Comments on: PC World Rates Vonage Top VoIP… Seriously

By: maydayes19682008888

maydayes19682008888 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 17:29:26 +0000

I’ve too have experience horrible service with Vonage. I have one line to an internet provider, and another from the Vonage box.I had to hook up the telephone on the Vonage box, so I can use it for the house.Also, your other telephone is hook up in the wall jack for internet: you don’t use that phone at all. Your internet service have to know who is your phone provider. If my childrend was online, my Vonage phone starts to act up BAD. You can hear statics, people talking fast like you’re pressing a fast forward tape,. It was horrible!!! They technical help somewhat ok. You can tell they all form out of state, and they try to keep you as long as they can to resolved the problem. But they only thing I like is, they price is cheap. And if you cancelled before your contract expired, you have to pay the a fee. So good luck try at your own risk!!!

By: JJ

JJ — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 00:53:45 +0000

I’ve had vonage for six months now. They have messed up my billing numerous times, lost of overcharges. I had a V-Tech vonage phone that the base module went bad. They said they were going to replace it free of charge. Then they told me they had to add an additional line to ship it out to me, but I would not be charged. Guess again! I got charged. When I called back and they tried to adjust the amount I was being charged they did not recredit me for the misc charges like tax, 911 and regulatory charges they charged me for too, and only credited back the 9.95 missing the other 7.00 in misc charges that came with that charge. I will say aside from the very annoying automated system you have to deal with EVERY time you call in, and the occassional person who has no clue what is going on, most of the customer service reps at vonage where by far some of the best I have had to deal with. That aside the phone service itself I would rate around 75% satisfaction, billing accuracy I would rate 0% satisfaction, coordination inside the company I would rate at 33% satisfaction, billing amount 80% satisfaction, and technical features I rate 85% [When they actually work. If they worked all the time I would rate them 100%.] My biggest problem with vonage has been the fact that I had my credit card stolen. I called vonage as soon as possible to let them know my bank was re-issuing me a credit card as soon as possible, but that I would not be able to make a payment for a week after my bill was due. They kept my phone on but shut me out of my voice mail! And worse they never told me this was going to happen or I would have just turned my answering machine on! Overall I would not recommend vonage to anyone unless it was not a primary line, and they bought it for their children to talk on endlessly for the $30 a month that you spend on it. Which is far cheaper than a cell phone bill. But be aware there are many problems you will face. The road with vonage is a long one, but a cheap one. I guess remember the old adage, you only get what you pay for. Well I am now determined to see if I can find better VOIP service than vonage. Maybe one that actually does what it says. Next stop skype.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 21:05:12 +0000

I have just dealt with Vonage. They are absolutely the worst of the VoiP that I can imagine. There service for international calling was very very poor. We were charged for many many calls that never rang or ever were connected. About half of our bill each month was for these calls. After making several calls to tech support the service still continued to be unusable. When I tried to cancel the service the rep tried to force me to continue service despite several very clear statements that I wanted to cancel. He clearly lied to me several time and then tried to make me pay many fees that I did not owe. There was even some credit on my billing that was made prior to canceling for non-connected calls that suddenly disappeared. After several long phone calls and the return of their equipment, they agreed to give me a full refund. After waiting for their stated grace period only a quarter of the agreed amount shows up in my account. After another long (One Hour) phone call I have again been promised, after another 7 day grace period, that I will be credited with a full refund. From past experience there is little hope that this will actually happen. My recommendation: If there is someone who has really wronged you, send them to Vonage...they deserve each other.

By: Wayne

Wayne — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 04:03:10 +0000

Vonage unfairly misrepresents their penalties for cancellation.

