Billing Practices & Customer Service

Posts: 14

I am very frustrated with the billing practices and customer service from Vonage.

I've been a Vonage user for over 4 years and I've never had a problem with the service itself - I love it, and I've always spoken highly of it - I've even referred a few people.

I am in Ontario Canada so I use Vonage Canada, but I've learned that is doesn't matter which "service" you use (USA, Canada, UK, etc) you always deal with the same customer service team. This is where my frustration began.

Times are tough. I've been having some problems with my credit card company. I called Vonage to inquire about making payments using an alternate method - cheque, PayPal, online banking, anything! They said that I could only pay with a credit card, or through electronic chequing (calling them with the info from a cheque and paying over the phone).

Great. I waited until pay day when I knew the funds would be there, and I called them with my banking information to make the payment I owed them. When trying to do it, they said that it wouldn't work because I'm in Canada and the service is only available to US customers. You think they could have told me that when I called them to find out about it originally. I mean, they had to VERIFY my details, wouldn't they see I'm a Canadian customer?

I had the money and was willing to pay! They are just not playing nice.

Okay. So my credit card company still wasn't an option. So I purchased a prepaid credit card and only put enough on it to pay my bill with Vonage. Then everyone would be happy - they would get paid by credit card, and my overdue balance would be gone. Voila!

So I transferred money to my prepaid card - this takes a few days. Today I got an email from the prepaid card company saying the load was complete and I could now make purchases or payments. Great. So I go to my Vonage account online and try to pay. It wouldn't work. I then called Vonage and tried to pay over the phone. It wouldn't work for them either. They said there were insufficient funds. I knew this was not true because I put more on the card than I had owed Vonage.

I called the prepaid credit card company to inquire what was going on. They said that Vonage was pre-authing the card for more than I owned them, and that is why it wasn't working. I had enough to pay Vonage, but Vonage was pre-authing for more than what was available on my card, and more than what I owed them anyway!

Grrrrr.

I called Vonage back to explain why it had declined and asked if there was any way to avoid he pre-auth and just pay exactly what I owed them. They said no. To make it worse, they said that my account will be suspended tomorrow (Tuesday) if I don't pay.

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO PAY FOR ALMOST 2 MONTHS NOW! They just don't want my money - I keep offering to pay - they are not cooperating!

I advised them that I can make another payment on the card, so that I can try again (put enough on my card for the pre-auth to work), but it would still take another 2 or 3 days for the payment to clear on my card.

Vonage said that there would be a re-activation fee when I called to pay and have my account activated again. This really pissed me off because I've had the money for them for quite some time now, they are just making it really difficult to give it to them! I freaked out and insisted that if they were going to disconnect me, that they waive the fee because I have been TRYING to pay them for a while. After a while of debating, she agreed to it, and said she was noting it on my account for when I call back.

I hope that they actually follow through and waive the fee when I call back in a few days.

I have been a Vonage customer for over 4 years. I have been in good standing with them for the entire time, until now - and I have been more than willing to pay them the entire time!

So now we will be without phone service for a few days, and for what? This is so annoying.

This entire situation is just RIDICULOUS. I am so frustrated with them.