Vonage review: terrible customer service 142

I called on January 23th 2009 to open a new account with Vonage. On January 26th I received their device then on January 30th I received a second device. I proceeded to call Vonage to inquire why I received 2 devices. I was informed that I had 2 accounts under my name. I asked if I could cancel both accounts as I did not feel comfortable using a their service as I did not want to be charged twice. When opening the account I was told that I had 30 days to cancel at no charge. After the 30 days I would be charged $39.99 for cancellation.

I never used their service or even hooked up the device they sent me. Also when opening the account I was told I would be charged $10.85, I was charged that and an additional $6.85 for unknown reasons. When I called they transferred me to the cancellation department. This person told me I would be charged 39.99 twice to cancel the accounts. I said no sir, first of all the second account was opened by you in error, and I have 30 days to cancel without being charged and asked if I could speak to a supervisor.

While I was on hold, I was disconnected, big surprise. I called back and spoke to Jackie, explained the situation to her, and she informed me that I had already been charged. I said I was not made aware of that and I did not give permission to have the money charged to my account. She said she understood but she was unable to do anything, I asked to speak to her supervisor, she placed me on hold and then transferred me to her supervisor May Urbno Employee ID number 55673. This person May was extremely rude and told me there was nothing she could do. I should have read the terms and conditions. I told her that I never used the service and that I never gave permission for the money to be taken from my account. I asked her to go back and listen to the recordings of my conversations with her staff. She proceeded to tell me that would take 3 days. She told me that there was 'nothing she could do.'

I then asked to speak to her supervisor, first she told me that she didn't have one. Then she said they are all in a meeting. Now I have been on hold for over an hour waiting to speak to her supervisor. I have now been on the phone with Vongage for over 3 hours, while waiting I have filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, which is where I have found out that Vonage has almost 3, 000 complaints against it in the last 36 months and is not accredited by the BBB. Over 2, 000 of these complaints are in regards to refunds.

Please do not use Vongage services or recommend this to anyone you know. It is not worth the few dollars you think you might be saving. It ends up costing more money. I should have known better, but during these rough economic times I was trying to save everywhere that I can. It was not worth it. I will get my money back. I just want to let anyone and everyone know that is thinking of switching to vonage, please do NOT. Stick with the phone company you are with, even if it costs a little more. I never used this service and am being charged to cancel it...twice.

Very very very disappointed with the Customer Service and Technical Service teams at Vonage. I've only been a customer for 3 weeks and they've done nothing to help me transfer my old number over to Vonage. However, if you check my Transfer Status, it says, "Please don't contact your old phone company as it will only delay the process." Meaning, Vonage is suppose to handle it - correct? Wrong. I've spent 10 hours of phone time calling them and trying to get someone that could actually help resolve the situation. Resolution: They said I could not port the number because they didn't know how. Is this America?

I have been a vonage customer for almost 2 years. I recently had my vonage # ported to a local provider. That request took several weeks to coordinate with vonage and complete. The local company (Qwest) was on site to complete the intallation on 11-25-08. the original vonage # was operational on the Qwest line at that time. On 11-28-08 vonage charged my debit card for December service. On 12-3-08 Vonage sent e mail confirmation of the number being ported. I called to cancel my vonage service today (12-4-08). Vonage informed me that i will be charged $39.99 deactivation fee and refuses to refund any portion whatsoever of the amount billed for december service.

Vonage is a nightmare!I was mislead about services when the intial call was made. I was told we would get internet and phone service. The equipment would be there Friday. So we paid the 25.54 upfront fee and we were suppose to pay 15.00 more friday. We recieved the eqiupment and my husband called in only to find out that you have to already have the internet to recieve there service. We do not so we tried to get our intitial fee back of 25.54 and was told we could not until the equipment was returned. I asked for them to send a return tag and they said I would have to pay a fee of 39.99 to cancel in order to get a return tag and when they received the eqiupment that they would credit my account back. I was made and did not want this. why should we as customers who were mislead from the beginning have to pay extra. This is crazy. I ended up hanging up on them not telling them it was ok to charge my account they went ahead and charged the 39.99. I am mad and this company is nothing but a scam and very misleading. They have not heard the last from me. I am returning the equipment and I will get my money back. Please if you are thinking vonage think no way!

I am a systems integrator. I work with data, phone, TV and security systems everyday. I set up systems for colleges and hotels. I tried Vonage for our new office phone system. I could not get it to ring through consistently. Calls were not completed, some were dropped. For one week I had no phones at all. Customers would write e-mail or call my cell phone to ask if we were still in business. They would get messages saying that my number was disconnected or that it was not valid.
I spent over 11 hours on-line or on hold trying to get help, most of it on hold. When I called to cancel service I told them that I needed to keep the number and it would take a few days for the phone company to connect me again. They cut me off right then. I had no phone service. Qwest could not reconnect me with that number unless it was active. I had to spend 3 hours trying to get Vonage to activate the number again. Then they gave me a temporary number for 3 days, which no one knew to call, before I got my old number and same crappy service back. When I was finally connected to a land line again they gave me a $12.50 credit for my troubles.
Vonage should be put out of business. They ruined mine for almost a month. They have a cruddy product, lousy service and tech support and terrible business practices.
If you have to choose between two cans and a string and Vonage, take the cans and string. You'll be happier with the service.

