Just try canceling your service!

Posts: 102 · Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 4:54 pm Post subject:

since you cancelled the card that was used..it means charges didnt went through and i guess that was the reason why you were contacted by the their collections. it means as well that once those charges are settled then you would not be billed again by Vonage

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 17, 2005 Posts: 10

I managed to successfully cancell Vonage service over the phone. I used a speaker phone to cal the toll free number during business hours EST and worked through the menu tree to select "Cancel all phone numbers". It then goes to silence for about 30 seconds but then eventually a New Jersey accent will answer.

Then grit your teeth while Vonage rep will grind through a script to do every thing to get to keep the service - just keep thinking of all the hassle you had!!! At the end of it all then you will told to wait (with silence) for confirmation that your service has been cancelled.

Then a couple of hours later then log into your Vonage account and confirm it says your status is cancelled.

I have not had any additional Vonage charges on my CC since the cancellation.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: May 25, 2007 Posts: 2

nicegurl wrote:

since you cancelled the card that was used..it means charges didnt went through and i guess that was the reason why you were contacted by the their collections. it means as well that once those charges are settled then you would not be billed again by Vonage

No the charge that i knew I had to pay for the following month went through fine, it was when they tried to keep on billing me past that there were problems. They never cancelled the account like they stated. Doesn't matter my lawyer is in the process of takign it to them with their own dam tos.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 09, 2007 Posts: 1

People are so upset about the cancellation difficulties they've experienced that they are quitting Vonage in droves. Will they ever learn?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 11

I anticipated having problems with cancellation, and did not want to burn 30+ minutes enduring their attempt to keep me, so I changed my payment method to a "temporary VISA number" that my visa provider (Bank of America) generates for safer internet purchases. It charges to your main visa account, but you get to set the dollar limit and expiration date. Once a vendor charges to it, no other vendors can use it. It allows you to protect yourself from unscrupulous online vendors and companies like Vonage, who continue to bill even though you no longer have service.

ATT CallVantage service provisioned both my numbers in about 4 weeks. I haven't made a single phone call to Vonage (thank God) and I followed ATT's instructions NOT to call your previous provider to cancell before the numbers are provisioned. Once the service is provided by the new carrier, Vonage should not be able to bill for service that is not being rendered. Also, how can they require written notice of cancellation and remain in compliance with the Number Portability issue? Cancellation of your Vonage account will kill your chances of keeping your number.

I'm not sure about how the FCC views Vonage's practices for cancellation, but I'm not going to play their game. They can't bill me and any attempts to put me to collections will fail. You would think that any collection agency would be nuts to take Vonage billing work with the defection rate as it is.

I believe it is criminal to make your last ditch attempt at cash flow be by stealing a month or so of additional billing from defecting customers. I'll bet the FCC, FTC, and state attornies general will also see it for what it is - a frantic attempt by a failing company to rake in just a few more dollars before they die.

(Former Vonage customer, who loved their product and hated their service and the way they treat their most loyal customers. Good riddance.)

By the way, my transfer to ATT CallVantage was not without trouble, but THEY CALLED ME to keep me informed of the status of the trouble ticket during the transfer. AND I had a direct phone number to the desk of a Tier 2 tech support person that I called twice and actually got her. Spoke perfect English and actually found the source of the problem (was on their end). I could hardly believe my ears when I picked up a call from Kelly, the ATT support person, who called to give me an update on the status of my open ticket. She called twice in 4 days! I called her once more to return her voice mail. WOW!

Vonage should take some lessons from that, if they are able to survive the litigation and defection rate. It's not the technology, it's the customer service.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 11

I thought I would add one more post before I go... why did I defect Vonage?

It wasn't the product. With a solid cable connection (8-12MB down, 1.4+ MB up), I rarely had trouble with clarity or dependability. When there were troubles, it was almost always the internet connection - I even found out that a squirrel had chewed the cable between the house and the pole!

It wasn't the features - other Voip companies have been trying to lure me away for over a year. Vonage originally had more for less and is still a strong price/feature competitor.

It wasn't even the price. Other Voip providers, including the triple-play folks, are dropping prices like crazy to capture defecting Vonage customers. Some of their offers sounded tempting, but I didn't bite. Vonage's simple approach as a pure play was way more appealing.

It wasn't even the lawsuit with Verizon. I was actually rooting for Vonage because I like it when the little guy stands up to the rich bully. I also thought it was high time that these thin patents got challenged to make room for more innovation. As a Vonage customer, I was willing to support them by putting my money where my mouth was and stick with them until they turned out the lights.

IT WAS THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE! They lost me because they treated me as though I didn't matter. They poured their resources into more advertising instead of beefing up their infrastucture in customer service. It still amazes me that they don't understand how they can differentiate themselves from the other Voip providers, including the triple-play folks. IT AIN'T JUST PRICE!

