Comwave Consumer Reviews - Page 6

This company has been operating in Toronto for about 10 years promising
low cost VoIP phone service in USA and Canada.

The Comwave company has its base in Pakistan and operates there in many cities and regions in Pakistan.

North American branch of Comwave is registered under
Comwave Communications INC.
and its address is reported to be:
61 Wildcat Rd., Toronto, Ontario M3J 2P5
Tel 416-663 9700 www.comwave.net

Comwave business practices in Canada seem to be on the edge between
minimally legally acceptable and fraud and deception.

Main business of Comwave in North America is selling low cost telephone service using VoIP internet technology.

North America (USA and Canada) offers Pakistan Technology Company
almost unlimited customer base.

Comwave advertisement campaigns appeals to wide spectrum of lower and middle class people who are searching for ways to save few dollars here and there on TV, Telephone, Internet etc.

Signing up is easy. Just make one toll free phone call and start saving $$.

Well trained sales agents are polite and give you impression that you are in good company. Problem is that they have incentives to convert every caller to a customer and they withhold critical information
from callers. They will agree and promise everything that they sense you want to hear.
No contract, 6 months free, free testing period, quality telephone service, 24 hours 7 days a week Customer Care and Technical support. Try it with no obligation etc.

The moment caller gives personal details and opens an account he or she is told that Comwave will send them a device that they will have to connect to their Modem and will be able to start using their new lower cost phone.

Problems with phone and connection started about 5 weeks after signing up.

Its at this moment that myself and many others discover serious problems not just occasionally but very frequently during each day. The quality of telephone service will vary from poor to extremely poor with short periods of total disruption of telephone service.
People complained that they cannot understand that words were fragmented, long pauses, static noise, ECHO while on the line.
Trying second time it worked for few minutes and the same problem started again.
Comwave technical support will advise you to disconnect your Comwave device and Internet and wait few minutes and reconnect it again and they say: PROBLEM will be solved.
Unfortunately it may be solved only for few minutes and then you have to repeat this procedure which they call "DEVICE RESET".

I had to do this RESET many times during each day I was with Comwave.

I picked up the phone and there was no dial signal. Then after resetting device I got a dial signal but when I dialed the number I did not hear ringing.

Incoming calls were going directly to my Voice Mail box without and notification. The only way to hear a message was to go to my email address. Simply said. Total disaster.

To call tech support I had to go to my neighbor or a public phone
because my phone did not work. I met all requirements for having good reliable and quality telephone service.
1. High speed internet ( 10 Mbps)
2. Quality PANASONIC DECT 6 telephone.
All was working fine first 5 weeks.

When I called tech support repeatedly I probably was marked as a "COMPLAINER" and was put on hold for indefinite amount of time, periodically someone come and say: We are sorry for the delay.. please hold for few minutes and someone will be with you as soon as possible. Once I was waiting 93 minutes and nothing was resolved.
I complained and told them that I cannot continue with COMWAVE its just not practical and it is frustrating not to have reliable phone service at the house. I was told that that I am on the 3 years contract and I cannot leave unless I pay Early Cancellation Fee which will be calculated by the accounting department.
I was also told to give them more time. They are continually working on improving service quality. I said OK I will give you more time.

Then I was told to be at home that their specialist will call me to find what the problem was. He will solve it. I was told.
I had my Cell phone and my friend lent me MagicJack. Through MagicJack I could use my phone. Comwave specialist spent 5 hours
and during this period I was asked to reset my Modem and Comwave Device more than 10 times. At 10:20 pm we called it quit.

His report to the Comwave management was that the problem is in my Bell Canada Modem and my telephone. I was asked to change it and they have offered me their Modem and internet service to replace Bell Canada Internet service. for the monthly cost of about $54.00 plus installation and new modem which was close $300.00.
My Bell Canada Internet and modem worked perfectly yet they wanted to replace it with theirs by I think creating problem scenario to motivate me to buy their Internet and phone from Comwave.
I refused and asked repeatedly for closing my account because they are not able to provide service that they promised during the signing as a customer of Comwave. I was told that I will have to pay in full amount that is equal of 36 monthly payments.
When I explained that I was breaking the contract because the company failed to maintain the quality of service they are promising to customers.

Their reply was: Comwave is not responsible for quality of telephone service and poor service or disrupted service is not a legal ground for closing the account.

I am legally responsible to the Comwave to pay the full amount as if everything was OK. If I do not pay my account will be transferred to the Collection Agency and there will be additional penalty added to the amount with other consequences such as damaged credit rating etc.

