Cancelling Vonage Difficulties

I had a very similar experience with Vonage. Except with me, since I hadn't been there over a year wanted to charge me to disconnect and for the (now useless) VoIP adapter. I got it all worked out in the end.

Regardless, I think customer support reps have a hard time detailing with folks like us (ergo, know what we're doing). I had the same kinds of bandwidth issues, no matter how high it was cranked, I never had consistently decent call quality.

You lucky dog! It looks like things have improved dramatically since I, too, experienced the Vonage cancellation process.

Of course she didn't recognize your name. Level 1 customer service agents generally don't even know much about the business they're working for - and we're probably approaching the day (if we haven't already reached it) where that rep you were talking to would take the next call in her queue and have her monitor tell her to answer "Harry and David's Gift Order line, how may I help you?"

I don't think there is anything wrong with customer service attempting to keep a customer. The transcript doesn't point to any lying or cheating on the rep's part so, as far as I'm concerned, it's kosher. Annoying but kosher.

>>The transcript doesn't point to any lying or cheating on the rep's part so, as far as I'm concerned, it's kosher.

Let me be clear by saying she did do a good job. She DESERVES to be in the customer retention center for being tough and not giving up.

The one thing the transcript doesn't denote is "tone". She comes off as more polite in the transcript, when she actually had some "attitude".

If you listen to the beginning, her line where she says "Oh well, they offered you that for now, but how long is that package going to last???" It's pretty accusatory and with a lot of attitude. Her tone didn't sit well with me. She could have dropped the attitude and stuck with the facts. Was a total turn off.

Go listen for yourself.

I take it she doesn't recognize the name "Tom Keating", as one of the first people to write about Vonage, one of their earliest customers, I test VoIP for a living, and I'm one of the predominant VoIP bloggers. I guess you're never as famous as you think you are. Least that's what my wife tells me!

Tell your wife that she wins that round. Until today, I've never heard of you either, so I can't fault the rep for not knowing. I'll geek out here and quote:

"You've never heard of the Millenium Falcon?"

"Should I have...?"

Having done the tech support thing, kudos to you for not either front or back-loading your bio into the call somehow. The pomposity-o-meter would be through the roof then. Looks like both of you did your best (one to cancel, the other to retain), thanks for passing this along.

>> kudos to you for not either front or back-loading your bio into the call somehow. The pomposity-o-meter would be through the roof then.,

Agreed. And let me just say that the sentences where I scoff at "how could she not know I write for the #1 VoIP magazine" and pretending to have a big ego were purely for entertainment and humor purposes. Hope it came off that way.

The Internet is a big ocean, and I am but a tiny plankton. See, I can be humble!

All this to cancel your Vonage services? This is as bad as the guy who tried to cancel Aol.

A friend sent me a link to your Vonage cancelation call because I had a terrible experience with the company. I thought you would be interested in hearing my story.

In May of 2005, as my verizon wireless contract ended, I decided that I would get a VOIP phone to save money. Vonage was my first choice, due to their public appearance of being a large company and therefore I believed that equated to professionalism, sound business practices and stability. I checked the vonage website and used their "can I port my number to vonage?" box. It came up YES. Everything looked good so I called Vonage. The sales guy confirmed that I could port my number. I was sold. I signed up and was told that I would have to keep the verizon wireless number active until such time that the port request goes through. This can take up to 21 days I was told. No problem, I'll be saving money in the long run even if I have to pay for my cell phone and vonage on top of it for a month. They gave me a temporary phone number while the request would take place. They didn't have local numbers in my city, so I took a random number in Beverly Hills because I thought it'd be cool to have a Glitzy number for fun.

A month went by, I called to check the status of my port request.
They put in a trouble ticket and sent me an email reply within 24 hours to say that the port request is in processing and they are waiting on a transfer date.

Two weeks later, I called again. Same thing.

Two weeks later, I called again. It had been two months, I'm sure my request form got lost somewhere or accidently archived or something.
They assured me that they had it, it was still in processing and they are just waiting for a transfer date from Verizon Wireless.

It's August 2005, I call again. What's going on with my transfer request? The guy tells me that port requests sometimes take a while because the carriers don't want to give up the numbers and lose their customers. He implied that Verizon Wireless was stonewalling and that Vonage was doing everything in their power to secure the number for me. I asked if they finally have local numbers in my city. Not yet.
So I'm stuck with a number that's not even local and a transfer request that isn't happening and a cell phone bill and a vonage bill every month. He put in a trouble ticket. I received an email soon after saying that they were waiting on a transfer date.

September 2005, I can't remember how many times I've called vonage at this point. I'm getting frusterated. I ask if they can at least give me a temporary phone number that's in my city? No. They still don't have local service in my area. Can they give me discounted or free service until my number transfer goes through? No.

October 2005, I receive a call from Verizon Wireless, offering me a free phone and other benefits if I sign a new contract with them since I had been paying month-to-month for a while now. I explained to the guy that my number is currently in a transfer process to Vonage. I couldn't sign a new contract under that number because when the transfer goes through, the number would be lost and the contract would terminate and I'd have to get a new number or something to that effect. So I would have to sign a new contract with a new number while keeping the old number active on a separate verizon account until vonage ports it. So the guy asked if I'd sign a contract if he can help me get the port request through faster. I certainly would.
He did a 3-way with the incoming port request department at verizon to my understanding... they said they never received a port request for that number. Then we did a 3-way with Vonage customer service and spoke with a supervisor. He said that something must have gone wrong with the port request. He suggested that I cancel it and then open a new port request. So that's what I did... expecting to have everything wrapped up within 21 days.
A week later, I get an email saying that my port request had failed.

November 2005, I called vonage. I was then informed that they cannot port numbers from Verizon Wireless and that my number is not able to be ported as a result. I was also informd that Vonage could NEVER port my number. When I told the guy that Vonage's website said I could and so did the sales representative I signed up with, which was the only reason I signed up with vonage in the first place to keep my existing number, He told me that I was mistaken! He said the Vonage website wouldn't have said that I can port this number and the sales guy's system would have said it can't be ported. I told him I wasn't making it up. He said that maybe they were updating the system at the time and accidently put the wrong information in the database. I asked him what about all the tech tickets I opened to check the transfer request all summer, why hadn't anyone done their job and actually checked why the port request wasn't happening? He said that the port request would have looked correct because any number can appear on the port request and there wouldn't have been any way to recognize that the number was unable to be ported.
So I asked if they had local numbers for my city yet. Not yet, but that they are working on it.
So I decided to stay with vonage through the rest of November. They still didn't have local numbers. So I asked about cancelation in December. I was told that I would not be refunded for the remainder of my billing period, so I decided to wait until the end of my cycle to cancel.
I called Verizon Wireless to cancel my phone number which I had been trying to keep... then signed up with a cheaper cell phone company that didn't have contracts.

I call to cancel my account. I explain what happened. I was hung up on once, another time I was told that the account termination department was closed and they are only open 9-5 M-F, another time I tried to convince a supervisor that I was due some sort of refund. I was not entited to a refund according to him. I would have kept vonage if they had local numbers in my area... but they still didn't!
(they still don't as of September 2006 when writing this email) They wouldn't allow me to simply suspend my account without payment until such time that they do have local numbers either.... I got fed up with TRYING with them and called their Account Termination Department. They listened to why I wanted to cancel and didn't really try to convince me otherwise. I was told that due to heavy cancelation requests, that they are taking names and numbers and having a supervisor call customers back within 1-2 business days because only a supervisor can do the cancelation and they are too busy.
I waited a week for their call... none.
I called back to ask what happened, and they said they would expedite that request for me and took my contact number once again. 1-2 Business days... I waited a week... no call.
It's January 2006. I don't remember where all this calling back and forth fits in... but I was auto-charged for another month of service and because I didn't expect them to call me back on that account termination request, I changed my credit card information on their website to my initials with the number 0000-0000-0000-0000 or something and set to expire a month later so they couldn't bill me again and just left it be.
The billing cycle comes and I receive an email saying that my account has been terminated due to non-payment. I cracked open a Guinness and celebrated! Then I called Vonage to get a refund for the previous month in which I hadn't even used the vonage box, it had been unplugged for a while now. The customer service guy was cool. He told me that changing my credit card information was a smart idea. He refunded me for the previous month that I didn't use service and my account remained terminated.

I thought that was the end of Vonage... I was wrong.

September 2006, I receive a collections notice in the mail saying that I owe vonage $41 and some cents. I can't believe this. So I call the collections agency. Apparently I owed Vonage an account termination fee because I had been a customer less than 12 months. I argued that $41 seems like an odd number for an account termination fee... I figure they charged me the account termination fee plus a collections fee...... either way, I wanted to avoid having this on my credit report so I paid it.

So I'm pretty sure I've seen the last of Vonage... I'm currently with Sunrocket and have never had a problem.

I'm sorry for the long email... but I hope it was entertaining if
nothing else! Vonage is an absolutely terrible company with
questionable ethics. I'm sure a lot has changed in the past year but
I'll never sign with Vonage ever again and would recommend against it
to anyone I meet.

I had the worst customer service experience in my life with Vonage. Getting my number ported took longer than the period in which I could cancel service without any penalties. Do you think anyone at Vonage would tell you that before you sign up? Think again!

Then when I wanted to cancel because I was dissatisfied with the service, they slapped me with the fees for recovering the box and the infamous "disconnection" fee (which Verizon does not have, btw). The customer service reps don't even try to offer you a bone by waving any fees or any portion of them--they're absolutely intransigent. In this day of customer choice, I would have felt better even if they offered me $5 off for the sake of good will. It was not forthcoming. Even with higher charges at Verizon, at least I feel like I'm working with an operator who isn't out to fleece me!

I'd like to share my experience also. I think Vonage has a bit of a double standard and I'd be interested to see how we could band together to protect future Vonage customers.

When calling Vonage to port your number to them, you are told to NOT call your current carrier and that your account with them will be cancelled automatically. During this transfer phase you are paying double (Once to Vonage and once to your current carrier).

When canceling your Vonage service you think it has to happen the same way. I called up Comcast and requested them to port my number from Vonage. This process took about 13 days on which day Comcast came to my house, installed my new phone, and STARTED charging me for my new service. I made a terrible assumption that my Vonage service would automatically be cancelled just as my account with my pervious provider was. Yesterday I was billed from Vonage. I called them up today to cancel and get a refund for the month I am not going to use. I was told that I couldn't have a refund and that I agreed to call to cancel when signing up for the service. So now I have been charged for 18 days in the beginning that I didn't use and 38 days at the end of my service that I didn't use.

I believe we should set something up in an attempt to warn other customers about this. Does anyone have ideas on how we can do this or what we should do?

i want to cancel vonage havent connected vonage yet and allready vonage is messing me over so i will send there stuff back and i want to be canceled asp.

i want to cancel vonage havent connected vonage yet and allready vonage is messing me over so i will send there stuff back and i want to be canceled asp.

I could have saved some time if I had read more user comments from the Google results for unlocking my Vonage-provided Cisco ATA-186 adapter. It appears Vonage doesn’t want to unlock your adapter even after you have stayed with them for ages, or even if you pay them for the unlocking service.

I found this quite surprising, as I’ve been a satisfied Vonage customer for many years. I only discontinued the service several months, when it was clear I was not using it enough to justify the cost.

Based on my experience today, though, it seems the horror stories are quite true.

I called the Vonage support number and explained that I’m no longer a customer but would like to use the adapter in my own network, and would need to have the adapter unlocked. The support technician answered (more than once) that I could “simply unplug all cables from the adapter and it would not disturb the network.” Obviously this did not answer my inquiry at all.

I wasn’t sure if the tech even understood my question (his English wasn’t very fluent), explained this to him, and asked to speak to a supervisor. He offered to transfer the call to technical support instead of the supervisor, and I agreed to this. It’s just that nobody ever picked up the call after that…

I guess all this nonsense was just tactics right from the beginning to get rid of me with my questions. I would have preferred a direct answer like “sorry, we don’t provide unlocking for the adapters” or whatever the case is. I wonder if that is against consumer laws in the USA, so they try to just avoid answering anything at all. What other reason could there be for not being direct with customers?

Unfortunately my ATA-186 is of the later revision where the eeprom chip is soldered on the motherboard. Even if I had eeprom programming hardware, it would take some careful soldering to retrieve the chip without damaging it (or the motherboard).

One more item for the next electronics recycling pickup…

I have had a bad experience cancelling vonage. I called them and they told me I probably had a defective phone and gave me a Return Authorization Number and an address to ship my faulty phone to. Then they charged $64.50 (without my authorization) to the phone they replaced. It has been 3 months and I have a USPS delivery Confirmation that says the faulty phone I sent was delivered to them. But so far I haven't recived any credit for that and they have not cancelled my account despite repeated calls, as they want my account to investigate. I have been calling to cancel and get a refund and each time I get info that they never received it. One service representation told me that the previous cusotmer service rep gave me the wrong address to ship my faulty phone. I dumped a lot of money into vonage and I finally figured I will cut myy losses. I was really irked when they told me I had $40 disconnect fee. I finally am disputing my charges with the credit card and having them resolve it. I never had such bad service from a company before. Seems like they just care about the monthly charges and not about customer service. I will never use Vonage again, nor will I ever recommend them to anyone. And it looks like I am not the only one who is having problems cancellign service with vonage.

pk

Hi, Tom.

I'm just a regular guy who's trying to cancel the Vonage service, but I always face difficulties whenever I talk with the worker. Do you have any advices for what to say when I talk with them in order to cancel? I'm 16, so it's quite hard to talk to them in the same level as you did. hah. So hopefully, you will able to respond to my comment, I will appreciate it. Maybe a dialog will be nice.

From, Shawn.

When I callled Vonage to get the service they advised me I would need an internet service. I stated I could get one. After all was said and done theey advise me they will be deducting the initial 49.05 from the account and then the every month there after. I advised them to forget the vonage I do not allow any one to take money out of my account beause of a problem with identity theft. So I tell her to cancel.

Well she in-turn tells me she will need to transfer me to the customer service center for a cancellation. But I explained to her that why do I need to speak with the cancellation the department if I am telling her that I do not want the service. I am transferred anyway. I speak witha women who is located in the Phillipines telling me they are going to charge me 39.99 for the cancellation fee. Now the charge me $49.05 for the product and $39.99 for the cancellation fee all in a matter of 20 minutes. What a bunch of crooks!

I will never recommend Vonage again and the Vonage company needs to be investigated for by the Attorney General for all of there crooked ways. Q

Thanks
Queen

I have similar story, but have found little on what you can actually do to cancel the account?

Other than go through the trouble they put you through and from many of the post it actually may not work.

Anyone know?

I signed up almost a year ago actually Apr 2 2006 and today I wanted to cancel it. I was informed to my surprise I would be assessed a 39.99 charge to do that. I did not recall seeing that notification when I signed up. It was advertised as hassle free no contracts. But after looking at the Terms of Agreement it does say if cancelled before 1 year you get charged a fee.

I informed the rep I want to cancel it then on that day the Apr 2nd 2007 so I not get a fee she told me she could not do that. And instead launched into a high pressure sales tactic to switch my plan at the end of my billing cycle the Apr 2, 2007 date to a 2 month free then charged 9.99 for 100 minute plan each month instead.

I asked her to speak to someone else that could help me she told me that she would not transfer me and she was not going to escalate the call any further. She then told me after the free months if I still wanted to cancel I could and would not incur a charge for cancelling my account and to just try and see if it worked better for me.

Another point she kept hounding me as to way I wanted to cancel. I do not consider that any of Vontages business. I am the customer if I want to cancel I should be able to with out being badgered. I did not want to tell her that I was cancelling because my house caught on fire and I lost everything including my father to the fire. I have almost nothing and am staying with relatives temporally and that I simply could not afford to have Vonage anymore. I just did not want to bring that up or think about it. But I was being forced to relive the whole thing just to justify to her why I wanted to cancel when it was really none of her business.

So apparently she has made a change to my account that I am going to get the first 2 months free because in her words they are helping me. And then be charge the 9.99 a month after. The point for me is I don't want Vontage anymore I just wanted to cancel the account. And if I was literally 3 days shy from the 1 year agreement, how hard and uncompassionate is that? She simply could have told me to call back or that she scheduled it to be cancelled on the 1 year mark. Instead I was badgered and subjected to strong arm tactics to keep me on Vonage.

And for me I actually liked Vonage. I had very few connection problems. I thought after I was well and better on my feet I would subscribe again to Vonage because I liked it so much. I told her this at the beginning of the call and she thanked me then preceded to badger me about why I wanted to cancel.

I need to know what legal way can I go about canceling the account?

I read in other post if I change my address information and credit card information to something else they cannot contact me or charge me? Is that legal? I would have completed the 1 year agreement before changing the information before they attempted to charge me again

Also I could contact my bank and inform them to refuse any charge from Vonage that it was in dispute and to consider any attempted charge from them fraud?

Or cancel the credit card number from the bank?

A sign that VOIP is more and more a mainstream...

The fact that a "lower level" worker in a VOIP company doesn't recognize your visibility in the industry is not necessarily an insult to you. Rather, it indicates that the technology has grown to a point where more people are working in it as just another job - I'm sure a customer service rep is less interested in being a tech pioneer and more interested in having a job & keeping it.

A once pioneering idea, if sucessful, will become accepted and unexciting. Some young ladies of my aquaintance take certain social & cultural standards (voting, careers, etc) for granted, and have no idea who Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan are or what they did

I had my 2 phone lines ported from vonage to my cable company on the same day they billed me for my my next cycle. I called and tried to get refunded for the month and Vonage told me they will not refund me since the month had started. So I had to eat $50 for two lines that I will not use for the entire month.

I will never go back to vonage after this expirience.

My advice to all is make sure you have your number(s) ported before the end of your monbthly cycle and make sure you call tham and canel you account. They will try to keep you by offering $5 less a month put by than your may have already paid a number porting fee.

My phone was never even hooked up. When I got the Vonage package telling he how to practically rewire my home, I called them and they said they would send a company out to do the installation. I decided to not continue with Vonage and called them to cancel. The first person,I spoke to had limited English and made me repeat my home address four times. He then advised me to not cancel until I had my former carrier retrieve my phone number so that it would not be lost. I received emails from Vonage each time I spoke to them so I had documentation that I had called. When my phone was finally back up with my former carrier, I called Vonage to let them know that the cancellation could proceed. I was informed by a rude rep named Charles who gave me his badge number 26175 that my cancellation fee would be $98 something. I was shocked and upset and told Charles I realized he didn't make the rules but that paying almost a hundred to cancel a phone service I had not used was rediculous, to which he first told me to relax and then to calm down. He's lucky I wasn't standing face to face with him. He then offered me an alternative. I have to keep the account open for 2 months and be charged $9.99 for each month, after which I have to call again to have them cancel. This is the worst scam I have come across. Plus they have your credit card so they will just debit automatically and there's nothing you can do about it. Vonage needs to be stopped. I need my money back!!!

Yes, VONAGE is so desperate that they will BILL YOU AND BILL YOU AND BILL YOU even though you call repeatedly to cancel service. STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE!!! They are so desperate for funds that they STEAL from former client's credit cards for MONTHS. They should be indicted!!!!!! I'm going to complain to the Colorado Attorney General..it should not take NUMEROUS phone calls to cancel service.

Had a terrible experience with them. They refuse to allow earthlink to cancel my acct when I ported over "company policy". The "account manager" I spoke to was only interested in keeping my account active, and offered thier Premium tech service and a reduced rate. They overbilled me 2 months when my acct was cancelled, and I was already moved over to another service, his solution, refuse to cancel my account and offer me a free month of service I am not using, just so I can call in a month from now and wait on hold for 40 minutes to go through this again. I was with Vonage for 2 years, now there are much better companies out there, with much better service, connections, and financial stability. I hope my "account manager" was paid in Vonage stock, then he would still be overpaid. They also refuse to refund any "prepaid" service, so they bill you for the month in advance, you call the 2nd day of the month, and they say, "sorry company policy". Try asking for a manager, either they are so financially strapped they fired all the managers there, or company policy is that the idiot you get stuck with when you call in is the idiot you get stuck with. Hope the class action lawsuit filed by mostly customers that got burned in the IPO, and the patent lawsuits bring this company to a deserving bancruptcy, (a little time in a minimum security prison for the executives would be okay too :-)

I will never understand why anyone with ANY company that charges their credit card for somthing would go thru all this trouble? If you have difficulties simply contact your credit card company and dispute the charge.
personally GM Mastercard that i use is a click of a button next to each charge. They will not get my money until they respond to the credit card company. EASY!

I tried to sign up with vonage but could not due to telphone and DSL problems. Sent back equipment and asked for deposit back. I am not getting deposit back and they want to charge me $39.95 to disconnect. Said I never disconnected my line which I did when they told me where to send equipment back. She told me she was charging my acct an extra $39.95 for disconnection. I told her she was not and called the news media to tell them about my experience with Vonage. I am not through yet. SHe would not disconnect my service since I would not agree to allow her to charge my account any further.

I canceled my Vonage account today after sitting on hold for 15+ minutes and dealing with a rude rep who barely spoke English. I realize they are trying to keep customers but 3 no's is my limit. After I said "Just cancel my account for the 4th time", I asked to speak to a manager and was informed that she was a manager. Then she tried again to get me to keep the account, that's when I asked to speak to her boss. I sat on hold for another 10 minutes only to be told he was in a meeting and was not available and was not given an option to leave a message. I once again told the rep I just want to cancel the account. She tried 2 more times to scare me into keeping my account , but finally she closed the account. When she asked if there was anything else she could do for me, I told her I thought she was very rude and I didn't appreciate it, she hung up on me. Vonage service was decent at best, I had to stop all my torrents when I wanted to make or receive a phone call. I would not recommend their service to any of my friends or family.

I would NOT recommend Vonage to anyone. I tried to cancel my service in January and was told to wait until it went into cancellation, which didn't make sense at all to me then or now. When I questioned the woman about her recommendation, she told me that it would be easier that way. I never used the service - the box that the equipment came in has never been opened. I told her then that my husband's brother had just passed away and that I didn't need to worry about this. I am now being charged additional fees, including cancellation fees. The first person I spoke with today informed me that my husband had died! He continued by letting me know that there was no one else that I could speak with, that he was a manager and there was no one else higher up. I called back through a New Jersey phone number, trying to reach someone in the U.S., but still ended up in the Philippines. The second individual reiterated the same garbage as the first and simply said that she was also a supervisor and that Vonage would do nothing about the charges incurred as a result of my listening to their advice. Vonage is awful in my opinion.

I've been a Vonage user since August 2005 and never had a billing problem and only once had a connection problem that necessitated calling CS. The CS was polite and the problem resolved within 10 minutes, granted English was not the CS operators first language but that'#s true for about half the people I deal with in retail today (plus the gardners).

Since I travel, I appreciate Vonage's attitude toward taking your phone with you and haven't paid a serious international phone bill for almost two years now. Try using your US cell phone in Germany for a few days, Vonage have saved me $1000's.

I'd never heard of Tom K before either.

Wow. You got off lucky. I called in March to cancel and the agent sent me through a ton of hoops and sales pitches for discounted service and 911 crap. Last week I happened to look at my bank account and Vonage had charged me a month's fee. I called today and after 4 transfer to reach a "account agent", I went through a seemingly, identical script as you. However, my agent was overly concerned that I would be without 911 service. She really cared about me. Haha. Long story short, they have refused to refund the last month's fee, even though they have record of me canceling in March because, get this, "the notes show that the agent didn't read me the cancellation policy and have me verbally acknowledge that I wanted to close my account". How many times can you say "I WANT TO CANCEL (and I don't want the free month and I don't know anyone who wants to take over my service and save) before Vonage 'acknowledges' that you are serious???

This company is definitely fraudulent. Can you save Ameriquest? Stear clear.

Just a follow up from my prior posting: after talking to numerous empoyees at Vonage at length, and after hearing that "yes the service is now cancelled" even though that HAD BEEN REQUESTED PREVIOUSLY AND THE NUMBER PORTED...I got charged AGAIN this month. This company is out of control...it's like Hotel California, "you can check in any time you like, but you can NEVER leave." I told the rep today that she should be ashamed to work for such a dishonest company and I meant it. I'm posting things about trouble with Vonage where ever I can, but please be warned and don't ever ever ever use this service.

Going with Vonage is the worst decision I made as a business owner. I was very upfront that we were a business, and paid the $50/month per line for no different service and quality than residential, which is okay to deal with I guess for residential, but as a business it was less than acceptable most says - parts of the day when it would work fine and huge chunks of time when residential traffic would bottleneck service, so we sat there on cell phones for half the day! The worst part was porting numbers to (when we signed up) and from (when we went back to traditional land lines) --- cancellation of service has been a joke, and I am writing this as I wait on hold for 35 minutes so far...THIRTY FIVE MINUTES - AND THIS IS MY FOURTH TIME CALLING - AND I HAVE NOT HAD DIAL TONE WITH THEM FOR 5 WEEKS AND THEY ARE STILL CHARGING ME UP THE WAZOOO - WAZOO - CAN I SAY THAT ON THIS BLOG??? I may have to see a proctologist after my experience with these "professionals." Time, Money, Quality of Service = Exponentially low factor unknown to many except the myriad of people who fell for Woo Hoo... Woo Woo Hoo....

