Vonage Consumer Reviews - Page 5

HOUSTON, TEXAS -- This is the most horrible experience I've had in some time!!! A friend referred me to Vonage. After touring their website, I decided to try the service. I proceeded to sign onto new service via the "refer a friend" on line. I came to a point where I needed some questions answered so I called the number posted on their site.

I spoke with someone named ** who answered all my questions. I initiated the call telling her I was referred by a friend and was proceeding to sign up online. She asked for my email address and was able to find my referring friend through her system. She told me that she could take care of the referral and things could be processed through her. She indicated that we'd both get the "one month free" and "$50 American Express Gift Card".

After my service was set up with **, I went into my "account" online and set my "network availability number" to ring my cell number should the service be unavailable. After that, I received MANY various calls from people dialing a completely different number that was in no way associated to me.

After realizing that the problem must be with VONAGE, I called to speak with a "technician" who had me on the phone for no less than 30 minutes. After all this time, having repeat steps over and over again, he could not figure out what the problem was. I then asked to speak to a supervisor. I was told that all the supervisors were in "a very important meeting" and that other managers were "not available". It was at this point that I just asked him to cancel my service.

He told me he could not and that I needed to speak to someone in account services. He then transferred me to "account services". I then received a message that wait time was "15 minutes". After about 5 minutes, I hung up and tried calling again. I then spoke with an "account manager" named **. He apologized for such a horrible experience thus far with Vonage and figured out what the problem was. Apparently, the "virtual number" that was assigned to my account until my equipment was delivered and service was hooked up, belonged to someone who had an ad in a newspaper for "escort services".

I asked why they would assign an active number to anyone and ** told me that "that must be an old ad as that was not an active number". Well, once ** diagnosed the problem, he agreed to change my "virtual number". He added another "line" at "no charge to me". Problem solved, right? I thought so... I then asked ** to confirm the "refer a friend" gift items that ** indicated would be delivered to me and my referring friend, i.e. one month free service as well as a $50 American Express Gift card.

He checked my account and told me there was no indication of these gifts as the only way to receive them was to apply for new service via the Vonage, "refer a friend" web service. I explained to him my experience with ** and that she assured me that although she was taking my order via the phone, the "refer a friend" gifts would still apply. ** made an error by telling me that but that he would check on it and see what he could do to make it right. ** told me he'd call me back in a couple of days, no later than "Thursday, July 23", 2007.

I waited until Friday, July 24th, 2007 for a call and never heard from **. To this day, I've never heard from **. Friday, July 23, 2007, I called their customer service line and ask for ** in New Jersey. The man I spoke with did not know ** as he was "in India", however transferred me to the New Jersey office after I told him ** was in New Jersey. Someone in the New Jersey office finally picked up the line. I asked to speak to **.

After a wait of about 5 minutes, another person picked up the line. It wasn't **. Her name was **. I told her that I was waiting to speak with **. She told me there "was no way to find a specific person" as they "did not have extensions for all representatives". Being very frustrated at this point, I proceeded to tell her the lengthy story of my experience thus far.

Talking to ** was like talking to a robot. First of all, the connection was very bad, like a bad cell signal, so I had to strain to HEAR what she was saying. Furthermore, she had a heavy accent which made understanding an even bigger chore. On top of that, it was a connection that required only one conversation at a time so if she was talking I had to wait until she finished to say anything and vice versa.

Needless to say I was very stressed at this point. After explaining everything to **, she offered to investigate the "refer a friend" gifts however that would take a couple of days and she'd have to call me back. I told her I did not believe that as I was told the same thing by **. She offered me several discounts and incentives to stay with Vonage, i.e. 6 months at a discounted rate, dollar amount credit to my account. I can't remember the dollar amount credit she initially offered me, it was something like $120.

I told her that I was signed into my account and if she would add the credit to my account, and I could immediately see it, I'd consider staying on. She asked me to hold on "2 minutes" (which is what they all asked you to do, "hold 2 minutes"). She came back and told me she could only give me a credit of $60, not the $120 amount she'd just told me she would give me.

At this point, things were getting comical to me. It was then that I told her I did not want to discuss any further credits or gifts to my account but without any further discussion I wanted to cancel. End of story! She got that and proceeded to cancel. She indicated to me that once they received the equipment back in the same manner it was shipped to me, they'd refund all fees incurred with them.

