Does Vonage Define "Excessive Use"?

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

[b]its not 5000 minutes, its 15000 mins a month....coming from an employee...and no call centers....I dont know understand only hearing about two cases but this issue does come up once in a while.[/b]

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 18

i got home from work last night and i had an email from the Vonage usage department telling me that they have changed my usage plan from premium unlimited to their call center plan which is a $70 difference! i went through and counted all the incoming calls that i had received since i initially talked to them, the last six days, and there was a total of 41 calls. i then counted all the forwards listed. there were 28. 20 of those were calls forwarded from my Vonage virtual number, so out of 41 calls, 8 of them were valid call forwards. 20% of my incoming call numbers. note that true usage monitoring would include minutes and this had nothing to do with minutes, just the number of incoming calls that were forwarded. i told them if 20% calls forwarded was considered excessive call forwarding usage, then consider me an ex-customer.

i got a reply email from them today. they continued to claim excessive call forwarding in may and june and also excessive calls to an english phone number. this was the first time they mentioned excessive international calls. however, they said on further investigation, they decided they weren't going to change my plan but they would be monitoring my account.

but i'm finished... i thought Vonage was a great company for what they were offering but their ads are deceptive because they're offering these services but if you actually use them or if you use them in a way that THEY deem excessive, then they can pull the rug out from under you.

fortunately, my knees didn't get too scraped up and i'll be getting right back up on my feet.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 8:36 pm Post subject:

Be honest..... how many total minutes domestic, and how many minutes international, have you used in the past month?

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 18

lol... the sole reason for me getting Vonage was because they offered unlimited international calls... i'll be totally honest and i've told that to the usage department. but as it states in their TOS, anything they deem as irregular residential usage... it's one residential line to another residential line. sure it's across the atlantic ocean, but to me, for a company like Vonage that is breaking down the barriers of POTS lines and to offer a service over the Internet, which in and of itself has busted down all kinds of barriers with communication, to have such limits for their customers isn't going forward, it's going backwards. yeah, i can understand needing to make sure that customers aren't running businesses with their residential lines, but come on. what is the real issue here? is it bandwidth? is it some kind of exchange cost that is incurred with each forwarded call? these are things that i'll never know unless i get in good with someone that works for Vonage networks. i mean, they want to charge me more money for the way i use my service but they don't have detailed explanations in their service offerings that dictate what plan bracket a customer should be in. they advertise unlimited calls, free international calls and staying connected with all of their revolutionary service features, but if you use it in a way that is not considered to be normal residential usage... it doesn't make sense. maybe i'm the anomoly here and no one else has had these problems with Vonage. if that's the case then i really lost out here... i really liked Vonage and i'm very disappointed that they are taking the stance they're taking. but i'm going to have to take my service elsewhere. i can't really cry over spilt Voip. Wink

Posts: 448 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:02 pm Post subject:

Hmmmm.... sounds like an answer worthy of a politician. You never answered the question.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 18

i don't have exact numbers but i figured that from my answer, it would be clear that my number of international calls were well above domestic calls. 90% / 10% if i had to guess. but i haven't gone over 5000 minutes in domestic and international combined. i think we were off by 1000 one month. is this normal residential usage? for people who have family in other parts of the world, yes. i still say their service advertisements are deceptive.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Thu Jul 26, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject:

Under 5000 minutes. Hmmm.....

5000 minutes per month = 2.78 hours per day.

I would hardly call that excessive.

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2007 Posts: 18

you really think i could be a politician? maybe i should give that a stab.

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jun 26, 2006 Posts: 10

I call France three times a day speaking anywhere from one hour and a few minutes to two hours. That's a French landline so it's free. They cut me off at the hour mark; I just have to call right back. Nothing has ever happened past that.

Posts: 433 · Posted: Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:35 am Post subject:

I have to agree with melodywhr. If everything he said is true, he is simply using the service that Vonage advertises and promotes and he is getting screwed for it. Its almost as if Vonage doesn't like it when somebody figures out how to take full advantage of their services. Virtual number in another country, call forwarding, simulring, free international calls. Obviously these things cost Vonage money to provide and I'm sure they can count on making their money back with %95 of the subscribers, but if somebody uses them to full advantage and Vonage is losing money, this is how they treat a customer? I've come to a real change of heart about Vonage in the last couple months. A lot of negative things on this forum plus my first significant problem(billing) and experience with cust serv, are making me think twice about being a customer. Do I stay because they are the largest and perhaps most stable or do I go to someplace less stable without false advertising and good cust service? What to do what to do!!!!