I was looking at Vonage's rather pretty page and admiring their offers; then somehow (Divine intervention I can only assume.) I ended up here and for that I am very grateful. I closed the page and won't be going back again. Many thanks people :-D

Man, I thought it was just me! I called my local cable company, Metrocast, on Monday the 25th of June to switch to the big three package, phone , tv, and internet. It is a savings of another $26.00 month over Vonage and better quality.

Metrocast told me that Vonage can take up to 25-30 days to post my numbers, but I did not care,as long as I could keep them. Well, guess what, I started having phone issues on Tues, by Weds when I made a call no one could hear me, I called vonge and they ran me through a bunch of crap and it started working,

BUTT, by Wed night, I could no longer get phone calls, I could make them but no one could call me, the message siad to people calling me, " the number you are calling has been DISCONNECTED!!!! WHAT. I have called them three times and they are telling me it is a mess up with the servers, bull, they are mad that I am switching. I told them that if my phone is not working right by the end of today, the 29th, I am going to start calling people, the NH attorney Gen. office, FCC, and anyone else I can think of and make there life hell. These guys suck and I hope and pray others do not have the same problem I am having.

Thank you for allowing me to vent.
John

I cannot even get to an agent much less have an agent try to convince me to stay. So now there is no way they'd convince me to keep the service! Hours of being on hold with their annoying messages and music!

I HAD 2 accounts with Vonage. I ended up not needing the second one, so after 6 months - I called to cancel. I was told that I would be charged the $39.99 (plus tax) cancellation fee. (By the way, where does it state that fees are taxable? NVM) They gave me a special offer that would actually cost me the same as the fee itself, so I let the account continue. I called the week before (the last week of June, 2007) and said I wanted to cancel...why? (of course they asked) - I don't use it. The representative says "I see here the account was used, how did you like the service?"

What? After STRESSING to him, that I didn't want the SECOND Vonage account...he put me on hold and told me becaue it was ONE week shy of the year - I would still have to pay the $39.99 fee to cancel... He also told me that I would bill on July 6th, 2007 - so to call before then to avoid being charged...

I called yesterday (July 2nd, 2007), and FINALLY was able to cancel the service...yet, much to my surprise - I was already billed for the month of July.

I called the billing department - this time I was told to I had to mail "the vonage device" back to receive a credit for the month of July. This is also when I found out, the customer service department doesn't live or work in the United States.

I wish I could say I was sorry - but I don't want to support an AMERICAN company that does not support AMERICANS...but when asked the answer is "I am not in the state."

"I know you're not! What COUNTRY are you in?" He ended up disconnecting the phone call.

I called back, this time speaking to the cancellation department (customer service doesn't exsist) and was told that I had no other choice but to pay for the month of July.

So...Tom Keating...I bet that is the reason why they don't know who you are...they also didn't know about the legal problems Vonage is facing with Verizon...GO VERIZON GO!!!

I seriously wish I would have checked the blogs before I signed up for Vonage. I did ask a couple of friends of mine who had the service before I signed up, but they hadn't attempted to cancel.

WOW! I am furious! And its more than just the fact that they won't refund the month I didn't even have their service.

I did something this morning I have never done before. I filed a complaint online with the Better Business Bureau and I recommend that everyone here does the same.

I was a customer for one year and then was offered a better deal for all my services through Comcast so I decided to make the switch. I had daily quality issues (regularly between 4 & 7pm).

I opened the account, my name and credit card are listed on the account, and yet I was rudely denied not only the ability to CANCEL the account and remove MY credit card, but the LYNDON person who finally answered my call (after sitting on hold for the third time for 20 min) stone-walled me and refused to give me a supervisor. NEVER have I been refused service in such a manner by ANY business. The ONLY reason I put it in my husbands name was for public listings. There should never be any reason for me to be denied access to personnel or the account when it is clearly my credit card paying for the service. He just kept telling me I'm not on the account! Then who's name is on that credit card? GGRRRRR!

When I switched to Vonage, I did not have to contact my current provider to tell them I would no longer be using their services. Vonage took care of everything when they transferred my service. I had a third party confirm that I wanted to switch my service from Vonage to Comcast and the phone number was moved over. How DARE they still continue to keep my account open and charge me when it is COMPLETLY apparent that the line isn't being used. They should have NO RIGHT to charge me when I no longer am using any of their services. Can someone EXPLAIN how this is even legal?

When my husband finally got through, he made three call attempts and every time was told his wait would be more than 15 minutes (we all can't sit there for 20 min to talk to a human!) he canceled the account and they told him -- NO REFUND! He responded to the crappy email they sent confirming he was not "entitled" to refund and was still too nice stating he would use word of mouth to ensure his friends didn't get caught in the mess. He copied me so I replied with the story you see above and copied their Customer Care, Billing, and Ethics department, their CEO and also the Trenton Better Business Bureau. I also included the BBB complaint number I filed.

customercare@vonage.com, billing@vonage.com, info@trenton.bbb.org, ethics@vonage.com, jcitron@vonage.com, jeffrey.citron@vonage.com

Again, I should have checked the blogs first. If they have messed with you and your money, I would encourage you to take steps with the BBB, its something we can do.

I wish I could now point all people considering the service to this blog! I signed up in May, 2006 and had asked a couple of friends with the service if they liked it, and they did. BUT, they had not attempted to cancel.

This morning I filed a complaint with the Better Business Bureau online. Something I've never done before but would encourage everyone who has been "taken" by Vonage to do the same. I also replied to the email they sent my husband with the information below and copied their Customer Service, Billing, and Ethics departments along with their CEO and the Trenton Better Business Bureau including the number of my complaint so they knew I was serious.

I opened the account, my name and credit card are listed on the account, and yet I was rudely denied not only the ability to CANCEL the account and remove MY credit card, but the LYNDON person who finally answered my call (after sitting on hold for the third time for 20 min) stone-walled me and refused to give me a supervisor to the point where I was finally raising my voice. The account is not mine therefore he could not escalate. NEVER have I been refused service in such a manner by ANY business. The ONLY reason it was in my husbands name was for public listings. There should never be any reason for me to be denied access to personnel or the account when it is clearly my credit card paying for the service. GRRR!!! The public listing and account holder (person paying) are two different things.

Their policies NEED to be changed. When I switched to Vonage, I did not have to contact my current provider to tell them I would no longer be using their services. Vonage took care of everything when they transferred my service. I had a third party confirm that I wanted to switch my service from Vonage to Comcast and the phone number was moved over. How can they still continue to keep my account open and charge me when it is COMPLETLY apparent that the line is no longer be used by Vonage!? They should have NO RIGHT to charge me when I no longer am using any of their services. Can anyone EXPLAIN how this is legal?!

In response to their Customer Care email to us, which my husband received after he attempted to call them three different times with wait times over 20 min each (had to keep hanging up after a while because no one has that kind of time to hang out) They simply stated we would not receive the refund he required. Too bad. But the Vonage team is there to support us 27/7. NOT TRUE!! The Vonage team is NOT available 24 hours a day and we can NOT contact them however we want because in order to cancel an account we can NOT do it online or via email and the 800 number only has support during limited business hours.

I wish we could advertise this blog so that everyone who sees a Vonage advertisement and even considers it -- RUNS LIKE THE WIND to their local cable provider or stays with AT&T. Again, file a complaint with the BBB online if you've lost money to these people who do not understand the meaning of SERVICE.

Cancelling Vonage

I signed up for Vonage in Feb. 07. Immediately I had problems:
Loss of dial tone
Inability to retrieve messages
Persons calling me receiving error messages,
not a valid number.. etc.

I called tech support and had a long wait nearly every time I called at least 6 times over a 3 m. period.

They were able to help me get it to work each time, only to have the problem recur in a few days.

I got fed up and tried to cancel, get a refund, they were completely unreceptive, told me I had no choice but to pay for six months service or pay disconnect fees.

I got other phone service and continued to pay Vonage 30 bucks a month, they told me to call back tody (07/03/07) and at that time I could disconnect with no fees.

I did call back and they told me I could disconnect but I had to pay 49.95 "rebate rewcovery charge"
This was never mentioned in any previous call.

Long story short, I feel like I entered a spider web with these people.. they dont care that their service doesnt work, and they make it nearly impossible to get rid of it.

btw/ I was just on hold for 85 min. They said a supervisor would call me back about my dispute within 48 hrs.

They told me this in April and no one ever called me back. So I'll see

I think they are not much better than thieves, they dont care at all what theuir customers think, and wont admit that their service is a bust.

Ahh ... my Vonage service is finally disconnected.

I was a long, long, LOOONG time Vonage user, started in April 2003. Vonage was relativley new at the time, but for the most part it worked well. Whenever I had a problem, I would call up and almost immediatley get a helpful person who might even credit me some time. I thought it was great!

Well as time went on, Vonage service got a bit worse, slowly. The monthly taxes got a bit more and more as well. And the customer service response times were slower and to be quite honest not too helpful, given that I am generally talking to a person 5000 miles away that doesn't speak English barely... I suppose the guys in New Jersey cost too much to employ, so off to India!

In the past 5 weeks, my Vonage service had gone from "Sucks" to Sucks really really bad" ... and everytime I would call in I would wait 20 - 40 minutes to talk to a person who I could barely hear - or understand - and then finally get transferred.. to a dial tone!!! It never failed, any transfers would result in me losing the call.

Today I finally had had enough. Along with a mystery charge they put on my credit card for not returning a router they sent me to help with a probelm (the router was not the problem and the rep said I didnt need to send it back anyhow - so I am keeping all the routers and reverse the charge on the card) I called up to cancel.

I hope no one else ever has to go thru the hoops I had to go thru just to cancel... first of all, it took 35 minutes to get a rep on the line, who then transferred me to retention. Where I waited another 15 minutes. Then the person absolutley REFUSED to let me cancel before reading me a very very long list of options besides cancelling. I don't recall how many times I said "Look just cancel the service!!!" but it was more than 10. IT tooke me total of 3 dropped calls and over 2 hours to complete this.

Finally the service ended up cancelled. I was sad in a way. I embraced and even promoted Vonage up til about 6 months ago. The last 2 or 3 months with them has been absolutley unbearable. I am glad its over.

As a side note, I signed up with AT&T Callvantage service today. To test them, I called tech support and got a person within 2 minutes. Called back and got a billing rep within 3 minutes. Both spoke English and were polite. And the call didn't get dropped. This was all during peak call times.

Here is hoping that Vonage disappears, and that AT&T does a better job.

Just a quick follow-up. Apparently the only way to get support is to email the CEO. If you read my posting, which I accidentally did twice (sorry), I had enough of Vonage and then some.

Yesterday, a call came through from an Executive Response Agent who talked to my husband and listened to our complaints then issued the credit to our account. Its not that much money, but the treatment and process was a huge battle.

So my recommendation is to email their CEO and maybe you'll get a response too! I'm emailing this blog to their folks so that maybe, just maybe, they will learn from their mistakes. If not, I'm sure they will implode.

YIKES -- i'm going thru vonage hell right now trying to cancel-- they want to charge me $199 to cancel after i have not been able to user their service at all because of poor dropped calls. VERY VERY VERY Poor customer service-- when you call, you get india or the phillipines and when sales called me back, they could not transfer me to customer sercive and could not ask someone from cusotmer service to call me.

I hooked up with vonage and had service for only 3 weeks to take on another company. I notified them by phone also by email only with email I did it numberous times only to get back notice saying to go to the help screen. they are not calling me saying I them for about 3 months. I told the collection company that I canceled with them via email and phone. Well by going email I learned that you cannot get copy of the email as you have to go through their site. So you are left without proof. Also.... I also do not think it registers to cancel when you keep getting a notice saying to go to the help screen. I emailed with the complicastions i was having only to get email back saying to go to the help screen and cancel from there. The collections told me today that I did not cancel until 85 days later. How can that be ?

Vonage ABSOLUTELY SUCKS!!!!!
If you love your friends and family you will not
let them use Vonage.

I could not cancel and had to pay for the full year!!!! Never even used the service because it was not compatible with my internet service.

I do not reccommend them for anything!!!!!!

My experience with Vonage cancelling wasn't actually that bad. They were definitely reading from a script and were doing all that they could to try and get me to stay but compared to the pain that cancelling AOL is, it was very easy. The rep was very polite and accepted all of my reasons for cancellation. All in all, I was very happy with Vonage service and customer service (except for the long wait time) but I just didn't use it since everyone calls my cell nowadays.

Business owners, please stay away from Vonage. If you do not want to add another stress to your life, DO NOT even try Vonage because your cancellation process will be HELL. And the quality of service sucks.

The saving is not worth the stress and frustration. I constantly get echo and gaps in my conversation. Believe me, when you have a high dollar client on the phone, you do not want to constantly apologize for technical difficulties. Yeap, went thru the tech support deal. No resolution.

Finally I decided to cancel. I called twice the first week of July and both times was told by the customer service rep that the system was updating. Therefore, rep cannot assist me and for me to call back. I insisted for rep to jot down my name, account info, and cancel my plan after the system was back online. Or at least call me back. My request was denied.

At last, I got hold to account rep to cancel my plan on July 13. Ask rep to prorate my bill for July. Rep said because I had to cancel my plan within 10 days of billing cycle to prorate plan. On top of that I will have to pay the $39.99 disconnect fee for canceling before 6 months. I believe that Vonage intentionally delay canceling my plan so that I would be bill for the month of July. The rep did not even tell me that I had to return the VOIP box. Got that call two days later.

I have submitted this issue to my attorney for review. Will see what the outcome is.

tom keating is pretty much of a humble person... God bless you great founder of TMC labs =l

I'm having similar troubles getting my service cancelled--I started the porting process to Roadrunner over a month ago. Once the phone was completely ported and new service was installed, I called vonage to cancel. After being on hold, dropped, on hold and transferred and receiving multiple sales pitches (lasting over an hour total), I was told the service would be cancelled and I was given a case number and told to call back if no one contacted me in a week. Call back? Why should I have to call back? Just cancel the service. I DID call back the next week. Was told the service was cancelled. Received a message from Vonage today saying they had charged my credit card for next month. Called AGAIN. Am told that my service has not been cancelled. That someone called and left me a message that I was supposed to return. Nobody has ever called me, but I've called them multiple times!! I have currently been on hold for 27 minutes. The case number doesn't seem to have any information attached to it on their end, except that someone supposedly called me to cancel the service, but didn't because I didn't answer the phone?!?! They haven't even owned my phone number for over a month. How many times are you supposed to have to call to get your service cancelled? I've never heard of such a thing.

Just got off the phone with Vonage to cancel my service. I ported my number from Vonage to another carrier (Vonics, another VOIP provider). My new carrier's service had been up and running for 2 weeks now and I received what I thought was my last e-mail invoice from Vonage. Obviously, this company has no idea when you're making an attempt to switch service by requesting that your number be ported somewhere else....as long as your credit card number still works...That's all that seems to matter to them. And the beating over the head that takes place with how great Vonage's service and features are vs. their competitors, when you try to cancel was just incredible. Instead of refunding my $24.99 for Jul 29th-Aug28 monthly service, they kept the hard sell up...telling me I'm going to lose that $24.99 for this month. BFD...I want to make sure that you jerks stop charging my AMEX card. How much is Vonage bleeding each day??..are they really that desperate for cash?? Never again

Well! all of you are right but I do not know how I fell into this Vonage service after debating for 2 years. But now it is nightmare to cancel, thinking of problem with the device-----------you name it, we have it. I thought I was careful but now I am a fool. Their customer service reps are good in keeping clients going for a long time on the phone making it look like each word that comes out of their mouth is true but not!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That one month free is all useless. One month is from the day you called them to sign in!!!!!!! do not fall into trap thinking one month from the day you received the router. NO---no------!For canceling I have to pay $99.00 for their router. I told them they can take, I do not need it. More over that is their problem not my problem. Don't be conned by their nice talk. Think that something bad is there behind it. I am still waiting to be canceled.

I created monster out of my time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have to blame myself not anybody at all.

Thank you all, I should have seen this blogger before I signed up.

I just want to comment to make people aware of Vonage and the inability to cancel an account with them. I was in the process of moving and with any move you call ahead and ask that service be terminated or transfered. since I was moving to a area that had cable 3 for 1 package I wanted to try it and save some money. I called vonage to cancel my service on the 6/8/07. At first the told me no problem just call back that date, because the disconnect in "real time". No problem of course I'm moving that date so did not call back that date, but a few day later. At that time they had told me that I was with them for less than a year and that in order for me to disconnect with no fees that I had to wait for my contract to be over. Since that was just a month away. I decided to get billed another month for a service I was not using and call in July a year from my service contract and disconnect. 7/9/07. Since that fell on a weekend. I could not call at that time. I called Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and finally on Thursday. after staying home from work so that I could actually be on hold for 45 minutes to get a to "account management". Have to admit pretty frustrated because all I want to do is cancel the account and all they want to do is sell you more service. Finally they told me as of that date my phone was disconnected. Then I get an email a month later, saying thank you for your payment of 28.00. Now I angry, because I should not been charged for the month of July. When I again get some one on the phone after waiting on hold for 35 minutes she tell me Oh yes I seen you called on the 11th, but the account was not properly closed I will do it now and send you an email in a couple of hours to verfiy your account is close. I asked about my refund. She said she would look into it. I did get the email saying my account was closed effective 8/11/07. I responded to the email as to my refund. They emailed me back saying because I called on 8/11/07 to cancel my account I still owe for the month of July. Now I have not had their services for 2 months and I am still getting charged for a month. I respond to the email. Their return email to me is that they can not handle my account at that level and that it has to go up to the next tier. This is a bunch of Bull _____. Stay away from Vonage.

There is no way that this can be legal

I signed up for Vonage in May of 2007 and within a few days changed my mind (from the bad reputation they have) and called to cancel.

I didn't even open my shipment containing the router, but returned to sender immediately.

It is now August and I have now called to cancel my account FIVE TIMES. Each time I cancel my account I am told (after spending 45 minutes on the phone each time I call) that they will credit me the fees they keep charging me. Each month they continue to charge me.

It is shocking that someone hasn't sued these guys yet. Can we get a class action lawsuit going.

I don't know what else to do short of cancelling the credit card they keep billing.
Oh and another thing, every 20th call I receive gets highjacked by Vonage and I get an email that I have a voicemail waiting.

called vonage today to cancel, and recorded the call using skype in hope for something good, but it went pretty quick, total of around 12 minutes, the hardest part was understanding what the guy said, he had a very hard to understand accent. Now I'll just have to see if it it is truely closed, so that they don't charge anymore. I might post the call after editing.

My experience with Vonage was dreadful. I spent 3 1/2 hours (on hold, with customer service & tech support). I simply needed a new router, & a credit for being over billed for 8 months. I did receive 2 months credit, but I had wanted to cancel as well. Well, they cancelled my account, but refused to credit my credit card for the over charges. They had told me that "they don't do that". So I am currently contacting my bank to fight the charge on my card.

I had Vonage..and it was like dealing with a bunch of con artists. First I bought the equipment...the service never worked properly. I tried to cancel after 1 week they came up with some obscure notation that I would have to pay an additional $100 to do so. I found out later that Ithis was not true and they said this in order to keep me as a customer. The terms of use posted on their site seem to change. There is no trying it to see if you like it as they say.I wound up having it for an entire year...finally I could deal with it no more, I called to cancell and they said I had to notify them via email that I wanted to cancel. This was after being on hold for an hour, on the cancellation line. I did both.
It is clear in my dealing with them and their response in making me jump through the hoops in order for them to return money that they are not entitled to are soley designed for them to to force you to give up. This has to be unlawful. I never did get the first withdrawal back..they seem confused that I would be entitled to a refund...now they say it has been to long a time to get the first refund back.
I checked on the Internet and there are hundreds of stories like mine. I should have checked earlier...I would have maybe avoided this con game.
It is all such a shock that this kind of thing can go on here, but it is sadly happening more and more often.
If ever there is cause for a class action law suit it's this one, I would think.
Today they charged my count again, they do not seem to have documented any cancellation, I called and had refund discussions again, even though I spoke to supervisor Jennifer #26243, this is just unbelievable. I had to cancel my credit card finally.

Vonage...Nice idea but lousy sound quality - like a bad mobile phone and near impossible to cancel. An expensive experience. Don't fall for it.

I by far had the most expensive "Vonage Lesson"! Below is a copy of my letter to them.

August 1, 2007
Vonage
c/o Account Management
23 Mean St.
Holmdel, NJ 07733

Re: Account Number 1003619202
Case Number: 13532632

My name is Bonifay Manahan. I called Vonage apparently on January 1, 2006 with the intent of signing up for your service. After I had given my account information to the representative and we were discussing the phone number I was advised that you did not have area codes in the area in which I needed them. The telephone call was dropped in the middle of the conversation. I had been given no account number and no phone number so I though that since the call had been disconnected that the service was not set up. Also in the coming weeks I did not receive a box as I understood would be required to have the service. Again, this lead me to believe that the service was not set up.

I have another withdrawal that comes out of my account that is the same or close to the same amount so when I would get the withdrawals over the phone I thought they were for the other company. It wasn't until July 20th when I called to cancel my service with the other company that I realized that there were deductions on my account from Vonage. I called a representative by the name of Joe who was very nice. He told me the deductions had been coming out since January 2006. He then transferred me to Colleen who was also very nice. She said that she would put in a request for the refund since it was so large and someone by the name of Phil would call me back within a week.

On July 30th I had still not heard from anyone with Vonage so I called back and spoke with Lee (employee # 11128). She was also very nice. She advised that someone would call me within 24-48 hours. No one did.

I called back again on August 1st. I initially got someone that could barely understand or speak English. Once I gave her all of my information she put me on hold apparently but I don't know for sure because she didn't tell me she was going to. After holding for a few minutes I hung up and called back. I ended up speaking with Vera (employee # 06393) who again was "very nice". She advised that she would put in a request for the refund since the amount was so large ($704.94) and that it may take up to a month.

At this point we are 12 days into the day that I first called and spoke with someone about this. I would like to have this issue resolved as soon as possible and I don't feel that it should take a month to do so. I have had charges put on my account in error before from other companies and it has taken no more than a week at the most to have the issue corrected, sometimes within 2 days. I would think that a company the size of Vonage could do better than a month. I don't want to wait a month only to call back and find out that there is once again a problem. (i.e. I was told on the 20th that the special request for the refund was made only to find out on the 30th that it had not been made yet).

Therefore, I sent an email to the contact on the website requesting that someone contact me to let me know when I would either receive a check or a credit to my account. This evening Phil finally called only to tell me that it was my fault and that he would only credit $200 to my checking account and that I would need to take further action outside of the company to get any more money. I hope that this will not be necessary. I do accept responsibility for my failure to verify what the deduction was on my account. However, I don't think that my failure to check my account justifies you charging and not reimbursing me for services never rendered. As far as I am concerned you never completed the necessary steps to enable me to use the service for which I was being billed. To me it would have been the same had Sprint assigned me an account number but never ran a telephone line to my home or given me a phone number. You may have assigned me an account in your system but you never advised me that the service had been set up; you never advised me that I had an account number and I never received the necessary equipment to use the service. If you had at least sent me the equipment I could have sent it back and told you that I didn't want the service. I don't know how you (in good conscience) can say that you don't owe me a complete refund of the entire amount which you deducted from my account but did not provide service ($704.94).

As I said in my previous email I plan on moving within the next 10-12 months into an area that you do offer the local area code. However, if this is the standard "priority assistance" that Vonage provides I don't know that I will consider it any further.

Please understand that everyone I have spoken to has been very nice but that doesn't change the fact that this issue is still not resolved to my satisfaction. Please have someone to contact me to discuss this matter further. It is't like I am requesting to be reimbursed for any overdraft charges that these unanticipated deductions may have caused over this period of time. I only want to be reimbursed what you took for services that you never delivered on. I'm sure if I owed you $704.94 for service you wouldn't be interested in settling for $200.

Your urgent response to this letter in email or in letter form will be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Update:

After the email I still do not even have the $200 credit they were going to send me.

Sulton with the corporate office called on August 13th saying he would call me back within 24-48 hours (didn't happen).

I called him on August 15th. He said he would call me within 24 hours (didn't happen).

I called on August 21st and 22nd (today) to leave a message and no one has called me back.

CONSUMERS BEWARE!!! DON'T EVEN CALL TO INQUIRE ABOUT THE SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been on the phone "MY AT&T phone" with Vonage for the past 2 hours trying to cancel my service that never worked. All the horrors you previous readers have posted are true. It is unbelievable! They even tried to charge me an additional $49 to cover the modem cost until it was received by them..This is in addition to the $43 that I have already paid. Their agents lied, broke promises, and care nothing about customer service. I laughed as I read Tom's posting. The Vonage call center employees do a great job of adhering to their scripts and do not, will not or cannot think on their own enough to answer a question. After reading their arbitaration and class action restriction clauses - I should have known that they are not a company to do business with.

Also, they connected me directly to Comcast!
Hmmm...do I see a FCC code violation for anti-trust? Or do they have an agent in bed with Comcast? Anyway...
STAY AWAY! Vonage is not a company to support!