The last phase of the story was discussion about shipping the equipment back once I received it (which I hadn't at the time of this conversation). I told her I would ship the package back as soon as it was delivered to me, as a matter of fact, I told her I would just refuse delivery and have it sent back to "sender". She indicated to me that I needed to accept delivery as I needed to include a "RA#" that she would provide via email, and if I didn't include that upon shipping back, I would not receive my refund.

I then told her that I did not want to incur any fee for shipping. She told me that I would have to as they would not pay or refund me for shipping. After fuming about that, as I was already $42.94 sign on fee, & $41.41 cancellation fee, invested into this company, it angered me to think I had to spend another red cent on anything to do with Vonage. I eventually concurred that I'd pay the shipping and wash my hands of Vonage once and for all!

Well, the shipment arrived July 31, 2007. I had to pay $6 for postage to have it shipped. Gas to a shipping drop off box and $1 parking fee. I put it in the mail August 1, 2007. I'm now tracking delivery and awaiting my refund. So far, I've invested about 5 hours of my time, $7 out of pocket and much stress and frustration that affected about a week of my life.

Since my experience with Vonage, I've investigated the web reviews and was surprised to find NUMEROUS complaints with similar experiences. What a fool I was to look AFTER the fact. Not much like me to do that. I trusted a referral from a friend who was happy with Vonage and didn't think any further. Mistake! Not only have I check reviews, but checked the BBB in their area of New Jersey and found 5193 complaints. **. Needless to say, STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY! Like one review I read, it'll result in lots of stress and "tears"!

LAPLACE, LOUISIANA -- When my husband and I first spoke to the people at Vonage about the phone service, I must admit that the people trained to "reel in" new customers are very nice and friendly. We were offered "2 months free" to try out their service as well as a "30 day trial period'. We were also promised we could "cancel anytime in this 30-day period" and it would cost us nothing. Well, after many months of contemplating if it would work to our favor, and calling the people there at Vonage to make sure we wrote down everything they told us correctly and questioning them on all they had offered us, we figured we would give it a try.

(This was actually about a year later, when we finally decided to get Vonage). What did we have to lose anyway right? It was a "Money Back Guarantee". It seemed like a sweet deal, or so we thought... My husband and I went to Wal-mart and purchased the router that we needed for our Vonage phone service (which was $49.96 + tax). We brought it home, hooked it up, and called Vonage tech support from our cellphone. Again we were promised our "2 months free" and told once again that if we had any problems with the phone service, we could cancel any time with at no charge to us. The connection fee was $30.99 + tax.

At first we thought it was pretty cool that we could call anywhere in the U.S. for free as long as we wanted. What happened when we used the phone was that we could hear the other party fine, but they always said we were "choppy" or "couldn't understand us". It was very aggravating, to say the least. It was like using a bad cellphone service in a bad area - all the time - with everyone we called. After a few weeks of terrible service, we had enough. My husband called to cancel our service, and the people who had once been so friendly must have been in a different department because the ones we spoke to were extremely rude.

As soon as it was known that we wanted to get rid of Vonage, they hung up on us. This happened 3 times. On the 4th time we asked to speak to a supervisor... on hold... then we were informed that we were required to pay a cancellation fee! Something we were promised we wouldn't have to pay if it was cancelled within the 30 day period. This cancellation fee was taken out of our checking account without our permission given to Vonage -WHILE MY HUSBAND WAS ON THE PHONE WITH THEM! Another $39.99 + tax. (Right now our bank is disputing this.)

So... in 2 weeks of our service with Vonage, they got over $130.00 of our money. That's just 2 weeks of service!! Now to get our old phone hooked back up, it is going to cost us another $39.95, and we have to wait for availability. So Vonage claims "Best Buy". Not for us. They also claim "Top Notch Audio". Wrong again. "Great Support"? Well, if you consider hanging up on your customers great support.

Then there is the "Award Winning Quality". Well the quality all the way around is terrible. So they got it wrong any way you look at it. So if you are interested in or thinking about switching you current phone to Vonage, DON'T DO IT! Feel free to reply to this review.

