Just Want to Cancel Service

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 04, 2006 Posts: 3

I'm considering buying Vonage, and I just sat through and read the terms of service very, very closely. I need to be able to make very long phone calls to england (2 hours plus a day) and phone cards are getting very expensive. My concern is that Vonage can, under their terms of service, charge you or disconnect you, (and you'd also have to pay disconnection fees) if your use is above average residential use standards:

Quote:

We reserve the right to immediately disconnect or modify your Service if we determine, in our sole and absolute discretion, that your use of the Service or the Device is, or at any time was, inconsistent with normal residential usage patterns. In addition, you will be required to pay our higher rates for commercial service for all periods in which your use of the Service or the Device was inconsistent with normal residential use.

I'm going to email Vonage my question and see if they would charge me more for service because of my extensive international use needs. My taxes and fees, according to the same terms of service, would add my costs up to around $28 a month. I do not want to end up paying $50 a month for a small business service, or waste $40 on cancellation.

Aside from that, they require written notification to cancel. Therefore, if I were to cancel, 12 or so days before my billing period ends, I would write a cancellation letter and mail it off, then email Vonage on the cancellation form. It sounds like calling experiences are generally unfavorable, but has anyone had any experience with emailing or handwriting a letter? I strongly want to know before I dive in and take my chances.

Posts: 433 · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:52 pm Post subject:

Cancelling, reminds me of the song "Hotel California"

Posts: 171 · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject:

The first question I would ask is, are you using the phone service for business purposes? If so, pay the business rate, if not, then be prepared to answer a challenge of why you call England for 2 hours per day. It would be interesting if you called 2 hours a day, except on week ends -- would sound like a business use to me!

Vonage's terms are not great, but I hear they are about par for the Voip industry. The money back guarantee is a farce. If you want to try the service be prepared to pay the $40 cancellation fee if you need to stop the service.

I personally have been using Vonage for about 6 weeks now. It's great! I have had a few problems where people called and I could hear them, but they could not hear me. This seems to have gone away -- haven't seen this problem in over 4 weeks. Today was the first time the call quality went South on me, however my Internet also went South and I don't think it was the Vonage adapter causing the problem. All is well again...

I only hesitate recommending it to friends and associates for two reasons:

1. If you are not technically savvy, and you are not willing to give up traditional phone company levels of service, then Vonage (VoIP in general) is not yet for you.

2. Should you have a problem and need to call Customer Service, chances are you're screwed. At a minimum you'll spend lots of time on hold just to speak to a person with poor English who reads from a script.

Good luck!

Posts: 171 · Posted: Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:57 pm Post subject:

houuser wrote:

Cancelling, reminds me of the song "Hotel California"

"You can checkout any time you please, but you can never leave."

Eye Popping

Sad, but true...

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 04, 2006 Posts: 3

I'm not running a small business, but I have a boyfriend at college there whom I chat up a storm with whenever I can. Calling time during the school year is actually mostly during weekends, never during the week because of the time difference. I could understand it not qualifying as normal residential use, but I'm definitely not profiting in any way, shape, or form, and their plan does boast the term "unlimited". Hopefully Vonage will respond to my email, and with any luck, I'll be able to successfully install Vonage and use as much call time as I need to England.

Thank you very much for your points of concern, and for your help. I do consider myself fairly technically savvy, and I think I'm willing to cross my fingers with tech support.

Posts: 171 · Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 5:32 am Post subject:

beelizzie wrote:

...I think I'm willing to cross my fingers with tech support.

Don't forget to cross your eyes and toes...and have a good book to read while you wait...

Sounds to me like you should be in the clear. If Vonage claims 2 hour phone calls aren't normal residential phone usage, then I'll introduce them to my 14 year old daughter Lol

Posts: 2257 · Posted: Tue Jun 06, 2006 10:11 am Post subject:

I think you'll be OK with a couple of hours a day overseas, especially on long, single calls, to a single number.

Why?

While I do not work for Vonage, and can't state this with any authority, I have some suspicions as to how they detect a "business" user:

A business user would generally make a lot of calls, mostly short, generally to different numbers, throughout the day (telemarketer pattern). Or they would receive many calls from varied numbers, again mostly during the day (business or tech support pattern).

A residential user will tend to call the same numbers frequently, and make longer calls.

I suspect they would be looking for a pattern of many short calls made or received, to/from many different numbers, mostly during business hours or early evening, with very few calls on weekends.

I use my Vonage line for both work and personal use, but NOT running a business (I telecommute). I generally call the same (AT&T Teleconference, non-800) number each morning for my project team's teleconference, which lasts from 1/2 hour to 2 hours depending on the day's challenges. Then I make or receive 5-6 calls to/from any one of a dozen numbers for work, each about 10 minutes or so, in a given day. Most of those are calls to/from a corporate line.

I seriously doubt you'd even show up on the radar screen for any sort of audit as long as your calls aren't regularly over a couple of thousand minutes a month, with lots of calls and lots of numbers. You could easily demonstrate you are not running a business, all Vonage has to do is look up the number you are calling most often, which is obviously not a business.

Take it for what it's worth, as uninformed opinion. I'm only speculating. I'd suspect Vonage would "find" me LONG before they "found" you, though, and they've not said a word to me in almost year, and since I am not running a business, I don't expect they ever will.

Posts: 7 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 07, 2006 Posts: 7

to avoid long waits for CSRs, call after all Americans are in bed, usually about 1am Central... unfortunately you will get an Indian and struggle with the conversation but you may get lucky and he may actually be helpful.

Just like going to Walmart, go late at night and you have the whole store to yourself.