I too had extreamly big problems, trying to cancel, I first decided to try it cause of the free trial, I immediatly decided it was horrible, only used it for the first week, I then tried canceling right after that...well I got thru to a technican after about 10 mins or so, but the reception was so bad he could not understand a word I was saying,.. I tried then emailing but was told the only way to cancel was to call.. So using a pay as u go cell phone I tried once again, I was bounced around to about 3 diff people and was then placed on hold for 45 mins!! I kid u not, I finnaly hung up seeing as I had nearly used up the entire 20.00 phone card on that call alone, the third time I tried to cancell, I was then rebuttled to the EXTREME and she would not let me cancel!! then out of no where the call was disconected. (again an extreamly long wait time to get to this point) The final time I tried to cancel, the guy then rebuttled once again and I was at this point ferious! I said what the H*ll kind of thing do u ppl got running here?! and because of that he then placed me on hold, till I could "controll my launguage" I asked him what language when he came back on, and he informed me he is not "U people" I was about in tears on how I was treated by this company, I told him I was the mother of 3 small children and dont have time to be doing this every week, just cancel the service, please!! well he then did cancel it but charged me a months service and a termination fee... I am sooo dissapointed with this company, I strongly advise anyone thinking about trying it, free or otherwise to look elsewhere for service, cause theese people are extreamly Rude and they arent truthful...

i have been cheated by vonage
and would like to post my experience
although my phone line was not set up
i have been billed from jan 07 untill august.
on top of it they are charging me disconnection fee.
they had told me until my system is set up i will not be billed...they took my credit number and had been billing me.
they were also aware that i had not used their service. they confirmed it...but because they had my account set up...they will bill me whetehr the service has been set up or not

I also had an interesting conversation with Vonage when I cancelled my phone line. I wish I had recorded it...but it went something like this:

I first started using Vonage on Oct 5th 2005 (and yes that is the exact date) In July of 2006 I called and told them I wanted to cancel the line because I had no need for a home phone the Vonage rep agreed that was a good reason but suggested that I stay on for a full year so that I didn't incur a cancellation fee of $175. I'm a broke student so I agreed to cancel it after Oct 5th 2006. He made a note of it and we hung up.
So despite the fact that my phone was no longer even plugged in, I continued to pay $25 a month for a service that I wasn't using because it was cheaper than canceling it.

I called back again on Oct 13th. The woman I talked to told me that she would cancel my service but that I still owed them for the month of October. Apparently they bill you one month in advance (for a service I hadn't used in 3 months and was trying to cancel!!!) I told her that was ridiculous, and unethical, but eventually I hung up just to stop hearing her talk.

About 2 weeks later I received a bill for $29.95 from Vonage. So I called back to complain. After 20 minutes of being told, "too bad. Pay up" I finally agreed to just pay the damn thing and was transferred to the billing department.

The lady told me how much I owed and asked for my credit card number. So I gave her it, and after about 10 minutes of trying to put it into the system she said. "Oh, I see her that you are not a current customer. We can only accept credit cards from our current customers." (Seriously???)
Next I asked her if I could pay with a check. Nope. Can't do that either because I'm not a current customer. A bank check? Nope same story there. At this point I asked her point blank how I was supposed to pay Vonage if they wouldn't accept a credit card, personal check, or bank check. (Never mind the fact that I shouldn't have owed the money in the first place) The woman did not have an answer for me, so I hung up.

About 6 months later I got a call from a collections agency on behalf of Vonage. The first time I explained the situation and tried to pay again. Same problem. The second time they called I was a little bit short with them. Then I just ignored there phone calls for about 2 weeks. ¦The next time they called I completely laid into the person about the issue and we worked out a way for me to pay them by check.

But, long story short. I was billed for a service I didn't use. Then unable to pay because I wasn't a current customer. Then harassed by collections all for a service I DIDN'T USE and bill I received in ADVANCE. (Is that even Legal?)

To say nothing of the fact that we have Vonage at my work, and we are constantly having problems with it. It seems like a good idea, but the haven't quite got a handle on the customer service/billing.. it still has a long way to go.

Vonage stole my money! I have just been charged $220 for the cancellation of two lines. I intend to dispute both charges with my credit card companies, but these guys are such crooks, I doubt if I get the refund.
I had been a Sunrocket customer for several months and received an offer from Vonage via overnight letter to “quickly” transfer my number and continue uninterrupted phone service. I signed up for the offer, filled out number transfer requests and 911 dialing addresses within an hour of receiving the letter. I received the “free next day” delivery of equipment three days later and installed it (I forwarded the calls via the Sunrocket website to the Vonage virtual numbers). I didn’t hear anything from your company for three weeks, but continued to get notices from Sunrocket about disconnection. On the 22nd day after signing up with Vonage my Sunrocket service was disconnected and calls to my telephone numbers were met with disconnection recordings.
I called Vonage to find out what had happened and was told that there was a problem with the number transfer requests and many were lost (trouble ticket #13752554 & 13752605). The agent said that the problem would be resolved within 24 hours. I left for on vacation three days later. When I returned from vacation I found out that I would have to start the number transfer requests all over again. My wife said that enough was enough and insisted on switching back to AT&T. Because this process took 34 days, when I called to cancel I was charged $50 per line for equipment that they wouldn’t take back, $19.99 per line shipping and $39 per line disconnection fee. I have never hated a company this much and will tell this story to everyone I can.

After reading these postings, I will be forearmed when the time comes to cancel my vonage account. As I have been using vonage over two years now, I shouldn't be subject to cancellation fees. But I expect the "hardsell" to stay with vonage.

I agree with all posters here that "No" means "No" and one should not have to jump through ANY hoops to cancel service
(and charges, as well). But you should all be advised that this seems to be the trend in this country! Not just with Vonage. I encountered the very same difficulties when trying to cancel my cablevision account (used over 20 years!). After I had verizon fios installed, I called cablevision to cancel service. My call was transferred to the "disconnect department". I went through the same interrogration steps that you have experienced with vonage. After long winded scripted points about why I should cancel the newly installed verizon service and keep cablevision, I agreed to maintain minimum service (basic cable - about $15.00 per month) for another month. The rep then gave me a credit for the $15.00 charge, so the extra month would not really cost me anything. He then gave me his direct telephone number and his days and hours so I could call him back when I had decided to stay with cablevision. I only agreed to this because I had already spent too much time trying to cancel the service and did not want to waste anymore time on the phone with him. Now, keep in mind that I had previously returned all the cable equipment to their storefront (3 boxes and 3 remote controls). The store personnel told me they could only accept the returned equipment and I would have to call the main office to cancel service.

Well, you guessed it, when I called after the "free" month had expired, I had already been billed for the next month. Also, I had to go through the entire "retain'em" script again with another rep. - additional wasted time. I can't tell you how many times I said "just cancel the service - now!". Finally, the rep tells me he will cancel the service, but I owe an additional $26 for service upto the cancel date. Like others have done, I sent in a check for the $26.00 just to avoid the hassle. Well, a few days later I get a bill from cablevision charging me for yet another month! The bill reflected the $26 payment I sent in to settle the account in full.

Mad as hell, I called again to the billing department. After going through the entire scenario again for the billing rep, she checked the records and did confirm the cancellation was effective as of my last prior call. She then reversed the charge for the next month (they also bill one month in advance). This now left a small balance due (Just over $1.00). When I asked for her to credit this small balance, she put me on hold. After several minutes on hold she came back on and said the small balance was cancelled. Notice the same attitude - with the "disconnect department" I was issued the $15 credit at the same time as the $15 charge was made to my account (this is, basically, a "sales" gimmick), but when I wanted a $1 credit on my final bill I had to wait several minutes to get confirmation of approval!

I see this trend just getting worse as more and more companies adopt this "ignore the cancell request" attitude. This I why I will think twice in the future about companies that will only accept credit cards in payment. Atleast, I was paying by check in this case and had some control. Imagine if they just continued to bill a credit card account?

Good luck to you all! and remember "caviot Emptor" is again important in today's marketplace.

Vonage is the service from Hell!!! I activated the service 6/21/07. I have a business, and I was told that I could use my 4-line phones, that I could fax from each office and from the computer. I was told that all four offices can use their phones and fax simultaneously. I was also told that if a customer calls our office that all four phones will ring, and if one line is busy, that the calls will rollover to another line. It is now 9/5/07 and I have yet to have any service what so ever. I have called Vonage on several occasions trying to get this resolved. I have had technician after technician come out. Vonage even sent one of theirs out. Guess what, I still don't have service, but they have no problem billing me monthly for a service I can have. Not only that, for some reason, each phone number is a separate account. Guess what that means, if I try and cancel they will bill me $95.00 for each of those three lines to disconnect. Disconnect a service I don't have. There has been no activity on those accounts since June 2007!!! The wont credit me any money for non-service. The tech that came out said "Vonage lied to me and I should have not been told I could be provided the service they promised"! I have yet to cancel or have any service. At present, they are sending out the same installation company again to try again. This should be rich!! Anyway, I am interested in getting a class action suit against Vonage. I have learned that the BBB has delisted them because of the unanswered customer complaints. I have heard from many people about this dissatisfaction. If anyone has a surefire way of getting out of this, let me know! They won’t let me cancel, and yet they won’t provide me the service promised.

after cancelling VONAGE twice they finally did. the last call to them was timed---40 MINUTES!!! I've never had anyone argue with me about cancelling. VONAGE SUCKS!!!

I ordered service from Vonage for 6 adapters, and I told them it was for a business in India. They told me it will work very well in India and for our business. I asked if they can ship directly to India and they said NO they cannot. I should have suspected something was wrong but I said I will ship it directly upon arrival, and so I ordered the adapters. However, when I spoke with the DSL provider in India, they told me Vonage, for commercial purposes is ILLEGAL and it's NOT ALLOWED. So, upon arrival of the shipment, I called Vonage to cancel my service and WOW - WHAT TERRIBLE Service they have!!!! They were trying to convince me that this is a good service and lots of people are using it, and essentially trying to convince me to continue with their service. I said "PLEASE - I JUST WANT TO CANCEL" the rep tried to tell me their standard speech - it was very frustrating to speak with this rep. She was like a ROBOT and kept on repeating the same and not listening to me at all, which was to simply cancel my service. OK - fine after about 2 hours of frustration my 6 orders were cancelled and they charged my credit card $39.99 as the cancellation fee (Total of $239.94), and yet when I signed up they had said there is a 60 days money back guarantee of 100% - no questions asked, including shipping and handling. What a frustrating 2 hours with this rep (ROBOT?). What a SCAM!!!

As an FYI - This is what is posted on Vonage website:
Click here to see the terms of our 60 day money back guarantee for Business Plus Customers.
We offer a money back guarantee if you terminate your service within 60 days from your subscription date. Our money back guarantee applies only to the first-ordered line per account, not to additional or secondary lines. We will refund one credit for the activation fee you paid, the service charge for the first service term, initial shipping charges, and the $39.99 disconnection fee if you meet the following conditions:

You have not exceeded 5,000 minutes of usage; and
You cancel your service within the first 60 days of your subscription date.

Remember, I had NOT EVEN PICKED UP THE Adapters and I had called to cancel and they refused to reverse all charges!!!!! What a RACKET!!!!!

Upon the initial order they charged my credit card $39.99*3 ($119.97) + $104.31*3 ($312.93) for a grand total of $467.75
Then for each line they charged my credit card $39.99*6 = $239.94

I have taken this dispute with my credit card company and am confident that they will be able to reverse all the charges!!
DO NOT FALL FOR THIS COMPANY'S FALSE CLAIMS!!!!
VONAGE IS NOT ETHICAL FOR SURE!!!!!!

You can stop further charges to your account by accidentally changing the payment info on your Vonage account. You will eventually be disconnected without the possibility of reactivation according to Vonage’s own policy which was intended to get you to purchase a new device each time.
I discovered this after they screwed me the last time, so I used it against them.

I'd had lots of problems with service. Times when it didn't work so I called India and was walked through a process that didn't work. Finally on the second day, someone was able to get it back up. A month later, same problem, same contact but the problem this time was that the Vonage modem "was no good" and I'd "have to replace it" which I did and called back. They walked me through set-up and things worked once again (this only took half a Saturday)...
Another month and dead again. This time I decied that I'd had enough so tried to cancel via email -- no go. So I called and explained my situation and was told that I'd only worked with level 1 Vonage staff and that they had a more advanced level who could help me on the phone to which I simply said that I just wanted to cancel. I could have been that simple however this quite polite person was persistant with offers of in-house assistance so I bit and asked when they might be able to come to my house after 5 as I work M-F, 8-5. She said Friday at 3. She hadn't listened. I reminded her that 6 would work she said that there was a spot on Friday at 6 but that I'd have to call them to confirm. I didn't want to deal with that so said that I simply wanted to cancel service. She would not hear it and kept trying to talk me into some other options and I quietly said that I simply wanted to cancel. I then asked her if she could do it. She didn't listen so finally the gig was up and I (with raised voice) told her to cancel me now or put her supervisor on the phone. She started taling again so I simply yelled "CANCEL MY F...ING SERVICE NOW!" To which she said that she could do that and to wait a minute. Three minutes passed and then she came back on line and asked me if I wanted my service cancelled to which I said YES and she finally said that she'd do it but I had to wait for her to do it. Three more minutes and finally she asked me one more time and I one more tims said YES and then it was done. I got a confirmation email and it was over.
This company is in trouble if they have to press customers so much and to script so many conversations. I am now will I ever go back to Vonage and decided to just keep my cell and internet. My fixed phone days are over.
Thanks for letting me vent.
Tim

I have been tangled with vonage since march of this year, I hope that is the right word. Seems I can't get to first base with them.
I have tried ever thing I can, includeing three hrs. with my lawyer.
No help from swb or att, I have been paying two bill since march this year.
AS far as I can tell, vonage is in the philipenes, and I can't understand pigion english. they talk to fast and three of them 2men and one woman give you the run a round.
I need all the info I can get, and can't seem to get my machine to send this message, send it to me again, and I might be able to forward it. ON Safair and it leaves a lot to be desired unless you want to pay for it. LeRoy

Just wanted to register my complaint. Canceled Freedom Voice with no problems and a simple question of why I was canceling. Total Time: 1 minute :52 seconds. Vonage was a different story. Explained my case to level one then, after 20 minutes on hold, I was bounced to the "closer" that tried really hard to get me to cough up friends' names. All in all it was a horrible 30 minute pressure experience that caused me to get angry. And this is from a guy who gets angry once a year or so. I was happy with Vonage up until now. If I go back to VoIP I will stay far away from Vonage and I'm telling all my friends to do the same. Total Time to cancel 32 minutes :23 seconds

My email to Vonage,

Hello / (Mubarak ho),

I need an English speaking representative not from India to help me please.

You guys are shipping my router to the wrong address. Your outsourcing service screwed up my address and account name when I signed up for my account. I even caught the error before I got off the phone with them in the order confirmation email and told them to change it right away. They apparently only updated my billing (glad you got what you need) information and not my shipping address. This seems pretty careless seeing as I was signing up for my account and need the equipment in order to have service. My account has already been debited for the Vonage fees and my first month free is going to end up being a week free by the time my router gets here.

Any help would be appreciated. As an old Sunrocket customer who lost money when they liquidated, my patience for VOIP is wearing thin. I can't wait to get on the blogs.

How's your lawsuit going?

Thought I'd add a recent(9/25/07) experience with cancelling vonage (no service/tech issues, just a straight "want to cancel")

After reading the horror stories here and there, I had prepped myself for a difficult time.

Here's how it went:

Called the customer service line right at opening (9am EST).

Went thru a couple levels of voice prompts (there actually is an option to cancel either "a line" or "all lines on your account").

Immediately reached a person...an Indian rep, but there was no accent/language problem.

Told him I was cancelling my account - reason: using a mobile for all my phone needs.

Listened politely to two attempts to keep me active: first offer - a 100 minute plan at 9.95/mo, second offer - 2 months free.

I politely declined and was asked if I would hold while he deactivated the acct.

Held for 9 minutes.

He came back on and confirmed the cancellation, and the call was done.

I received a confirmation email, and physically checked my lines (I had two) and both were deactivated.

Done deal...took 16 minutes total.

Overall - definately a hastle and time-consuming (should be an online option to cancel). But not nearly the headache I was expecting.

Sadly, I had the same experience as everyone else but to help my fellow victims of Vonage's scam I have a direct number for the account management dept that processes account cancellation or rather steals your money.

1-888-288-7435

I dont know what all you people are talking about. if you read the terms of service you would know there is a term fee of 39.99 per line. first off you people are lazy. if you want it closed just tell them, they are simply customer service people not the CEO so dont blame them if your an ediot and forgot to call and cancel and they wont give your money back.BOOHOO for you being the biggest dumbass on the planet. second if your gonna whine becuase you cant understand them, look at any service on earth. its all being outsourced, so either expand your vocabulary or stop buying stuff you closet racist. and do us all a favor and kill yourself. as for the owner of this website. Tom K, you are a dick, no one has heard of you, why dont you let these people do thier job instead of taping meaningless conversations to make your worthless and pathetic life seem any less important than it already is. Check the recommendation i left for the caller a few sentinces ago. heed that calling a end it quickly. no one wants to hear your fat mouth anymore.
so in closing if you are too stupid to read the fine print than you deserve to be taken for all your money. companys have lawyers to fight ediots like you who call the BBB and the attorney general and whoever you can think of. it will do no good so why bother. instead try taking up a hobbie like smoking meth or shooting heroin becuase you will be more productive than you are right now. LOSER.

Mike

WOW! We ordered Vonage a couple days ago. Was told it would work great for faxing documents. Got package today - was on phone with tech support for over 3 hours trying to get the service to work with our fax machine. Was told that getting 10 pages to fax through with Vonage was "really good". Wish this would have been clarified before we committed. We fax docs that are well over 10 pages. Explained to tech that we would need to send back equipment and cancel. Then the nighmare began! We have spent three hours trying to cancel (in fact assistant is still in process as I type this). Incredible. She has put the conversation on speaker phone, and none of us can believe the level of non-customer service that is occuring. Vonage does not seem to understand that words "cancel this service, it will not work for us". But kudos to the sales rep (can't really call her a customer service rep, because no "customer service" is occuring), she really is a pit-bull as far as trying to "save" the sale. Interestingly, we have talked to two different "customer service" reps, whom when we asked to speak to a manager said they were the top level (hmmmm). We have had the equipment for 6 hours now, and the bottom line is that we have to eat the cost to return the equipment, and have wasted the better part of a day. THANKS Vonage! Word of mouth is powerful - we will not keep our mouth shut about this horrible experience.

I dunno if this is everyone's experience, but it sure as hell is mine, let's call it, "Darien's Law" -- to wit:

"The closer the company to bankruptcy, the more surprise fees and charges you will find." -- Darien's Law, c.2007

Cancellation fees, stop fees, start fees, hidden fees, all of it. Usually charged with subscription services. Usually 3 days before payday, with your kids needing new shoes. Oops! Sorry, you'll have to call customer service on that...

How many of you have had these automatically deducted from your precious accounts without your knowledge? Worse, how many of you have had surprise fees taken out of a check-card account? Only to later find yourself missing the mortgage by the amount taken out?

Even if you can get your money back, it often can take quite some time, with hours on the phone. One only has to look at the comments above to garner how much time is wasted, especially concerning that $39.99 fee, which to me is hellishly unethical, especially since Vonage will charge you that even if your unhappy with the service...at first. It's up to you to call back later and explain, etc...what an unbelievable hassle.

Solution: Forget the stupid, unethical fees. Keep greedy corporate hands out of the cookie jar. Save hours on the phone trying to get your money back...how?

For billing purposes, setup a rechargeable debit card, not connected with your bank, to pay the bill. Keep just enough funds in the card to cover the costs, anything over that be prepared to lose. Pay your bills every month, and if a company is particularly heinous in its billing practice, get another card for each bill. It's pretty simple once you have the system down, and hardly takes any extra effort.

Result: Instead of discovering secret charges and disputing it, turn the tables. Regain control. It's OK. With roughly 5 cents in the account, it could prove rather difficult to extract $39.99 on cancellation day. If you agree to the charges, then feel free to pay it. On your time. With your input. And with your own financial solvency in mind.

Just because a company has terrible billing practices doesn't mean you yourself should promulgate it.

Take control. I promise, you'll feel better about it. It's fun. From my experiences, even the initial outlay for the card is much less than the potential fees that would have accrued if the service was awful. And over the course of a year, see how much money you saved.

-Darien

I just called in to cancel my service today. In all the time i had to talk to the Vonage representative was less than 5 minutes. She started going through the usuals; why am i canceling, is there anything that can be done to keep me, blah blah blah.

I found it extremely effective when they asked if there was anything they could do to keep me, to tell them the new service i am using (Time Warner Digital Phone in this case) has already been installed and that i am using it now

Thanks for the story, Tom! I wish I would have read it sooner. I signed up for Vonage last week after being promised that it was for a free trial within which time I could cancel and be refunded all money. I understood that canceling would incur a $39.99 fee, but that the fee would be refunded upon the return of the "free" adapter they sent me.

Sure enough, I changed my mind about Vonage, I didn't have any problems, but I just decided that I didn't need a VOIP phone, as I'm doing some simplifying to my budget.

I spent an hour on the phone today, half an hour with a very unhelpful person, and half an hour on hold, after which I had to hang up because I had a client. Nothing was resolved. In the half hour phone conversation, not only was the guy I talked to unhelpful, but he was bullying and manipulative. He told me it would be better for me to put my account on hold and transfer service to a friend rather than cancel. I said I just wanted to cancel, and he said, "Oh, so you put your own needs ahead of others?" He also demanded to know my monthly budget, which of course I refused to tell him, saying I had no obligation to disclose that information and that it was none of his business.

"Actually, ma'am, it IS my business. As a costumer service provider, it IS my business to help you find a rate that fits into your budget."

Remember, I hadn't really had any issues with Vonage, I just didn't need it. After this phone call, I am outraged and irritated and completely frustrated with Vonage. I still have not had my service canceled, as apparently I have to stay on the line for an undisclosed amount of time ("About how long will I be on hold?" "I can't tell you that, ma'am." "Can you give me an estimate?" "I can't say anything about that ma'am."

And all of this after nearly refusing to speak to me in the first place because the person who had entered my address did not include my apartment number, so when I recited my address including the apartment number, I heard, "I'm sorry. The Elizabeth who ordered Vonage service does not have that address. I'm going to have to disconnect you."

I want to know is it okay to subscripbe to Vonage toll free number. I made a mistake to call them and inquired information on toll free numbers... oh man... why did I asked that!

They have been calling me every week. Now I am still thinking about it, for those of you that have been using it, is it a good service? should go ahead and deal with them? or is it better to pay for the whole year? Or should I only pay month to month? I was told if I pay for the year I will have a discount

Please advise. Thanks.

All the geeks out there will undoubtedly know that, since my internet connection is DSL (phoneline) from Earthlink, I'm not eligible for Vonage service. Since I'm not in that group, I believed the REPEATED assurances from their sales rep that they absolutely COULD connect me. After approximately 2-3 hours, total,on the phone with 6-8 different spokespersons, I learned they absolutely could NOT connect me & never should have tried. In the meantime, however, they were successful in DISconnecting me from AT&T! By the time the dust settled, I spent 6 weeks without a landline--during which, I racked up a cell-phone bill over $500! To add insult to injury, they've since tried billing me several times because I allegedly failed to jump through enough hoops when I "left"! I guess I can thank Bill Clinton for twisting the language to the point where I can "leave" before I even connect?

Vonage has been the biggest mistake we have ever made. We too switched to another provider and have spent weeks trying to get our phone numbers ported, account cancelled, etc. Hours and hours and hours on the phone. As of today I think we are finished - it only took protesting it on the credit card to get them to finally close our account.

When we first started Vonage it took them five months to port the phone number. Customer Service? HA, HA, HA! Goodbye forever Vonage.

I too have had a nightmare of nightmares. I finally filed a complaint with the FCC. The customer nocare center is in the PHILLIPINES. I wanted to talk to the legal department in the States. They finally gave me the number and then promptly blocked it so I couldn't get through. I called on my cell and looked for a fictional name to finally get to talk to someone. The poor person on the other end got the brunt of my frustration but did relay the message on to someone. I finally got a call back and an answer to my e mail of three weeks earlier.

I am still pursuing my complaint with the FCC. Vonage owes me over $100 for service that I never hooked up to. So much for 90 day money back guarentee.

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE SIGN UP WITH VONAGE. YOU WILL REGRET IT.

I just cancelled my Vonage service. It was the most ludicrous, insulting, irritating process I have ever been through. I asked the guy no less that a dozen times to cancel my service. Each request was met with some stupid question or other trying to get me to stay with them. Holy crap. I can understand stalling a couple of times to get someone to stay on - that's good business - but this was just downright offensive. It took almost a half an hour out of my work day. I even asked for the guy's supervisor and he wouldn't let me. I will never, never let anyone I know even consider using these guys and, at this point, feel like using every outlet I can to let people know how absurd this process is. Better Business Bureau here I come... The worst part is that I can't read this stupid code at the bottom so who knows if this will even post!

I just had a 6 weeks worth of wasted time with Vonage customer service in trying to get my phone number ported. I finally called to cancel and that took me 2 hours. After the agent tried everything to keep me. I had to be transfered 4 times.

Vonage should have been put out of business by Verizon. Anyone with this bad of customer service does not deserve to be in business.

I don't blame the poor guy in India for the poor service altohugh they never help the problem. I guess they are the only people on the plant that would put with Vonage's management. Management is directing this activity and the 3rd world employee are the only to to that low.