We signed up with Vonage to save money on our phone bill. The customer rep. assured us our DSL would work with their service. After we transported our phone number to Vonage, we lost our DSL service because it is not a stand-alone DSL provider, which the Vonage rep. would have known. Consequently, we had no phone or internet service for almost 2 weeks and had to use cell phones to contact Vonage and cancel the "1-month free trial". They tried to give us a list of stand-alone DSL providers instead of canceling, but none were available for our area, so we called again to cancel. Apparently they never officially canceled, because we got a bill for the next month's service (billed in advance, strangely enough and debited it from our checking account using the debit card we used to sign up for the service!) After numerous calls and emails, we are still waiting for the refund we are supposed to get once we returned the Vonage router, which we could not use obviously without our DSL service. We had to pay reconnection fees to our telephone company to get phone service and DSL re-enstated. All in all, this whole venture cost us over $ 250.00, a sad lesson to learn when all we wanted to do was save a few dollars on our phone bill! I will never recommend Vonage to anyone and am amazed at all the similar posts complaining about the same thing. The BBB will hear from us too! This is obviously a fraudulent scheme to withdraw funds from people's bank accounts and Vonage needs to be stopped.

- called and recieved package, could not get the system working with my cable based system, spent 2 hours on hold waiting for a tech (using my cell phone) Tech could not get the system to work, stated "I guess your one of the people we can not service." Vonage would not refund my money, would not pay for return shipping of the equipment, and continued to charge my account monthly, directly against my phone calls asking and demanding they stop until I filed a schedule G with my Bank for fraud. I'm out $250.00 bucks, they refuse to refund my money.

I am stunned this company is still in business with this practice. They just kept me on the phone for a full hour trying to cancel my accounts. They said they were charging me $39.99 to cancel each line. I only added a 2nd line yesterday because I was told if I kept it for less than one month, it would only cost $.04. They also are charging a $79.99 'recovery' fee, and told me that was for the equipment. I also specifically was told when I signed up that there is no contract. However, if you cancel within a year, they charge you $40, plus whatever this mysterious 'recovery fee' is, which is not even in their terms of service. They say it is for the equipment, and if you return the equipment, they still will charge you for it.

I specifically did not authorize these charges, and any time i would say to cancel my account during this call, they would say you must agree to the $160 worth of charges. When I would say I would not agree to them, they would say they would not close my account then. They also tried to get me to speak to a technical support person and keep the line.

The phone quality was HORRIBLE, and closing the account a total nightmare. I will be doing a charge back for the fees.

Vonage
www.vonage.com

Vonage stole my money! I have just been charged $220 for the cancellation of two lines. I intend to dispute both charges with my credit card companies, but these guys are such crooks, I doubt if I get the refund. I had been a Sunrocket customer for several months and received an offer from Vonage via overnight letter to "quickly" transfer my number and continue uninterrupted phone service. I signed up for the offer, filled out number transfer requests and 911 dialing addresses within an hour of receiving the letter. I received the "free next day" delivery of equipment three days later and installed it (I forwarded the calls via the Sunrocket website to the Vonage virtual numbers). I didn't hear anything from your company for three weeks, but continued to get notices from Sunrocket about disconnection. On the 22nd day after signing up with Vonage my Sunrocket service was disconnected and calls to my telephone numbers were met with disconnection recordings.

I called Vonage to find out what had happened and was told that there was a problem with the number transfer requests and many were lost (trouble ticket #[protected] & [protected]). The agent said that the problem would be resolved within 24 hours. I left for on vacation three days later. When I returned from vacation I found out that I would have to start the number transfer requests all over again. My wife said that enough was enough and insisted on switching back to AT&T. Because this process took 34 days, when I called to cancel I was charged $50 per line for equipment that they wouldn't take back, $19.99 per line shipping and $39 per line disconnection fee. I have never hated a company this much and will tell this story to everyone I can.

Dennis
Martinez, CA

I signed up for Vonage to have a home phone number and it never worked right, it interfered with my internet service from the day I got it.I worked with them 2-4 times on my cell phone usage to correct this problem and all I got was less use on my phone, but it did make my minutes go over by a few 100 minutes so I had to pay that on top of the Vonage phone bill.Each time I called they would give me an additional free months. but I got to the point where I stopped talking to them all together and put a stop to my chrge card. I want $1, 000.00 for allTHE SPAM AND BULL THAT THEY CLAIM THEY ARE THE BEST PHONE SERVICE..

