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VOIP.com Complaint - Unlimited Calling
Complaint
I switched to Internet phone about six months ago. After some research I found only one company that offered a local phone number for me here in Oregon and that was VOIP.com. I signed up for their Residential Unlimited Monthly account that advertises unlimited calling.
I had trouble at the beginning because I had a wireless router and VOIP.com was unwilling or unable to help me set everything up. I contacted Netgear, the manufacturer of my wireless router, and they were able to help me and even helped with the router supplied by VOIP.com. VOIP.com did credit me for one months service after I wrote up what I did to get things working and submitted it to them so they could use it.
Things have been working quite well and other than an occasional dropped call and garble no problems. However a month ago I received an email from VOIP.com stating that it appeared I was using the phone for business and they were going to change my account to a business account that, of course, would cost more money. After communicating with them I determined their evaluation was based only on the amount of usage. It seems my unlimited calling account has a limit.
I will grant you we use the phone a lot. We had a student living with us and she spent a lot of time on the phone with her boyfriend. My wife will spend hours on the phone talking to family and during the month in question we had several medical challenges within the family. Also, we participate in a Bible study conference call every Sunday evening for an hour. The total came to about 2500 minutes during the month in question.
I called VOIP.com and talked to Karen Clinger. I was told that my calling was excessive and that there is some kind of usage limit that triggers a change to a more expensive account. I told her that for VOIP.com to advertise and sell a service as unlimited and then to have some kind of an arbitrary limit was unethical and deceptive.
As a result of my phone call, I am still on the Residential Unlimited Monthly plan but I'm on trial. If my usage exceeds some arbitrary limit, I was never told what that limit was, I would have my account changed to a more expensive account.
I'm writing this to warn others that while I've had no trouble with the service, there is a limit in VOIP.com's Residential Unlimited Calling plan.
I had trouble at the beginning because I had a wireless router and VOIP.com was unwilling or unable to help me set everything up. I contacted Netgear, the manufacturer of my wireless router, and they were able to help me and even helped with the router supplied by VOIP.com. VOIP.com did credit me for one months service after I wrote up what I did to get things working and submitted it to them so they could use it.
Things have been working quite well and other than an occasional dropped call and garble no problems. However a month ago I received an email from VOIP.com stating that it appeared I was using the phone for business and they were going to change my account to a business account that, of course, would cost more money. After communicating with them I determined their evaluation was based only on the amount of usage. It seems my unlimited calling account has a limit.
I will grant you we use the phone a lot. We had a student living with us and she spent a lot of time on the phone with her boyfriend. My wife will spend hours on the phone talking to family and during the month in question we had several medical challenges within the family. Also, we participate in a Bible study conference call every Sunday evening for an hour. The total came to about 2500 minutes during the month in question.
I called VOIP.com and talked to Karen Clinger. I was told that my calling was excessive and that there is some kind of usage limit that triggers a change to a more expensive account. I told her that for VOIP.com to advertise and sell a service as unlimited and then to have some kind of an arbitrary limit was unethical and deceptive.
As a result of my phone call, I am still on the Residential Unlimited Monthly plan but I'm on trial. If my usage exceeds some arbitrary limit, I was never told what that limit was, I would have my account changed to a more expensive account.
I'm writing this to warn others that while I've had no trouble with the service, there is a limit in VOIP.com's Residential Unlimited Calling plan.
Comments:
Posted by tnchuck100 on 2006-12-30:
Read your contract. Look for ways they may get out of it. Watch out for the phrase "... we may change the terms of this contract at our discreation any time for any reason...". Companies are slick with that one. If it really states "no limit" advise them if they change it you will sue for breach of contract.
Posted by UrFriendlyPirate on 2006-12-30:
Try to cut back on your phone usage a bit, and threaten to go to another company.
Posted by Philbert on 2006-12-30:
I'm not objecting to VOIP.com charging me more. They have every right to charge what they want just as I have the right to choose another provider.