Bever use Vonage!!

Warning - bad experience also.

First, they were a couple weeks past the deadline porting my number to my new company. Just happened to finish it a day or two after my billing date. So I was stuck paying for an extra month.

Then I called to cancel on th 16th of the month. Was told that it was my billing day and I would be stuck paying again for another month! (and funny - in September, my billing date was the 17th, not the 16th - although that might be the lag in the payment showing on my CC)

Anyhow, rep was quite badgering - first a discount, a month free, two months, then a super discount, or why don't I just save it for a backup? (?) or why don't I pass it on to colleague (?) - and NO, you are going to pay for the next month - and a cancellation fee.

Finally , I got disgusted - yelled at the rep - 'I just called to cancel? why don't you just do it?' (the call was really dragging on)
- also noted to the rep that I just spoke on a similar issue with a rep at another company/ another service/ the day prior - I had no problems; I'd called on the billing day itself, but was given the refund (done for a client).
- also pointed out that - funnily enough - your company, vonage, was two weeks late and oddly just a day or so past my billing date - they'd already STUCK me for a month of service I obviously did not use (plus gave me the feeling I had days to get around to cancelling)

So, something in those points raised - and suddenly the story changed - of course I could have my refund, less the discount fee of 45 (I could not find the discount info in my fine print, but whatever - expected something; I've just had it a few months).

I rather suspect it was the delay in the transfer to my new service. A little b.s. routine they use to get another month out of people? Maybe an honest mistake, not sure. But that is why I am writing this - to warn anyone - stay on top of your move! I even started mine super early in my billing month and it took about 3xs longer than it was supposed to.

The Vonage TV commercials and their present theme song are as appealing as an ED ad. "Mute the sound... Change the channel quick... Hit me with a bat.. ,,,so my misery will end, NOW!"

THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS. Ok, so we finally got our phone number ported over to Comcast. Guess what Vonage did?! They gave our phone number to someone else as a virtual number even though Comcast now owns this phone number. Our phone still works but now we are getting all the phone calls for someone that has been giving out the phone number that Vonage had to right to give out! Of course we found out about this on Friday at 6:00. Customer service hours for Vonage are now 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Monday through Friday. I wish I had hours like that. When is Vonage going to admit defeat and close its doors so that the innocent public can't be hurt by them any longer?

Hi,

I just signed up for Vonage, which was a decision that I've been contemplating for some time. BUT with the free trial of 2 months and no contracts, I convinced myself to give them a try.

I find nothing wrong with the agent wanting to keep you as a customer. That's their job and with her being polite and offering up possible solutions is fine. I find it all acceptable. If you had called and she said "Fine, nice to know you. Have a good life" you might have been offended by her complacency.

I hope my experience is a good one because I'm tired of dealing with high phone bills for service I rarely use.

I to have had trouble canceling my vonage service,I am going to let my attorney handle it for me and will sue for punitive damage as well. DO NOT FALL FOR THERE WE CAN KEEP YOUR NUMBER FOR YOU SCAM, I was solicited by a vonage rep and they( ASKED) if I would switch to vonage if they could keep my number for me, I was very clear that if my number could not be kept I would not want the service.They gave me a number and singed me up anyway not my number but a different one, I called and canceled the same day and have my ticket number to prove it. Well after 8 months of calling and trying to get someone to cancel, not to mention the $60 a month they where charging me they finally canceled and charged me $ 42 to do it, and it was there mistake to begin with, they clearly told me that it was one of there reps that made this mistake but unfortunately they would not give me my money back and would charge me to cancel the service.So at this point I will let my attorney Handel it for me and will advise everyone not to use there service one headache after another they must be in real bad shape not to give back money they stole from my account and admitting fault. BAD BUSINESS.

I had been trying to cancel my Vonage service since 5/23/07. They talked me into keeping it for one month free to make sure I wanted to cancel. They told me I could keep my number even though I was moving to another state. I called back 7/18/07 and spoke with a rep and gave permission for my husband to cancel service. He was sure our service had been canceled. Well 3 months later I notice 3 monthly charge3 for Vonage service. I called 10/22/07 and waited 10 minutes only for them to disconnect me 10 minutes before 8pm (there service hrs. state 9am to 8pm EST). I call back at 6:30pm the next day and wait another 10 or more minutes and finally get a rep. I can hardly hear her because there is so much backround noise and I can barely understand her accent either. I tell her I want to cancel service and she starts the same thing as the other times before. Stating that I can keep my number and they would give me 2 months free service and on and on and on. I told her 3 different times that I just want my service canceled. She finally says she will. I ask her about getting a refund for the last 3 months that had been charged. She says she can't do that if my account is inactive :S. I said is there a manager or someone higher that I can speak with. She said there wasn't anyone else higher than the account managers. She then asked if I would like to still keep my account active and she would transfer me to billing to see if I could get a refund. I said no (since it took me forever to get this far in the first place, I figured I would call back and speak to a billing rep myself). She then said my account was canceled and said goodbye. I turned right around and called back and spoke to someone in billing (it's amazing to me how quickly you can get a rep when you are not canceling service!). I spoke with another woman and I told her I wanted a refund for the last 3 months where I thought my account was canceled. She told me my account was still active and that she did not have the capability to refund me my money and that I would have to cancel my account. She then transferred me back to the cancellation dept. where I waited another 10 minutes or more. I decide to put my phone on speaker and wait. While I'm waiting, I'm explaining to my husband the situation and suddenly the woman from billing comes on and says my account is now closed (as if she was hearing what I was saying to my husband the whole time!) and quickly says goodbye and hungs up. I decided to call my bank and do a stop payment for Vonage since I have been reading about the horrible cancelation fees. However I did have there service for about 2 years so I don't think I would be charged that. But I am stillout about $60. Sorry for the long blog but I feel that people need to know how shady this company is. Although I had no problems getting the service and the service I had was OK it shouldn't be this difficult to cancel service.

Well I probably have icing for the cake here. I have high speed satellite internet service through Wild Blue. When we set up our account we were told that their VoIP would work. I questioned it and was assured it would work.

We paid to have the equipment sent and it took them 5 days to mail out our equipment. Once we received our package we quickly set up the account only to find it wouldn't work. We drove to town to call by payphone to cancel and return the equipment.

The tech told us it can be fixed. He said he would adjust our bandwidth settings to a lower level so it would work. I called my internet satellite provider and had them up my bandwidth to the maximum bandwidth I could get. Done. Drove back to the country and tried again. We waited 24 hours and tried again. Nothing.

We called back and the first tech we talked to asked us who told us satellite internet would work. When we told him, he said there is not likely a chance. He said he would move us to tech support and that guy "adjusted" the bandwidth supposedly. The phone doesn't work but he is on the phone asking me if I can test the call and call him back. I told him if I could test the phone I wouldn't be using Vonage. I would be using the other phone. (Hello?...yes there are still parts of the U.S. that do not get cell phone signal...I am one of the lucky ones....)

Anyways, we called back and the rep was rude, refused to cancel unless we could verify everything under the sun on our account. We read everything to them on our shipping paperwork. She said she needed more. Finally, Rick hung up so frustrated. There was one number we hadn't gave them...our a-hole number. Grr!

I called back and requested the cancellation again. I didn't have to give all the information but was informed that if we cancelled we were going to get charged $42. something on our account. I said you are not authorized to do that. He argued that is there policy, even if my phone service never worked. We would be charged. He said if I press this button to cancel you will be charged and I told him he better not charge me. I was mad!

What even made me more mad was the fact that while I was trying to talk to this rep, I could hear hupla in the background. They were cheering and laughing and said to the rep, what are you all drunk or cheering fooling another sucker like me. He said in his, "No, we not do that." Hello...that explains it.

The next day, I tried to change the card to a different number. It wouldn't. I tried to remove it, it couldn't. So I cancelled my card and re-ordered new ones. I'll fix them creepy liars!

We finally called on the 30th day and made sure they cancelled the account and asked for a confirmation number. They mailed it, but they charged us for the monthly fee and cancellation fees. A total of $73. plus. They emailed me stating they couldn't get the charges from the bank due to....they listed numerous reasons. They tell me they are looking out for my best interest. (Haha!Do people really get paid to lie so much?)

All in all it was the most crooked thing I have ever experienced as a customer. They clearly admitted that they knew it wouldn't work ahead of time, but someone had a quota, commission, or paycheck to fill at our expense. There should be a law against false advertising and scamming people.

They are nice when you order, they are rude when you cancel. The worse service ever!

As a former Vonage customer, I'm having a hard time understanding why you all have such a problem with people trying to keep your business. I've taken a lot of time to read the various complaints from most of the people who have commented on this issue and I don't see why you feel like this is fraudulent or some sort of scam. Granted there are a couple of comments I came across which I would agree sound fishy, but which company doesn't have at least 1 or 2 employees that ruin the experience for others? Obviously, the employees are going to have a script to follow to some extent and obviously they are going to try to retain you as a customer. Where do you all work? I'm sure your company has guidelines and regulations for you to follow. Bottom line is... which company is IN business to LOSE business? Doesn't losing business undermine the whole idea of being in business to being with?

Furthermore, the issues that many of those of you whom provided reasons for cancelling have given are not even issues that you can blame Vonage for to begin with. Cancelling your service because you have a lower than required bandwidth for your internet connection is your internet company's problem, not Vonage's. A lot of you complained about not being able to get a refund because you thought that by not using it, you shouldn't be charged? That's almost like saying you don't watch TV on Fridays, so you want to be refunded for not watching TV 4 times a month. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure that there are multiple areas for improvement in the process of disconnecting your Vonage service, but instead of outwardly blaming them, take some accountability yourself.

In the end, you're all entitled to your opinions. I cancelled my Vonage account months ago, but I read the terms of service and understood what the cost would be before I actually cancelled. I tried it for a while, I found something else, I called, they tried to keep me (with some pretty good offers, mind you), I cancelled, I moved on. Get over it.

I have been reading these blogs since I signed up and with write-ins like the last one from Mike, he was fortunate to have no problems. I was also lucky as for not getting charged after I opted to go with another provider as my credit card I was using, I had to have a new one reissued so they could not just take funds out auto. I wrote/telephoned them many many a times explaining about switching over and wanted to cancel. I did everything they told me to do without any success. A collection agency called and tried saying that I hadnt canceled for about 85 days later than my service. That also was not correct. I saved all correspondence of emails and had proof that Vonage was very much notified of my wanting to cancel. I went over paperwork and I ended up sending them a check to cover 2 weeks worth of service as I did not know and was not told, that service started from date you call and sign up with them. I also had to write to the Attorney General's office and get them involved. Vonage was given 2 weeks to respond. Another point I wanted to mention is that Vonage told me that they could not take any source of payment and can only accept credit card. Well, when I sent them that check, it was cashed and cleared quickly. Another thing you could try and whatever card you are using, call them as tell them on such a date a certain amount is auto put on your card and you would like to put a stop to it. I was told that some will do it at a one time deal but then why not ask for that to be closed and reissued another card. I never like the idea of anyone automatically taking $$ from any of my accounts. Just be careful and remember you need to look out for #1.

My wife ordered Vonage phone service on 9-20-2007 which I canceled later that same day. We returned the equipment when UPS attempted delievery 0n 9-26-2007 so we never accually had their service. It has now been 45 days since cancelling and still no refund. Every time we call, they acknowledge receipt of the returned equipment and advise it will take 3-5 working days to process our refund. For info to those who are thinking about signing up with Vonage, look at the Better Business Bureau web site. The BBB Board of Directors revoked their membership on March 27, 2007. Also see all the complaints listed at the BBB's web site.

I signed up for Vonage early September. Got my device in 2 days. It was defective, could not be used. It took them 3 weeks more to get me another device. When I received the new one I sent back the old defective one. Apparently it arrived the day after the expiration date so they confirmed receipt of the device; but I will have to pay for it anyway($64). I can't even get a credit for the 3 weeks I was without service. And they called me at 11pm with a follow up call to break the news, guess they don't understand the concept of time zones. After more than two hours of being on hold and then arguing with the CS rep and her supervisor, I've decided I will pay the fee for the device and will also pay the cancellation fee but at least I will be free of doing business with a company with so little regard for their Customers.

Folks, I write to you guys today to express my nightmare with Vonage phone service. I have been with Vonage since 2005 on a mini plan paying $14.99 a month. Rarely use it, except to make international calls.

When I do use the Vonage line, the digitized packets (calls) are dropping every time I receive a phone call on my DSL line, surfing the internet and while some one in the house is using the Vonage phone line. So I decided to get rid of it.

On July 5th 2007, I called Vonage to cancel my account and while navigating through their phone maze, seleting the option for ACCOUNT CANCELATION PUTS YOU IN A LONG QUEUE. I tried other options to get a live person but the end up transfering me to the long account cancellation queue. It took a long 46 minutes beofore I live person actually picked up the phone. I didn't mind since I was using my morning commute hour to actually do something rather than sitting in traffic.

So I explained to the guy that picked up the phone that I was cancelling and the reason for the cancellation. He offered me all sorts of incentives to stay, but I refused. He then said that THE CANCELLATION DOES NOT TAKE EFFECT ANYWAY UNTIL 30 DAYS. AND THAT DURING THIS 30 DAYS, IF I CHANGE MY MIND, I SHOULD CALL BACK TO TELL VONAGE TO KEEP MY ACCOUNT ACTIVE. I thanked him and ended the call.

Folks, that was on July 5th 2007. August came, and what happened? Vonage charged my credit card on file. I sent them an email inquiring why this happened? I received a reply stating that their records indicates that my accout is still active, that I have to personally call to cancel my account.

When I called again and punch in my account number, I sit on the phone for hours and no ne, repeat NO ONE, picks up the phone. And trying this on a cell phone adds to your frustration for each time the phone drops, you have to start all over.

Finally, I logged into Vonage online account management and replaced my credit card on file with made up sequential set of numbers, called my credit card to request credit and denial of further attempt by Vonage to cram my credit card. And now Vonage is calling my home threatening to take me to collections?

Well thanks God, we have Public Utilities Commision and BBB here in California so stay tuned. Meanwhile, tell your friends and families, co-workers and strangers if you will that VONAGE IS A RIP-OFF!

Tom A.
Fremont, California

Folks, I write to you guys today to express my nightmare with Vonage phone service. I have been with Vonage since 2005 on a mini plan paying $14.99 a month. Rarely use it, except to make international calls.

When I do use the Vonage line, the digitized packets (calls) are dropping every time I receive a phone call on my DSL line, surfing the internet and while some one in the house is using the Vonage phone line. So I decided to get rid of it.

On July 5th 2007, I called Vonage to cancel my account and while navigating through their phone maze, selecting the option for ACCOUNT CANCELATION PUTS YOU IN A LONG QUEUE. I tried other options to get a live person but the end up transferring me to the long account cancellation queue. It took a long 46 minutes before I live person actually picked up the phone. I didn't mind since I was using my morning commute hour to actually do something rather than sitting in traffic.

So I explained to the guy that picked up the phone that I was canceling and the reason for the cancellation. He offered me all sorts of incentives to stay, but I refused. He then said that THE CANCELLATION DOES NOT TAKE EFFECT ANYWAY UNTIL 30 DAYS. AND THAT DURING THIS 30 DAYS, IF I CHANGE MY MIND, I SHOULD CALL BACK TO TELL VONAGE TO KEEP MY ACCOUNT ACTIVE. I thanked him and ended the call.

Folks, that was on July 5th 2007. August came, and what happened? Vonage charged my credit card on file. I sent them an email inquiring why this happened. I received a reply stating that their records indicates that my account is still active, that I have to personally call to cancel my account.

When I called again and punch in my account number, I sit on the phone for hours and no ne, repeat NO ONE, picks up the phone. And trying this on a cell phone adds to your frustration for each time the phone drops, you have to start all over.

Finally, I logged into Vonage online account management and replaced my credit card on file with made up sequential set of numbers, called my credit card to request credit and denial of further attempt by Vonage to cram my credit card. And now Vonage is calling my home threatening to take me to collections?

Well thank God; we have Public Utilities Commission and BBB here in California so stay tuned. Meanwhile, tell your friends and families, co-workers and strangers if you will that VONAGE IS A RIP-OFF!

Tom A.
Fremont, California

Bob:
I am having some problems with Vonage with calls giving a circuits busy signal, howver when I dial out my att line it's fine. Also they are very misleading on their sales they originally sold me a second line when I signed up for $5.00 dollars which I kept for my fax machine. Since they do not send out paper statemenets and I rarely read ther bill I wanted to check this and find the the All Latin America, (which I clarified with the salesperson who sold it to me) only includes limited countries and cities in Mexico and also surcharges for cell for which when they sell, they never tell you. A wonder class action lawsuit for a classs action attorney. Howvever with Verizon suing them over copyright infringht because they claim to have developed and patented the technology there may be only desks and chairs left when all is done. Additionally they are outsourcing too. The downfall of America and the reason for our trade defecit. However the man on the street doesn't realize only a fraction of those dollars come back to the US.

Most importantly who do you recomment for Voice over IP or Cable or phone for phone and Fax.

I too had a terrible experience with Vonage. I wanted to secure a job working from home doing telemarketing. Unknownst to me at the time, I could not use Vonage. I had just called Vonage earlier that day and when I discovered I could not use them, I called to cancel. They told me that I still had to allow them to send me the devise, and then would have to pay to have it shipped back. When I received the device, I immediately took it to UPS. They told me that I had a right to refuse the package, which I did.

I advised Vonage that it had been returned so that I could get my refund. Instead of them refunding me, they took more money from my credit card. I am TOTALLY TICKED OFF. Now they owe me approximately $80, and it has been about two months!!

DO NOT SIGN WITH THEM OR YOU'LL BE SORRY!!!

Thanks for the information. I cancelled Vonage also and it wasnt as bad but I would say they do have a good deal for the price. Have you found anything that is close to what they offer. I'm in the military and have been stationed in Korea and now in Iraq and this was the cheapest way to stay in contact with family and friends. Now when I return to the states I would like to get another service because I have to many problems with the connection.

I am not as technical as you all, but I just want to add my negative experience to the long list of negative experiences. 2 months ago, I decided to cancel Vonage. I called them to cancel the service, they said I had to wait for 3 days to disconnect because that is my 1 year date or they would charge me $100.00. I said okay, and called back when my 3 days was up to disconnect the service. The guy would not take no for an answer at all and didn't turn off the service even after I told him to. Since then I changed my debit card so Vonage couldn't automatically debit my account, and then Vonage is sending me emails saying my account is outstanding. I call them again and insist that they turn off the account from the day that I called them after my 1 year anniversary. (They have put all that transpired on the date 3 days before my 1 year anniversary, and say they have no record of me calling after that.) They would not close my account going back to the second time I called which was right after my one year anniversary, in fact they wouldn't close the account at all until I payed them some more money, I argued with them for over an hour about it because I did not agree to not closing the account, the person would not take no for an answer. To me, that is not the same as agreeing to keep the account open. I finally got it closed today with much grief and upset. I don't want to go through that again, nor do I want any one else to go through that experience.

Ok, After our last compalaint on 10/28 concerning Vonage giving out our number, that we had successfully ported over to Comcast,to someone else, and receiving all fo the phone calls from their friends. Stupidly, we thought that they had it fixed - GUESS WHAT - THEY GAVE IT OUT A SECOND TIME. We received e-mails and phone call from Vonage promising us that it had been taken care of the first time. Humm - then why did they give it out a seocnd time?? How do you get away from this company????? The interesting thing is that this always happens on a Friday night - after 5:00 p.m. Vonage's new work hours are Monday Thru Friday 9:00 to 5:00. Convenient huh?

I am a long time Vonage customer, and when I was going to cancel today for cost reasons, I was offered a lower rate. I don't see any problem with a company trying to address any issues, and then managing loss by offering an lower rate. For petes sake, it's a business Tom, and I'd think the sales and retention people for your magazine would at least try to do the same thing for customers canceling their subscriptions! You may write about the techy part of VOIP, but it's the sales that pays your salary. And one more thing, even if Alexander Graham Bell called to cancel, the agents are trained to follow scripts given to them by management. They are doing their job by reading them, just as you hope people read your blog.

Cancelled service in June and paid final bill in July and ported number in July--They will not stop billing me. Here it is November and they have billed me for two more months. Have talked to them five times and they will not stop billing. They try to get me to pay one month and they will cancel one month. Very poor quality phone service, having to reboot often and sound quality poor I had to revert back to Verizon. Beware-All is not like they tell you--JJ

VONAGE IS the WORST service i have ever had. the customer service reps are all VERY pushy along with the supervisors. I have been trying to cancel my service and they keep trying to make me stay. I have been told you cannot cancell without being penalized until 1 year of service otherwise you are charged 39.95. also my billing date is the same day as my 1 year of service and they will still charge me for the next month of service and they do not refund your money you can only dispute it. whatever you do DON"T GET VONAGE. we have had awful seervice

I have had NOTHING but nightmares since signing up with Vonage on January 31st. First of all, they gave me an active number until my own phone number was switched over. Called their "tech" people that couldn't resolve the problem (that should have been a sign from God right then and there). I have had days where I had no service at all. And other times, during phone conversations, I would get interrupted or static on my line. Then at the end of July, I switched over to Time Warner's service because I was getting FED UP. T/W said NOT to contact Vonage, they would take care of this for me. So I didn't. I called Vonage in September to ask why they were cotinuing to bill me even though if they looked at my account, they could see that I was getting no calls! They wanted some confirmation number from T/W, which I had problems getting, so I disputed the bill with AmEx and thought this was over. Now its November and Vonage is still billing me. Today, I contacted AmEx to once again dispute my bill and got one of the supervisors on the line to be part of a three-way conversation with Vonage. I had to pay ANOTHER $39.99 to cancel my service. This customer servuce rep at Vonage kept on asking me if I wanted to continue my service with them even after I kept on telling her NO. She just didn't get it at all. I will NEVER use Vonage and this message is to all of you out there - DO NOT USE THEM OR YOU WILL BE SO SORRY!!!! They SUCK and so does their service. You talk to people in India who just have NO CLUE!!! This is NOT a cheap service. BUYER BEWARE!!!!!!

Cancelling my Vonage service (and I am being generous in using the word service) has been one nightmare after another. After emailing the company on four different occasions and calling them on another four different occasions and sending them a registered letter I am still receiving harassing phone calls in an attempt to collect for service never provided. I had been switched to AT&T for five months and Vonage continued to try to collect. Fortunately I contacted my credit card company and explained that I would no longer pay any charges from Vonage so the credit card company was helpful in that respect. I am ready to take them to court and think a class action suit is appropriate.

What a mess!!! I have tried endlessly to get my refund from Vonage because they forget to tell me the whole truth. Today I call to inform them that I have confirmation that the adapter was received at their facility and they now want to charge me $44.00 for disconnection when I never even used their service. Now they have close to $100.00 dollars of mine that I have to wait for a refund because that is their policy. I'll never switch from AT & T again. Unfortunately, the representatives from Vonage are oversee who only care about pushing products on you even when you have stated clearly that you are not interested. I cannot begin to tell you the nighmare I have been through in a span of only 2 weeks. Spread the word to your friends, families even strangers not to consider Vonage. Had I done my homework, I could have saved myself this headache by checking the AT & T website for their specials.

It seems to me that Tom had all the right answers/rebuttals. When I tried to cancel my account The three different "customer service" reps that I spoke to at three different times completely ignored my request and insisted on solving my problem, as if they had any idea what that personal, and as far as I was concerned irrelevent (at this point) problem was.

I simply wanted to be reimbursed and my account closed.
The reason I wanted to be reimbursed is because we havent used Vonage in over three months due to lack of Tech support. The first Rep I spoke to assured me the problem would be fixed and gave me two months free. The problem was not fixed, so we disconnected it and decided to move on. Today I received an email letting me know there was a problem with my credit card. I immediately called and requested the cancellation again and disputed the charge, considering we haven't been able to use their service because we never received that tech support we were promised, and it should show no activity in their records.

After explaining this they immediately offered to send someone out again. I said no just cancel my service and reimburse me. Well this went on for several minutes and eventually I had to hang up and call back because the rep began to insist on sending someone out and even proceeded to talk over me. The third call pretty much went the same way. Finally after my husband realized my frustration he took the phone and tried to insist they cancel it even agreeing to pay for the unused service. Still no understanding. He finally threatened to expose them(he works at NBC) and he got results.

The next time I checked my email there was a unable to process request email. Now instead of the thirty three dollars we initially were supposed to pay( first email) now we were being asked to pay one hundred and twenty three dollars. Ninety dollars more, for what, canceling and threating to expose them. I feel like I'm being extorted and am strongly considering contacted the FCC. Fortunately it was a pre-paid credit card so I simply reported that my card was compromised and requested a new number and card. Not very convenient considering that was our pay pal card, but still easily remedied, unlike the whole Vonage fiasco. Fair warning to all have a pretty good excuse when trying to cancel, I sure wish I did.