The first time I called Vonage to cancel my service, I was told that the 'system was down' and that my account couldn't be accessed. This seemed strange to me because the customer service representative had asked me for my account information and my verification code before telling me that the system was down. After I gave her that information and her system confirmed it to be correct, I told her that I wanted to cancel the account. At that point she told me that the system was down and to call back later.

The second time that I called Vonage to cancel my service, I was told that an account manager was not available to cancel my service and that I would have to call back Monday.

The third time that I called Vonage to to cancel my service, I was told by the first representative that the 'system was upgrading.' This seemed even stranger because just like the first time, the representative had asked me for my account information and my verification code before telling me that the system was down. After that information was confirmed by the system, I was told that the system was down while being upgraded. Wow.

I asked for a supervisor. Same story. I asked for somebody higher up. When I told that person that I wasn't going to call back but contest the credit card charge because I had attempted three times to cancel the service, he told me that the system was back up. Unbelievable.

After reading the posts about Vonage and after my experience, I am convinced that they should be investigated.

NO VONTAGE! They are a total scam and unethical company. They offered a 30 day free trial and took all my information and shipped their device. Upon receiving the device, they never informed me I needed to have my Internet modem by my fax and phone line. I called and canceled my account and they did. BUT, they want you to pay for the shipping and handling and if the device is not received within 14 days they will charge your account $85 dollars. This is what is wrong with America, people taking money with S**** service and unethical business practices. How can we as consumers allow companies like this to stay in business? We as consumers have control of supply and demand and we as a people have a voice! This company is not even a member of the BBB, why is this? I believe e if they were they would be out of business.

I was starting a small business and was contacted by vonage, the deal sounded good, 39.99 A month for all local and long distance calls, so i went with them, they also guaranteed 30 day money back, it took 2 weeks to recieve the router, after that when i tried the number it belonged to a plumming company, i called vonage they gave me another number this took 5 days to recieve. Within 2 weeks of using their service i cancelled due to poor quality, they hung the phone up on me, i called back to ask if my service had been deactivated, and was told yes and without my permission had charged my credit card 121.18 For deactivation after 30 days, in fact i was only able to use their services for14 days due to the problems on their end. I feel i was taken advantage of and if they do that to me, i am sure they are doing it to others, what a way to make alot of money, they are phone scammers, and i am one angry woman.

To Whom It May Concern,

My name is Helene Brown my previous account number with your company is [protected]. I order your services online on 7-15-08. The service arrived and the 1st box did not work. I have spent Nemours amount of time troubleshooting with your technical support department. We finally go the box to work, however this was not consistent. The box then started to go into rapid error codes 3, 2, 5, 6. After about 2 weeks your technical support department determines that the box was no good and would need to send me a new one. Well I did receive another box; and another box, please let the record show the boxes arrived the 2nd one did not work at all. The Third box worked; however, it would still have to complete your reset process periodically. Well about two weeks ago the third box started to go into rapid error codes 5, 6, 2, after trying to reset and this process became unsuccessful again I called to cancel your services. The representative that answer the phone told me that he would give me a month's credit and would I give Vonage another changes. I told the representative the service is good when it works the problem was the service did not work continuously and the Fax service I order in August has never worked yet I was paying Vonage 52.94 cents a month. I explained that I would rather pay SBC or AT&T $100 for a service that I can use than to pay less for a service that never worked and I was basically wasting my money. I have paid your company 476.46 since July for nothing… Your representative offered me a Months credit and told me to call back to speak with the advance technical support department when I made it home. I told you representative that a month’s credit was not doing me a favor because I have paid you all (476.46) since July for a phone service that did not work properly or consistently and from August for a Fax service that has never worked.

However, the representative promised that your level 1 technical support would not waste my time when I call back they would give me the level 4 Advance technical support department. Well when I called back on March 15th the level 1 technical support person wanted to tell me how they would need to troubleshoot with me before they could send me to the technical support department. I tried explaining my conversation with your cancellations department and the representative basically ignored me. However, as soon as I threaten to cancel again, the representative transferred the call.

On March 17h I was able to speak to your advance technical support department again. I told him if this did not work I had explained to the cancellation department that I would be canceling the service. He asked me to give him a chance to trouble shot the equipment. We walked through every process for over 2 hours. After this point he had me to take the data cord and place one in yellow Vonage port and one end in the blue. The then asked what type of lights was on the Vonage. I told him and him then said the third device was defective and the blue port was no good. Now he is requesting that I let him send me a new device, please note this would be the forth device that I have received from you company since July. I agreed to let him send the 4th box. When the technical support person got ready to order the box it said my account was in grace status. I became very upset about this and restated all the information you will find in the 1st part of this email. I also was appalled that the cancellation representative did not give me the 1 month credit that he promised I would get for given you all another chance. The advance technical support guy felt my pain and made the adjustments to send the new box. I received the new box on March 18th and called the advance technical support department. Again I was on my cell phone with your technical support department. I would like to pause and say all of these calls have been made on my cell phone. (Costing me more money) although I am paying your company for phone services.