Later, I was advised from some of my contacts with others to get a copy of a document titled:
(COMWAVE) LEGAL DISCLAIMER.

COMWAVE LEGAL DISCLAIMER. (15 printed pages).

In their Legal Disclaimer they declares that:

By signing for the Comwave telephone service customer agrees with
all Comwave terms and conditions.

This document is not mentioned or given to potential customers to read and sign.

Signing up and opening account is all done via telephone with sales agents spread all over in East Asia (Pakistan, Philippine etc).

Sales agents may have financial incentives converting callers to customer.

They promise anything and everything. They do not tell the caller the truth.

Example: Is there a contract that I need to sign?
Answer: No. There is no contract to sign. You can terminate your service anytime and you need to call customer care center who will be able to help you with termination of service.

Comwave legal disclaimer contradicts what sales agents say:

Legal Disclaimer states: Subscriber automatically by default enters into a 3 years contract. Termination of contract is not possible unless subscriber pays the amount calculated by the accounting department.
It further states that Comwave does not provide any telephone services. Comwave is only a marketing company for different manufacturers of telephone equipment.

It states that that disruption, discontinuation or poor quality of service does not give subscriber a ground for terminating service contract with Comwave.

Comwave has the right to discontinue and lock the service if subscriber has unpaid balance of any amount.

With the Legal Disclaimer as written, Comwave aim is to get maximum number of subscribers by promising everything under the sun, knowing that subscribers are locked into one sided 3 years contract by default and they will have to pay the amount worth of 3 years (36 months) regardless if they stay or leave by paying so called Early Cancellation FEE (ECF).

Comwave Pakistani executives see north Americans (USA and Canada)as a rich source subscribers who can be intimidated bu threats to pay Comwave for poor service or no service once they agreed to subscribe.

COMWAVE must be stopped.

They must be forced to present their TERMS and Conditions in writing and ask for signature as Bell and Rogers etc. There cannot be any exception for Comwave.

If person signs the Terms and Conditions which clealry says that Comwave is not responsible for quality of service,
penalty for Early Cancellation should be maximum 3 monthly payments.
With Legal Disclaimer Comwave executives believe that they have legal rights to extort money from dissatisfied customers.
When they have a guaranteed payments that equals 36 months regardless of service Comwave does not need to care about providing quality of service.

They need to do everything to lure potential customers and agree to try it for free and then lock them into 3 years contract by default with automatic contarct renewal without him or her knowing it.

This type of business policies may be OK in Pakistan but Comwave Legal Disclaimer does not not place Comwave above Canadian laws for Consumer protection.

Affected Comwavce consumers need to organize and initiate a CLASS ACTION against business practices of Comwave. If they want to operate in Canada they must hide their Legal disclaimers but present it in writing to every would be customer to read it before agreeing to sign up as subscriber of Comwave service.

We need to find "Investigative Reporters to write articles and produce videos about Comwave unethical business practice.

Only that type of organized action may lead Comwave to change its policies and practices in Canada and USA.

TORONTO, ONT.CANADA -- Before signing up for Comwave VOIP Telephone Service - Read first: Comwave customer reviews on internet. Read also text below that highlights my own personal experience during the year 2012 with Comwave. After 10 months of frustrations with low quality and 2 times total disruption of service with 3 weeks of unsuccessful attempts to get my telephone service restored, I decided to return back to Bell Canada for telephone service.

They closed my account and are asking $584.92 as a penalty for wanting to leave Comwave and get phone with Bell. The fact that my telephone was totally dysfunctional during the month of December 2012 means nothing to them. Some say that Comwave is an East Asian company established, managed and financed by people from Pakistan.

In their promotional video they make many promises. Unfortunately these promises were broken in my experience. They didn't accept responsibility for poor quality of service and poor customer and technical support. Every time I phoned to get tech. support it took often 30 to 45 minutes or even more. Because VOIP phone was not working, I had to use my Cell phone to call customer support tel. number. Many attempts were made but finally it came to the point that it was my modem, my Internet or my DECT 6.0 telephone that need to be replaced and not their VOIP adapter.

Here is a summary of my experience with Comwave VOIP telephone service during 2012. Rating scale: Poor 0 1 2 3 4 5 Excellent. Comwave Sound quality = 2. (bad) We got too many complaints from friends and family about Voice ECHO, static noise, broken words, long pauses, Many missed and dropped calls. Call display did not work reliably. Answer from Comwave? We are working on improving sound quality.

