Terms of Service concerning certain billings

Posts: 12 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 24, 2004 Posts: 12

As most who have recently logged onto Vonage, you were prompted to review and approve an updated Terms of Service. What is most disturbing to me concerns the billing disputes section as noted below verbatim:

3.2 Billing Disputes. You must notify us in writing within seven days after receiving your credit or debit card statement if you dispute any Vonage charges on that statement or you will be deemed to have waived any right to contest such charges. All notices of disputed charges should be sent to:
Customer Care Billing Department
Vonage America Inc.
2147 Route 27
Edison, New Jersey 08817
-or-
billing@vonage.com

The reason for my concern is due to the inadequate amount of time to address such disputes. An excellent example is today.. I leave for a 2-week job hunt and vacation and may not have access to the Net for over a week of it. What if I mailed by postal service my dispute? There's nothing specific in this section mentioning if the postmark would even apply as the date initiated, versus when the dispute was received by Vonage. Vonage should be cognizant of such circumstances and allow a greater amount of time for resolution,
in particular to respect with customers who make international calls on the service. At the present time, I know of no charges in addition to my standard service for myself that could come under dispute, but this could affect any Vonage customer now or in the future.
Under the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act that credit card transactions in the United States are subject, consumers generally have a longer period than seven days to dispute billings. If Vonage should happen to report a deliquent customer to any of the three major credit reporting agencies over a billing issue, yet it was revealed they did not give adequate opportunity for discussion or rebuttal, I could see MAJOR problems brewing for Vonage, despite their extensive legalese since they likely can't trump certain consumer protections given under FCRA, and view this as a gross oversight to say the least. Vonage legal counsel should consider my above points if they apply. Under my present understanding of these issues, I smell a big rat.
Even if Vonage is proven correct and proper with ToS section 3.2, I may well port my number to a competing Voip if Vonage insists and especially enforces such a ridiculously short timeline. It indicates to me at the least, a serious lack of consideration on their part.

Posts: 1389 · Posted: Wed Jul 06, 2005 6:39 am Post subject:

If you mailed your dispute within seven days it will be post marked within that time limit. You could also send it certified mail, which would be a good idea if there is a dispute for proof of delivery.