When I tried to cancel because of poor quality of sound (after adjusting the bandwidth control feature as they advised, sound was still choppy). I was told perhaps a new device would be better. They admitted they were having trouble with the little VoIP box they send out and offered me an upgrade to a Motorola. They assured me it would work 100%. Well it didn't so I sent it back. Then they offered me a free VoIP phone and swore it would solve all my problems. It was actually worse. It only had WEP and demanded I downgrade my wireless router to WEP or nothing at all. So I temporarily disabled my wireless encryption to test out the VoIP phone. It connected and guess what? Choppy again! I was then bribed with free minutes and I asked for what purpose since they would all be choppy minutes. So they finally cancelled and made ME feel like a bandit because THEY didn't want me to send back the VoIP phone to save THEM more shipping charges. This was the so called "special team" on the east coast, I'm not even going to tell you how hard I tried to even get them on the phone after so much lost time talking to Indian call centers who memorize scripts only, which out of respect you have to hear the poor guys out.

I went to the Better Business Bureau main website and entered "Vonage." Several addresses came up and I chose NJ because it's the headquarters. Anyway, that was 2 weeks ago.

Today, I received a letter from the BB of NJ, hand-signed, saying, "This is to acknowledge receipt of your complaint.... The company has thirty days to respond.... The Bureau will be in touch.... If we do not receive a response, we will notify you, in writing, of the next step...."

So far, so good.

Their service has serious quality issue. The customer suport are trained pirates. Very surprised how unetical and greedy corporation they are. Stay away

I tried to cancel my service less than 2 hours of me placing the order. When I called back to cancel I was told to called back Monday to cancel I called to cancel and they were trying to get me to stay I waited for over 15 min on the phone I was tranfered to someone else since the first person could not help me. I was told that it was still processing and they could not cancel and my order was shipped out I asked for the tracking number regarding the shipment they said they did not have one I Called back agains since the first person hung up on me for me wanting to cancel. I called back and was told it was shipped and I could not cancel until the order is shipped back. I said than you can have it resent back to you she said no we can't. I called there shipping department and it was not shipped out they lied. I called again and let them know I talked to shipping and it was not sent this went on for 1 week after callling over 10 times to cacel my accout. I talked to one women and she said it was not sent and they can have it stopped and to Cb monday and she will cancel and refund my money. I called and it was shipped I got the tracking number and called ups they said they would have to cancel it being shipped to me. I called to cancel like I was told to call back. I told her every time she tried to get me to change my mind I was going to answer with cancel my account that I never really has anyways. I said it over and over and decided that this call is not going to last for a half hour to get me to change my mind since i'm not going to. I told her that. I said just cancel my account that is all I ask you to do she said we don't ahve your equipment your ordered I said neither do I you can have it retracked back to your company and cancel my account. She went on and on I said for the last time cancel my account. You will not get me to change my mind and I want nothing to do with your company ever again. She said she was going to charge me a cancelation fee I said I have never had your service and was told I had no obligation for 60 days and I was told I would get my money back she went on and on I said cancel my account and credit it liek I was told would happen the next time I called and I hung up on her. I got an e-mail saying my act was canceled. Than another e-mail was sent that she tried to charge my account 41.99 and it did not go through and they need updated info from me the already over charged me the first time I was not going to let them do it again so I canceled my account. Now they say I owe them 41.99 for a service I never had and just signed up for no obligation for 60 days satification and your money back. Very dishonest. I hope that word gets out ther more before they do this to allot more people as well as the elderly whom don't need the aggravation.

I've had exactly the same problem. However, when I finally convince them that I really do want to cancel the service they put me on hold and within about 5 seconds I get a fast-busy on my phone. So far I've been unable to cancel!!! ARRRggghhhhh

I just canceled and it took 23 minutes. The gal was polite and I was prepared: I gave one word answers, and declined to say why I wanted to cancel.

I can imagine how long it would have taken if I let her engage me!

I have been trying FOREVER to cancel Vonage and they make it virtually impossible. Who has the time to wait on the phone for an extended period of time during business hours only? This is RIDICULOUS!!

We just spent 47 minutes on the phone trying to cancel. I thought I did my homework when switching. I had the service for over 2 years. Used an average of 50 minutes a month. After my wife argued with the gentleman for 20 minutes I got on the phone and yell quite a few explatives. I am usually not like that. Hung up and called back to finally get someone to cancel me. That conversation still lasted 17 minutes. After reading some of these complaints I know to hot card my debit card so they can not take anything out.

DO NOT USE THIS SERVICE, for you that can not understand why people are upset. What they did is not ethical. It is flat out harassment.

@Steph:
Try this, it worked for me --
The first thing I said to the gal was that I was recording the conversation for legal purposes. Then I began by asking her complete name (she only gave her first name).
Then I just replied like a robot in one-word answers. I declined to name a reason for canceling.
They will try to guess why you want to cancel, offer a free month, then 2 free months. Just be calm and polite and say "no thank you, please cancel".
It worked like a charm.
Allow 30 minutes for the call.
Good luck.

Vonage (SUCKKKKKKKKKKK)!!! I called to cancel and was told nothing was owed and there would be nothing coming out of my account after my cancellation date of 12/11/07. I was kept on the phone with a representative about 40 min. trying to get me to switch back to Vonage ( I think they were just holding me on the phone, so they could hit that IMMEDIATE WITHDRAWL BUTTON), because the money was out of my account faster than you could believe. I just wanted to know that my bill with them was taken care of and that I did not owe them anything else. The representative at the end of the call try to get me to agree to a $39.99 cancellation fee but I disagreed. I told the rep. desticitively not to withdraw that cancellation fee out of my account. When I got off the phone with the rep. I checked my account and the money was gone just that fast. I am still trying to get my money back (help if there are any idea on how to do this). I am really upset with this company. I was told all my concern should now be sent to Vonage 23 Main Street Homdel, NJ 07733. IF YOU HAVE VONAGE. LET THEM GO, AND DO IT IN THERE SNEAKY WAY. SECURE YOUR ACCOUNT FIRST. REMEMBER YOU ARE NOT IN A CONTRACT.

Yeah, fortunately, I was switching bank accounts and had no cash left for them to take. They didnt even try to charge me the extra for cancelling (was with them 1 1/2 years).

If you are in NY, write that you are notifying the attorney general's office. In fact, try that even if you do not live in NY.
Do it for real and ask their advice on what to do. Don't waste your time...let the office work for you.

Good luck.

(we can't let these bastards do whatever they wish!)

VONAGE WAS A NIGHTMARE TO CANCEL...IT TOOK ME 3 DAYS AND ENDLESS HOURS OF BEING PUT ON HOLD TO CANCEL THEM OUT....AND LIKE ALL THE OTHERS UPTOP THEY TRY TO ENGAGE YOU NOT TO CANCEL....THIS IS A SCAMMING INDONESIA OUTFIT....

They resisted my call to terminate services so I reduced services, because I was leaving the State, couldn't disconnect, couldn't cancel, Changed banks but still get billed, they just don't get it! Gonna file at Better Business Bureau.

I would like to start a class action suite on Vonage on there cancelling policy, I trying to cancel my service, but only get the runaround.

Use VONAGE and you're in BONDAGE and at their mercy. I called just to talk about maybe switching over from Bellsouth. They told me they could not transfer my service without me canceling my DSL, so I told them not to switch me over, I need my DSL. They took it upon themselves to open an account with a completely new phone number and started taking money out of my bank account even though they were not authorized to do so. They mailed me their machine which I refused from UPS (then they gave me a $10.00 credit for the return UPS charge of a machine I never ordered). So, now they know I don't have their machine and it would be impossible for me to use their service. Are you following me? They couldn't! They are still charging me! I have been call them for 3 months trying to talk to someone who can help me. I get transfered from customer service to account specialist to hold and back. Finally today, after 96 minutes they tell me what my new phone number is, and that if I want to cancel my service, THEY ARE GOING TO CHARGE ME A DISCONNECT FEE! CAN YOU BELIEVE THE NERVE! Then they gave me an address to write a letter explaining my dispute and wait for a response. I'll give it to you because I know someone out there is going to need it.
Attn: Customer Care Billing Dept.
23 Main Street
Holmdel, NJ 07733
I called Bellsouth and begged them to take me back. Happily they did and gave me a $75.00 credit for returning to them. Now that's service.

Mr. Keating...I consider you very lucky that your experience was not nearly as difficult as mine just moments ago. I had terrible difficulties with my Comcast internet and cancelled it. I didn't care that I would have to get a new number so I decided to cancel my Vonage and take my time finding a new ISP. Retention Services people offered to transfer me to someone who could help me find a new ISP in Folsom, CA. I was left on hold for 8 minutes and then disconnected! I called back in to find that the que for cancelling jumped from no wait to a 15 minute wait. I got someone on the line who said that I was not the account holder and could not cancel the account because I didn't have all of the account specifics in front of me so I must be an imposter!!! I asked for a supervisor and at first she refused then she told me that she is the supervisor and the highest ranking person at the center. WOW lucky me that of all the people in the building I got the top dog to answer my call....I mean what are the odds??? She told me to feel free to call back after I got the information to prove I am the account holder. She knew that they were already closed and even though she gave me eastern time hours I told her I knew I wouldnt get back through and asked why was I cosidered having the correct information when I called a few minutes ago and wanted to retain my account? Now that I want to cancel and you want this to be the last call, am I all the sudden an imposter?? I went online to find some way to let the company know about this experience so that they would be able to improve service at least for others(because I surely would never again give my business to Vonage after that treatment). There is no way to send a complaint from what I could see. I couldn't login either. I changed my username a long time ago and never logged in with it, am unsure what it was, and never recieved a confirmation so no hard copy. With all the effort to retain customers, you would think they would also educate their people on what happens when people are treated poorly. Not only am I going to tell everyone I know what a horrible company I think they have, but I am also going to make sure that someone in that company hears about my experience. If you have any contact information to share with me to make this experience at least a little more tolerable please let me know.

I just got done "Trying" to cancel my Vonage account. I had attempted to cancel in December, but was tortured by their customer service people for far too long. I was asked to verify my account info repeatedly, and by every person I spoke with, then I was transferred and it was repeated, then I was asked obscure question like "When was your last phone call, and how long was it?" "What was the amount of your last bill?" I was able to verify all of my information previously, but when I am driving in my car, I can't nor should not be required to answer these types of harassing questions. Then they come to try to "Save" you...."Did you know we offer a plan for..blah..blah..blah". Just cancel I reply. What are you canceling the service? I respond with my answer. Again they respond with "Did you know we offer a plan for..blah..blah..blah". At this point I have the gun out pointed to my head.....Please just cancel the account. Vonage responds with more questions; what is your, what is your that. Please just cancel my account. Sorry sir we need this information. Really? Your in my account now can't you simply cancel it? Sorry sir we need this information.

I was at my wits end. I told them to cancel it right now, I was not going to continue to pay (MY CREDIT CARD HAD EXPIRED AND THEY DI NOT HAVE A GOOD ONE) and I hung up. I disconnected them Vonage Box, and thought I was done.

An email comes in today and says I now owe for 2 months of service. I call (10+ min on hold) and talk to some idiot who at least is an American (still can barely speak English), and will not give me a supervisor or transfer me to the correct department; then hangs up on me. 2nd try (10+ MORE HOLD TIME) and I get through to a competent person. Again she hard sells me to keep the service, I decline and voila! My service is canceled.....No obscure question about my bill or blood type? Wait this is less information than I gave the guy last time (1+ months ago) who "Could Not" cancel my service.

Ah, but now they say I owe for 2 months. The adapter has been disconnected and in a box since my first cancellation attempt. Fortunately they do not have a good credit card and can’t charge me. I told them I will never pay and to have the Billing dept call me so I can "never pay" them too.

I can’t believe how wordy all of these post are, I guess Vonage know how to drive people nuts! Apologies for any grammatical errors, I wrote this 2 minute after talking to Vonage CS.

Good luck all and look before you leap with any new company or technology

Vonage,

I am glad someone at least puts their opinion on the internet for others to read and review.

Its more or less an informed Consumer Report-esque style to use Google and do your own homework.

Personally I had not had a bad experience with quality while using Vonage, I use cable and have 4 PC's that use the internet. Even when using all 4 I don't suffer with any quality while use the Vonage.

I do fear however, when and if it comes time to cancel I will run into what many of you have complained about.

Honestly though, most companys will try to offer you a discounted rate to keep you - as you call it retain the customer with tactics from a script. (AT&T, Cingular, Verizon, COX and a number of online subscriptions service - they must all go to the same Sales and Customer service school or copied and modified each other's scripts.

I like to keep an open mind and will post again to let you know if my experience with Vonage chanages - until now I am happy with the service and I am not paying more than $50 dollars a month as I was with Verizon. So far its a win-win...

Thanks keep up the reports and I will look into what you say AT&T is offering you though I prefer Cable Internet over DSL until FIOS comes in our area.

Thanks

Better Business Bureau sent me a letter December 1, 2007, as I posted above thread....

I received an e-mail Jan. 8, 2008, with a PDF attachment of letter from Vonage (or from BBB with a Vonage logo on it). My time-loss and pain was due to their "system error." As a courtesy, "Vonage has agreed to remove the total outstanding balance." You know, the balance they put on their, the balance that I requested-pleaded-demanded they remove. I tried to be polite, but it went on too long.

6 months of hell and loss of trust in nearly all telecom companies. Companies like this make the peoples of the Philippines and India look bad. Come to think of it, Vonage makes everyone look bad. At $2 a share, I don't think Vonage is going anywhere even after settling 3 of their patent lawsuits last year. They have nothing new to offer.

Text of the letter:

23 Main Street, Holmdel, New Jersey 07733
Telephone: 732.528.2600

January 8, 2008

Better Business Bureau of New Jersey
1700 Whitehorse Hamilton Square Road Ste. D-5
Trenton, N.J. 08690-3596

RE: xxxxx
November 27, 2007
Case #xxxxx

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing in response to the above referenced complaint received on behalf of xxxxx, Vonage Account #xxxxx. The complaint is in regard to a credit request for all outstanding charges, and proper notification of account disconnection.

I have reviewed the complaint letter and the notes on the account. Vonage confirms that xxxxx’s account was disconnected November 23, 2007. Upon disconnection of his account, a confirmation email was sent to the address provided on the account.

Per the complaint, Mr. xxxxx claims to have completed disconnection in July and August 2007. Unfortunately, due to a system error, the transaction was not completed, resulting in continuous account billing. As a courtesy, Vonage has agreed to remove the total outstanding balance of $22.48. At this time, Mr. xxxxx is no longer liable for any other charges from Vonage. Our Finance department has been notified to cease all collection efforts.

I apologize for any inconvenience Mr. xxxxx may have experienced with his Vonage service. I am confident that this information will be helpful in satisfying this complaint.

Sincerely,

Regulatory Response Team – Jason R.

Cc: xxxxx

I switched to another carrier because my vonage line didn't work more than it worked. Technical support was never able to resolve the issue with one phone call. I would go days without phone service. When I switched to my new carrier they took the phone number back from Vonage and assured me that they would take care of everything (cancelling Vonage). I then noticed that Vonage kepy billing me, even after my number was transferred. With my number being taken from Vonage, how could I possibility have service with them now! I contacted my new carrier about this and was informed that this was an illegal practice and try to resolve this matter with Vonage. I have tried to contact Vonage about this and they tell me there is nothing they can do for me. I then contacted my credit card company and filed a billing dispute. That's where I stand with Vonages quality customer service! If they spent less money on advertising and more on technical support and customer service maybe they would be a more desirable company to deal with.

Theresa, MA

I signed up with Vonage two months ago with 2 months service free trail. End up i paid $106 so far (for 2 months).
Now i want to cancel the service and was told have to pay $119.98 cancellation fee!
What's the hell???

How to deal this with Vonage leggally? Please help!

Lily

Vonage SUCKS!

I tried to cancel my service and they give me the run around.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR VONAGE.

They work 24/7 to sign you up. But to cancel. You have to speak to a special manager.

BEWARE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I agree:

Vonage are crooks!!!

I signed up for service, which never worked, meanwhile they fraudulantly debited my account for 3 month's even after I cancelled. The rude sales people gave me such a run around, that I started telling all my friends about their shotty service and dismissive demeanor of all sales people who work there.

My banks fraud unit is investigating funds debited from my account.

I'll post another entry to update results.

Beware! Beware! Beware!

I kept e-mailing vonage to cancel me after I moved and was no longer using their poor-quality sounding phone line. They didn't reply until I got nasty and told them I was going to blast them on the internet. They e-mailed me that I had to call their customer service number in order to cancel. I've tried calling twice, two weeks apart and both times they told me that their computer system was down so I'd have to call back later. Grrrr! I'm still working on it.

I may be the rare exception here, but I have never had any problems with Vonage, I use TWC, and I'm surprised to see so many negative comments regarding Vonage. I use the 500min plan, so I'm only paying 14.99/month, and I love it. I have had mush less issues than when I had TimeWarner's phone service. Also, regarding the cancellation conversation, I don't see anything wrong with it, and no offense, but you come off kind of obnoxious in your comments. When I was younger I was in support for a tech company, and you were the type of customer we hated to get on the phone, already completely decided and not willing to even listen to our pitch for a couple of minutes. Also, if you were so upset with the time of the call, why did you make this decision? ("but instead I kept my cool since I wanted to see what else she had in her "Vonage customer retention script" she was no doubt reading from.") Whatever.
You have to remember they have a job to do, and by calling them you are requesting their services during that call. People frequently forget that.

well i try 2 cancel my order on the 27th of december because have too many bills pay and my internet will be disconnect to so u should of been suspend my account when i ask for arrangments to do it can u see im not answer the phone because i dont stay at address nomore im not using phone service

I ordered Vonage Digital phone service in September of 2007. When I ordered it I explained to them that I was getting satellite internet service so that's why I wanted their service. It took about 3 weeks to actually receive my equiptment. When I hooked everything up I could not call out or recieve any incoming calls. The only thing that worked was the voicemail through the computer. My wife called Vonage Customer Care to find out what I could do to solve this problem. They explained that their phone service isn't compatible with the satellite internet system. My wife then tried to cancel their service. (This is only approximately 4 weeks after ordering Vonage's service. Only 1 week after receiving it.) The Customer Care agent would not speak to her or help her what so ever. She said that I needed to call since my name was on the account, which I found to be pretty strange that they wouldn't talk to her because she set up the service. A day or 2 later I called them to cancel my service. The woman that I talked to barely spoke English and kept trying to get me to change my internet provider. I explained that I had just paid $400.00 for the equiptment for the internet service and I would not cancel it. I also explained that they did not inform us when we ordered their service that it would not work with our equiptment. I was on my cell phone with Vonage for about 2 hours. The customer care agent told me that I would have to pay $33.00 and change to cancel my account and that they would confirm by email. She explained that they would credit the $33.00 and change back to my credit card once they received my equiptment back. I paid this fee by credit card over the phone. I had to work out of town for 2 weeks after that so I did not check my email right awat. But when I got home I checked it. Nothing from Vonage. I called Vonage again. This customer Care agent said that my account was not cancelled and now I had incurred more fees for a phone that I had never used even once.I told them I would not pay any more money to them because I had cancelled their service within the 60 days so I shouldn't have incurred any fees. For over an hour I argued with this extremely ignorant woman to no avail. I told them that there was no way I was paying a single cent more to them. I informed them that no more charges had better be charged to my credit card as they would be unauthorized.My wife returned their equiptment on 11/14/07 to exactly where it was shipped from. She sent it with a signature confirmation. I did not get a RMA number ever from Vonage. They are CROOKS and SCAM ARTISTS. I also sent several emails to Vonage Customer Care informing them that I wanted my service cancelled effective immediately and that any further charges to my credit card would not be tolerated or authorized. In December I received 3 messages from Vonage saying CHARGE ACCOUNT ERROR on 3 different dates. They were trying to charge $34.15 to my credit card again. I emailed them 3 times to inform them that my account was cancelled and that I would not pay any more fees and to quit trying to access my credit card or I would talk to my lawyer. The credit card that I used was a prepaid card so they couldn't get any money unless I put some on it. A week or so went by and I didn't hear from them. I put a couple of hundred dollars on my prepaid credit card and went online to pay some of my bills. A few days after that I got an email from my internet provider saying that my credit card payment did not go through. I checked my account online & found that Vonage had charged $34.15 to my card. I called the prepaid credit card company to put a stop payment on this transaction. They mailed me some dispute papers which I have filled out. I have saved every email and all paperwork from Vonage. I may take them to court for credit card fraud. I called Vonage on 1/17/08to demand that they put the $34.15 that they stole from me back onto my credit card. The rude customer care agent that I talked to this time told me that my account was not cancelled and that I owed more fees again. He spent at least 10 minutes trying to get me to keep their service and change my internet provider. I refused and told them that they were not getting another dime from me. He told me that I would have to pay a $130.00 cancellation fee for a phone service that I had never used. Today (1/20/08) I checked my email and found 2 more emails from vonage on 1/17/08 and 1/19/08 reading ACCOUNT CHARGE ERROR. They are trying to acees money unlawfully from my credit card again. I will not put any more money on it for them to steal. Tomorrow I will be contacting the Better Business Bureau in New Jersey (that is the one I have to file a complaint with on Vonage (Customer Care, Billing Dept., Vonage, 23 Main Street, Holmdel, NJ 07733)to let them know about the shady business practices that Vonage exercises. After that I may try to get some legal advice about fighting Vonage. Especially since I am not going to pay them anymore bullshit fees. Maybe we all need to get together and do a class action suit against them.

Steve Aumueller

HI,
Reading some stories from the above customer, I would like to share my situation as well. When I opened my account for the first time, vonage initially told me that they would not charge me any sign up fee if I open the a/c there and then, so I decided to open the a/c that very day. The next day I see vonage charging me not only the sign up fee but for the device as well. They charged me $400 in 2 days. I was probably on the phone with the customer service for almost 4 hours everyday as they were jugling me back and forth from one department to another. But I kept my patience and made sure they put me money backin my credit card.

oh yes i to had a bad experience with vonage i cancelled my phone service a few days after i had ordered it. i had changed my mind and they are telling me that i never did and now iam out of the 60 day money back guarentee but the issue was as far as i knew it was cancelled i didnt know it wasnt until i started getting charges from them on my credit card bill 2 months later. and of course noww they want to charge me a disconnect fee and they are telling me that i paid for the service for i may of well just use it word of advice vonage has idiots working for them and the company doesnt care about the customer dont get vonage

I signed up for Vonage a little while ago and have had no problems. My wife calls India and has had no issues. My number ported over without issues. Voicemail gets forwarded to my Blackberry instantly and I can listen to the attached WAV file right from my mobile device. Hook up is simple and worked right out of the box. I'm also in the IT industry so this stuff is simple to me.

Now a couple of things to note:
Vonage no longer offers the phone adapter. You must get a router. This is an attempt to control QOS (Quality of Service) of the data going through the router so that the Vonage traffic gets priority. This way they can alleviate some of the quality issues that people have reported. What I don't understand is that they tell you to hook their router to your existing router which will defeat the QOS control. They do recommend putting their router first, but many people don't have the understanding of how to hook this up properly, that is, both routers.

I have tested their service while running multiple torrent downloads and while having the Vonage bandwidth saver set to 50 and 90K. I could not here any degradation of the quality while running the torrents, however, as soon as I disabled the QOS on my router the quality suffered. So, the trick here is to put there router first, or as I did hang their router off my existing router and setup QOS yourself.

Now, I plan on cancelling Vonage if/when Verizon lays fiber in my neighborhood. So if I'm met with resitance at that time I'll post back here, but for now I can report that I'm a happy Vonage customer.

I cancelled my Vonage service today 2/4/08. I got the normal,keep the service, stuff and before I got off the phone they had put $128.00 on my credit card.
I am in the process of desputing the charges with the credit card co.
The phone service never worked right and I never even used it for the last 2 months.
I agree with the class action suit. Lets do it.
Thanks for the BB address Steve. I am using it to report Vonage despicable business practises also.
Jack Taylor

I'm still trying to cancel mine. I was in voice mail jail for about 10 minutes and then got a message saying that the offices don't open until 9. I tried again after 9 and was on hold for so long that I couldn't wait anymore. It's tough to find an extra hour during regular business hours to stay on hold.

I wonder if they let you get NEW service outside of regular business hours.

Vonage is the worst, I called to cancel service due to faulty equipment on their end, I was told to buy a new modem. I requested the service be cancelled and they offered to send me out a new modem free of charge HA! I received a reconditioned modem, I hadn't been able to use the phone for a month and they charged me for the full month. Now they just debited my credit card $74 for the "free" modem. This charge came a month after I cancelled the service and sent the modem back......STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE!!!
They also charged me the disconnect fee of 39.99 after 4 years of having service ...go figure

Vonage is criminally dishonest. Avoid them at all cost. They told me signing up would not interfere with my DSL service. The moment I switched, my DSL went off, and with it, my local service. $600 in mobile fees later, they refused to let me cancel without a fee. Disgusting.