Comwave customer and technical support = 2. (bad) Long wait times (10- 25 minutes.) After waiting for 15 or more minutes connection is often cut off. Customer Support Reps do speak English the best they can often hard to understand but worst they give inaccurate information just to get rid of you. Customer support people are spread across East Asia and South America. (To name just few: Philippines, El Salvador, etc.). All tech support is done by phone from far way. If your phone is not working then you must get another phone to call them. I was put on hold for the next available representative and 20 minutes later connection was cut off.

Their only advice 99% of time is: reset your modem and VOIP device by disconnecting from power, wait few minutes and problem will be solved. In my case it did not work and I told the person: "This was done many times. It does not solve my problem." 17 days of continuous calling for tech support and they never solved my problem. I was not able to make phone calls and I was not receiving phone calls.

All incoming phone calls were going directly to Voice mail without ringing. They blamed my Internet service provider (BELL), my new telephone was defective, my modem was defective etc. Yet, they expected to be paid even when they were not able to deliver normal telephone service.

Comwave Voicemail service = 1 (bad). All incoming tel. Calls were going directly to Voice Mail but telephone did not show that I had a message. It was necessary to check e-mail. Cancelling service and switching to another service provider = 0 (bad). When I ask to cancel my subscription for tel. service after nearly a month of being without phone service I was told about major hassles ahead that I will have go through.

Once you subscribe to their service, You no longer have freedom to choose another service provider. You will lose your tel. number and with new service provider start with new tel. number. Comwave hides their Legal Disclaimer into tiny size print that new subscribers do not get to see. Once you sign up after 30 days you into a 3 years long term contract without you knowing it. If after many weeks of frustrations with the poor telephone service you wish to cancel and move your telephone to another service provider like Bell or Rogers.

First, they will tell you that you cannot cancel the service because you have a contract. Contract is by default the moment you sign up and not cancel the service within 30 days. Customer enters into the contract by default after 30 days but verbal only. They are recording your answers to certain questions. They say that they have a recorded message saying that you agree to their conditions before they sign you up. The word contract is never specifically mentioned.

When I asked Comwave to cancel my service subscription within 3 months by default you automatically enter into a 3 to 5 year contract. There are no documents to sign. Your communication with the Comwave sales department is recorded. For cancelling my subscription to Comwave because of the poor service I received, they ask to be paid sum of $587.00 with no explanation. One can see that it is the amount customer would pay if he or she stayed for the duration of contract.

MY OVERALL SATISFACTION WITH COMWAVE SERVICE = 1 (very bad). It seems to me that their primary purpose is not to provide excellent service serve but to recruit new subscribers by making big promises and then they will to get your $$$$ whether you stay or you cancel subscription. This company lures people to sign up with cheaper price and many promises.

When you are not satisfied and want to cancel they will insist on payment of the amount for the full contract duration. Thus they win the moment you bite on their hook. We DIS-SATISFIED CUSTOMERS NEED TO FILE A CLASS ACTION AGAINST Comwave.com and get Investigative reporters to look into Comwave business practices.

CANADA -- DO NOT GET COMWAVE. Worst internet service, worst customer service. You call, and stay on hold for an hour at a time just to speak with a supervisor. I have been with Comwave for 3 years and the internet goes out on a weekly basis. I have had to call Comwave multiple times within my contract to solve basic problems, and they make it harder than it needs to be.

They also tell you that you get 6 months free on your phone service, then when your contract is up (like mine is) and you try to cancel, they tell you you still owe them 6 months of payment. Do yourself a favor - do not, I repeat, do not get Comwave. It is a scam. Poor customer service representatives, with poor English and communicating skills. WORST SERVICE I'VE EVER HAD.

So I signed up for internet and phone. $300 on deposits for all their boxes that was told would get money back for but they don't even work. My house phone's out half the time. Have to go reset my boxes 3-5 times a day. They messed up my order, charged me a month in advance, then didn't even send my equipment. Send a tech to do setup then charged me $100 for not using him because I hadn't yet received the boxes so well I was waiting for all the setup to happen.

A billing month comes up and they charge me even though I'm not set up yet. Oh and the reason they didn't send equipment was because their computer messed up and said I didn't pay them anything yet. Well at that point they had taken just over $400 and now that was 3 months ago.

Just got new bill. It's doubled. Well my contract guaranteed 6 months of same fees then because of all their mistakes they promised wouldn't change for a year. At this point I just want out but are putting me through hell to get back my deposits and out of a contract they have breached several times themselves. Don't ever use Comwave.

