Referred a friend, horrible experience

Posts: 58 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 28, 2005 Posts: 58

I referred my best friend to Vonage. Their Vonage adapter died on them, and for two days couldn't get dial tone. They had trouble dealing with people who didn't speak understandable English, and were put on hold several times, using 3 hours of their cell phone time.

To pour salt into the wounds, Vonage told them they were going to be charged $39,99 for early cancellation of service. With such horrible service, how can they justify that?

I am fighting to maintain my friendship now. Vonage, are you listening?

Posts: 174 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 174

Please share more of the story.

If they're being charged early cancellation fee, that must mean they had the service for several weeks or longer. You mention that their adapter died -- that's not unheard of -- how long did they have it and what was going to be done about it?

You said they couldn't get a dial tone for 2 days -- was that part of the adapter died problem, or was that a different problem? Out of at least WEEKS of service, you've only described their experience with the service for a few days.

I'm just wondering about the bigger picture -- if they had otherwise good service for weeks or longer, then had an adapter die and, as a result, no dial tone for 2 days, that would not make me cancel service.

If I was upset by the hours dealing the the hard to understand tech people, but, ultimately, got my service back up and running, I would be annoyed but continue on as a happy customer.

So, based ONLY on what you've said (and I'd love to hear more details), it seems to me that there are two possibilities -- either they had good service for a period of time, and just got PO'd over a dead device (it happens!) and the poor customer service and bailed, resulting in a early cancel fee that they could have avoided if they just got past their dead device and went on with their otherwise good serivce . . .

OR

They had bad service overall and the dead adapter pushed them over the edge, in which case, I feel for them, but wonder why, if the service was bad, they didn't cancel early on and avoid the charge.

Posts: 58 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 28, 2005 Posts: 58

rgnok wrote:

Please share more of the story.

If they're being charged early cancellation fee, that must mean they had the service for several weeks or longer. You mention that their adapter died -- that's not unheard of -- how long did they have it and what was going to be done about it?

You said they couldn't get a dial tone for 2 days -- was that part of the adapter died problem, or was that a different problem? Out of at least WEEKS of service, you've only described their experience with the service for a few days.

I'm just wondering about the bigger picture -- if they had otherwise good service for weeks or longer, then had an adapter die and, as a hresult, no dial tone for 2 days, that would not make me cancel service.

If I was upset by the hours dealing the the hard to understand tech people, but, ultimately, got my service back up and running, I would be annoyed but continue on as a happy customer.

So, based ONLY on what you've said (and I'd love to hear more details), it seems to me that there are two possibilities -- either they had good service for a period of time, and just got PO'd over a dead device (it happens!) and the poor customer service and bailed, resulting in a early cancel fee that they could have avoided if they just got past their dead device and went on with their otherwise good serivce . . .

OR

They had bad service overall and the dead adapter pushed them over the edge, in which case, I feel for them, but wonder why, if the service was bad, they didn't cancel early on and avoid the charge.

The service worked okay for the first couple of months. They would occasionally have difficulty, then it would clear up. So I would say the latter of your two scenarios is the case. What pushed them over the edge was spending three hours on "HOLD" on their cell phone, trying to get someone to fix the problem. The problem was blamed on Time Warner, but when they bypassed the Vonage device, they had good connectivity. The problem was Vonage.

I don't care how they fix it, they shouldn't blame the cable company unless they were certain. Putting people on "HOLD" for three hours is ridiculous, no matter what company it is. Putting people who don't speak English in Customer Service is also ridiculous.

Posts: 70 · Full Forum Member Joined: Nov 28, 2005 Posts: 70

TommyDale wrote:

I am fighting to maintain my friendship now. Vonage, are you listening?

Look at Vonage TOS. 2.12 is the 'out' clause for 'best effort'. If you cancel after 30 days, Vonage doesn't give a rat's ass how long you were on hold or that CS has difficulties at times communicating. The best you can do is request a credit - don't do it by email - Vonage will look at the call logs and make a decision.
As screwed up at it is sometimes, you have to look at their view - sooooo many customers try to get credits for no svc when the call logs clearly show (many) calls being made/received. And the response Vonage gets? "Huh? Who? Not me, duhhhh".

Posts: 174 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 174

TommyDale,

Thanks for sharing more details, I feel for you!

I'm not sure I'd have bailed on Vonage if after the experience you've described if I had several months of "okay" service, but A) That's a personal choice, and B) In my case, I am saving a LOT of money with Vonage.

Unfortunately, the blame game is frustrating, but not unique to Vonage -- it is pretty common for lots of people, especially in the heavily interconnected world of computers, to blame the problem on someone else's piece of the puzzle! I know how frustrating it is, though!

Good luck!!

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jul 03, 2006 Posts: 1

Here's the rest of the story. On a day to day basis I have no complaints of the service. My phone service has gone out twice since February. The first time people calling my phone number would get "this phone number is no longer in service" message as though our phone had been disconnected due an unpaid bill or that the phone number no longer existed. It took about a day and then service was back up. However, during the time I had to call customer service to get the complaint in I held for hours at the time. Yes, I really held for hours at the time trying to get the problem resolved. This time, I've had no dial tone and can't receive calls. You're right - "the router dies - it happens" is true. I have no issue with that. What I do have an issue with is being placed on hold for hours at the time and customer service reps that I can't understand. They were friendly so I would never have discontinued my service because of this complaint. I've discontinued my service b/c I never want to be on the phone for over 4 hours (most of this time being on hold) with no resolution to my problem ever again. I'd rather pay the higher phone company rates and have prompt service when I need it. There is NO telling what my cell phone charges will be as a result of this!!

Posts: 174 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jun 12, 2006 Posts: 174

DMic

I understand completely, and, unfortunately, yours seems to echo the biggest complaint that I've heard with Vonage so far -- long hold times and hard to understand foreign support reps!

Sorry you ended up with a bad experience!

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: May 13, 2006 Posts: 4

I have a similar experience: several long outages and overall poor sound quality after 2 months of service. We still can't figure out why Vonage drops the worst for us with cell phones. However, what I did was to drop my Vonage service down to the lowest cost plan and then added a separate Packet 8 line. The two together are still chepaer than my old phone service, and the one with the best servioce/quality will win. If I end up not liking either I'll try Viatalk, WaybeyondVOIP, Sunrocket, etc till I find one that works the best.

Even so, I found I only used less than 250 minutes on the Vonage plan anyway so the unlimited plan was a waste for me.

Posts: 58 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jun 28, 2005 Posts: 58

Hopefully, DMic will forgive TommyDale for the referral to Vonage? Embarassed

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 23, 2006 Posts: 4

DMic wrote:

I've discontinued my service b/c I never want to be on the phone for over 4 hours (most of this time being on hold) with no resolution to my problem ever again. I'd rather pay the higher phone company rates and have prompt service when I need it.

That is absolutely appalling. It sounds to me as if this customer service center has NO metrics to maintain on handling time. I work for a technical support center that deals with cable internet / services... this is essentially the same job as a Vonage tech support.

You should not have to be on the phone more than 20 minutes to have some sort of resolution to any issue involving your Vonage. Whether it be contact your ISP, your replacement adapter is coming in the mail, or we will send this issue to escalations and someone will call you back.

If however you were waiting on hold to even speak to a person about the problem.. that is another issue entirely.

Anyone aware if Vonage service is within the following regulations?
Telecommunications Act of 1996