What a terrible experience! I bought into the ads that touted how easy it is to use the V-phone. "MAKE CALLS ANYWHERE!" is the tagline, but it's not so. If you should attempt to use your V-phone on a network that has a firewall (and we know almost nobody uses firewalls), you're going to have to find a network administrator to help you figure out a work-around. But, according to the legions of personnel that are hired to convince you not to cancel your service, it is a really great device if you want to use it in hotels and any UNSECURE networks you might happen to find - so it's such a great service, right?

The first phone I received wouldn't work at all, and after interpreting a succession of Filipina tech support girls till 1:30 in the morning, I got tired of rebooting my computer and decided to cancel. I didn't need another networking device to try to figure out. But you can only cancel during the day. So I dutifully made the call the next day, and allowed myself to be convinced to try another phone. The representative told me I would receive a phone without charge, and with a return label to used to ship the old phone back.

When I got the new phone, I noticed that the package was factory sealed, unlike the inoperable first phone I received. I did not receive the return shipping label. But I plugged the V-phone into my laptop on my home wireless network, and it worked right away. I went to sleep satisfied, still trying to catch up on the lost sleep from last week's "Vonage Adventure".

I was excited to take my phone to work with my laptop, and had lots of calls to make. But it wouldn't work. I did round up my network administrator (you know they have nothing to do, which makes them instantly available -NOT!), and he informed me that there was no firewall that would prevent the operation of the phone, and he could find no reason that it would not work - from our company network at least.

Back to cancellation - but on my first call the girl cut me off after I told her that I didn't want tech support, I just wanted to cancel. Apparently the "savers" are tracked by percentage of "saves", and she didn't want to risk her average. When I called back and talked with the next guy, he chuckled at my analysis of the reason I was cut off, and told me that he would have to turn me over to another rep to disconnect the service. Then he cut me off.

The NEXT time I called, I started right out by telling the guy that if HE cut me off, my next call would be to the Federal Communications Commission. He proceeded to listen to my problem, and seemed to understand, and politely asked if I would be willing to speak with a high-level tech support person. I told him that I would, since he didn't hang up on me. I told him that I really wanted and needed the service, but that I didn't need one more device that was a hassle to use.

The new tech support guy tried to give me a workaround to allow me to connect through a funky network, and that when the V-phone had found its way out, it would always be able to do it. Well, it worked then, and I thanked him. A few minutes later, it was down again, and the workaround would not repeat its magic performance. At least it was a "save" for him and the other guy (again, fair enough, because they didn't just hang up on me).

The NEXT call to Cancellation (it's the fastest way to get to Tech Support) got me through to yet another "high-level" technician, who advised me that the "magic bullet" workaround was only temporary until the network detected it and blocked it. So I was back at the basic issue of impracticality, since I would be traveling and using it primarily in corporate networks. He told me it would be great for unsecured networks, like at the hotel, or bars, but who's working on their computer most of the time in those places? Anyway, I asked to be transferred to SOMEONE who would finally DISCONNECT me once and for all.

I guess they found some unsuspecting chump to take a "dead" save attempt. The Cancellation Rep was about what you'd expect once you get to that point, all full of rules and requirements, and happy to inform me that I would receive a refund of all the money I'd been charged, including the charge for the second phone and service that I didn't even know they'd billed.

Despite my questions, I just received his apologies and a list of requirements that had to be met before I could ship the phones back at my own expense. But with one last ditch attempt at trying to turn me into a "save", he recommended the $89.95 Wi-Fi phone that would be "much more successful at connecting". But I told him I looked at that phone first, and abandoned the idea because even THEIR promotional material made a point of mentioning the difficulty of connecting with that device. What a load of crap!

At the moment, I don't know whether I'll actually receive my money back, because they also said that I could "MAKE CALLS ANYWHERE", and that wasn't true, either. But ONE DAY, I'll be able to forget about VONAGE, and all the time I wasted at home and at work trying to make their devices work for me. The refund, should it come, does not even begin to recompense the investment I personally made in their technology. As the website suggests, I will "Refer-A-Friend" - AWAY!!

This is a long tale of young love gone wrong... When I first signed up with Vonage, I was wooed. Phone service for so little money? And I could forward my calls to any number by simply logging on to a website from ANY computer? My voice mails could likewise be retrieved from anywhere with internet access? I was in love with Vonage. I sent emails to everyone I knew, or slightly knew, asking them to join us in a commune of love, sure that they would sign on and thank me for tuning them in. Today I sent out emails apologizing to them all.