TORONTO -- This company lies through their teeth. They have took money out of my account that was already closed. I've waiting for a very long time to get my money returned and now being told it will be 10-20 days for it to be back in my account. Really 20 ** days? Who the hell says that? This supervisor talks tough over the phone and won't let me have a word in, so now I've been on hold again for 40 minutes just so I can get his information and hopefully talk to someone that's not an idiot.

I'll be talking to a lawyer this week about them stealing money out of my account. I hope this company falls apart. I also will be contacting the president of Comwave to let him know how bad his employee are treating their customers.

OTTAWA, ONT, CANADA -- Further to my comments to this site back on 24 Nov 2015. The best thing I can say about Comwave is that they eventually leave you alone (after harassing you constantly for, in my case @ 1 year). After Comwave tried unsuccessfully to retrieve money from me that they said I owed them, it then went to a collection agency. Thing is this company does not have a good name with the business community, specifically the banks (T.D in my case). The collection company was simply a ploy to make me pay. After I ignored their repeated calls, they stopped calling. That was about 1 year ago.

When I presented my case to "my bank", they told me that I would not be able to recover all of my money but that when I paid the following Comwave bill, the money that I paid could then be returned to my account along with any other amount that was fraudulently obtained. I met a person that knows that hockey player well (one who advertises for Comwave) and was told "don't believe anything that guy says/endorses". As I said earlier, I have nothing good to say about Comwave. A subscriber who is glad to be done with Comwave.

CAMBRIDGE -- If anyone is looking to deal with Comwave think again. I called them back in June to start service for July 1, they told me that I had to put $181 down because of my credit (no problem). Then when it was time to get it set up I had to call and fight with them to get it set up. 10 days after their promise date. Then they wanted $65 to start the first month after three months of month to month service I went somewhere else for my internet service.

It is now November and they are still trying to take out money. I will be calling them and calling a lawyer to sue them. I have a new withdrawal from them on November 23, have not been with them since August.

NORTH YORK ONTARIO -- I saw a good add on our TV news section and it was exactly what I wanted as I have a SMART PHONE and wanted to keep the landline as we have had the # for years and so many people have not got our cell # which is what I wanted. The package arrived on Friday and on Monday. My husband took time to connect the phone and the directions were awful... No way to get through to a tech guy!!! So I tried on the phone and finally said the phone is not working, their phone was just so noisy. They could not help my husband and so we were disconnected.

Today wed I have given up on these guys and then to my horror I read the reviews and not good. One said 92 out of 100 were unsatisfied... and one just below this page said a scam more than once. We have Pres Choice & CIBC as well as good lawyers so I have no doubt that the money taken from my account will be returned. I also have my friend Jesus on my side!! I will have my tel # returned before Nov 22nd or my Ontario lawyer will be calling. or the police.. whichever we need.. So I am calling now to say bye, bye to these scam artists.. Thank you.

TORONTO -- I have been a Comwave customer for 9 years now. Recently, the last two years I have ran into problems... All calls require a supervisor as regular customer service agents completely useless!!! And even though their system is obviously designed this way... Amazingly Supervisors are often not available. The day they tell you your billing total for the month it starts a 72 hour death cycle to oblivion.

With me they like to automatedly tell me my amount in a Friday night (when I'm not in the office) then by Monday morning when I'm back in the office it is already cut off. No 5 business day or even 3 business day to pay common courtesy here. And you can't just prepay them because the amount changes every bill. If you prepay them they have a tendency to cut your service intermittently and for the days you don't notice they don't credit you!!! So I am constantly having to deal with being cut off... And even though cutoff happens immediately... You guessed it. Reinstatement is not automatic or automated or relative to you paying in any way!!!

I just went through this. Paid via internet banking on the Monday and never got reinstated the whole month and now they want me to pay again!!! So it's your obligation to pay... They have NO OBLIGATIONS to provide any service in their mind. I have had 3 conversations with supervisors over this already and now I just saw they tried to process a payment on November 7th for a full month. My billing date is the 21st typically. So now I get the mind numbing joy of phoning them again. Beware!!! All they want to do is run your cards every month like a gym membership and don't care.

TORONTO -- The worst customer service ever. My service has been down for two weeks now and no one at Comwave knows or cares to fix the problems with their service. Customer service reps and supervisors will lie, mislead and only tell you only what you want to hear without any follow up. If you do call them expect ridiculously long wait times and unhelpful staff. Don't believe them when they tell you that the internet service is unlimited also. There is a limit to all internet services as I receive emails when I hit 75% of my account limit. Falls advertising for sure. The cheaper price isn't worth it. STAY AWAY.