and advise them of the outcome....so that's what I did tonight as well.

I will NEVER GO TO VONAGE AGAIN....I will be emailing my friends and business associates about this as anyone I know who wants to hold shares in this company...

M from Canada

I had crappy service for two years with Vonage, but was so relunctant to cancel. My philosophy is that you get what you pay for. For the wopping$19.95 I get charged every month Vonage is STILL the best deal around! After having switched back to a land line and then having THAT COMPANY not honor their advertised offer, so the monthly bill is $20 more per month than I hoped, I am GLAD I hadn't cancelled my crappy Vonage line. So I sound like I am talking under water sometimes, so it drops calls... SO did the land line which I am now paying $30 a month MORE for. I can't wait to go back to my crappy Vonage line as I am broke so part of tightening the belt is this cheap service I apprechiate as it is really all I can currently afford. Therefore there is a place in the world for VONAGE - for frugal folks like me that figure a crappy phone line is better than none.

Here's how I deal with big companies when I get pissed off with them. It may not work with Vonage however, because it relies on the fact that most CEO's actually care.

1...Write a letter asking the sort of question the CEO doesn't want to answer..."Do you employ any english speaking staff?"

2...Address it to the CEO, with only his name on the first line...
"Mr Jeffrey Citron,
"The CEO's office,
"Vonage corp..."
This makes it personal mail.

3...Mail it recorded delivery, addressee's signature required.

4...With a little bit of luck, the mail carrier will make His Lordship come out of his orifice to sign for the letter.

I have had good results with this technique.

As a former Vonage employee. I can totally sympathize with you. This is how they FUCKED ME. after 4 yrs. of very loyal service. In which I received over 30 letters of commendation from everyday customers such as your self. Hell I even got a Letter of commendation from Not only the vice president in charge, but also from Mr. Jeffery Citron himself. I had customers asking to only speak with me to help fix their problem, and being out sourced to India, or "Slash" as Vonage calls it. They ALL requested that I even get a raise. Well One cold hard day in Nov. I had a Volar customer tell me I was a Fucking asshole, and so was the mother of mine that brought me into this world. If that wasn't enough, he continued to "F" me with every other word. I let him get his frustration out, laughed and said if try doing this job all day long where the company, Vonage, doesn't even care enough to properly help him out properly the 1st time, then I Have to listen to Morons like him , "F" me and my family all day long. SOooo, They Fired me. 2-days before Thanks Giving, and of course right before Christmas, and 2 months before a planned surgery. I helped more people there in one day than my "Supervisors" did in a month. ALL those letters of thanks down the drain, because of One word to a vulgar person, Moron. And he was. WHERE IS THE LOYALTY OF THE COMPANY FOR IT'S WORKERS????

this is clear and present robbery. vonage is crook and corupt. i've been told by vonage customer service that my number will be transfer in 3 days but never happened and they charged me 28.77 for new number even i told them to cancell my account as soon as i found that vonage is not able to transfer my old number. more pain was when i charged for 119.98 for discounection. they are F***ING THIEVES, F**k them all...

I fucking Hate Vonage , they screwed my ass too. I got their services for their trial period and I never even used it and I tried to end it. they personally told me YOU CANT CANCEL SERVICESES. They literally told me that I cant cancel. they are such frauds. They need to be stopped. they gave me the run around also and hung up on me and it costed me months of money because they would not let me cancel. I hate them somebody take them down or blow them up!!!!!!!!

I fucking Hate Vonage , they screwed my ass too. I got their services for their trial period and I never even used it and I tried to end it. they personally told me YOU CANT CANCEL SERVICESES. They literally told me that I cant cancel. they are such frauds. They need to be stopped. they gave me the run around also and hung up on me and it costed me months of money because they would not let me cancel. I hate them somebody take them down or sue the shit out of them !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Used Vonage for almost 6 Years and cannot complain about their VOIP Service however having Cell Phones made the use of VOIP unnecessary for the time being. Cancelling Phone Service with Vonage is just as bad as AOL Hell. My Vonage Phone Service was always paid one month ahead and i expected to keep the service for the remainder of the time/month it is paid for but in order to keep the service i already paid for, Vonage insisted i call them the day before the next monthly service cycle begins claiming this is a Federal Mandate for Customers to call one day before the cancellation date begins or they will bill me again but i insisted it is their job following proper procedure and if they disconnect my VOIP Service at the moment of cancellation i expect them to reimburse me prorated. Well i cancelled my Vonage Service and was disconnected the same moment. Vonage just closed the door to ever have me again as a customer and the same goes for many former Vonage Customers and You folks can take this to the Bank, this is a Class Action in the making. Vonage is just another Corporate Thief stealing from its Customers.

