International Rate Increase With NO Explanation or Warning

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 9

Vonage has pissed us off, badly. For a year we called internationally to Venezuela at a rate of .08/minute. Sprint was originally costing us about .20/minute, so the rate was the primary reason we switched to Vonage.

Suddenly, in April of this year, Vonage raised the rate to the same international numbers to MORE THAN DOUBLE at .20/minute. Did they warn us before hand? Of course not. Suddenly we were forced with a bill of over $116 dollars when we normally paid less than $50! We figured out that over our calling in April and May we paid over $94 MORE than what we should have when the rate was .08/minute!

Did things suddenly change to cause the rate increase? Apparently NOT since no other Voip provider has raised their rates. In fact, some Voip providers actually are charging LESS at rates as low as .04/minutes with no additional fees!!! Vonage can give us no explanation for the rate increase, and our two "one hour" hold waits on the phone have resulted in fruitless answers of "there's nothing we can do" and "you'll need to check the rates 24/7" - as if anyone in their right mind would do that.

Goodbye Vonage. Great idea to stab your customers in the back and then have no explanation. What a crappy company; i'll make sure to NOT recommend you to everyone.

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

Read your TOS.. It states that they can change their rates at any given point without notice.

. CHARGES; PAYMENTS; TAXES; DISCONNECTION
3.1 Billing. When the service is activated, you must provide us with a valid email address and a credit or debit card number from a card issuer that we accept. We reserve the right to stop accepting credit or debit cards from one or more issuers. If your credit or debit card expires, you close your account, your billing address changes, or your credit or debit card is cancelled and replaced on account of loss or theft, you must advise us at once. We will bill all charges, applicable taxes and surcharges monthly in advance (except for usage-based charges, which will be billed monthly in arrears, and any other charges which we decide to bill in arrears) to your credit or debit card, including but not limited to :
activation fees; monthly Service fees; usage charges; international usage charges; advanced feature charges; premium services/Add-Ons, equipment purchases; regulatory recovery fee; Emergency 911 Cost Recovery; 911 fees; federal, state and/or local taxes; disconnection fees; and shipping and handling charges.
The amount of such fees and charges shall be published on our website and may change from time to time. Vonage may introduce new products and services at special introductory pricing. Introductory pricing may change at Vonage's discretion. Notification of monthly invoices will be sent to you via your email address on file with us. We reserve the right to bill at more frequent intervals if the amount you owe to us at any time exceeds $50. Vonage bills usage charges in full minute increments that are rounded up to the next full minute unless otherwise set forth in the rate schedules found on our website. Vonage bills fractional usage charges in full cents that are rounded up when the value is $.005 or more and down when the value is less than $.005, unless otherwise set forth in the rate schedules found on our website.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 9

Yes, I am aware of this, but this is a SUBSTANTIAL rate increase with no explanation given. This is outright FRAUD. We're talking about rates MORE THAN DOUBLING overnight!!!

Let's play a scenario:

Let's say Vonage raised rates to $20 DOLLARS a minute overnight with no warning. Folks who made calls following that would just be told "Sorry, it's in your agreement we can raise rates at any time without notice. You owe us $2,000 for your hundred minutes of calling. Oh - and we don't have to tell you why we did it - we just did."

Sound fair? Well, that's basically what Vonage just did to us, on a $100 level.

Summary: Vonage IS A CROOK.

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

I feel your pain but that's unfortunately the way it is with international calls. Not to defind Vonage but has/would ATT, Verizon or Quest send you notification or let you know at the time of your call that they've raised their international or even long distance rates?

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 9

Well, I can say this: None of those charge anywhere near what Vonage does now. No one else has raised rates even a penny. This is pointing more towards a theory that Vonage saw what numbers were commonly dialed and then sneakily decided to more than double rates to try to generate some quick cash. Obviously no other VOIP's have problems connecting to numbers there - Vonage greed is the only known difference here.

Not to mention some places have all-inclusive international plans that charge an additional flat rate for calling internationally - so that way you don't have to worry about rates increasing.

So now we can assume Vonage is both a CROOK and has BAD SERVICE PLAN OPTIONS. Gee, ya think they are worth recommending to anyone?

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

personally at the present time 'No". I went to another Voip provider a month ago because of some of their lack of customer service.

As of today ATT's rate for Venezuela $.23

Posts: 400 · Vonage Forum Evangelist Joined: May 05, 2005 Posts: 400

You may be better off using computers that have USB mic's. That way it doesn't cost you anything and sounds just as good as a phone with a quality mic.

Posts: 35 · Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 5:57 pm Post subject:

Vonage has almost nothing to do with international rates, it has to do with the international carriers that are routing the calls and the priority for the calls vs other carriers, higher price generally means that their is a higher priority in completing/delivering those calls or cost went up on the international carriers end for some reason which noone will ever find out.

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 13, 2006 Posts: 9

I wish I could believe that, but if you take a look at the stable rates from competitors to Vonage, it looks to be not the case. If it suddenly got costly to provide Voip service to that location, don't you think you'd see sweeping price increases accross the board from all the Voip providers?

This looks more like an opportunity for Vonage to steal money from folks. "Let's raise prices, force them to pay it, and never explain why."

I'm filing my complaint with the BBB soon.

Posts: 35 · Posted: Tue Jun 13, 2006 6:28 pm Post subject:

Phone carriers have what's called a 'completion rate'. It is the guaranteed rate of completion for a call. Meaning you call a number overseas, it may only have a 35% completion rate. Most carriers usually offer various packages you can purchase as a phone server provider and you are guarenteed x% of call completion. Now obviously, higher completion rate = higher cost. Therefore places where not many people are calling, why pay for a high completion rate? If enough people complain about completion rate, then the completion rate goes up along with the price as the service provider must buy a higher completion rate. This is pretty much how all of the international carriers that sell minutes to all phone providers work.