Well, back to the matter at hand the advance technical support guy troubleshooting the new device for 1 hour and 25 min., before he told me that he was not sure and he would need to trouble shoot with Comcast. Well I am not that advance in technical support department when it comes to Comcast equipment so I told him I would need to let my son’s father contact them when it got in. He said that would be find and would call me back after my phone charged because he wanted to do one more step. He calls back about 1 hour later and wanted me to walk through another step. I told him I was tired and he would need to speak to Byron Sr. he told me okay just have him call. Byron came in on Saturday and called he spoke to the Advance tech with Comcast on the phone, they troubleshooted on his cell phone for at least 2 hours are was unable to get the box to work. Byron Sr. informed the guy that I would be canceling do to none service the technician said okay. I called to cancel the service on this afternoon at about 5:00pm CST time. I had already mailed your boxes back along with your cords and manuals under your return label with UPS. The return label was given to me because I refused to pay any more money out of my pocket Vonage. (Although your representative had the audacity to ask me again). Anyway, I called and spoke to your cancellation representative name Ms. Whelle-56397 she informed me that I would have to pay for the boxes until they were returned. As you may already know I did not take this very well and she said she would speak to her supervisor to see what she could do. I asked on several occasion to get a supervisor. She kept telling me one was not available. When I refused to hang up and demanded the supervisor and the account is cancelled. She decided she would view UPS tracking information to verify that the package was dropped off and would be in transit to your location. She kept putting me on hold and then came back and said she need to credit the charges and I would have to pay $39.99 for the cancellation fee. I was already upset and this did not help. Again, I requested to speak to a supervisor for the 5-6 times within our phone conversation. She kept telling me that the supervisor would tell me the same thing and I would have to write a letter disputing the charges. After she completed the cancellation the charge came across as 55.94 instead of 39.99, she then said this was some form of tax on the cancellation. I informed her again I would need to speak to a supervisor, after 1 hour 20in 05 sections, a supervisor name Leo Rodriguze-34131 gets on the phone and tell me that he was the supervisor and how could he help me. I asked for his name and then shared my concerns. This person should not be a supervisor he did not say one word, he never apologized, he never acknowledge my concerns. I literally had to ask him did he not even care to speak to me because he was so quite. He then commented he was documenting my concerns and what more did I want him to do. I told him nothing and to have a good night,

As you will see, I have dully noted all of my experience with your company. I am beyond offended that a company could be so unappreciative of its customers. Also, that you can consistently take my money since July for the phone and August for the Fax (which you will note never worked) and feel no remorse. I would like to see my charges reverse and so some form of discipline for the lack of customer serve received. Please note phoning for less is nice when it comes with workable service and excellent customer service. Again, I believe now my Grandmother was right you get what you pay for.

Also, I asked the representative for your phone numbers, but she told me she could only give me an address. However, I Google the local office and received the following information and found other customers with similar complaints.

http://www.my3cents.com/showComment.cgi?cid=72491&id=14124&type=C

Therefore, it appears your comment has a practice for mistreating faithful and true customers

If you are concern about my experience with your company and would like to speak to me you may call .

Sincerely submitted,

Very Disappointed Customer
Helene J. Brown

I WENT WITH VONAGE BECAUSE THEY WERE SUPPOSE TO BE CHEAP. WHEN I SIGNED UP THEY OFFERED ME A SECOND LINE FOR FREE AND I SAID NO THANKS! THEN THEY CHARGED ME FOR 4 MONTHS ON THE SECOND LINE. WHEN I CALLED THEM TO ASK THEM WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON WITH MY BILL THEY SAID THAT I HAD A SECOND LINE. I TOLD THEM THAT I DID NOT AUTHORIZE IT. THEY TOLD ME THEY COULD DO NOTHING FOR ME AND I WOULD NOT GET THE $90 BACK THAT THEY TOOK FROM MY CHECKING ACCOUNT. I THEN FILED A BBB COMPLAINT AGAINST THEM AND BE CAREFUL WHEN I ASKED FOR MY MONEY BACK THEY DID THAT BUT THEY ONLY CREDITED BACK TO MY VONAGE ACCOUNT. VONAGE THEN WOULD NOT GIVE ME THAT MONEY. THEY SAID I HAD TO USE IT TOWARDS MY ACCOUNT. I WAS THEN VERY UPSET! I HAD TO DISCONTINUE MY SERVICE WITH THEM BECAUSE MY FATHER PASSED AWAY AND WHEN I DID THIS THEY TOLD ME I WOULD HAVE TO PAY $30 TO TERMINATE WHEN I ALREADY HAD A $90 CREDIT ON MY ACCOUNT. THEY SAID THEY COULD NOT TAKE IT OFF THE CREDIT. SO AFTER I CANCELLED I FINALLY REALIZED THEY DIDN'T GIVE ME A REFUND OF MY $90 THEY ACTUALLY CHARGED ME FOR 3 MORE MONTHS AND THERE GOES MY $90 DOLLARS. NOW A YEAR LATER AFTER ALL OF THIS I JUST GOT A COLLECTION NOTICE THAT I OWE VONAGE $39.95 FOR A TERMINATION FEE. I'M DEF'N FILING ANOTHER BBB COMPLAINT AGAINST THEM BUT PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE BEWARE OF THIS COMPANY! THEY ARE STEALING YOUR HARD EARNED MONEY!