For my lover, Vonage, was not a true love. It was an infatuation. After those first few months, his device lights blinked oddly and I wasn't able to get a dial tone. I did what I had done before, reset my cable modem, router and Vonage device, but the old tricks didn't work. So I turned to "Customer Care." Note that it is not called Customer SERVICE. At least they are not entirely misleading. Customer CARE implies more of an overall "involvement" with the customer. Initially I only wrote emails, asking for help that way. I was sent various things to try, and after 8 emails, the reps were repeating themselves and back to step one. That's when I made:

THE PHONE CALL TO CUSTOMER CARE. And that's when the relationship really began to unravel. The first man I spoke to took a minute, maybe two, to review the lengthy emails that had gone between us, and ignored my pleas to let me just send this unit back and get another. He insisted that he could do nothing but try, he himself, to help, as that was his job and he would be remiss if he didn't help. I asked him if he had really read the emails, and he claimed that yes he had, to which I replied, "Do you really think you'll think of something NOT listed in there?"

So he said "well, your case HAS already been assigned to Advanced Technical Support, so I guess I can transfer your call there." Duh. Though I really just wanted to cancel at this point, he would hear nothing of it, and transferred me to Advanced...

ADVANCED!!! Technical Support! My name is ** I have no idea. It was the last thing I understood. This was the higher level help department, mind you, but the English was unintelligible! After asking him to repeat things many times, he told me that I myself could go to a Radio Shack and BUY a new device, a wrdp54g (never found out what that is) than call back to activate it and get a $40 credit. Further he gave me a "code" of 10 letters and numbers that I have absolutely no idea what it pertained to. I asked several times but I don't speak Indian so couldn't tell you. It was only after hanging up and looking at Radio Shack's website that I learned they don't carry Vonage devices.

So then I called Vonage back. This time I got new sales. The girl there was going to transfer me again to Customer Care, and I almost cried. No, please, you can't do that. I had been talking to them for over two hours. Somehow she convinced me the answer was a SECOND PHONE LINE. Why cancel? It worked great! Yeah...all I need is a NEW relationship, a jolt, a THREE WAY! Bring in some new blood! And if I canceled in 30 days I didn't lose a cent. (Made sure I got that on the recorded part of the phone conversation.) I couldn't wait for the newbie to arrive!

Finally on Monday the orange box showed up, and I secreted myself in the bedroom to set it up. But the new device did exactly what the old one did. Same bad blinking light sequence! What's the deal? I've been without a working telephone for 2 weeks! In my mailbox, salvation--my old phone company sent me a letter scented with my old phone number and an offer of reduced rates if I would come back to them. Ah, the arms of sweet stability over the tumult of this VoiP! I called Verizon, and they flipped a switch that had my phone ringing within 24 hours. And people I called said "wow! You sound so clear! Did you get a new phone?"

So back to trying to cancel Vonage. Today would be the day. Customer Care? I'm calling to cancel? Well, **, I'm an account manager, and I'm not letting you cancel, I'm extending your options. If you cancel today you owe us your $39.99 termination fee, plus a $49.00 rebate recovery...? "What's that, **? Where is that in the contract?" I spend 45 minutes with ** who threatens to hang up on me if I swear at him. Finally, realizing this nut will never let me cancel, despite my answer to every sentence being "I just want to cancel" being "let us help you fix your device" I say "OK, transfer me to someone who speaks English" as ** has promised.

Now I get Advanced Customer Care AGAIN but as ** has promised, it's an English speaking man named **. I am honest with ** that I am only speaking with him because ** would not let me cancel. I want to cancel. Can ** help me cancel? ** says he will try to help me find someone, but sounds unsure if that is possible. He transfers me to **...

** starts off pleasant enough, says he understands I want to cancel that new account. He does try, briefly, to convince me to stay with it, but when he hears my aggravation, allows me to cancel the new number. He asks if I need anything else and I say "yes, help canceling my original account." To which ** nastily asks "what number is that?" and I say "I also need an RTA number to return the device on the account your just canceled and ** says "I have to generate that, I'm putting you on hold".