We odered Voage-wish we had not done so. When Bright House offered a better, updated service which included hi-speed internet. After talking to Bright House they stated that Vonage usually takes up to 30 days, and sometimes longer to allow customers to change their services. Waited for a good 3 weeks, after calling them and stating my desire to cancel. This took too much of my time for them to allow me to cancel and finally, told them I wanted to and stop going on and on. I then received a letter from Bright House stating the date Vonage agreed to "let us go" and on that date thought was through with the "evil company". However, due to a very serious medical problem for us both, we were detained in another city. Bright House continued with the "vacation plan" and all was fine. Finally returned to our home 3 1/2 months and initiated Bright House again. We again traveled to see family in Sept. where found out new surgery was needed. After this surgery and my return of good health, noted with horror that Vonage had been debiting my credit card since July of '07 and on 1/08 called Vonage expecting decent responses and understanding. The first rep was very good, professional and understanding stating the full amount they owed me and to expect refund with a certain amount of time. Great I thought, the world is still a nice place to be. However, my new credit card showed that Vonage had taken out 2 payments for Jan. 08. After Tim the pleasant rep. was through he transferred me to account management. Wow, that was one long winded person, who was unable to be understood anyhow. Finally just told them would appreciate making certain this was a cancelled account and no more debited from my card. Again called Vonage in a day or two as the debit had been made for January. This time it was an extremely rude, non listening, caring male who only kept saying there is no refund due as their records did not show any cancellation until 1/23/08. To which I gave all the infor given before, etc. I also requested many times to speak to a supervisor to which Jim stated there were none and he could take care of problem, again going on and on about "their records showing" to which I stated to him "That might be the reason why your records do no show cancellation in June '07 and no supervisors seemed a bit ridiculous, and hiring some might possibly help the company improve their company. Finally, i merely hung up due to his non-responsive attitude. On Feb. 10 I again contacted Vonage and a difficult to again understand, answered.
she was polite and attempted to help me, but said she would further investigate and would I wait, to which I said yes. I had already waited over 1/2 hr. for her to respond, and this "ivestigation" took another 20 minutes. When she returned stated that they could not rebate me anymore then $50.00 even though the total amount was over $40.00. I told her this was unacceptable and could I please speak to her surpervisor as knew she was being polite, kind, but only doing what the company had told her to do, which was stupid, and she was good, if I could only understand her. Megan stated her supervisor was in a meeting and I said that I could understand why the company is in bankruptcy and web site is full of complaints, when a meeting with a completely corrupt, and against members who chose them for the service. Also that if supervisors were available for customrer complaints and assistance then maybe the company would be doing much better. She then stated she would again investigate further to see what she could do for me. Another 10 min. wait. She returned and stated she could rebate me $190.00 (approx) to which I asked for the Vonage address, since I had never received one bit of information from them since signing on, and no statements either. She then put me on hold again for approx. 7 mins. and returned with the address. I asked her to please send me the rebate offered (190) as soon as possible and that I would be contacting my attorney regarding the difficulty and all my time spent attempting to have money returned for no services rended by Vonage. IF I WAS AWARE OF THE CORRUPT, DISHONEST MANNER VONAGE WAS TO USE, I WOULD NEVER HAVE SIGNED WITH THEM, AND EVERYONE READING THIS SHOULD NOT TOO.

Bev McDonald

I received a flyer stating the cost and availiabilty of Vonage in my area, mind you I'm 97 miles from Detroit very rural. I was assured by the sales rep or CSR I could use Vonage in spite of informing her we do not have any high speed internet in our area not even the phone co. offers Hi speed. "It ok" I get the box by UPS and I open the box to find "You must have Hi speed internet" NO SHIT! NOW IS WHEN THE FUN BEGINS. First Vonage took additional money from my checking account, charging me an additional 39.95 for the modem only after charging me the special price of 14.95 for the modem as long as I am a "customer" but cancel before you even start due to an error on Vonage part. Today I was informed I would have to send back the modem and it will cost me 9.95 to send it back. I AM LOOKING FOR PERSONS TO JOIN A CLASS ACT SUIT AGAINST VONAGE! CONTACT ME AT marrierose1@peoplepc.com

My company sells Vonage. I have been a customer for 3 years. I have had great service and sent them a ton of customers. HOWEVER... I have just went to battle with them over charging my bank account twice, when they shouldn't have. This ended up costing me over 6 hours on the phone! In December I called Vonage and told them that I was canceling because I no longer needed the service, because we no longer needed 3 phone lines. Vonage was just an added line for me to work from home. I had my Vonage payment coming out of an account that is practically closed. I only keep enough in this account for Vonage, but since I shut off the service, I didn't keep but .50 cents in the account just to keep it open. BOTTOM LINE: They charged my account not only once but TWICE! Both times causing bounce fees. The only way to get them to refund overdraft charges is to get them to credit it back as a payment refund and YOU MUST speak to the U.S. Dept! In the end they refunded enough in payments to cover my fees, but it took 6 hours of my life that they will never compensate me for!
With all that aside I am now, once again, a loyal Vonage customer. Just be aware of their policies and how to handle them. Don't let the people in India tell you that they cannot transfer you to the U.S.!www.usgdirector.com.

The service was great but OH-OH what a pain in the rear to stop service. Never again. I would go to AT&T before I would go back through that again. How stupid can you get. I think it is a great way to close a Company.

FOLLOW UP COMMENT: I guess you have to understand my point of view. Having been in the business of dealing with telecommunications companies for 10 years, I haven't seen a company yet that doesn't make you pull your hair out for some reason. In my experience Vonage has great service, a great price, and if you need help for any reason with your equipment or connection they are top notch. I am, however, very unhappy with their cancellation procedures. In the end I chose to stay loyal to Vonage because I only pulled my hair out once, NOT EVERY THREE MONTHS, and now that I know what to expect when canceling their service then I will be just fine. Vonage also pays me a commission so that also helps. If you sign up for a free membership and free website with www.usgdirector.com you can receive the same benefit, and Vonage is not the only company we represent. We have over 100,000 products.

Just have to say that Vonage needs to reconsider their cancellation policy...That alone turns me off. I bought the service thinking I would need it, but then found an even better deal with a different phone company (which i purchased). I called Vonage to cancel, what a joke! I had to pay for everything, and I couldn't cancel my service for 5 months. So, I had to pay like $6 a month for service that I was never going to use. I've told everyone about this, and I can tell you right now no one I know will ever use Vonage. Especially since they know that you have to pay just to cancel. On top of that, I still haven't been able to fully cancel, because every time I call...I get "you'll need to call back during such and such hours." I've called 4 times in the last 2 weeks, and still haven't been able to cancel. I'll be calling Monday in the AM. Hopefully, this time I'll be able to cancel (again for a service that I've never used).

Thinking of signing up with Vonage..............DON'T DO IT IF YOU EVER WANT TO DISCONNECT AS THEY ARE SICKENING TO DEAL WITH!!! Had in mind to cancel in Canada and set up at our new home in the US but after going through the nightmare of disconnecting we won't be signing on with Vonage again anywhere! Normally don't do the blog thing much but this company is a piece of work!!!!!
Would never patronize Vonage again.

Where to start: I called and had vonage service started in August of 2007 for international calling.

I not only received one but two modems with two different numbers???

I returned the extra modem with a reduction on my next months charge.(I paid)

Cancel service in September before the 30 days had expired, returned modem.(I paid)

Called in October no refund/Called in November no refund/Called in December no refund.

Contacted the Illinois States Attorney and sent all information related to this service.

Letter from States Attorney stated to accept any reasonable offer.

As of 02/20/2008 have not received a refund on this matter.

i signed up with vonage with the assurance that it would work with my satellite internet service. it didn't so i called them within the required period to cancel and return their equipment. this was back in december 07 and i have yet to receieve my $80 back they charged. so much for the money backg uarantee. they sent me the return label to use but they clain they never recieved their equipment back.

ordered vonage 28 dec2007--recieved unit a week later--did not work-tried to e-mail vonage-could not get thru-was not reconized as a customer-bought more stuff to make it work-did not work-finally called vonage to cancel-was told i was way over cancellation time of 60 days--called 61 days after ordering or 54days of recieving equiptment-was told could not cancel unless i agreed to pay 95 dollars to cancel service that never worked or would have to pay monthly bills forever-got very upset-am trying to fight them--write your local better buisiness bureau-write maximum pc-tell all your friends--tell people you hate to try vonage

those who complains are the ones who got a problem!!! there are some people stupid enough to sign up not knowing they would need an internet service provider.....helllooooooo, vonage is a voice over IP!!!! they should have known they will need a very good isp that has cable connections... ignorance is not an excuse... feel free to go back to where you came from......... there are no perfect system, even verizon, att, or whatever, have similar issues, and i think that's the reason why you left them & sign up for vonage. some are having poor audio quality because their isp sucks!!!!! get a good isp, you'll have a perfect audio!!!!!! & stop complaining when you know nothing about vonage!!!!!!!

Ifeel like I have been taken advantage of and after reading the other comments started not to tell about my experience. I called Vonage on December 26, 2007 only because I had received a flyer in the mail stating you could get free service to the UK. I am a senior citizen and my son and my grandchildren live there. I told the young lady I spoke to that I would only sign up for the service if I could keep my current phone number and internet connection. After she assured me I could ABSOLUTLY keep them I gave her my visa card number. The next morning I receive a e-mail from Vonage saying I could not keep number and would have to have a new line to computer. Not 24 hours had passed so I immediatly called vonage and said I did not want service. Nothing I could say was getting threw to her. She said set up had already been mailed to my home. I was getting more upset by the minute. To make the long story short it is now the end of Feburary and never having a account with them or any of their equiptment in my home I with my visa card was on phone with them over two hours yesterday and they are charging me with a cancellation fee of 95.83 plus taxes. How can you be charged for canceling something that you never had?????

I canceled my service over a year ago... with a lot of hassle. Now it seems that they're re-assigning my number which I transfered over to a cell phone to new Vonage customers. As far as I can tell, they've tried assigning it at least 3 times. That means that I receive multiple calls from people trying to reach someone else (some in Arabic, and some in Portuguese), and people who are trying to call me who have a Vonage account can't get through.

So yeah, one more addition to this thread.. Vonage is a pain and I would have never signed on with them knowing what I know now.

i have been with vonage since 2005 & im satisfied with it... i am wondering why other complains... i got comcast for my internet, vnage as phone service. no matter how hard you complain regarding disconnection charge, it will do you nothing bec you agreed with the their terms of service which states that there will be a disconnection fee once you disconnect and you can only receive a money back if you are within 30 days since signing-up & once you return the device back to vonage after 13 days you requested for cancellation. so when you call vonage to cancel your account, you must send the device back within 13 days or you will be charged a disconnection fee. but if you are not within 30day money back period, meaning you are on the 31st day or longer since you signed-up, you are not eligible for a 30-day MBG, of course you will be charged a disconnection fee, just like any other phone service does, as written under the TERMS OF SERVICE.

now if you just signed up 5 hours ago & wants to cancel, that's not possible.. there is a process done by the system & you cant just call & say 'hey i wanna cancel, give me back the money!!!!!!' the system generates the process & you need to wait for the phone adapter to be sent to your house before you can call & cancel the acct. then after, send the phone adapter back (like what i said, within 13 days).

for those who cancelled the acct bec they did not have internet service provider, i dont know what to say to you. you must atleast be responsible. ASK questions.

bottomline here, when the agent asks to read on the TERMS OF SERVICE, please do.

If you want to inquire, call technical support first before you connect to sales department. technical support people will tell you what to do & what you need. get a cable connection.

I've been with Vonage since Seotember 2007, and I haven't had a problem yet. Other than the occasional power outage from my electric company. As far as the bandwidth issue is concerned. More than likely it is your ISP. I have Charter for internet service, and they are less than perfect. I absolutely refuse to use Charter's VOIP because it is more expensive than Vonage, and after 12 months, will increase $10-15 more before taxes are added on. Forget ATT too. They want me back for $11 per month, but give them a year or two, and those charges that were negotiated, will skyrocket once again. I also haven't had any problems with my free modem either, There's an old saying. Sometimes it is better to rent than to buy. I'd rather pay an extra dollar a month, than pay $74 for a modem to find out it breaks down 12 months later.

DON'T GET VONAGE!!!!
Vonage service is just plain horrible. The person on the end of the phone could not hear me for half of the conversations and I would get disconnected every 5 minutes from my online games. I decided to get rid of them and then just use my cell phone and buy my wife a cell phone. After reading all the difficulties that people experience trying to cancel Vonage, I got myself prepared. I thought how could any customer service representative rebuttal me and try to stop me from canceling my Vonage service if I told them the reason I am cancelling is because the service was purchased for my mother who just died yesterday and now I need to cancel since I am moving in with my brother who already had phone service and I had a cell phone and that in about a year when I get my own place to live I would come back to Vonage because they provided me with great service. (Please note my mother did not die, I had to use this excuse because I was desperate to get this cancellation done within 60 minutes)

Here is what happened. I made the call to Vonage and I finally got through after a ridiculous 40 minute wait. (I used a cell phone to call that had a speaker phone on it, that way I was not tempted to kill myself with such a horrible wait). The representative spoke broken English. She verified my account information and luckily I remembered my pin number. I told her my situation about my mother and I started choking up on the phone pretending my mom just died. The representative did not seem to care and rebuttable me and tried to convince me that I needed not to cancel and keep my number. I told her that I am in mourning about my mother and I felt that she was not being sensitive to my feelings of the death of my mother and now I was never going to come back as a customer and she should be ashamed of herself. She tried rebutting me for a few more minutes, I started to pretend to cry. She then gave up and cancelled my service.

Honestly, I feel a little ashamed that I had to lie and use such a story but I had to get this cancelled. It is such a shame that you have to do things like this against companies like Vonage. I have cancelled credit cards, internet service providers and cell providers etc. and have never had to go through so much trouble to cancel something, Nor have read about so much difficulty somebody has to go through. Vonage you should be ashamed of yourself. This is why you will be out of business soon I promise, I can also promise you that by the end of this year I will mention how bad your customer service and product is to over 50 people. Also since I am a Website programmer and Search Engine Optimizer, I plan to unleash many bad internet articles about you that will show up high in rankings in google.com and yahoo.com unless you post an apology to everyone this website for there troubles.

Jamie

I have experienced all of the above, to enclude a $40 cancelation fee. Vontage also renderd my home security in-op....not compatable with broadband (ADT)something to pass on to your friends when concidering vontage.

I signed up for vonage a few months ago and I have to admit I love it, I used to pay around a 100$ for data and a calling plan at AT&T, now I get 2x the internet speed and 30$ less on my phone bill... I do admit that I had to use 90kbps b/c the 60 bandwidth allocation made the phone sound just a bit worse then with my old phone land line but at 90 it is way better. I was considering AT&Ts VOIP but their international rates are crazy. Funny thing about the sign up was that a lazy representative at micro center tried to convince me that it was almost impossible to carry over a number but it turned out that he really wanted to go on lunch lol and if he would actually keep on pushing his lie I would of walked away, sure there was a huge line of people but there was no reason to be rude and btw it was the micro center rep not a vonage rap that took care of the application

STAY AWAY! YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO CANCEL THEIR SERVICE!

I have been trying to cancel their service 3 times already in last 4 months and have to deal with extremely rude customer service that offended me multiple times. I originally placed the cancellation call in November 2007 and was told that service will be disconnected at the end of the billing cycle. 2 months later, I noticed extra charges and called them back to confirm cancellation and get refund for 2 months. First guy refused to provide any type of information on the cancelation status and when I asked to talk to his supervisor, he asked me whether I am minority because of my accent, laughed at me and hang up on me. When I called second time, I spent 20 minutes talking to some lady about benefits of Vonage, and when I told her to stop selling me product again that I do not want and get the refund with final cancellation note, she yelled at me saying that I agreed to free service for 1 months and now they are charging regular rate and there is absolutely no refunds for the service I cancelled 4 months ago. She put me on hold and when she came back after 3 minutes she told me that she will offer me 1 free month. I told her no and asked her again to cancell it and get refund for 2 months, she hang up on me like the first guy did.

IF YOU HAVE THEIR STOCK SELL IT SOON BEFORE THEY GO BANKRUPT. STAY WAY. THEY MUST BE IN BIG FINANCIAL TROUBLE. THIS COMPANY WILL NOT LAST MORE THAN 6 MONTHS.

I had three vonage lines and now have two but will likely cancel the other two when I have the time and stamina. I had a vonage soft line or V-line that I planned to use abroad. First of all, they shipped the equipment three times wwithout requiring a signiture and tried to get me to pay for the first two or to file for the insurance although they were the shippers. That should have been a sign to me! Anyway, this V-phone rarely worked abroad but was primarily due to the varying degree, or lack thereof, of internet service connection speed. Finally, as expressed on the many blogs above, when I did try to cancel I encounered resistance and more -- resulting in over five months of extra chnarges and a $39.41 disconnection or cancellation fee. I was able to speak to a supervisor who is going to credit one of my other lines with the $39.41 cancellation fee. However, I plan to pursue getting credit for the other five months on my other lines because it should have been called five months ago. If I do not get credit or proper resolution in the next month or so, I will cancel my service with Vonage because this aspect of their service is incredibly frustrating and not worth it despite having had pretty good VIOP service from them on my primary line for about three years -- and over one year on the second line. If Vonage won't meet me half way then I will simply cancel everything. And yes, I spent nearly an hour on the phone ech of the times I tried to cancel and was disconnected -- never receiving a return phone call although I was asked my number should we be disconnected. Although, I have recruited two or more people to Vonage, because of this most recent experience I will never recommend them again.

********DO NOT GET VONAGE********

Isn't it funny how some of these Vonage surrogates and cronies have managed to find this forum. If Vonage is that great to them, what led them to start looking for blogging sites that landed them here? I went through 6 months of agony before I found this blogging site, so these people submitting their blogs here in favor of Vonage must be fakes.

Bottom line Vonage is a crooked company and has a shady way of doing business. Unfortunately, it is not within the reach of Public Utilities, but there are other ways of hitting them including your State's AG office.

Goodluck felas

Tommy the Tiger

Just review Vonage customer nightmares at ripoffreport.com. This is amazing company like this can operate in the US.

My daughter tryed to cancel vonage amd after 9 months they just canceled thier credit card. I also have been trying to cancel vonage for 4 months now. How can we get all our money back????

Here is a condensed, yes this is condensed, time line of my association with Vonage.

October 9, 2004: I open a personal Vonage account. I am very satisfied with the product and refer many people to the service.

September 8, 2006: I open a business Vonage account.

December 8, 2006: I call to cancel the personal account because we moved to a rural area with no broadband. I got a heavy dose of the retention script. I was not happy and reminded of cancellation tactics AOL used in the early 90's.

August 8, 2007: Weary from the previous call to cancel my personal account, I route the call through my server to record and I call to cancel my business account until March of 2008 (new fiscal year of start up company). Again a heavy dose of relentless retention script. The CSR tells me he can put the account into "suspension" until March 2008 by minimizing the account and making it "free". I agree, thinking I would not have to worry about the account until March of 2008. Total time on the phone - 2 hours 23 minutes.

September 8, 2007:
A) A charge appears on my credit card from Vonage. I make the call to customer service, again recording. After 45 minutes of being on hold a CSR answers, I explain the problem, he puts me on hold again. I wait for about another 40 minutes and have to leave the office, so I hang up. Total time on the phone - 1 hour 29 minutes.
B) I call customer service from my cell phone and wait for over 30 minutes for a CSR to answer. I have to hang up.
C) I call customer service from my cell phone again. I drive home, greet my family, help prepare and eat supper all the while listening to the "due to high call volume" recording over and over via the speakerphone of my cell. Total time on hold before a CSR answers - 2 hours 15 minutes. By this point I'm past being angry or upset, the customer service is so bad it's funny.
D) When the CSR answers I explain the situation and tell him to credit the funds back to my credit card and cancel the account. The CSR informs me my previous call was not noted in "the system" and that Vonage does not have a free service. I then spend 30 minutes literally repeating "cancel the account, cancel the account, cancel the account" in response to the droning of him reading the retention script, oblivious to my responses. My patience was exhausted, my blood pressure was rising, I was missing play time with my kids and my cell phone battery was running low. So I was suckered by the retention tactics again. He said he would credit my card back the September charges (to date has not been credited back to my card), credit my account 3 months at a time, twice (3x2=6) to settle the account until March, when I would need it again. Total time on phone - 1 hour 50 minutes . I change billing to a PayPal debit card with no balance.

October 8, 2007: Vonage attempts to charge my card but the card has no balance. I get an email from Vonage that there was a problem receiving payment "account charge error".

November 8, 2007:
A) Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
B) I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
C) I call and spend another 3 hours on the phone. I receive more assurances from the CSR that he will credit my account appropriately until March 2008. He would talk to his supervisor about the credit back to my credit card and the supervisor will call me back. (never received that call).

November 9, 2007: I get an email from Vonage stating the order I placed on 11/09/2007 was cancelled at my request. I definately did not order anything.
December 8, 2007: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
December 12, 2007: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
December 17, 2007: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
December 20, 2007: I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
December 21, 2007: I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
December 25, 2007:  Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
January 3, 2008:  I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
January 8, 2008: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
January 9, 2008: I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
January 14, 2007: 
    A) Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
    B) I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
January 21, 2008: I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
January 22, 2008: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
January 28, 2008:  I receive a recorded message from Vonage on my cell phone to call Vonage customer support.
January 30, 2008:  Receive an email from Vonage - Vonage Account Suspension Notice -yahoo, finally!
February 8, 2008: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
February 12, 2008: Vonage attempts again to charge my card with no balance. I get another email about problems receiving payment.
February 19, 2008:
A) I change backup funding for my PayPal debit card, not even thinking about Vonage.
B) Three months of Vonage service charges and a reactivation fee are charged to my PayPal card and subsequently sucked from the backup bank account.
C) Oooh Wee I was hot! I set about wading through the Vonage FAQ's for a communication medium other than the phone, because I had had enough of that. I finally found the web form to submit email.
I wrote:

I can't believe that this account is not closed!  How many times do I
have to call and cancel the account?  My card was charged $122.27 &
one minute later charged $10.61.  I have been trying to close this
account since September of 2007.  I AM NOT calling again!!  The 16
hours I have spent on the phone with your \"customer service\" in
the last 6 months has been a waste of my time!  CANCEL THIS ACCOUNT
AND REFUND THE $132.88 IMMEDIATELY!


Vonage replied:

I understand you would like to cancel service and get refund of $132.88.
As per our records, we have given a credit of $135.11 on September 7, 2007 and $80.54 on November 9, 2007. I verified our records and never see any records that you have talked to our Account Management Department for canceling your account.

However, we are unable to process this request through email. Cancellation requests require a phone call to our Account Management Department.


I file a complaint with the BBB of New Jersey

Thank you for contacting BBB. Your complaint was received by BBB on February 28, 2008 and has been assigned case# xxxxxxxx in our files. Please make a note of this number for future reference.

Your complaint has been applied to the following business:
Vonage
23 Main Street
Holmdel, NJ 07733

The case has been reviewed and has now been forwarded to the business for their response. This business has an initial deadline of March 14, 2008 to respond to your complaint. You may contact our office after March 14, 2008 to check the status of your complaint. Please note it can take up to 30 business days to resolve a dispute.

We encourage you to use our ONLINE COMPLAINT system to keep up with the progress of this complaint. To view the details of your case please go to the following website address: http://app.newjersey.bbb.org/complaint/view/


February 20, 2008: I receive an email -

Your opinion is important to us.


You recently submitted an email requesting assistance with your Vonage account. As part of Vonage's commitment to excellence, we want to be sure we met your needs during this email exchange. Would you please take a moment to answer a few questions to let us know how we did?
http://surveys.vonage.com/vonage/survey.taf?survey_id=

March 8, 2008: Vonage charges my credit card again

March 9, 2008:
I email Vonage again -
            $181.32  That is the total of unauthorized charges from Vonage to my

credit card for the business account.  The Dec 8, Jan 8, Feb 8 and
now Mar 8 invoices.  I don't know how I could have made it
plainer, back in September 2007, that I would not need the services
again until March of 2008.  Now I am at the point of needing
telecom services again for both residential and business purposes.
I am VERY weary of doing further business with Vonage and I am even
considering going back to LAN line or cable services.  Please
correct the charges made to my  account by crediting my credit
card, NOT my Vonage account, $181.32.

Vonage replies -

I understand that you are concerned about the charges on your account and want refund of the charges.

I checked our records and found that your account (xxxxxxxxx) is still in "Active" status. Our records indicate that your account was started on September 08, 2006. Your billing cycle starts from the account start date. Billing in Vonage is automated and there is no manual work involved. Your billing cycle starts on the 08th day of every month. You will be charged for your service till your account is disconnected which is mentioned in our Terms of Service (TOS).

For more information about TOS, please follow the link given below:
http://vonage.com/features_terms_service.php?refer_id=WEBIN0706010001W1
We have received your cancellation request. However, we are unable to process this request through email. Cancellation requests require a phone call to our Account Management Department. Our Account Management Department is available to assist you Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 8:00 p.m. EST. To reach our Account Management Department, please call 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357).
We are sorry to hear that you wish to cancel your account. We value your business and would like to address any concerns you may have regarding your service. In order to handle your cancellation request, we need to verbally verify the owner of the account. This is to prevent another person from terminating your account without your knowledge.
All requests to disconnect service without speaking with an Account Management Representative via telephone cannot be processed or considered an official cancellation request.