Times are tough for us regulars today and like the rest of us I figured that if I keep good quality services and cut my bundle plan with my prior company I could save some money on my monthly bills. So I call VONAGE... what a mistake that was. I spoke to a representative who told me that I could receive services with them for 24.95 per month... not bad huh and they told me that I could get a full refund of my money if I was unhappy with the services within a 30 day period FULL REFUND they told me so I thought wow I cant lose. I agreed to services after agreement they said they needed to charge me for 2 months in advance and I wouldnt have to pay for the next to months. Ok I said now the charged me over $50.00 then they came up with some bogus activation fee that I needed to pay OK $20.00 more dollars they charge me now were at $70.00 then lets not forget the taxes and additional state and bogus phone fees that they charged over $80.00 F***ing bucks for this [censored] service WOW. So once this is all done it takes over a week to receive your rush next day delivery so you better hope you didnt already disconnect your services with your prior provider. Ok now I received this sh**ty piece of crap only to find out that you need a modem to use this [censored]! WHAT THE F**K. Great now I have to call these ### back oh yeah I forgot on what phone. I call from my cell phone during buisness hours yes daytime cell phone minutes while I'm bounced around on the line for at least 20minutes I said that I would like to disccontinue their services. Now they say that they will offer me services for half price for one year $12.00. Okay now all I need is to find a provider for the modem. I do hook it up service is crappy everyone I talked to sounded like they were in a car driving with there windows down and they told me I sound like I'm in the bathroom taking a crap (ECHO)... The only crap here is this bull crap VONAGE. I called 10 days after opening services with them expecting my full refund instead the charged my card an additional 39.99. SONS OF B**CHES I couldnt beleive it then when I saw these charges I called back they called these deactivation cahrges they never told me about deactivation charges when I signed up nor did I give them authorization to take this out of my account they told me that they would refund all the money that they took from my account after they receive thier receiver back I expressed it back to them. That was over 4 months ago and over $120.00 later and still no refund I had to hurry and change my bank card numbers in case the tried to add any other make beleive fraudulant charges. So SAY HELL NO TO TOILET TELEPHONE SERVICE SAY HELL NO TO VONAGE!

I am a second time customer of Vonage . I used their service for my first business and transferred the phone when I sold it. I was so happy with the service that I got several friends to switch to Vonage and I got another phone for my real estate business. I realized I was not using the line and tried to cancel. The girl told me that I had to wait a year or pay over $100 in cancellation fees. So... I waited a year, then I was told I needed to wait two years or I would be charged $39.00. Also, you cannot cancel online which is just a way to try and get you not to cancel. It is a waste of my valuable time. I was on the line for 24 minutes and while the person's English was excellent, there were times that I couldn't understand her which added to my frustration. Jobs need to be here in America! The superviser came on the line and gave me the run around. Both told me I had to write a letter of dispute. I am very, very unhappy with Vonage and when I open another business, I will not use them and I will never recommend them to another friend. You have lost far more money than the $39.99 that you gained! I will also be calling the Better Business Bureau of New Jersey to complain. Your service is excellent. I never had a problem with a connection and I would probably have come back but never again! You wasted my time and in today's world that's not a good thing.

Don't get sucked into using Vonage. I have had Vonage for about 2 years now and I'm disgusted. My calls rarely go through; I constantly get busy signals for the numbers I'm trying to call. Then if I call the same number on my cell phone, the call miraculously goes through. I even tried called the Vonage customer service number (very hard to find unless you Google it) and that call wouldn't go through.

I have tried to post a message on their web site to customer service but this is a very convoluted process and I was eventually kicked out of the message without it going through.

I'm switching to Comcast soon if I can keep the same phone number.

Buyer beware; don't fall for Vonage.

Vonage is thoroughly unfair to canceling customers charging you for everything under the sun. It cost me $400 to cancel two lines with the two routers. PLEASE HEAR ME CAREFULLY--- DO NOT EVER OPEN AN ACCOUNT WITH VONAGE. If you are not pleased with their service ----- YOU WILL PAY FOR THEIR INEPTITUDE AND POOR SERVICE!