The hold music comes on and THAT'S IT. The hold music plays for over an hour... And the next day I call my credit card company, Chase, and their dispute agent assures me he will handle everything. I am so DEVOTED to my Amazon VISA...

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA -- I decided to join Vonage. I went to their website about 1 month ago. I couldn't decide which Vonage box would be best for my broadband setup so I called them. The guy was very nice. I told him I wanted the wireless box but that it didn't seem to come with a router and I would need one. He said, "€œNo problem. We'll send you one with the box."€ I said great. He also said that they would cancel my account with the phone company and that I should NOT call them. He stressed that. I got the box about a week later and couldn't hook it up because there was NO ROUTER. I called back and told them that I still needed a router.

They played dumb and said, "But mam, that box doesn't come with a router." So I talked them through the original conversation about how the guy said he'd send a router with the box. They repeated, "But it doesn't come with a router." And they kept repeating it. I spoke to 7 different people that day. NONE of them would agree to just send a different box. NONE of them could get past repeating the fact that the box THEIR GUY had sent to me didn't come with a router. This went on for about 3 days. Finally I got one of them to agree to send out a different box to me, but then he said he was going to charge me for it.

BECAUSE THEY'D ALREADY SENT ONE OUT!!! I couldn't believe it. Yeah, they wanted to charge me 50 dollars for the new box. AND they refused to comp me for the time it was going to take to fix the situation. It was like they were treating this as my mistake that I made when I signed up. But it wasn't. I wasn't even the one who'd chosen the final box choice. THEY WERE! I said, "€œScrew this. I'm canceling my account." And I decided to just go back to my original phone service provider.

When I called them, they said that they had NEVER heard from Vonage and that my account HADN'T been cancelled and that it was a good thing I'd called, because if I hadn't, they would have charged me for another month! I was happy they hadn't cancelled my account until I found out that since Vonage was involved, to take me back they'd have to sign me up for new service. AND since it was new service, they would NOT be able to take me back at all, because they are no longer accepting clients in California. I'd been gone like 5 minutes and they wouldn't take me back. Great. By this time, my phone service was not working at all.

After our conversation, the previous provider transferred me to Vonage, so without using their box, I had no phone. I couldn't even call Vonage to handle the problem. So, feeling very defeated, I unplugged my internet and hooked up the Vonage box so I could call Vonage again. This time after telling my story for the EIGHTH, NINE and oh yes, TENTH TIME, the people informed me that I'd have to call back because they couldn't understand me with all the static!!! I called a few more times USING THE VONAGE BOX and NONE of them could understand me. I couldn't believe it.

Finally I hooked my internet back up to the computer and just put the Vonage crap back in the box since it wasn't working anyway. So, now I had no phone at all. I called them back from another phone to just cancel the damn account. The girl asks me, "€œWell mam, how would you feel about us sending out another device for free?" I really didn't want to go back to SBC because I remembered them being expensive, and the phone service I had been using wasn't doing business in CA anymore. So I said, "OK, I'd take the new box." I waited another week. The second box showed up and guess what. SAME DEVICE!

Yes. They'd sent the same device that was already sitting on my damn floor, still in its box. So now I had two boxes and still no phone. By now I'd been without phone service for TWO WEEKS. I caved and called SBC, who I then found out had joined with AT&T. They signed me up no problem, but said it would be about another week before they could transfer service. That it would be slow to process because it was VONAGE!

I called Vonage back, told them what I was doing and not to cancel my service (because I was trying to keep the phone number I'd had for years), but to notate my account so I wouldn't have to re-tell the story again when I called to get my money back. I waited a week. No phone. (We're up to 3 weeks now.) Finally I called AT&T to ask when they'd be hooking it up. They said they had a tentative transfer date of about the 16th. That was another week away! So I asked what they could do if I just said screw keeping the old number, and let them give me a new one.

They said it would be faster, but that I'd have to stay home from work to let the phone guy in because he'd need to do some rewiring (since VONAGE was involved) and then he'd need to test my phone. Great. So, I don't have a phone for 3 weeks AND I get to lose a day of pay. Well, AT&T finally just hooked up my phone. I called Vonage to cancel the account and not only do they not want to give my money back, they want to charge a cancellation fee! Granted, it's a "€œtemporary fee" that they promise to refund to me upon "€œreceipt and inspection" of the two Vonage devices. But still!