March 10, 2008:
A) I post this to a few blogs, email this to Vonage customer service and to the Vonage Board of Directors. Vonage Corporate Contact Form To comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, the Company must establish a means for communicating with the members of Vonage’s Board of Directors.
B) Board of Directors auto responder-

Thank you for contacting the Executive Support Team. We appreciate the opportunity to address your Customer Care concerns. We apologize if you have been dissatisfied in these areas thus far - your issue will be assigned to an Escalation Manager who will personally assist you with this matter. Our hours of operation are Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST.
Regards,
Executive Support Team

I have used Vonage since last Nov.,but recently over the last 2 months, I have had dropped calls and internet disruptions. Comcast,my ISP,changed modems,replaced coax cables and splitter,but still the same probems. At this point I'm starting to think the problem is at
Vonage's end, so I just got Comcast triple play with Digital Voice and now no problems ! I also was trying to cancel and got the usually run around like so many people here, but after talking to 2 people,I just said "Cancel The Service !" and hung up on them. (I don't have the patience as some responders here). They where going to charge me the $39.95 cancellation fee,and $49.95 for the adapter, I said what ???? I'll mail you back the adapter,I can't use it ! They said they where still going to bill me for it,even if I returned it ! At this point, I called my bank and reported my bank card stolen, so they can't bill me anymore !
I also emailed Vonage customer service? and told them to provide me an address to send back the adapter or I'll toss the thing in the trash,(Haven't heard back from them yet)
Does anyone know their actual address so I can send it back ? Thanks !

Check out this link for horro stories about cancelling with vonage. This happened with AOL when *they* were going down the tubes too...

http://www.infomercialscams.com/scams/vonage_phone_service

I have been trying to cancel Vonage for a couple of months.. I always get the run around , or some how the line mysteriously drops while speaking with a customer rep.

I tried to give Vonage a new checking account number, and they wouldn't take it because my ex-boyfriend set up the account, even though it has always been paid for through my checking account. After speaking to a manager, they kept repeating the same mantra "there's nothing we can do" so I informed them that I would have my service cancelled as soon as I could get a new cell phone for my son. They said I could cancel the day before my account was due to begin its new cycle. Yeah right.

As soon as I received my new cell phones (Thurs), I called my new company to have my numbers ported over. I had my ex call to get the account number from Vonage so I could complete the process. When he called back to tell them to cancel the account, they said my new company had to call them. Credo called Vonage the next day, and after 15-20 minutes of being transferred from rep to rep, my new company said that Vonage is issuing a trouble ticket for my number.

I called Vonage again today (Monday) to check on the status and they couldn't tell me what was going on, but readily blamed my new company, saying that they should be able to tell why this process doesn't work. They were able to give me a ticket number after about 20 minutes on the phone.

I called Credo to have them check from their end and they said that info received from Vonage said the number should be ported over at 3am on Wed morning. Maybe by the endofthis week, I can say adios to archaic land lines and their processes.

I've been trying to cancel vonage for months now. They told me today they were going to charge me $150 to cancel, $39.99 for cancellation fee and the rest was for my "equipment". The rep didn't listen to anything I said, used same tactics everyone else experienced. I went to the BBB to complain and their acct has been revoked due to 7,434 unresolved complaints filed in the past 36 months. I was told I'd receive another 2 free months of service (I've had more free months than paid months) and to have a nice day at the end of the call. I've never been more PO'd during a customer service call in my life. I still have the service not by choice. I was thinking of cancelling my credit card, but I'm afraid that they'll send it to collections and then I'll ruin my credit due to something beyond my control with a terrible company. What am I supposed to do?????

Great site here - was Googled Vonage complaints since I just went through an ordeal on trying to cancel my service with them.

I started service on August 1st of 2007 and only planned on using it temporarily as I was moving around often. I had the $25/month unlimited service and had purchased one of their phones that came with a rebate (the phone was only about $25 after rebate).

On Feb. 2nd I called to cancel my service (there was no way to do so via the account manager online) since I no longer needed VOIP. After pushing buttons for about 10 minutes a CR took my call. After 10 more minutes of trying to retain me as a customer we got disconnected. I call back, wait for a CR, give my speech again. This CR tells me the account was already canceled....apparently the previous one just canceled my service without my verbal confirmation.

I then asked her about the fees (I knew there was a $39 cancellation fee within the first 12 months though Vonage doesn't have any "contract"). She says the total is $119. I gasp and ask why. "There is an $80 Rebate Recovery Fee" the CR tells me.

I reply that in my terms literature, it states if you cancel within 180 days, there is an $80 Rebate fee.....today would be the 181st day, thus mitigating this fee. The CR doesn't get it and continues to tell me about the $80 fee.

I just hang up and sleep on it. Call back the next day and speak to 2 different people who BOTH say I owe $119 (for an account I didn't even cancel in the first place).

Another month goes by and now it's March 12th. I make one final phone call after I've payed for 1 more month of service. The CR gives me the same info; I owe $119 ($80 rebate fee + $39 cancellation fee). I then tell them their website and printed literature states there is NO fee after the 180th day of service. Again, they don't under stand this. After 10 seconds of silence, I tell the CR rep "I'm sorry, but you're wrong - There is no fee and you'll see that tomorrow."

I hung up and went to the BBB's website and filed a complaint with them. They emailed me back as did Vonage saying they would refund my $80 rebate fee for "customer satisfaction". I wonder how this can even be legal as it CLEARLY states otherwise in their Terms & Conditions. As of today (2008.03.17) no refund yet in my bank account, but I'll check every day until it shows up.

Seriously, good luck to anyone dealing with Vonage. I would NOT recommend them to anyone at this point. Too much of a headache to deal with if you ever need help or want to terminate your service.

I am SO angry with Vonage right now. First they wouldn't let me port my number. I ported that number into Vonage, I have had that number forever, but I had to give it up because they just wouldn't do what they said they would. Then, because I was angry after trying for two months to port the number, they promised me two free months of service. That would work for me because this was a business, and if customers were trying to finish up business with me, they would be forwarded to my phone. As mentioned earlier, they wouldn't give any information to callers if I cancelled the service outright. So, of course, they charged me anyway. They absolutely refused to refund the Money they STOLE, and wanted to give me future service free. WHAT A JOKE. We spoke with Agnus for half an hour, during which time she refused to refund the stolen money and refused to let us speak to a supervisor. Does anyone know, do we have any kind of recourse? I don't think that it would be feasible to sue for the basically $99 they stole, even more if you figure the time I stayed with the service trying to port my own freaking number. Are there any class actions suits against these creeps? I would rather a bunch of lawyers get the money than have that vile company keep it!

Anybody knows if there is any class action suits against Vonage? This is ridiculous that we all have to suffer, waste hours of our personal time, pay for the service that cannot be cancelled and risk that they will send our accounts to collection. This business should be banned from operating in the US.

The saga continues. I receive a forwarded call from the business phone account that I had cancelled. When I called Vonage, they claimed that the call from the other day was disconnected therefore the account had not been cancelled. BIG FAT LIARS. She refused to allow us to speak to a supervisor, but the call was not disconnected and we told them in no uncertain terms to disconnect the service. We also informed them that we were well aware of their practice of claiming calls were disconnected because there is abundant information on the internet regarding their crooked practices.
Then came the disconnection fees. They took MORE money out of our account. This company is UNBELIEVABLE!!!

Hi, I also had major problems trying to cancel our vonage service. I finally got so fed up that I wrote a letter to the company president. Surprisingly enough, about three weeks later I got a call and after sending back the modem I actually got a refund about two weeks after that for the three months we were charged for when we never actually had the service. So I am posting this information here. This is the contact information for the person who contacted me.

Isaiah Coleman,
Executive Response Team, Technical
23 Main Street
Holmdel New Jersey 07733
tel: 888.580.4020, ext. 23511
fax: 732.231.6783
hours: M-F 10:30am-7pm

Dear Tom & Friends,

I actually knew the founder when he lived in my area. I had the same trouble as all of you. This almost becomes a therapy season to show that your not going crazy.

Thanks for all of your input. I feel better!

Uh oh!!! I am a current Vonage customer, and thus far I have not had any problems. So, does anyone have any ideas for how to successfully cancel if I want to in the future?

Hi,
I am a current Vonage customer who has been with them for about 2 years. I have two lines, one residential number from them and a business number. Both of my phone numbers came from Verizon originally. My problem is this, about last summer (2007) my residential number stopped working. What I mean to say is that people who were calling me in my immediate area here in Delaware County Pa were unable to reach me because my res. line was saying that it had been disconnected??!! However, if you called me from a cell phone for some strange reason you did not get the "disconnected" recording and the call would go through. And if you were calling me from a landline phone that wasn't using Verizon service your calls would come through fine; and if you were calling me from anywhere else in the world the calls came through just fine. So I placed a call to Vonage "High Level" Tech Support and they proceeded to tell me that Verizon had "slammed" my res. line??!! And that I would have to contact Verizon directly to get it resolved. Now, as a small business owner myself the idea that the customer has to call anyone other than whomever is providing me this service to rectify an issue that they assured me they had handled when I first switched over to them is quite bizarre. But I'd never heard of this "slamming" so I called Verizon. And of course Verizon told me that this was not true. That when they got the order that I was switching over to Vonage they switched me over and why would they after 6 months had passed all of a sudden partially disconnect or "slam" my phone. Needless to say, my res. line still says it's disconnected to anyone calling me within a 15 mi radius from a Verizon landline phone. My business phone never got affected. I am baffled and really don't know what to do. I couldn't read all of the posts you have here, but am I the only person that this bizarre event has happened to? And who is being deceitful here, is it Vonage or Verizon. I'm confused, I feel totally helpless and I really don't know what to do. Please help.

A Moore

I signed up for Vonage 2/25/08. Our house has old phone wires and the static was so bad, we couldn't use the service. My husband who is very handy just a hip relaced, so he couldn't change the wires. Verizon assumed service on March 18. We called Vonage 3 times on March 25, within the 30 days but, because we didn't have our "Pin" they allegedly couldn't access our account. However, they were able to tel my husband he couldn't cancel since I had set up the account. Therefore, on March 27 when I finally got through, and twice went through all their objections,they cancelled our service, charging us $113 disconnect fee. I filed a complaint with the FCC. This was absolutely the worst customer service fiasco I have ever experienced.

I decided to cancel my Vonage account because I was no longer using it. (I had installed it to have a separate line for a side business I was operating for awhile.) I have never encountered a company that worked harder to keep a customer.

Of course, any company will try to verify that I am the "owner" of the account. But verifying my name, account number, billing address & Vonage phone # wasn't enough. I also needed to verify the date my account last billed and the amount of my last Vonage monthly statement. Isn't this ridiculous? What kind of company asks you to provide all of this information? They then needed the model # of the Vonage modem. If I hadn't been home, I wouldn't have been able to cancel--just what they hope will happen to many who call.

Even my "Account Manager" started in with a slew of questions about how I felt about my Vonage service. I told her I had barely used it at all, and that limited usage had been over 2 years ago. She pushed on and continued to ask questions about the service. I continued to say I wasn't going to answer questions about the service and just wanted to cancel. She then moved her focus to switching me to a lower cost plan. Even though I continued to state that I just wanted to cancel, she still tried to sell me another plan. I was almost shouting CANCEL by now. I finally had to tell her that if she wasn't going to cancel my account she needed to transfer me to a Supervisor who would do it for me. That did it. She cancelled the service.

I'm certain that many Vonage customers would have given up in frustration before reaching this point--which is precisely what they hope will happen.

DO NOT GET VONAGE! If you are keeping it forever like till you DIE go ahead because Vonage is awful to cancel! Now I will tell the whole world DO NOT GET VONAGE! I've been with them since July 2005 and well my Cable company got me last week. I just could not pass a great all in one deal when I see one. So today I call Vonage to CANCEL because the cable guys are coming out tomorrow. It was awful. I even began to lie just so she would help me cancel. First I told her all the info she needed and then the questions came flying! Why do you want to cancel? Because I'm going with the cable company. Why did you go to the cable company? Why this? Why that? Why I ask (myself not her still trying to be nice) does she even need to know this. If I wanted something else I believe I would have called for that not to cancel. So her next question was so why do you really want to cancel? So yes I started to lie to her I said well you see I'm moving to my sisters house and we will be living with her so I don't need a phone she has one. Then she asked where does she live? Then the s**t hit the fan! I said you don't need to know where she lives. I just want to cancel. Yes I was getting mad. Being honest did not work lying did not work. So my husband was listening on the other phone and I said you can ask my husband WE WANT TO CANCEL. So my husband said WE WANT TO CANCEL. Then she said do you want to transfer your service? It took all I had not to curse or yell at her. But I calmly said I'm not stupid nor dumb if I wanted to transfer the service I would have called and done that. Then my husband said WE WANT TO CANCEL. She says I quote " if you would like to cancel please say cancel. I was thinking to myself are you f**king kidding me? I was at my wits end with this lady. My husband said CANCEL. She knew he was pissed. Finally she said "ok your account is now cancelled". Also I cancelled the credit card they have on file for my account. They are not going to treat me like I'm dumb and stupid then steal money from me too. Screw me once shame on you screw me twice shame on me it's not happening!!! I will be sure to go to the BBB and let them know also how we were treated. We are not dumb Americans and we do not need to be treated has if we are.. If this is the way some Vonage reps. have to do there job people get a different job. No one could pay me to treat people badly just to keep them. I wish I would have recorded my call. I will not go through that ever again!! I do hope people will Google Vonage before they go with them. Vonage has had 7619 complaints just in the last 36 months and is not a BBB Accredited business. What does that tell you...

After 7 miserable months with VT2542, I finally called up Vonage and cancelled my account. But, boy! What an experience.

The obstinate account manager at Vonage kept offering me "one month free". She simply ignored my repeated pleas to "please cancel", and kept on repeating the same offer over and over again. I guess the account managers have some kind of incentive plan to retain a customer; but this conversation went far beyond the realm of reason and sanity. I refused the "one month free" offer with a polite "No, thank you" five times in a row. When she asked me the sixth (yes, 6th) time, I interrupted her to ask "Madam! I think I already said no. Can we please proceed with the cancellation." Even then, she would not give up. I requested to be connected to a supervisor. Her response was that she *is* the account manager. But, that probably finally convinced her that 6+ attempts were probably not worth her time, and she relented. Finally!

The problems with the VT2542 are well documented (https://forums.vonage.com/showthread.php?t=222&highlight=VT2542). Every time there is a power loss, the router forgets all settings. This includes the PPPoE settings (no Internet or Vonage). Even worse, this includes the WiFi security settings (WEP or WPA -- leaves your home network completely exposed to intruders). I am not sorry to see that one go. Wasted over a $100 in buying this thing from Vonage, and now I have to pay a $89 cancellation fee to Vonage! But, I am glad to be out.

FM

I have read through a majority of the complaints posted here and I can understand the frustrations many have had. First I would like to say, every single person here is guilty of NOT READING YOUR TERMS OF SERVICE! If you had read them, you would be prepared for any disconnection fees etc. Secondly, I am amazed that everyone is so shocked at having to pay fees to cancel. I have a Verizon cell phone, if I want to cancel before my 2 year agreement is up, I have to pay $175. Why do I know this? Because I READ MY AGREEMENT. I also have a Triple Play package through Comcast. When I lost my job I was thinking of canceling...but I didn't....why? Because it cost me $150 or $175 to cancel and I had this promo rate for 2 years. In other words I'm locked in for 2 years. Sure I can cancel but I would have to pay a fee. I also could have maybe downgraded my package to save money but, once again, I would have lost my promo and paid more money for less services. This is nothing new. Do I like this arrangement? Not really... but do I love getting the new cell phone for less than 50% of the cost...Heck yeah! Do I like paying less money for Cable, Internet and Phone service than, someone who just has Internet and Cable...heck yeah!! It's a trade off people. Inform yourself before you subscribe and try not to blow a gasket with these CSR people.

I'm so glad I checked with Google before signing up with Vonage... Thanks to everyone who posted a WARNING sign about them!!!I don't need a headache and would hate to go through any problem that most of you have!!!

I cancled my service on March 17th 2008. Or so I thought. On April 2nd I was billed for another month. When I called Vonage they said they could not reimberse me for services rendered. They bill in advance, "right"? The girl who says that she can speak english, offered me two months of free service. I told her that I did not want to do bussiness with them. I have not been a customer since MArch 17th. Now I have to file a dispute with my bank to get my money back. These people are crooks. Just another reason why offshore company's should be illegal and should held criminaly responsible.

I recently had a terrible experience trying to end my customer relationship with Vonage. In order to take advantage of a bundle offer from my internet service provider, Digis, I requested that Digis port my phone number from Vonage to Digis in the beginning of January 2008. I was told the port is required to be completed within 30 days. That did not happen. I had to call Vonage 3 different times asking what the hold up was in transferring my number to a new provider. Every time the Customer Service Rep gave me a different story: My new carrier wasn't submitting my request properly, my new carrier should submit a request to Vonage's third party carrier, or my new carrier didn't ask the right department for the number port initiation. I was assured that Vonage firmly believes in my right to port my number, but their lack of correct information and lack of response to my new carrier's request says otherwise. Finally, my number ported on April 1, 2008. This time, when I called Vonage to cancel they told me that my number had NOT ported and that if I cancelled my service I would lose it. I called Digis to verify this, and they assured me they were in possession of my number and told me that Vonage does this to all of their customers who try to port away to Digis. Digis's CSR instructed me to call Vonage, ask nothing about port completion, and just cancel my account.

I called Vonage AGAIN. I asked nothing about the number port, and this time just asked to cancel. It took THIRTY MINUTES on the phone with the Vonage agent. She pretended that she was accessing my account information on her computer and that she was using the down time to address my concerns about Vonage. During this time, she offered me tech support for call quality, which I declined twice, and then offered to let me keep the Vonage service for a two month trial period at a reduced rate 'so I could make sure I was satisfied with my new carrier.' I politely declined and firmly said I was not interested, but she interrupted me and persisted to offer me this two more times. I finally had to cut her off and almost yell NO I DON'T WANT IT to get her to stop offering it. I told her Vonage had dilly-dallied for so long to port my number that I had had plenty of time (almost a full three months) to decide that I was satisfied with the service Digis would provide. At the end of my very long conversation with her, she finally agreed to cancel my service. I feel I was deceived by Vonage in the beginning with their failure to properly port my number. In the end, I felt that if I had not been VERY firm with them, my account might not have been cancelled. I started as a Vonage customer for 3 1/2 years and had few complaints about our customer relationship during that time. The only reason I decided to change was just to save a little money with the new carrier. However, after this experience, I feel I was strung along, deceived, and dealt with dishonestly.

i am very unhappy with vonage, i have been trying to cancel my service for 3 months to no avail, vonage is a ripoff if you try to cancel, stay with regular phone service. you get what you pay for. vonage is cheap so you get cheap service

It took me 65 days to get a live person at vonage to cancel my account. So they wanted to charge me a cancellation fee since my "free" period was up. When I asked to speak to this person's superior I was told he was the boss. So I asked him if he owned the company. This little snit kept me on the line for almost 1 hour just to cancel.
Take my advise - don't EVER sign up with Vonage. FYI I told my bank to remove the charge - they can sue me.

I have also experienced the nightmare of trying to cancel my account with Vonage.

I have tried for several months to cancel my account with Vonage.

I first spoke with a foreign woman who repeated herself constantly. I nicely told her "no" I just want to cancel my account. She basically told me I was a dumb a-s to cancel this service. I again said "no thank you" I want to cancel my service. She continued to badger me. I finally asked to speak with a supervisor.

She then offered me 2 free months of service and then a discounted rate. I again said "no thank you" I just want to cancel my account. I again asked to speak with a supervisor. She refused. She transferred me.

I then spoke with a foreign male CSR. He repeated the same scenario. I again said "no thank you" I would like to cancel my account. He then hit me with a disconnect fee. I refused to pay the fee. I then asked to speak with a supervisor. He placed me on hold for 20 minutes.

The same individual came back on the line and started badgering me. I once again asked for a supervisor. He refused.

I finally yelled at him and hung up. I spent 3 hours on the phone with no resolution.

I told them verbally and via email to stop billing my debit card. Each month my card is billed.

I emailed them several times to cancel my account. They continue to bill my debit card.

I tried to remove my debit card information from the Vonage system, however, it won't allow it.

I have never used their service. It did not work properly on my system. I have only asked for them to cancel my account without the disconnect fee.

Vonage is a theif.

I contacted the NJ BBB with NO resolution.

do not go with vonnage---you will be a fool and get riped off!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I hate VONAGE. I would not recommend them for any reason, to another one her or around the whole. I called the cancel the account. Dear God in Heaven!!!! The CSR was rude and of course from some other place besides the US some kind of accent I could not understand. She would ask me a question and I would have to listen really closely or ask her to repeat the questions. I asked where I was calling --- it was the Phillipines!!!!!
You have to answer ten thousand questions, I finally said no more questions, just cancel the service. They charged a $39.99 disconnect fee. I am paying 1.00 per month until it is paid. Give me back my Century Tel phone system.

I had a really bad experience today calling Vonage to (really) cancel the service which has been cancelled since last Nov when I moved to a different state and switched to ATT. It's unbelievable what they will do to avoid cancelling your account even though you are not using their service any more.

Their practice remind me of AOL.

Vonage first refused to release our phone number when we switched carriers. After repeated phonecalls they finally let it go. Next they tried to charge my account for $302 for the upcoming year. After that they changed ny account to a monthly plan and tried to collect on that. Now I am trying to find a fax number so I can dispute this minthly charge. Needless to say it is not posted anywhere. I consider my self lucky having used a virtual credit card number with Vonage which allowed me to limit automatic charges or I'd be trying to get $302 back from then right now!
I cancelled the account because of poor reception or no reception when making phone calls. Also, Vonage does not support transmitting heart monitor signals, I had to use neighboring phones for one month to do so.
All in all, a horrible company to do business with.

DO NOT use VONAGE! Their cancellation will have you pull your hair out.. there are no 30 day guarantee like they claim. They charged me for the device that I paid for ups to return back to them (119.99) They are so full of crap. They make you run in circles to try to cancel. They then said now your account is turned off so we can do anything to your account and give no refunds. They charged me and extra $119.99 for the cancellation without my confirmation. Dont go through what I did.. Im so upset with their customer service in cancellations. I cant believe how big they are and the service they provide. Believe me dont use them try someone else!!!

Whew! Close one...

I nearly finished signing up for their service, after just seeing their swell commercial on the telly. I thought, I'd better check to see if anyone reviewed the service before I gave them my cc info.

Am I ever glad I did, this site among all the others where real people can tell their side of the story is a real service, thank you.

Marketing is only finely crafted lies, and vonage clearly benefits from that dark art.

I hope more people are smart enough to research a little before they find themselves ensnared.

I cancelled Vonage and am getting charged $139.00 for the modem. They wouldn't let me send it back and give me credit. Is this legit?

Vonage charge me $89.99 for canceling with them. I had vonage for 3 months and they charge $89.99 for the device that came in the mail. I told them i dont need it but agent say they'll still charge me for it even if I return the device back to them. Now I use MagicJack they are offering special deal for $49.99 for 5 years. afterward $20.00 for a year. I dont believe it either. but guess what its true check you guys.

i have been trying to cancel since December 07. i did get a ra number and return the device that was never hooked up. i never used their service even one time. the device was never hooked up. i returned the device in January to the BBB Int. address in NJ and have never recieved a credit for it and are continuing to be billed to my AMX.

I had no idea they were such a difficult company. But I called to cancel my service (after never having activated it) in the 60 day cancellation period, and they told me how to send the Vonage unit back. I sent it back via Delivery Confirmation thank goodness, because at first they claimed they never received it, even a week after the USPS confirmed they did. Anyway, lo and behold the next month I get the monthly charge from Vonage on my automatic billing credit card (no wonder they insist on doing that because that way they get to rip you off and you have no control over it). I called today and argued with the "rep" who said even tho they received the unit, I had not officially "cancelled" my service, and he would be glad to cancel it as we spoke, and of course the $39 cancellation fee. He was kind enough to give me the MAILING ADDRESS of the corporate headquarters/billing department. Like that's gonna help. I contacted my credit card, hopefully they will be able to dispute the charge, but I'm not counting on that. Anyway, I asked the rep if it took blood from me or my giving up my first born to get cancelled from Vonage. It feels like that.

NEVER AGAIN!!! I'll use cups and string before I go back to Vonage.

I wish I had read these comments prior to calling vonage.I was bold face lied to also, I fell for the "we can do the no. transfer" that was my entire reason for contacting vonage in the first place.They indeed are a bunch of liars.I'll be much more careful in the future in dealing with companies who's only method of billing is automatic credit card.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR VONAGE> I tried to cancel Vonage three times. Finally successfully manuevered through their protocol & scripts the third time. Each rep told me that they were the supervisor & noone higher than them to speak to. I cancelled my credit card before cancelling the service. I had a feeling they would try to charge me for disconnecting. My question is now, will I go to collections? I have a great credit score & would be ridiculous to have it ruined by Vonage. I can't believe that they continue to get away with this. I cancelled my service because no matter how much time I spent with their technicians on the phone I continued to sound robotic, digitized, dropped calls, etc. Please save yourself time & money, DO NOT SIGN UP FOR VONAGE.