We have not been able to receive incoming calls for 8 days now. Frequent calls to Vonage result in the reply that it has to do with the carrier, not Vonage, they cannot name or provide a contact for the carrier, and Vonage engineers are working on it.

Coincidentally, the day the problem began is the same day we were to switch to Comcast Digital Voice. I’ve spoken with Comcast three times and they assure me it has nothing to do with them. When I explain what has been going on, they tell me it sounds like a problem with Vonage and not the carrier.

On Sunday, July 7th, I spoke with a gentleman at Vonage who promised me he would follow up and get back to me with a status. He left a message on my voicemail at work yesterday telling me they were working on resolving the problem. A representative from Vonage called me later and said the problem had been resolved and she wanted me to call our number to confirm and she would call back in 10 minutes. I was in a meeting and could not call at that moment. I asked her to call me back in an hour. When I tried calling home, the problem had not been resolved. She never called back.

I left a message again today and have not yet received a reply.

I had Vonage for over a year with little problems but in January of this year, I was without phone service for over a week. Everytime I called customer service, I was on hold for hours upon hours at a time and only got through after a week of this. When I finally got through, they were horrible. The service rep I spoke with said I would receive a survey afterwards and actually wanted me to LIE about my problem to which I said I would not and she went on to tell me it would affect her performance record and I told her the company itself was terrible. I told her that I would be switching back to AT&T and that I wanted to end my service with them. I called AT&T the next day and switched. I continued to get billed by Vonage for several months afterward and called to see why and was lied to beyond belief. Luckily I had scheduled my payments on my American Express Card and they were great to cancel the charges. I also reported Vonage to the FCC and my States' Attorney and they are now investigating their corrupt practices. Look up Vonage and you'll see where they have been sued and lost multi-millions and will do anything under the sun to get your money! This company needs to be driven out of business!

I am writing this complaint in the hopes that others will read this and decide against purchasing Vonage. I am not new to VoIP, I have used AT&T Call Vantage for over a year and have been fairly happy. I decided to give Vonage a try because they offered a local number (I had moved since getting AT&T and they don't offer a local number where I am now) and they were a few dollars less a month. During my initial call I told the operator that I wanted a local number to which he told me that any 302 area code number was local. This is not true, calling from county to county is a local long distance call. The operator gave me a number that is two counties away and would cost evan more for my neighbor to call me than my current number. I called back and after trying to explain what I should have gotten I was told that I had to pay $10.00 to get a new number and if I wanted a credit he would transfer me to billing. I declined the credit and just wanted to hurry the process. During my initial call I also opted for the two day shipping which is the major complaint I have with Vonage.

After placing my order and changing the number I waited for my package to arrive so I could get things set up and cancel my current service. After the third day I called and was put on hold for over 20
minutes and then another 30 minutes to explain what my issue was I was transfered. When the woman answered the phone in an American accent and easily understood what I was saying she informed me that there was a shortage of the router I had ordered and she had "just" received an email about it. She told me that I could either wait or change to a different router. I choose to change and I was told to
expect the package on Wed. March 15. I had placed my order on the eighth with 2 day shipping and was now being told that it would be seven days total and I am getting a less expensive router. The
cheaper router was fine because it matches my two current Linksys routers and would stack with them. After no brown box on Wed. and none by 6pm on thursday I called again. I was put on hold for 15 minutes and had to hang up due to family needs. I called back after I took care of things here and had time and was quickly put in touch with an operator which after explaining my concerns transfered me to shipping to find out what the problem was. After sitting on hold for 10 minutes the call was disconnected. This was the final straw.

I called back and worked my way thru the automated menus to the cancel service menu which then told me to hold for an operator. I was mad so I put the phone on speaker and set it down to wait. Twenty minutes latter the man picked up and asked for the account number and then why I wanted to cancel. After my explanation he said O.K. and that he would cancel the order and refund me my money. I was shocked not to here a plea for me to continue with them, most companies don't like loosing business. I received an email notifying me of the refund and that my order was cancelled.

I was not looking for anything free or to get a perk or something for staying because I had already made up my mind that I wanted no part of Vonage. I was still shocked at the arrogance of the company not to care about keeping customers. After all happy customers make a company more money than unhappy customers.

Please think twice about choosing Vonage. They are not the only VoIP company out there.

The list of problems we had with Vonage goes on and on. For example and all these problems were intermittent.
1) No voice mail capability
2) No caller I.D.
3) Phone doesn't ring even though somebody is calling.
4) Somebody calls our home and gets directly put into voicemail without ever hearing phone ringing.
5) Phone would wring a half ring with nobody calling.
6) Called to cancel service but was told I wasn't a customer long enough and would be billed the minimum amount like 3 months service.

