Unauthorized Credit Card Charge

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 21, 2008 Posts: 1

Does Vonage Customer Service solve any issues for anyone? I just had a disturbing encounter where one of their reps refused to identify himself but stated he was a supervisor. There was a $13 discrepancy in what I was told my bill would be monthly and they charged my credit card without my authorization and stated it was their policy to do that. They do not take cash as a method of payment and the only form of payment is credit card and/or bank account. Now that sounds like a scam to me for a business to only accept these two method of payments. The customer does not have the liberty to review their bill and pay if satisfied with what the service they provide.

What gives? Some times you don't hear the phone ring when calling someone - is that normal? Was told if the line was placed in the jack in the wall all the jacks will work for the phones I have in my house, not true. Now they say my previous phone provider have to snip the lines. They have no service person to come in our area. Still have one out of five phones working in my home. Have a fax, but would have to plug into one of those jacks, guess what - don't work.

Can Vonage provide the service it is advertising or all of this is just hype and they are scamming the consumer? Mad

Posts: 1178 · Member of the Week Joined: Feb 28, 2005 Posts: 1178

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There was a $13 discrepancy in what I was told my bill would be monthly and they charged my credit card without my authorization and stated it was their policy to do that.

Vonage is right in the case of charging your credit card because you agreed to this type of payment agreement when you first started your service. The discrepancy can be dealt with through the "request a credit" means. However, b/c their billing system is computer generated to save overhead cost, they bill whatever is the outstanding balance. I hope you do know that you can look at all your billing information in real time on your web account and so there really should not be any surprises. Can I ask what the extra $13 are from? A detailed bill is available on your web account as well.

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I just had a disturbing encounter where one of their reps refused to identify himself but stated he was a supervisor.

This on the other hand is disturbing as everyone must identify him/herself for a customer. Shame on Vonage for this type of irresponsible customer service.

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They do not take cash as a method of payment and the only form of payment is credit card and/or bank account. Now that sounds like a scam to me for a business to only accept these two method of payments.

I would say that a scam is when they falsely or deliberately mislead you into paying money. In this case, Vonage has made it abundantly clear that they only take 2 forms of payment either CC or a Bank Account. I do not see any scam in this.

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The customer does not have the liberty to review their bill and pay if satisfied with what the service they provide.

Yes and no. You have the right to review your bill and then you can request credit for improper billing. Most supervisors I have dealt with have been very good about this. Vonage is actually fiscally smart by charging first and then giving credit if mistakes are made. It's a whole lot easier to do than to give the bill and then deal with people not paying their bills on time etc.

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What gives? Some times you don't hear the phone ring when calling someone - is that normal?

No this is not normal.

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Was told if the line was placed in the jack in the wall all the jacks will work for the phones I have in my house, not true. Now they say my previous phone provider have to snip the lines. They have no service person to come in our area.

There is a subforum here on home wiring. i'd recommend that you visit that subforum and look at the instructions. The removal of the incoming line from your local telco is not as hard as it appears to be.

You will need to do this and also make sure that all your phone jacks are connected to the same line. It looks to me like at one point your home had 2 lines and so that's why only 1 of the jacks work and the other 4 are connected to a different line. The material in the home wiring section can help you identify and reconfigure it.

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Have a fax, but would have to plug into one of those jacks, guess what - don't work.

there is also a subforum here on faxes tivos etc. they can also help you.

keep in mind that you are just mad and your struggles can be solved if you are willing to read and learn how others have dealt with this.

I do all of what you want to do with my vonage service but it took me a bit of learning to get it done.