My Vonage Experience

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 4

I have been a Vonage customer since 2003, and a loyal customer with referrals. I recently called and I was on the phone with them for 3 hours and 10 minutes on my cell phone to get from some forign guy who I barely could understand to say sir there is nothing we can do more and I'm from india and I don't speak very good English only to be sent to three other people that had the same problem of speaking English. We reset the modem, they tried to put the blame on my 10mb Charter highspeed internet. We got it going again to have the same problem 5 days later.

I contacted them again and they said my modem warrantee was out and I'd have to buy a new router at my expense! I never remembered reading that I had to buy a new router if the one that I was using quit. This is not what I signed up for, I signed up for customer service if needed, and a great product.

I will be switching to Charter telephone on the 7th of December 2007, to a company that will replace an come and install the product at NO CHARGE! They will replace the router at no charge if it is a problem with the router unlike this Vonage circus show!

This could have been fixed with a replacement router at Vonages expense instead of mine.

I must say goodbye to my former Vonage folks!

Posts: 4777 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Aug 30, 2005 Posts: 4777

You'll have to call customer service to cancel. When you do, if you repeat this story to them you may well get the offer of a new modem at Vonage expense.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Mon Dec 03, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject:

I had the same issue a year ago... customer since 11/2004. My router was dropping the phone constantly, but was out of warranty when they said it needed replaced.

A new router was about $90 ($79.99 + shipping). I told them I liked the service, but I was absolutely NOT willing to spend $90 for the privilege of remaining their customer, when their major competitors would send me one for free.

Had to work my way to the "retention" department (after telling them to cancel the account) to get someone on the line with the authority to waive the fee. I told them they could spend a very small amount (their cost on these things has to be minimal) to retain a proven, long-term customer, OR they could spend 3 times that in advertising to find someone to replace my account after I walked out the door.

Router arrived a few days later. Mission accomplished.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 13

Vonage Customer since 3/2005, call quality dropped through the basement over th past 5 days: dropped words in conversation. Anyway, I tested my internet - fine, I called Vonage, 1st person told me after hearing my story and without doing any trouble shooting that I needed a new router. This was based solely on the fact that its about 2.5 years old, I figure hey whatever...a new router can't really hurt. Except when I got transferred to the "tech guy" who only tried to tell me about how much it was going to cost. I kindly asked him to stop and politely (seriously) that if his company wants me to remain as a customer, they will replace the the router for free, and ship the new one at their expense. For this, the ONLY thing I am willing to do is ship the bad router back. He tried to tell me about a $40 rebate...I more sternly asked him to stop and reminded him that I have many option for Voip service. A few minutes later he comes back on...free router replacement.

Posts: 4 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 04, 2007 Posts: 4

I'll call them tommorrow and post here tommorrow night what they said....

Posts: 448

fn_tool wrote:

He tried to tell me about a $40 rebate...

Call me cynical, but I suspect this would also tie you in to a new contract. Very sneaky.

Posts: 80 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 24, 2007 Posts: 80

Just to clear up the confusion...the $40.00 rebate that Vonage is offering doesn't reset your contract. This amount is for customers who wish to switch to a new router because the old one is faulty, and is out of warranty, or if they wish to upgrade. This is a "no strings attatched" rebate to reward loyal customers.

I have never understood why people complain about purchasing a new Voip device if theirs is out of warranty. The TOS clearly states 1 year warranty on the device. If I was to purchase a DVD player or printer I wouldn't expect it to last forever. Electronics wear out. That's all there is to that. Vonage charges a fair price for the phone service. That is what you are paying for.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 10:38 am Post subject:

VoipFrus wrote:

I have never understood why people complain about purchasing a new Voip device if theirs is out of warranty. The TOS clearly states 1 year warranty on the device. If I was to purchase a DVD player or printer I wouldn't expect it to last forever. Electronics wear out. That's all there is to that. Vonage charges a fair price for the phone service. That is what you are paying for.

Vonage calls itself The Broadband Phone Company.

If they want to play the role of a phone company providing dialtone service, then they are responsible for the equipment that provides the dialtone handoff on premises, just like any other phone company.

Verizon is reponsible for the NID hanging on the side of my house. Brighthouse is responsible for their cable box hanging outside, and the modem inside providing the Ethernet handoff for Road Runner internet. At work, our internet transit providers take responsibility for all equipment up to the point where they cross-connect with us.

Why should Vonage be any different, especially considering their equipment is proprietary and locked? They:

(a) provided me with the device of their choosing (brand, model);
(b) perform all maintenance on it (pushing firmware, etc.) without needing my consent;
(c) locked the device such that I cannot alter config;
(d) locked the device such that I cannot use it with any other service;
(e) do not permit us to use our own Voip device.

IMO, they have assumed responsibility for the device. If they want to hold the customer responsible for equipment, then let us buy our own equipment, of the make/model we choose, and provide us with server info and SIP credentials.... just like Verizon allows us to buy our own phones, Road Runner lets us buy our own router/firewall, and our carriers at work allow us to buy our own Routing gear.

Posts: 80 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Oct 24, 2007 Posts: 80

I see your point....and I agree completely. You certainly shed some light on a different point of view that I hadn't even considered.

Posts: 448 · Posted: Tue Dec 04, 2007 3:51 pm Post subject:

Reading back over it, my response may have sounded argumentative and that was not the intent. Tone of "voice" in my head as I typed it was conversational, not combative. (just to be clear)

I don't mind using Vonage supplied devices, as long as they assume responsibility for them.

However, if we are responsible for the cost of replacement, IMO it is wrong to force us to buy more of the same cheap throw-away units. We should have the freedom to spend our money on higher quality equipment that won't keep breaking. (Let me buy something good, and just give me the server info and SIP credentials to configure my own device.) For those who don't understand how that all works, or who don't want to bother, they could simply buy another pre-configured unit directly from Vonage.

I've read in other forums that regardless of how long you've had it, if your AT&T CallVantage device goes bad AT&T will send you another one without charge.