I have to say I just took a trip to HELL and back... God knows that VONAGE is a under cover DEMON !! I have to say that we have had this service for 2 1/2 months and it has been a total NIGHTMARE!! I am so angry I have to say that God has to help me and deliver me from them. The service is awful and we have just about pulled out our hair and it is out of control!! We have been without phone service for over 4hrs and the last time I have to say that we are way past fed up !! They told us that our internet carrier is the problem and thats not true (Can You Here Me Now)!! We called the technical people and they told us that its the Internet carrier problem and I asked them that how can that be they are only the one that supplies my Internet connection and not my phone service!! I am so fed up and I told them that we didnt want there service and to cancel it they said well we can give you a discount and I told them that I didnt want that and they said that they were going to charge me and I said charge me just cancel my service !! Someone please pass this around and get everyone to cancel, cancel, cancel !!

HELP I have been in a total nightmare with Vonage. READ to see that my nightmare has lasted for 5 years and it still goes on.

I signed up with Vonage at least 5 years ago and canceled service within a year. I have only used my cell phone for all phone usage from that point forward. After canceling the first time. I recieved a bill in the mail a year later! I paid the 40 something bill and canceled again thinking it was an oversight on my part. I get another bill in the mail for 95 cents! I paid that. Another came in for $1.04, interest from the 95 cent bill with interest that was said not paid. I called and canceled my account again. The representative told me that they had seen that my account was canceled and they appologized and said they would make a note of it and I didnt need to pay the $1.04. A year later I got a bill for 4 cents. I called repeatedly to get this account closed and each representative said it was closed. June 2007 I recieved anouther bill for 2.95! I called and canceled the rep appologized and said they could see that my account had been canceled.

It is now May 2008 and I get a bill from a COLLECTION AGENCY. Penn Credit Corporation stating I owae $130.60!!!

I just ignored this until I got another collection agency bill for $130.60! I called Vonage and the rep did not listen interrupted me and read from a script.In her notes she said I started my Vonage account in May 2005! I had canceled this account 3 years earlierNEVER TO RETURN> then she went on to say that i was sent a bill in June of 2007. Which I did and again I canceled my INACTVE account! She told me that I did not call within 7 days of recieving the bill so I was charged with the last two years!!! I did not have an account FOR 4 YEARS!!!! She said she only saw one correspondence from me in the call log on her computer. I asked repeatedly to speak to a manager and I was put on hold several times. This rep said the manager was busy. At this point I was screaming.

I called back and spoke to another rep who was male and he said I had contacted Vonage 16 times in his call log, and would not send me the log notes.

they never canceled my account and charged me the full monthy fee

I have contacted an attorney. I am meeting him this week. There will be letters going to the attorney general

They have dealt a bad hand to the wrong person this time. I am taking action to stop this behavior. It apparently is not going to stop with me, it hasnt and it will continue with other people.

NIGHTMARE company-once they got your info they wont leave you alone and cant get out and away from them no matter how many phone calls to cancel no matter how many times you hear a rep say "thank you for your inconvenience your account has been officially canceled." RUN from this scam!

we signed up to vonage, 1st sent the wrong thing then sent another never took them out of the box. never used any of the equipment yet altogether we have been charged £150.

We were not given a return authorisation number even tho we asked for one!

£150 for absolutely nothing!!!

We signed up for Vonage (switched from AT&T) on Jan 2008 - paid all the up front fees, router, etc. and the service has not worked since we got it! Extrememly bad reception, static constantly on the line, poor technical support (hours of wasted time), customer service reps that can not understand plain english, we experienced dropped calls everytime we tried using our home line so we tried cancelling service and they want to charge us $109 cancellation fee, router fee, spend hours listening to written script of excuses - Vonage is the worst company we have ever delt with !!!

I tried 3 different times to cancel my service.. I had so many problems doing so.. They would say they had trouble understanding me and hung up on me or, just wouldn't listen to me until i hung up out of frustration... I would recommend to NEVER GET VONAGE... I wish there were laws against these kind of practices that they use.. That were actually enforced....

I cancelled Vonage and am getting charged $139.00 for the modem. They wouldn't let me send it back and give me credit. Is this legit?

Last week I called to sign up for Vonage. The 800 # connected me to a person overseas. I went thru usual Q and A's. I wasn't expecting a 2 hour sign ordeal. This person was trying to be conversational as well as trying to sign me up.
I finally got signed up and I gave him my card munber.
He said I would be getting an email confirmation with my password and username.
Never got it.
I called to cancel after 3 days. And asked that they reverse the charges because I never used the service and I never got an email.
They said I had an active account.
I was supposed to get an email confirmation and the contraption for their service w/c I was supposed to plug into my ph line.
Said I didn;t want it and I wanted to cancel the service.
They said I had an active account.
After 10 tries, I finally get a "senior" manager who connects to a person who reads
my account number.
I call the 800 # again and the person tells me that I have to return a box w/c they had shipped out- unopened. I had to pay shipping costs.
In the meantime, since I am cancelling my service (w/c I never had), they will be charging my account $39.99 for the contraption they sent to me. Until they receive it, they will not reverse any charges.
So in the meantime, I am out $44.59 PLUS $39.99 until they get the damn thing back.
I also found out that the reason I never got an email was because they had misspelled my name.
I will now make the 800 calls to bug them about if they had received their stupid phone jack!
What idiots! Who are they anyway????

Cancelled Vonage service and wanted my phone number transfered over to the new carrier. They cancelled the account easily enough, but after weeks of us talking to them about the number transfer, and our new carrier also talking to them, they refused to release our number back to us. They told us that they own the number. Funny how we gave them the number in the first place! Then after 3 months, they charged my account $133 (which I stopped) but none the less I got charged fees from my bank because of this. My last bill with them was Feb. They charged my account this excessive amount in April!!!! I am now trying to make them pay for the charges my bank put on my account because of the stop payment, etc. WISH ME LUCK! I will never recommend Vonage to anyone!

I just cancelled vonage after trying it for two months. When I was looking into their service they kept encouraging me to give it a try by telling me they offered a 30 day trial period in which I could cancel and I would get a free refund. Well I got busy and didn't make a decision by the 30 day period, but as time went by and I had more and more quality issues I decided to stick with my current voip provider and cancel vonage. Imagine my shock when I was informed for the first time that I was going to be charged a disconnect fee because it was less than a year. So all in all Ill be paying over $300 for less than two months of phone service. If anyone out there is considering vonage I strongly advise you to give it a pass.

I got on here to see if anybody else had a problem cancelling their service, because I'm on hold right now. A young lady by the name of Ayasa said, "I can't cancel your service unless you tell me how much your last bill was." I went to huntington.com and pulled up my account history, and told her $30.94, then she responded, "that is incorrect." I said, "I'm looking at my account history, and from 12/27/08-4/28/08, I have been charged this same exact amount." I even offered to fax her my account history, and she told me that it wouldn't help. Now I've been on hold for 45 minutes waiting for her supervisor that she told me was on another call. I can hear someone picking up the line to check to see I'm still on the phone, because the music stops playing for a brief moment.

I thought I thought AOL was bad! Vonage is the worse to try to cancel. I finally had to get really stern and let them know that no matter what they offered. I don't want VONAGE!

This is a copy of the letter I sent to the FCC. I also filed a complaint with the BBB.
Dear Mr. McDowell,
My name is Carla Figaro, I am writing you after much stress and strife trying to complete the most simple task with Vonage to no avail.

I contacted Vonage around mid March to activate service. All seemed well upon the making of the request but very shortly went to hell in a hand basket.

The equipment the sent took longer to arrive than promised. Then I spent numerous hours on the phone with them trying to get the equipment activated only to determine the item was defective. Mind you, I had already been charged $46.10 for said equipment.

They send me a new device, but do not send a return label for the defective device. After hours programming the replacement device, I was promised a return label would be sent to me.

After a week or so went by and I still received no label, I called Vonage and again requested the label. I was told it would be e-mail, I immediately informed them that I needed the label mailed to me, as I do not own a printer. I was told the label would be mailed but, lo and behold no label. I again called and requested the label and was told it would be mailed to me immediately.

While checking my bank account, I found that Vonage had deducted funds from my account on 5/19 in the amount of $40.69. This should not have taken place due to the fact that I had been provided a credit for 2 months of service due to my trouble with the activation. When I called to question this, I was told that it was because I had not returned the defective device. I told them that they could not hold me financially responsible for the return of the device if they failed to provide the necessary return documents. I demanded the return of my funds, as I did not authorize the additional deduction and was told that when I agreed to the service I agreed to the deduction. I explained that I only agreed to the initial $46.10 and $30.44 per month and was told that I agreed to the contract. What contract? I did not do an automated disclosure to have any advertent amount of funds deducted from my account. I have no use for the unit, it is still sitting in the box next to my front door waiting to be shipped.

I called their customer care people several times to no avail. When I asked to speak with a supervisor, non was ever contacted. I asked for their corporate phone number and address and was told that they could not provide the information. I could only go to their web site and send an e-mail. I was sent an e-mail from their customer care telling me that I needed to explain to them the problem in detail.

So now sir, I must spend my hard earned money and pay to ship back the devices they sent me. Spend money to have regular telephone service reinstalled because their is no way I am going to keep using their service, and take time to wait for installation. All because I was ignorant enough to believe the hype of the "Number 1 rated digital telephone service."

If this company is backed by the FCC sir, I beg you to withdraw your support. I am sure their are other people who have had similar problems, but as we know, in these United States, not everyone is brave enough to growl.

I do hope you will look into the practices of this company so as to assure this does not happen to anyone else.

I would greatly appreciate a response.

And by the way, I have been trying to cancell my Vonage service for a week now and still have had no success.

DONT TRY VONAGE, JUST PAY THE EXTRA MONEY FOR REGULAR PHONE SERVICE.

Hi my name is Robin and disconnecting from Vonage is a joke. The conversation that Tom had back in Sept. 2006 is correct. My other problem is that the vonage rep I spoke with did not even let me know of any disconnect fees. They also charged me for two lines that I did not authorize and they want me to pay for a disconnect fee on it as well.

This is not right. Vonage is nothing but a rip off and will take your money. This is how they can keep up with their bills. If they did not rip people off they would not be be able to pay their bills. They need to be stopped.

I am taking this situation to my local TV. Someting needs to be stopped and NOW. I am also turning all this over to an attorny and letting them deal with. This situation.

If anyone knows of any other way please let me know. I

I had trouble canceling my service. I went into my customer profile changed all my information to bogus name and address and bogus credit card number. Bingo, no charges, kept the equipment and haven't heard from anyone in 2 years. Hope this helps someone.

Thanks for the comments. My husband were thinking about switching to Vonage to save on the phone bill. I will not be switching because of stories like these. If anything I will downsize my plan with At&t. Thanks for websites like these. I hope everyone gets some kind of peace knowing that your experience may have cost you money and stress, but you have also cost Vonage customers. Thanks again.

I have to say that your call sounded like any standard call to a telephone company. I just tried to cancle my service today and it took roughly 30 minutes, as many others have reported. I don't trust it though. Vonage has more hidden language in there terms of service that the average consumer would not find.

The minute I received my vonage device, it was defective. I found a sticker on the back that the modem was 'refurbished'. I called the company and asked why I was given a used product and that the one I had wasn't working at all. They told me they would send me another one. What they don't tell you when you sign up for service; If you have a defective product, you have to mail it back and pay for SHIPPING AND HANDLING!! So essentially, I was given a product that didn't work and had to pay to have it sent back. Unbelievable

Another thing that some people may miss: If you cancle before terms of service, the cost to you is roughly a hundred dollars! I am on a fixed income and disabled. When she asked me why I was cancelling my reply was: "Your company is a subliminal nightmare. The hidden language and fees that you don't clearly represent to your customers is reprehensible and the quality of your product overall is horrid."

I asked that my account be closed in roughly a week or so and she said that I had to call the day of to cancle. I don't really understand why that is but after reading some of the posts, I'm really nervous about this entire process. She then went on to do what Tom described, make statements about other services they have. I asked, Tell me, if I'm calling to cancle an inept service, why would I want another one? I'm not interested in any of your offers and quite frankly I think your company is a scam and you should be ashamed of yourself for pushing a scam on the general public."

In summation, I have to repeat that entire call in roughly seven days. She took me through that entire conversation and ended it with: "You have to call on the day you'd like to cancle". My reply, "Tell me about what other products you have again? I'd like to hear about them in more detail." I then put it on speaker phone and kept her on the phone for roughly an hour. I did my banking, wrote emails and wrote out bills as I asked question after question about their landline service, technical support questions, etc. She then says, "Would you be interested in this service?" I replied, "No, I just wanted to waste your time like you just wasted mine."

So for any phone company operators out there; There are people who work from their homes and have a lot of time on their hands. We are capable of keeping you on the phone as long as necessary for no other reason then pure boredom. I also gain report with telephone companies...as they do with me. My time will be as valueable as yours in the end. For those of you who don't have the time, I sincerely feel for you. Thanks for posting your experience, I saved this to my favorites for future reference (meaning; for the day I cancle my service in roughly a week). Sincerely, Katie J.

vonage ongoing nightmare
I'm in the middle of a nightmare with vonage. Don't fall for it! The last week in March of this year, after talking with their customer service I was assured the Vonage equipment would work with Windows Vista and my internet connection which is a sprint aircard. So I buy it. Wrong........after spending countless days and days trying to get it to work on my computer by following directions and going to their internet help site it just wouldn't install. I called vonage going though their customer service levels it still didn't work.
Here's what happens.
First call you get lowest level these are the people who know the least. They get you to try this that and the other. So I tried vonages fixes, patches trials and errors, then they said it must be my computer setup...not our problem call them. Of course I have to go through the customer service nightmare of levels call transfers and call backs with them as more days go by. Finally determine it's not the computer set up. I call vonage back going through the same call transfer and explanations over and over. Oh, it's your internet connection. Call sprint...yet another nightmare of transfers from dumb to dumber. Keep in mind I work full time and don't have a home phone anymore because I was going to use vonage, and am using my cell phone minutes up by the hour. Days and hours are going by and I'm weeks into this by now. Again and again I call vonage back go through the call nightmare.....they send me to a higher level of customer service. They insist I repeat everything the lower level had me do. I suppose it's because this is what their script and flow chart demands it more hours go by. I'm telling them it's got to be Window Vista they say no. It must be our equipment we're sending you another one. (In other words they don't know what the hell is wrong)but you must return the one you have and of course I have to pay the shipping! another several days go by. I get the new one...same problem. We're approaching the end of my 30 free trial. I go to a friends house to use their phone because now I know what's coming with the transfers and lengthy calls repeating my problem and previous steps. I spent 4 solid hours on the phone working my way up to their highest level of support each time explaining the problem and going through the steps. Still won't work. I suggest I try it on my friends computer who runs windows xp and has the same sprint aircard connection as me to try and prove to them it's windows vista. It worked! So he has me set my computer up to run vonage in the windows xp mode on my computer which by the way I had to pack up and move to my friends near the landline phone. Still doesn't work. we're into our 5th hour it's 11:00 pm he's trying to drop my call cause it's time for him to get off. He said he would do some research and call me if he finds a solution to the problem I wait a few more days go by never heard from him again. So I make an appointment take my computer and everything to a computer wiz nearby he can't make it work either. My 30 day trial period is up. I still have the first equipment because I figured if I have to pay the return shipping I'll send them both back in the same package. I was pretty sure long before this point vonage was not compatible with windows vista as they had assured it would before my purchase.
I called to get a return authorization for the second one they sent and they start all over again! Trying to save this sale. For another month I go through this I'm being tranfered to tech support she said she can't authorize a return without being given an opportunity to resolve the problem....I am again trying to explain to tech services what I just told her. He says he can't help me because the problem is with my internet connection (remember I know better because I had gotten it to work on the same connection on another computer before)and returns my call to customer service where I get someone new. I start explaining whats going on and what the tech said and agreeing that it must be my internet connection to save the hassel. She says no that's not it's windows vista and there is a fix patch for it. I told her they had sent me this patch twice before and it doesn't work. By this time we are nearing the end of May. They email it to me again! About that time I loose my connection and the call is cut short. I had just used up another 45 minutes. So I decided to go to my friends land line phone to make the next call. He was out of town. On his return later in the week I call....I've calmed down I have a glass of tea, my shoes off and I'm ready for the lengthy call to begin. This time I will not call back, I will not have them have someone call me back, I will not call Gateway, I will not call Sprint, I will not call Microsoft , I will not talk to a third outside tech, I will not repeat all the fixes,steps restarts patches or anything else I've done many times before. They make me go through all the same call nightmare stuff all over! But I do not allow this call to end! Finally get to highest person, She insists I have to try it again, "I'm out making this call I'm not home with the computer" I tell her. "I just want to return this thing ..I know I can't return it without an authorization. I just want an authorization! "Well mam I can't authorize a return if you won't allow us to fix the problem." She suggests to fix the problem I downgrade from window vista to windows xp which will resolve the problem! "You mean to tell me you think after all I've been through I should now have to pay for another version of windows which is older than what I have on my brand new computer?" At this point I mad, I'm shaking, I'm almost in tears from sheer frustration. I tell her I will not go through this again. I want to return the equipment, I done! She says my 30 trial is up and the only thing she could suggest is I sell it and they will transfer the service.!!!! Who the hell would want it! more unwarvering arguing from me.... Well she says we can cancel your service but you'll still have to pay for the equipment , the original connection charge, service for 2 months and an early cancellation fee. I NEVER GOT TO USE THE PHONE! She says for security purposes I need to say out loud I want to cancel the service and agree to have them bill my credit card. I say "I want to cancel my service but do not authorize any charges." she argues the point and tries to get me to say it again. Again I repeat myself. Sticking to her script she tries again. I ask her to hold on. I go to my credit card account on my friends computer to make sure they can't charge to it. I come back on the phone and repeat what I said before only this time she yells over me when I start saying "I refuse to authorize the charges." She says her script that my service has been cancelled and outstanding charges will be billed to my credit card, and within seconds emails notices pop up saying " account charge error " meaning the charges aren't going through. She did this several times within a few seconds. I hang up on her after saying my script which was not a friendly one. I called to dispute all Vonages charges on my credit card and now have to go through a lengthy process to stop these charges.

this is unbelievable! i just googled vonage and am so glad i am not the only one having trouble. i tried to cancel today, and after spending 20 min. on the phone trying to convince me to keep the service, they informed me that i had a $129 cancellation fee. i told them "i'm going to report you to whomever i have to, then i will be calling you back." i immediately got an email from them saying they tried to process the $129 but it did not go through. (thank God!) i never authorized the transaction in the first place and the rep told me that they couldn't cancel the account w/o the $129 paid first. since i hung up the call in limbo (i told them i didn't have the $129), why did they try to process it anyway? there has to be someplace besides the BBB or FCC i can report this to.

I can see that as upset as I am I am in good company. In dec. 2006 I bought a vonage for my son who is a marine stationed in Japan headed to Iraq for a second tour. He was never able to get it established when he got it back to Japan. also because he did not get it established in a timely fashion we were no longer able to qualify for the rebate they offered. but billing was ongoing. We stayed hopeful for when he returned, but it did not change. Today after a year and a half of paying for service we were never able to enjoy I attempted to cancel it....I got the joy and experience of speaking with dulce employee number 10238. Dulce was unable to cancel my service as our son was listed as the account holder. No matter what information I could provide or explain that he is the acct holder because it was his laptop we were hoping to establish service on. She was unable to help me...and refused to transfer me to her supervisor. A call to my credit card company reveals that they will not stop billing until they get notice from vonage...see where we are headed. Just a caution to anyone who attempts to cancel their service...good luck.

We moved into an apartment that used another carrier - we could not use Vonage. We had a lot of problems cancelling, but halfway through all the problems we filed a report with the Better Business Bureau - we were finally able to get our money back. If enough people file with the BBB, maybe that would help.

I just called to find out if there was a cancellation fee for Vonage users that have been customers for less than one year. They tried to sell me a million things and informed me, after I asked for the forth time, that there's a $130 fee. I continued to ask questions about the fee. Harriet (#22105) kept trying to sell me services. I asked that she send me an email detailing the cancellation fee breakdown. She stated she didn't have the capability to email me. I hung up, frustrated. I received an email stating my account was charged $130. eff!

I'm currently attempting to rectify this nightmare.

DO NOT SIGN UP FOR VONAGE.
It's not worth the discounted service.

I started with Vonage, just like anyone, with the excitement of a new age phone company that treats their customers very well, and doesn't rip them off.

skip forward in time to present day...

I just got told by Vonage customer service that I couldn't get 13 months of back billing from them that they charged me for a phone I hadn't been using since may of 2007.

I lived in Seattle at the time with my wife who was in the military, she was moved to Louisiana due to a change of station, so I cancelled my account prior to leaving... being that we knew we were going to move around a lot we didn't start online service so seeing any charges to our account was difficult, being that we moved we didn't receive our account info until November of 2007 (in Bulk I might add) and still really didn't notice due to so much happening in our lives at the time, then in February/March of 08 I see charges from Vonage on our account, I call them and they told me that it's no problem sir you can get all of that money back being that we can see you didn't use your phone, BUT you will have to talk to our cancellation dept to cancel your account... needless to say, I had a horrible time working around their hours, being mine are so long, that it took me till June to call to cancel, but I wasn't worried "I could get all of my money back, being that they could see that I didn't use their phone for over a year"...

Nope... instead I got an offer to receive 10 dollars off service for a year, ooooooo I get 120 dollars of my hard earned money back. Vonage blows and is a major rip off, and I will see to it that everyone knows about it.

William A Carpenter

I just got off a 20 minute phone call to try to cancel my service. I had called a couple of months ago to cancel. For me, it wasn't the call quality. I actually had consistent excellent call quality with high MOS scores (better than Skype or MagicJack, but not quite as high as my ShoreTel). I simply wasn't using it. Not only do I have my mobile phones, a MagicJack, and a Skype account, but I have a ShoreTel 230 hooked up to my work through a VPN connection. I really don't need Vonage.

I was on the 500 minutes for $14.99 plan. When I first tried to cancel, they talked me into trying their "least expensive" plan, which was 100 minutes for $9.99 a month. I was told I could try it "free" for two months. I didn't realize how long the cancellation process was and had to get back to work, so I agreed, just to get off the phone. That was a mistake.

Today, I called again. This time, she tried to convince me to get their "least expensive plan," which is less exensive than the "least expensive plan" I was offered two months ago. It's a 0 minute, incoming-only plan, for $4.99/month, which I could try for free. I explained I wasn't interested. I wouldn't use it, even for a backup, since I already have several backup phones. The only reason I had gotten the Vonage line in the first place was for my DirecTivo, which I don't have anymore.

Finally, she deactivated the account. It was at that point that I noticed I was charged earlier today $16.86 for the service. I guess today happened to be the billing date. She told me that the cancellation was "real time" and my phone was immediately disconnected. I asked if the charge was for June to July or July to August, and she said the billing was for a month in advance. I asked if I could get a refund, and she repeated her script. No refunds, and the service can't be reactivated. I explained that they charged me for a service I didn't get, which was essentially fraud since she didn't warn me that I'd lose an entire month of service I paid for. She put me on hold for a few minutes.

After she came back, she told me that she could refund the $12.72 for July. The additional amount was to cover the taxes during the "free" trial. Nobody explained to me that the "free" trial was going to cost me $2.07 a month. She didn't explain to me that the "free" trial of the $4.99 plan she was offering was going to cost me taxes either. Had I known it was going to cost me $4.14 to have my Vonage router sit in the closet for two months doing nothing, I would've been late coming back from lunch two months ago and wouldn't have tried a service I knew I probably wasn't going to use.

I recommended that they tell customers that the "free" trial isn't really free and will cost a few dollars a month. She thanked me for the recommendation, but I doubt it will help.

I have to say vonage is a company from hell. we called to cancel our account at no time when i signed on with this company did they say i had to stay with them to hell freezes over they want and took 95 dollars out of my account after i forbid them to do so thier customer service Sucks i say if they have to deal with AMERICANS then for God sakes speak english
i will be glad to tell anyone and everyone tonot TRUST vonage they are a lying theiving bunch of people

One Month ago Two Comcast Reps were going do to door in Forest Park Illinois (Circle Ave). They had a list of all the customers on the Block with their last Payment Info (This proved they where legitimate). They knocked on the door and said "We see you have Vonage" They knew this also. They said...if you don't switch to Comcast Phone Service, in about a month you will start having problems with Vonage. Then he went on with some technical stuff about firewalls. He said they would be sending signals to interupt the Vonage Service. We felt like we where being pressured and threatened. So, we declined. Well...It's one month later and the service has be a mess. Vonage calls drop all the time, there is a lot of static that was never there before. But we refuse to call the guy back. He left his card. But should be illegal!!!!!

The best way to avoid Vonage headache is to NOT get Vonage to begin with.

Vonage will promise you that they will cancel your service upon your request but will NEVER honor their promise. I believe each and every representative that works for them has been trained to lie.

Unfortunately, Vonage is subject to a few regulations as it is not considered to be a traditional telecommunications company. But some state AGs are starting to listen as they can not continue to do this and get away with it.

Cancel Vonage

I really wish I had read the problems people had with Vonage before I decided to try it. Part of the problem in the beginning was mine by transposing my original phone number. By the time we got that straightened out, they had given me 2 phone lines and it was costing me around $60 a month. So now I have another phone service and I just kept getting the run around. I'm going to return their stupid equipment because I've only had it around 3 months. I was having a hard time hearing the rep and I just kept repeating myself over and over again. Finally I just hung up on her. I have a a Green Dot Card that I'm supposed to have for another year yet but I think I'm going to go ahead and change it so I don't have to bother with these dumb asses.