Man I am so angry right now with these loosers. They charged my cc with out my permission on someone elses account, and then told me this is not fraud because I was able to tell them who the person was. The charged $400.00 to my account. I am completely completely angry. They are very incompetent and no listens they just talk over you. I have spent 10 hours trying to get help and I cant. I HATE VONAGE

Contact your state Public Utilities Commission- or Public Regulatory commission, I did and they got my money back.

Totally hear you. I was a customer of Vonage for 3 years with few to no complaints. I even got my whole family to switch, I was so happy with them. Then I moved to an area with no broadband, and thought it would be a simple thing to get service disconnected.... yeah right. Let me put it this way - I moved back in September 2008 & canceled service then. It's now April & I just got off the phone with them yet again & things are still not resolved. I disputed 4 months of charges with my credit card company, but they told me that the dispute was closed due to the fact that Vonage said they were refunding my money. They never did AND they say I still owe them another 3 months of service, which they will continue to try running my card for, which I should not be charged for, as I canceled long ago with an account in good standing. I have literally spent 5 hours of my time today between them and the credit card company, and still have gotten nowhere, as now I am told I must write a letter to Vonage and file a dispute that way. I'm running in circles & not sure where this will stop. Thank you for your site - I will be trying some of the numbers you posted.

I forgot to add the fact that I had to explain to everyone I talked to (about 5 people) every word I said about 4 times, as while the accent was not obvious, I'm sure that they outsource to India. They also insisted that I never called them in September. I told them that likely it was never logged, or there was miscommunication, as obviously we were miscommunicating now (because I had to explain things to everyone so many times for them to get it). I was also told like others here that to cancel service I had to escalate it through several people. Why should something as simple as canceling service for a legitimate reason take 2 hours and talking to 4 different people? And then it doesn't even get canceled? Yeah - great way to run a business. Take a formerly happy customer & screw them over. Great.

A few points: I am definitely interested in your obsession with this Vonage problem. It may be an issue with the "principle" of things, but you may be taking it too far. The initial problem with Vonage could have been easily fixed had you been at least somewhat patient. You are not the only person in the world, and are most certainly not the only Vonage customer in the world. I do not even see what sort of problem you could have incurred before you even recieved your device. As a retail employee (not employed by Vonage, but selling Vonage devices through a retail store) I call Vonage Customer Care on a daily basis. It is the same number that you call and since I am not employed by Vonage, I go through the same steps that every single Vonage customer must go through. The longest wait time I have ever had through Vonage was a twenty minute wait, and that was the longest call by far. I also call customer service quite often for AT&T and Verizon product. They are much worse than Vonage. I am often put on hold for over an hour, then once I actually talk to a human I am transferred to another department and put on hold again. I am not trying to minimize Vonage's customer service problems, because there are problems, but Vonage is going through a major transition right now to bring Customer Care back to New Jersey from India or wherever the hell it is now. And if you really thought you could be connected with the CEO of the company, you obviously have some issues with narcissism, because you have to already know an executive of the company to get connected with one. Also, the $39.99 cancellation fee is under the terms and conditions that you agreed to when you signed up and gave your credit card information. You were not screwed over by Vonage, you just didn't read what you agreed to. AND if you are going to try to create an "HR Nightmare" for Vonage, you may want to make your Journalism Major of a wife check your blogs for grammatical and spelling errors. Typos really don't look so hot when you are trying to make the whole world realize something. I wish you luck in your endeavor to get back at Vonage by taking $100 out of their hands. I'm sure you will make a huge difference.

f uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

too much time on your hands! dude get a job and move on.

Vonage ripped us for for several months worth of service after we had our number ported to another VOIP carrier. They simply kept charging the credit card. It was not easy for us to spot, because we still had other open Vonage accounts at the time. When we realized it and requested a refund, they refused. They continued to charge for a service that we cancelled on a phone number they no longer had legal control over. I filed an FCC complaint, but that seems to have been a waste of time. I'm thinking it may be time to file a small claims action.

Damien is right. Vonage needs to be taught a lesson.