I am unsatisfied with the quality of vonage service (line quality, frequent service interuptions) which I attributed to my ISP. I thought that cancellation would be easy since the service is advertised as "no contract" and the equiptment is advertised as "free". When I called to cancel I was told that if I cancel now I will be given a $40 dollar charge for cancellation and $80 charge for "rebate recovery" for equiptment that I was never informed about. Furthermore Vonage makes cancellation difficult by limiting hours when cancellations are accepted, routing calls for cancellation to longer hold time and delaying numbers from being ported to other carriers. This contributed to my inability to cancel sooner (within the refund period).

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 19:53:28 +0000

I signed up with Vonage to save money on home office calls. It was for a new number, so I didn’t have all the hassle of waiting for the switch, but I ordered a phone from them that didn’t come and didn’t come and eventually I had to call back to get another one sent. Finally, I get another one, and despite my high-speed DSL connection, the phone quality was terrible. My boss could not hear me properly and my calls kept getting dropped. So my boss told me to disconnect the service and since they were paying for it, I tried. Vonage Customer Abuse line told me that I could not disconnect without being charged a $50 rebate recovery fee before 6 months of service. I said that was ridiculous and that their service was the problem. They offered me 2 months free service to make it up to me, which would take me to 6 months. I figured, fine, I can remember to call back in 2 months. No mention of the disconnect charge at this point, and I even confirmed with the rep that there would be NO FEE to disconnect. She agreed.

So, I call back 2 months later and after waiting over 20 minutes on hold, I tell them I want to disconnect, they try to give me more free months, discounted services…bla, bla, bla. I tell them nicely “no thank you, please just disconnect me.” Then the Customer Abuse Rep tells me that I have to pay a fee to disconnect. I said “what?” I was told that there would be no fee. She argues and argues with me saying that there was this other fee, but then there is this now additional fee, I tell her that the previous rep told me there would be no fee. After 10 minutes round and round, she offers to waive the fee if I sign up my friends… WHAT??? After all the hassle that this has caused, I wouldn’t sign anyone up for this abuse. Geez. I tell them I would rather pay the fee nad not subject my friends to this type of treatment. I hang up and about 15 seconds later get an email saying my service has been disconnected and my credit card has been charged $44.79… I paid almost $45 for a 10 second disconnection and a lot of hassle and abuse.

Here’s the moral - STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE - they are ridiculous to deal with and lie, cheat and steal to get customers. By the way, I told them that I would be warning everyone about their tactics online - please post on as many places as you can find too, maybe together we can stop their bad business practices

By: bob

bob — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 22:47:33 +0000

VONAGE is an unscrupulous company and I refuse to do business Vonage. Vonage refuses to cancel my account after approximately two weeks of repeatedly trying to cancel my Vonage account by telephone and email. To end the phone conversation Vonage has repeatedly said Vonage computers are down and to call back.

I filed a complaint against Vonage with the Better Business Bureau (complaint number: 5576109) 3 Oct 07.

I filed a complaint against Vonage with the Federal Communications Commission (complaint number: FORM475: 07-W13431095) 4 Oct 07.

I filed a complaint against Vonage with Florida Congressman Jeff Miller 4 Oct 07..

I filed a complaint against Vonage with Florida Senator Bill Nelson 4 Oct 07..

I filed a complaint against Vonage with Florida Senator Mel Martinez 4 Oct 07..

I am pursuing legal action against Vonage.

For further evidence of Vonage’s behavior and what kind of reputation Vonage has developed go to http://www.wehatevonage.com/, http://www.consumercompare.org/review.php?provider=vonage, and/or search the Internet for “I HATE VONAGE”.

By: no more vonage

no more vonage — Sun, 20 May 2007 02:37:34 +0000

Vonage is the worst service I have ever used. If you call for help you wait 30-60 minutes and talk to someone in India that does not understand you and cares less about your problem. You get "escalated" to level after level of manager, waiting another 30 mintues with no resolution. All vonage wants is to lock you into the service and then give no service. DO NOT GET VONAGE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES.

By: no vonage

no vonage — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 04:15:00 +0000

All the complaints people made about Vonage are true. Those who do not have problems are lucky. I hope vonage goes bankrupt and is sued into oblivian.