I CAN'T BELIEVE THEY WOULD PUT A CHARGE THROUGH ON MY ACCOUNT FOR A SERVICE I HAVE NEVER EVEN BEEN ABLE TO USE! And when I told them that, they said it was really my problem since I agreed to the terms of service when I signed up! I told them, "€œHEY! You guys AGREED to provide me with a phone service, and I haven't had a phone since I signed up with you! What about that???" And guess what. They offered to send out another box. I couldn't believe it. I have never cussed someone out so badly in my life. So, here's the thing. I'm going to send these two boxes back to them tomorrow.

I'm sending them DHL so I can have proof that they receive them. But I have no guarantee that they are going to give my money back because they've already said that they'll decide whether they are going to do that or not after they inspect the returned devices. There is nothing wrong with the devices, they've been out of the boxes for about 5 minutes each. But with all the other problems and the ENDLESS uncaring rudeness and incompetence and disregard, I got to tell you, I'm having serious doubts that they're actually going to willingly refund my money. Also, I went online after all this started and found 28 pages of complaints about Vonage.

All of them reflecting my own experience. And all of them ending by saying that not only did they NOT get their money back, but that they were still being charged monthly fees even AFTER canceling their accounts. Unbelievable. I'm afraid I'm being set up to have the same problems. I'm afraid they aren't going to refund me at all. And I'm not talking about just the cancellation fee. I'm talking about the money that was paid for the service to begin with. Plus the money that I'm now pretty sure they charged me for that box. Supposedly, I still fall under their money back guarantee, but this isn't looking good.

Here's the best part. I told them I filed a complaint with the FCC against them. --Which I did!-- They didn't care. I don't even think they typed it in. Their customer service sucks but not because of the people they employ but because of their policies! This is just a bad company. I regret the day I ever even considered joining them. God only knows how much this is going to end up costing me in the end.

HOLMDEL, NEW JERSEY -- Please read to the bottom, it will help if your having customer service/credit trouble. I recently tried to port my number out of Vonage to Verizon Wireless. When the service was not disconnected the day the port went through I called Vonage a few days later to find out why. Below is the series of events:

February 5th. Number officially (according to Verizon) ported to Verizon Wireless. (Number removed) Now rings. Cell phone not Vonage line. No indication from Vonage that the line was disconnected. February 9th. Call place to Vonage to find out why service was still active.

Informed by representative claiming she was a supervisor that the account was set to close on the 17th (end billing date). Requested credit for days from 5th to 17th and was denied. Was also informed that I would be billed for the termination fee of 39.99. Got into heated discussion with rep over this charge. Informed her that I was not to be billed per the terms I was promised when signing up. She told me that the only way that wouldn't happen was to leave the account open and billing. I informed her that this was not an option and at no time gave her the authority to change the status from closing to active.

February 17th. Billing email from Vonage arrives stating: Account Number: removed. Date Processed: 02/17/2007. Amount: $28.43. Attempt to call Vonage, but Cancellation Customer Service non-existent on the weekend.

February 19th. Call Vonage again. This time I get passed around, but start with the cancellation group with another person claiming to be a supervisor. Inform this person that I want the month credited that should not have been billed on the 17th and the account closed so that this will not happen again. She tells me she can close the account, but not issue a refund. I have to speak to Advanced Customer Service to get that taken care of. So, transferred I am, this time to a guy. He tells me that he is unable to credit the account because it is now closed. (Does anyone see the humor here? It is lost on me at this point).

I lose it and demand to speak to his boss. He tells me that they only respond to credit requests (again I think this is stupid having worked for a major internet service provider and know how good customer service works, but OK fine. I demand a call back from his boss, after much reluctance he tells me that she is on the phone and (Rhonda ** the only identification he would provide) would call me back within the hour. 24 hours go by, no call from Rhonda ** or anyone from Vonage (am I surprised?).

February 20th. Now the service is disconnected, so I resort to calling on my cell phone. I call and get a customer service rep who submits the credit request form. I only accept this as I have learned that real customer service at your company does not exist.

February 21st. The beginning of the "€œwe are going to tell him anything to get him to go away emails". OK, so fine I am giving up on the 39.99 refund, it's what I was promised, but that apparently means jack and squat. What really makes me laugh in this email is the statement that significant usage occurred on the account. Yes, I guess if you consider 42 minutes worth of calls from your service to your Customer Service to find out why this mess exists, you're right. Again however this is not my fault.