WOW...I just ran across this site while trying to locate a valid corporate number for Vonage. Vonage is definitely a rip off. According to post dated back as far as five years ago, Vonage is up to the same nonsense post-Citron. I too, am a vitim of Vonage's disloyalty to customers. This blog has encoraged me to resolve this matter even though it may be time consuming.

I just got Vonage and it has worked great. Whenever I call customer service, I don't get transferred to someone else. The person who answers the phone works it themselves and stays with me as long as needed. They even called me back to see how things were going. When we determined that it was Verizon's issue, the operator got Verizon on the phone, explained the issue, and the Verizon person helped me through it. I also have several friends who have Vonage and they love it.

Hate vonage? I have just sued them in the small claims court of ontario.On the very day I wanted to cancel my annual plan because of their poor sercice, they renewed my annual plan without previous notice. When I demanded a refund, they said they could only refund to current customers and charged me for another month. I am seriously considering a class action. Does anybody want to join?

Hate vonage? I have just sued them in the small claims court of ontario.On the very day I wanted to cancel my annual plan because of their poor sercice, they renewed my annual plan without previous notice. When I demanded a refund, they said they could only refund to current customers and charged me for another month. I am seriously considering a class action. Does anybody want to join?

Class action sute needs to be taken against the mother fuckers at Vonage. I contacted the BBB about the fact that they charged me $80 for their fucking box after I disconnected thier fucking service and after a month they refunded the money back. Mother fuckers. I suggest every one does the same. who wnats to keep their fucking box any ways!

Dear Damien Katz, 15 Dec 2009
I have a WRT54GP2 that I bought new from CompUSA. I was not told anything about this unit being locked by Vonage until I contacted Linksys due to it failing the firmware updates. The unit does not say Vonage on it anywhere. The box it came in said works with Vonage. I have never been and will probably never be a Vonage customer from the sound of it. They are telling me they can't do the firmware update because I'm not a paying Vonage customer but they told me that my unit's mac address is in their list and it's locked by them.
Let me know if there is any progress on the lawsuit front. I don't think it's fair that Vonage can extort money from people like this.
Sincerely,
Michael Wilson

Here's the latest installment on being ripped off by Vonage.

After nearly a month of trying to become a customer, with tech support trying to make the Vonage technology work (tech support was awesome, by the way; it was the technology that wasn't working), I finally decided to cancel the service.

I figured I would get a full refund given that they never go the service working.

BUT, not only were they not going to get me a refund, they had the audacity to try and charge me cancellation fees -- for canceling a service they could not render! Blew me away.

So I turned to my two Visa Bank companies to dispute the original charges. I took care of one, and had them reissue a new credit card with a new number.

When I talked to the second Visa bank, they wanted to confirm that each of the charge lines represented a separate phone line charge, and that they never got any of them working. I confirmed that. And then they wanted to confirm that they were unwilling to give me my money back, and were trying to charge me more money. I confirmed that too.

The bank customer service rep put me on hold to discuss the matter with their manager, then came back and said that this wasn't a simple dispute / charge back. That this was systemic fraud, and they would have to look into this more deeply.

Fraud. Wow. You know, they were right. I never thought of it that way.

So, that inspired me to by the VonageFraud.com domain name, and to start chronicling the events of my account with Vonage.

So go to www.VonageFraud.com. And, be careful about your decision to go with Vonage. If things don't work out, you could be in trouble.

EJM

A great deal has been stated about using VOIP as your only phone line, but I’d sum it up this way: Don’t apply VOIP as your solitary telephone line. VOIP lines can go weak for numerous causes, including power failures, net outages, or VOIP network problems.

Vonage call centre called me up (unsolicited call)

Some wierdo with the most monotonous voice in
history told me it was urgent then threatened me
- told me this was vital information essential to the
wellbeing of my life! I'm not fucking kidding!

Fuck them and their android call ops

I hung up and the bastard rang back and back just
bleating out this monotonous bullcrap like some kind of
half-assed hypnotism attempt.

Hung up again, kept ringing back for 30 mins.
Unbelievable - I kid you not!

I will NEVER ever buy anything off VONAGE.
something very weird about them.

Fuck Vonage...you have my sympathies

Now I see why most people stay away from Vonage, their the type of company that only knows how to get money. Telecommunications must also know how to satisfy customers because they are the one who gives them good steady income.

Now I see why most people stay away from Vonage, their the type of company that only knows how to get money. Telecommunications must also know how to satisfy customers because they are the one who gives them good steady income.