I retained Vonage's services in November of 2005. In January I received a copy of Decembers bill. I was charged over $300.00 in phone calls to India. These calls started around midnight on the 25th and ended the night of the 26th. The calls were all one minute long, to the second, and exactly one minute apart, to the second. I complained to Vonage that I did not make these calls and for that matter no human could make such exacting phone calls for such a long period of time. They transferred me from department to department and refused to let me speak to a manager. I issued formal written complaints and they insisted that it did not matter if I made the phone calls or not. Because Vonage will only provide service if you give them a credit card and authorization to bill the card at will, they had my money and refused to give it back. What they did amounts to theft!

Buyer Beware! I've just canceled my Vonage service which I haven't used. I paid $50 for the activation fee that's after the "first month free" advertised back in Dec 2008. And I have been paying the $28.77 for 2 months after that. Now that I want to disconnect the line. They're charging me $110. Why? Cause the representative says she has to charge the $39.99 disconnect fee AND the "applicable recovery fee on section 8.8 from the TOS" which equals to the $70 rebate they gave me on the modem. I offered to return the modem, but they don't want it back. I've read many many complaints about Vonage (only after signing up to their service, stupid me!) and realized I was in for a painful scam. I was ready for the $39.99 mentioned everywhere but not the $70 for "recovery fee" which the representative admits could be anything, depending on what they give as promo to signing up the service. So buyer beware! The cheaper you think you're getting from Vonage, you'll pay it ALL back when you want to part ways with them!

I spent 3 hours on the phone with your company, as I was misrepresented when calling to find out about signing up for service. I was given to 5 different reps and a supervisor named Paul who told me that my card would be charged more money for disconnecting the service I was originally misrepresented on. A rep named Gary even called my telephone provider and conferenced with me regarding that they do not offer stand alone DSL in my area, as I was originally told by Samantha form NJ (Vonage rrep) on 07/30 that my provider did offer stand alone dsl, upon making my first call. I also found in ridiculous that there is a web page of just complaints about your customer service/company.

Respectfully,
Sarah Green.

My Samsung t-629 under warranty stopped working suddenly. I called customer support and they said as long as there is no physical damage, it will be covered. I took it to t-mobile authorized dealer and it was seen by two -three sales personnel and they were surprised that the phone stopped working as there was no physical damage.

After I received the new phone, t-mobile says there is physical damage and they are literally forcing to pay 100 dollars. Customer support and their next level literally ask you to shut up and pay politely. Now I do not have a chance to prove that there was no physical damage. I feel it is very unfair.

Do not Buy Vonage . I applied for their free 1 month trial offer. The equipment never arrived. I then saw a chrge the next month for the rquipment and service. Though i have not received the equipment or made a single call through them. Afetr calling everyday for 2 weeks and being put on hold for almsot an hour each time, i finally managed to get a very rude representative to cancel the service. But she refused to refund the amount that was charged to me saying that i had exceeded the 1 month trial period. Speechless! Dont make the same mistake. They'll try to wring money out of you either way and they definitely will not pick up their phones!

After being a satisfied customer for over 2 years I decided to cancel as I no longer was using the service. The first time I called to cancel, after spending over 30 minutes repeating my desire to cancel and dealing with scripted "required" Q&A sessions, I though I was done. No. Vonage conveniently forgot to record the cancellation and I had to do it all over again a month later after I was billed again. The second time I got a transaction number and names. Next time I need VOIP service it definitely won't be with Vonage.

I received a email from Vonage yesterday.

I have the 39,99$ plan that allows me to call anywhere in Canada and United States. Its supposedly unlimited. I call one precise number in the United States, and its to talk to my boyfriend since we live apart from each other. Vonage was inexpensive, and gave me what I wanted : a connection to him whenever I wanted. I been with Vonage for 2 years now because of their offers and good prices, and I never had any troubles until now.

They now want to upgrade my account to 99,99$, thinking I run a company. This is a residential house, and I use my phone line legally. Most of my calls are at that one number, which is also a residential house. If I am a company, why would I be only calling one person for such a long period of time? Its false advertising in my opinion. They told me I should only be talking for 2-3 hours per day on the phone. If its the case, then why say its unlimited? This is frustrating... They also told me I would need to either calcel my account entirely or upgrade to the 99,99$ fee per month, the price for companies.

Although, there is one thing I do not understand.

I looked up different prices Vonage was offering, and the most expensive one was at 69,99$ for unlimited calls for a company. Right now, they want me to switch to a 99,99$ plan, that only gives me 5000 minutes a month. All I can say is, do not call your phone plan UNLIMITED if you can't talk for an UNLIMITED time. What a scam..

Thank you for reading,
Marie

There representative lied to me regarding there service. They claim to be paperless so that they can have access to your banking account. My phone bill was suppose to be 24.99 a month but with the taxes it was 10.00 to 14.00 more a month. Why would taxes change each month. When I changed service they would not release my phone number and charged me after telling me that I could cancel without any plenty. 79.00 for there equipment 39.99 cancellation fee and 35.00 for the next month phone service. I would not recommend this company to my worst ememy.