21st February: I reply to the email and basically run through the outline above and ask how they can justify the charge as the account should be closed and never have been charged to begin with and am baffled by the "€œsignificant" usage claim. I also wonder how if this is the case how I can be denied credit when no new number had been given to me to use. Either way, in one ear out the other.

27th February: Response (after second attempt to get one). Now I'm informed that after following the terms of service to cancel that I have not followed the terms of service. Now I'm really confused. I'm pretty sure that my call on February 9th at 5:36 pm to the Cancellation group, lasting 14 minutes was to in fact to make sure that the account was terminated on the 17th and that no future charges were to be made. Again, I can't make your people do their jobs or do them correctly. I called the account was to be cancelled and I will again state that at no point did I give the representative the authority to reopen or change the status of the account.

February 27th: Another attempt at laying the blame somewhere other than on your company or system and correcting the problem. Now, miraculously the date that the number was ported has changed from the 5th of February (which I and Verizon Wireless can prove) when my wife's cell phone started getting calls as (number removed) and the Vonage line stopped ringing.

If, and this is a big if, your system did not finish the port in your system until the account was finally closed on the 19th this again is not my fault. The account was supposed to be closed as of the 17th (see above) and the number was most certainly no functioning with my Vonage adapter as of 2-5-07.

March 1st: Above sent in response to yet another idiotic reply from Customer service. Again I ask: How is it in the Vonage universe that a call make on the 9th of February to insure that the account was closed is after the 17th when Vonage incorrectly billed me for another months service.

This brings us to the conclusion. Don't use Vonage. If you do and need help don't call their customer service line, you'll get nowhere. Email the following two people and be sure to include a call back number:
jeffrey.citron@vonage.com (Chairman CEO Vonage). I had a call back and email follow up the next day.

You can also try going directly to the Executive Response Team, which is where my email got handed down to: Executive Response Team. Hours: M - F 9:00 AM to 5:30 PM EST. Vonage 23 Main Street Holmdel, NJ 07733. phone: 888-580-4020 fax: 732-231-6783. While I did not get the $39.99 disconnect fee refunded I did get the final month and a prorated refund from the date the port to Verizon happened. I hope this helps someone else.

RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA -- I have been a Vonage customer since January 2004 so I would consider myself a relatively early adopter. At the time when I signed up, no one I knew had VoIP telephone services at home, and since I work in IT, my circle of friends included a lot of technologically savvy people. Needless to say, I signed up early even for a geek. Since then about 70% of my friends who work in IT and about 40% of my friends who do not work in IT have signed up for Vonage and similar services. My friends and I have had relatively few problems or complaints about these services as a whole.

I've been reading a lot of complaints about Vonage, and I understand some of the frustrations that people have with their billing practices. I do not know of anyone who has had any of these problems personally, so I try not to judge the users who go on forums like this to complain. I can also honestly say that I have had ZERO billing issues since I signed up in January 2004. For every one person who has had problems there are hundreds who have not.

I also see a disproportionate amount of people complaining about the actual service and I think part of the problem is that some of the people who are complaining needed more knowledge of VoIP and high speed internet access before they signed up. I see a lot of DSL users in particular complaining about their Vonage call quality when it is widely known that DSL does not have the capacity for data throughput that other high speed internet services have. I truly doubt that any of these DSL customers tried any internet speed tests to see how much actual data throughput they were getting over their DSL line before they ordered Vonage.

VoIP is data intensive, so if you don't have enough bandwidth of course the call quality will suffer. Furthermore, there are probably tons of people trying to run Vonage over a DSL Lite connection which is really just a stone's throw faster than dial up. Even if you have a faster connection like cable modem services, have you stopped to think that may be other internet data transfers coming and going from computers in the household are taking away available bandwidth? Under the best of circumstances, if you are downloading large files or running a Torrent in the background the call quality of your Vonage calls will be effected!

Check all of the computers to make sure they're not moving large quantities of data before complaining about your Vonage service! Let's stop and be realistic for a second. If you do not have even a rudimentary understanding of a service or technology, why would you sign up to use it? I am not saying that everyone needs to be a MCSE to use Vonage at home, but they should do research and acquaint themselves with how the technology works BEFORE signing up.