What I am objecting to is that they advertise unlimited calling when in fact there is a limit. Why not call it the 1500 minute plan or whatever. People are used to that with their cellular phone, just don't advertise unlimited calling when it is not.
What I am objecting to is that they advertise unlimited calling when in fact there is a limit. Why not call it the 1500 minute plan or whatever. People are used to that with their cellular phone, just don't advertise unlimited calling when it is not.
Posted by UrFriendlyPirate on 2006-12-30:
I hear ya. I have vonage and haven't experienced such problems.
Posted by Lidman on 2006-12-31:
Yeah, you got a good point Philbert it use to be called faults advertising.
Posted by Philbert on 2007-01-01:
Hi JayD,
I'm aware of the service plan. My whole point here is that the plan that VOIP.com advertises as unlimited is in fact limited. VOIP.com has every right to charge whatever they want in any way they want just as I have the right to move on but to advertise as unlimited when it is not is deceptive advertising.
Yes, 2500 minutes is a lot however it works out to be a little less than an hour and a half a day. Not much when you consider you have a teenager in the house that likes to talk to her boyfriend. Then on top of that we had two family members with medical situations.
Please understand also I'm very pleased with the service I've had from these folks. It's just their advertising I have a problem with.
I'm aware of the service plan. My whole point here is that the plan that VOIP.com advertises as unlimited is in fact limited. VOIP.com has every right to charge whatever they want in any way they want just as I have the right to move on but to advertise as unlimited when it is not is deceptive advertising.
Yes, 2500 minutes is a lot however it works out to be a little less than an hour and a half a day. Not much when you consider you have a teenager in the house that likes to talk to her boyfriend. Then on top of that we had two family members with medical situations.
Please understand also I'm very pleased with the service I've had from these folks. It's just their advertising I have a problem with.
Posted by voip.com sucks on 2007-01-08:
I used to be with voip.com and I changed for the same reason they said unlimited but it wasn't they later told me I was being switched because I used more than 1800 mins a month. I wrote them back asking where this 1800 mins a month was listed in there policy because I have a teenage daughter who likes the phone. They just said they reserve the right to change any customers account at any time which I was already aware of because all company's reserve the right to change your account at any time but I really thought unlimited meant unlimted. So I looked up the word and it did not say 1800 min's a month but what do I know. I did later email every company that offered a local number in my area and found that 1800 mins is lower than any company that services my area and I found ecr.com was the best choice for me they responded fast and the monthly usage that my family has is with in there unlimted plan. I did find a couple company's that didn't go by minutes the monitored your calling pattern to determine whether they thought it was a business account or not if they would have had a local number I would have choose them because all my calls are to the same numbers.
Posted by dashey on 2007-11-19:
It is good to here that I am not the only person out there that would like to let people know that Viop.com is not an ethical company and need to be shut down. On their own website they have a forum were members posted there problems. This is a good place to check out; to get your own idea of how the company is being ran. I personally was a customer for a year and had so many problems I was just thankful to move on to another phone company. My problem at first was over not having service for half the time and being charge for a full month service. This continued for four months and finally a customer service person told me that they would credit my account $91.80 and send me out a new router to fix my problem. Well I thought everything was kool, she gave me a tracking number and said I should recieve it in a two days. Well two days came and left and I called customer service for days and weeks trying to reach a manager finally I just wanted to cancle my account and move on, so I told customer service to cancle my account. Customer service told me how to go about cancling my account and said that that was the only way to cancle my account. After viewing the site I called customer service back and told them that I was not going to give them more money to close my account and that it is wrong to charge someone for services that did not work properly. Good thing for me my year contract was up the next day and then it was free to cancle my account. I finally spoke with a Lisa Johnson on 10/25/07 and she told me that my 91.80 would be credit to my card in 3 to 5 days for 4 months of bad services. I have not recieved this refund and now when I call the same number there is no more option to talk to a live customer service. I am telling everyone my experience, because Viop.com is not a company to get mixed up with.
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