I set a Vonage phone system to have better service and to be able to call long distance without paying outrageous prices. My husband connected according to their instructions. When I made some calls the person on the other end could not hear me clear and sometimes it cut off some words I was saying to the other person. I called their service line to get help and all connections were checked and were connected properly. I stayed on the phone until almost 12mn(3hrs.) trying to figure out the problem. Then on next morning I was on the phone for almost 2hrs. and still the phone does not work,the same problem still continues. This afternoon I called a third time and the assistant tried something again and it did not work. If they do not have it fixed in 24hrs. I am going to disconnect the Vonage system and return it and get my money back.

I spent half the time with Vonage on my celphone talking to their technicians about ways to reconnect my phone, or keep my phone from dropping words from my callers.

Then, when I changed credit cards and they were unable to charge me, they disconnected the phone. I called and got everything straightened out and got the back bills paid for, and then they had to nerve to bill me to reconnect the phone. Something I spent half the time on my celphone getting them to do.

I think they should pay my celphone charges.

What a rip off for lousy phone service.

I attempted to cancel my 1 year paid in advance phone service with Vonage. After being told that there was a $39.99 cancellation fee, I was also advised that they would not refund a penny of the over $200 refund I was entitled to.

While I can almost understand this policy to weed out the people who try Vonage for a month or so & then leave, it seems counterproductive to penalize those of us who have had enough faith in them to let them have out money in advance. Yes there's a discount for prepaying but there's also a hidden risk.

Tell you friends...Vonage will keep it all, even if they don't deserve to.!

Hi,

I subscribed to VONAGE residential plan which had free and unlimited dialing to 60 countries. I was paying fix monthly bill but now I am charged with 111 USD. Which is huge and they are saying I dialed numbers in the country where it is charged even though that country was listed in free countries.

Why I am allowed to make such call if you'll charge me extra? Why I am paying huge monthly bill?
They say it was "*" on the country, they have star on almost every country in the list.

VONAGE IS A FRAUD. DON"T GO FOR IT. YOU MAY FIND IT GOOD UNTIL YOU ARE RIPPED OFF !

I had to switch away from Vonage because of the bad service that was provided. THe service interrupted with my computer serivce, the phone line was always breaking up, couldn't hear anyone. I had no service for an entire week before Time Warner came to switch me. THe list goes on and on. But, I was told that being that I disconnected before the contract was ended... But, what about not being happy with the service and all the problems? If they didn't happen I wouldnt have changed. I wouldn't recommend this company at all, if that is the type of service they give and how they reply. I work in retail, so I know about customer service, and has been in retail for 12 years.

Used Vonage for about a year with mixed results.. an toll free number was identical to another and resulted in many unwanted calls.. they charged for the unwanted call and would not credit back for mirrored calls and want to charge a cancellation fee for changing the number... the fax line was a hit and miss with lots of drop off for incoming faxes.. it worked ok for outgoing most of the time but you never knew when the outgong fax failed... the best i could do with credit for charges is free servcie ahead for up to 60 days but does mean much if you are canceling a line anyway.. finally, phoning customer service is a nightmare with the outsourced reps (when you finally get to talk to one) unable to do much more than try to up sell you more services... i would not use the service again and do not recommend it to others... shame on vonage, such potential, yet instead lying, cheating, jerks

I signed up for this phone service was going to cancel before my trial was up. They talked me into a reduced monthly charge and no sign up fee if I would try it for one year. I could cancel anytime after that. I tried to cancel to the day of my 1 yr anniversary only to get a run around of the system is down, we are upgrading, etc... it took 4 days of calling, my account was credited for the inconvienceand I had $36.71 credit left . When I finally got through to cancel they deleted my credit on the account with no explanation, A bill for NOTHING for the exact credit on my account and charged me a cancelation fee of $39.99!
They are a RIP OFF!

We got Vonage to try out Voip. What we got instead was a nightmare that haunted us for over a year. Vonage service didn't even work for us and when we tried to cancel their service we had to wait over FORTY minutes THREE separate times to finally get a hold of someone who didn't direct us to their sales department. They wanted a HUGE cancellation fee for something we could never use in the first place. They wouldn't stop billing us for over a year even though we were NEVER ABLE TO USE THEIR SERVICE. AVOID VONAGE!

Hello Everyone

I have received my Vonage in the mail today. I plugged it in. It makes my computer run slow. Today, I am attempting to get a refund and have my number returned to Optima Online. I am planning to video tape the return of the Vanage box in the event they say It was damaged or all the pieces where not put in the box. I will keep you posted as to what happens next. I was told by Optima that their should be no problem with giving back my phone number to Optima since it just happened. We will just have to wait and see what happens.

Kindest Regards, Charles Pisano