It also helps to do some research on the Vonage router or phone system you are planning to purchase before you make the actual purchase because some of them are better than others. It just seems like people set themselves up for failure and blame the companies without stopping to think or to take some responsibility for the problems they experienced.

I do, however, agree with a lot of the complaints about Vonage's customer service and technical support. I am not impressed with them, but I do not have reason to call often. About 50% of my calls to Vonage have been less than satisfactory and I am not going to make excuses for that. I have worked in the IT support arena for almost 10 years so I know what good service and support is. Unfortunately I have not received it on every call.

Do yourself a favor. DO NOT SIGN UP WITH VONAGE!! I wish I had checked things out better before I did. If you have signed up and are having problems or have a reason to contact the leadership at Vonage, here are the main people: Mr Jeffery A. Citron, Founder & Chairman; Mr. Bryan DiGiorgio, Senior VP of Customer Care; VONAGE HOLDING CORPORATION 23 Main Street, Holmdel, NJ 07733. The following is a letter I sent to Mr. Citron, with a copy to Mr. DiGiorgio. I doubt that I will receive a response:

I think it only fair that I contact you and advise you that I have cancelled my residential service with Vonage. I realize that this may not warrant your attention, nor your interest since I am simply one person who has chosen not to subscribe to Vonage any longer. In fact, I suppose it's doubtful that you will ever receive this letter. But I must tell you that in all my 51 years, I have never been more frustrated over a phone service, or lack thereof, as I have been with Vonage.

But, in the case that you do see this, I would like to explain why I have cancelled my service with Vonage; will never consider Vonage in the future; and will tell all my family and friends and those that bring up the topic of your service, to not make the same mistake I made by switching my phone service over to Vonage.

The nightmare started over a week ago when I called and activated your service. While the customer service person I spoke to was very nice and friendly, they did not seem to be knowledgeable enough about your service, or what requirements would be needed to ensure a smooth and effective transition of my phone service. They did ask what type of internet service I had (SBC DSL), but that was about it.

From the first day of order, 8/22/06; until the date of cancellation, 8/31/06 I did not have full service, nor anything remotely close to it for one day. In fact, I could not make calls out for most of the period, nor could I receive calls. In fact, when callers tried to reach me, they were not even given my voicemail. The phone just rang and rang and rang.

Between 8/27 and 8/31, a period of 5 days, I spoke with 7-8 technicians. Some that I was told were Advanced Technicians. Also during this period of time, I easily spent between 5 and 8 hours on the phone with these same technicians, “troubleshooting” the system and the problems. In every case and after many hours with each technician, I was told the service was fixed. But within a ½ hour of each multiple hour call, the service was down again.

I was told each time that there was no real explanation for the problems and it should be a simple fix to get me up and running. While I don't pretend to have the “patience of Job”, I was courteous and cordial each time. And while your technicians were also courteous and cordial, I cannot understand why so many professionals could not get my service straightened out.

Finally on 8/31 I had my fill when the last technician suggested that they send me a new router (which would take 3-4 days) and also told me to call my internet provider and have them change my router (which by the way has never given me problems) and that I would have to wait for all the new hardware before anything could be done for me. At that point having paid for over a week's service and not having it, and as much as it stuck in my throat to have to do so, I cancelled Vonage and went back to AT&T.

And then what really got to me and put me in a position to “campaign” against your company with anyone I talk to about phone services, was the fact that I had to pay a $39 disconnection fee (even though supposedly I will get this back once you receive your hardware back).

Again, Mr. Citron, I can say simply, that I have never been more frustrated as I've been, concerning Vonage. And while you may not see this letter, or respond to it, I am hopeful that someone in your organization that has the power to review this, will do so and make whatever necessary changes are necessary to keep the next “poor soul” from being frustrated out of their mind; when all most of us hope for, is to save a few dollars and live simple lives.

Why can't I sign in to the new Vonage and why oh why do I have to change my password every day from ones that I know. I will look for another VOIP. Thanks for your new lousy service!

Tried Vonage for international calls and could not reach anyone or in 10% times when I could, the quality was horrible. Tried Nonoh and everything worked great! Do not waste money on Vonage.