Vonage: You coulda raised my prices by 10% and poured every nickle into competent, local tech support and service personell and I wouldn't have complained a bit. You could have cut your ad budget in half and I would have brought a bunch of folks in with my first hand testimonial. If only you would have made me feel like I was more important. You needed me, but you didn't treat me as such.

So now I'm gone and I'm just as vocal as a defector as I would have been as a loyal customer. Most other folks will likely just quietly move on.

Epilogue: I went to ATT CallVantage. The interesting thing, after doing much research on all the other Voip providers, was that I discovered that ATT's Voip has more features than Vonage - they really do a lousy job of marketing what they have!

On top of that, they lowered their cost recently and are currently $5 cheaper than Vonage (no end date) for customers who switch. Their $20/mo plan is the same (or better) than Vonage's $25/mo plan.

Downside #1: Fewer European countries are included for free calling.
Downside #2: ATT is WAY more aggressive about the E911 stuff. If your adapter loses power, you can't make outgoing calls again until you confirm that your address didn't change. Good for them, I suppose, but annoying. Guess I'll be glad they are diligent, though, if I ever have to use 911 from my Voip line.

I hope all this was helpful. I lurk here often but rarely post because it takes so much thought and time. Thank you to the rest of you who have contributed more than me over the last year. You all have helped me navigate the sometimes frustrating world of Vonage.

Posts: 208 · Posted: Sun Jun 10, 2007 2:35 pm Post subject:

enjoy the phone call from the collections agency looking for a few hundred dollars because you didn't try to close out the account.

that will definitely impact your credit score.

cheers.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 11

After seeing the post from noct, I thought better of just sitting here waiting for the fallout, so I called Vonage this morning to cancel.

It took about twenty minutes on hold before I spoke to someone. As others have reported, they do try to go through their script before letting you go. Their script requires them to verify everything. Even after they do that, they constantly ask you the same questions about what you already told them.

I had a balance due on June 9th (today is June 11th) and was officially in "grace" for not paying my bill on the 9th. I told them when they finally picked up that I wanted my balance "zeroed out." The rep said she couldn't do that.

I asked for the next person higher up. She said "no one here can do that for you." I said, "then transfer me to someone who can." She tried several times to say that no one there could remove my balance owed. I just played the broken record for her: "Then transfer me to someone who can."

She put me on hold to talk to her supervisor. She came back to ask my permission to get a supervisor to approve my request to zero my balance (???), then put me on hold again.

Upon her return, she confirmed that there would be no balance due and that my account was closed. I was logged on to my online account during the entire time and it was pretty amazing that just as she told me, the account screen confirmed a zero balance and that my account was cancelled.

From dialing to hang-up, it took about a half-hour, most of that time was on hold.

During the call, I remained somewhat monosyllabic and professional in tone and she responded politely. I recommend keeping your emotions in check despite how crazy it may make you.

Posts: 103 · Posted: Tue Jun 12, 2007 2:50 am Post subject: Cancel???

I have had Vonage for my business for two and a half years now. I have dealt with the customer support in India and the Philippines, and in the US, and although I am not thrilled with the wave of customer support outsourcing so popular with US corporations, I have not encountered the problems which all of you describe. Calls to my Vonage number get forwarded to my cell without problems, the voice to text feature has been wonderful. I get emails to my phone with my messages transcribed. Service now is rarely down. I really do not understand why so many of you complain. I suspect there always will be a percentage of users of any service that are dissatisfied.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Apr 08, 2006 Posts: 11

cargojack:

I shared your sentiment for most of my 1+ years with Vonage UNTIL I needed customer service. Actually, that was my only gripe, which wasn't enough to flush me out until the Verizon thing drew more attention to possibly needing a "back door."

Once that started, then service quality and dependability also began to suffer and hence my need for more customer service.

Now that I've seen how others handle their own flaws (see post above regarding how ATT handled things), my low opinion of Vonage's customer service got even lower. I'm still getting personal e-mails and "check-in" calls from a single CS rep at ATT AFTER my issue was resolved. I love it!

Regarding the "certain percentage of users of any service that are dissatisfied," don't you find it remarkable how many of these threads are related to that dissatisfaction? And also remarkable is the number of "reads" and responses they get. Now that I'm a former Vonage customer, I realize just how maddening it can be dealing with them and why we all take the time to continue posting about it.

I also noticed that even happy customers acknowledge the same problems with customer service, but stay on because the cost/benefit ratio is still positive for them. That still says that Vonage needs to get better in this one area.

My hope is that someone at Vonage is taking note of some of this stuff. When/if cash flow improves and if they triumph in their lawsuits, perhaps our voice will be heard and they will raise the bar a notch or two. I would love it if they could pay tech support enough to keep it in country and lure the best away from ATT, Verizon, Sprint, whoever. I'd come running back in a heartbeat.

By the way, thanks for chiming in. I must admit I get weary of hearing all the bad news. It's good that someone who is happy takes the time to speak up to let everyone know that it's not ALL bad.