By: We hate vonage

We hate vonage — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 03:01:05 +0000

Vonage lost thier patent suit. They will try and squim thier way out paying for that, too.

By: Ian Swanson

Ian Swanson — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 06:02:02 +0000

I had plenty of issues with support... I was actually hung up on over 5 times in one day. Not hard to see that I'm not a fan of the service.

By: Do not use Vonage

Do not use Vonage — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 05:55:47 +0000

I disagree with much of what you said. I have had vonage for about a year and will get rid of it after the penality phase ends after one year. That is provided that I can actually get them to cancel the account and they do not keep charging me even after I have disconnected.

The price is very expensive when your home business calls do not connect and you lose customers.
Call quality has been poor. Calls get dropped. Static and echos on the line. Voice mail does not work. People can hear me but I cannot hear them....Problems many times a week. And oh please, do not blame it on my VoIP provider, which is fine.
Vonage took 3 months to port my number. I had them port my fax number because it was widely known by my customers. It took Vonage so long that AT&T closed my account and Vonage said the number could not be ported because it was not an active account. I had to reopen the account with all new Account fees with ATT just so Vonage could port it. Then half my clients could not fax me. Vonage IS the problem, not all of our fax machines. All of these machines cannot all fail and then work with other VoIP's carriers on the same day.
Vonage has NO tech support. You wait on the line for 30-60 minutes, the guy in India that cannot speak english, cannot or will not help you. You wait another 30 minutes for a supervisor and then they hang up on you. You e-mail Vonage and the e-mail bounces because their system is overloaded.
Vonage now sells your name and e-mail to spmamers when they said that they would not do this when you signed up.

I still cannot figure out why I was such a fool to go with Vongae. Now I crusade against the company. I HATE VONAGE. People do stupid things.. they sign up for Vonage.

By: we HATE vonage

we HATE vonage — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 05:54:43 +0000

It's March 2007 and Vonage is worst than when I got it in March 2006. I am going to bail as the one year penality phase is up. Looks like I am gong to have to cancel my credit card to do it because many posts say that Vonage won't acknowledge that you cancelled and they keep charging your credit card long after the service is disconnected.

By: humoryou

humoryou — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 18:40:52 +0000

My service works great, but god help you if you ever have to call Vonage about anything. Assuming the support person speaks English, my wait times are long, disconnects not infrequent and the support unhelpful. If you can get support using their website do so, if not, don't call at night and be prepared to spend a long time not getting your issue resolved.

By: skibare

skibare — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 12:44:09 +0000

Finally, somebody IDENTIFIES the main reason most folks are happy with any voip service is the friggin INTERNET connection they have…alot of folks blame Vonage or Packet8 or SunRocket on their call quality but its REALLY their Internet Provider…I use Comcast for Internet and Packet8 and my service has been almost PERFECT…well worth the $21 per month with Flat Rate Unlimited Long Distance…
if your Internet GOES OFF, your phone dont work…sort of like cell service , your talking away and all of a sudden a dropped call…what do you do???? throw your Cell out the window of your car????? no, you call the person back…at zero costs! I love my Packet8 and its been almost PERFECT for the past 8 months ======Flawless!
skibare

By: earle

earle — Mon, 05 Jun 2006 06:40:19 +0000

I have used Vonage via Comcast for 18 months,
and am very pleased with the service. It just works.

Excellent voice quality. No outages. Porting my phone
number was frustrating and took 2 months. I would have
given up, but Vonage gave me free service till the number
was ported, and I have had no regrets since.

By: Brady Joslin

Brady Joslin — Sun, 04 Jun 2006 04:00:19 +0000

I've used Vonage for over 3 years and have been extremely satisfied. I average 1000-1500 minutes per month. I have no problems making calls and the sound quality is completely satisfactory. I would recommend the service to anyone with a decent connection to the Internet.