Vonage phone service

I wanted to pass on my recent experiences with the Vonage Internet Phone Service - which recently arrived in our area - so that other may avoid the same mistakes. I decided to try out the new service hoping I could save some money. However I have been extremely unhappy with both the phone service and customer service. Some of the many problems I have encountered include:

1) It takes more than 10 days to transfer your existing phone number. Therefore although there is a 30 day money back guarantee it takes quite a while before the customer can fully evaluate the quality of the service.

2) Once the phone number was transferred we encountered problems with quality - poor sound quality and lag time when speaking to people. I phoned technical support several times. After FINALLY getting through to tech support I found myself speaking with staff who had very poor English skills. After much effort they said they had changed some settings and to try again. This didn't help. I tried tech support again (again getting staff who had thick accents and couldn't understand me), they claimed the problem was with my internet connection.

3) I then did more research on my own and read that I may need to try Shaw Cable's "Quality of Service" upgrade to improve the sound quality. So I decided to try it and pay the extra $10 per month. This seemed to help for a few days but the problems continued.

3a) We have found that when we tried to call certain local phone numbers we got a message that "this phone number does not accept anonymous calls" and the call would not go through. My wife sat on the technical support help line (again with people who couldn't speak English very well) for an hour and a half, and she had to phone back three times. The first guy said to try a couple things and he would call her back (he never did). The second time she had to phone back and go through the whole process again - and got disconnected while waiting. The third time she got through to tech support and the person said he could not fix the problem and would submit a "note" on our file. We have never heard back and the problem was never solved.

4) Finally we became frustrated and decided to change our phone number back to Telus, our phone carrier. I phoned Telus, they said they would reconnect our phone number which would take another 10 days. I hoped that would be the end of it.

5) Once the 10 days were up and my phone service was reconnected I realized that I was still getting emails from Vonage and that the Vonage service might need to be cancelled manually. I also found out that I was now getting local calls, but long distance calls were still going to my Vonage account (I still can't receive long-distance calls to my old phone number). I tried phoning Vonage, finding a phone number on the web site. I tried one of the toll-free numbers listed but was told that I had to phone another toll free number. I tried that one and faced a very long wait on hold. As I didn't have hours to sit on hold I decided to try to send a cancellation email on-line (since your toll free number suggested that I could also get help on my Vonage on-line account). Getting back into my Vonage account I tried to find a direct email where I could send a message such as this. However, the HELP menu referred me back to ANOTHER toll free number for cancellation (a 1-888 number). I tried this number and again was told this was the wrong number for cancellation! I then tried the original toll free number for cancellation again but I was told that the number was only active on weekdays. Again I tried to phone last week on monday and then discovered that the toll free line was closed as it was a holiday in the USA! I tried back the following morning, very early in my time zone (6 AM). In spite of the early hour I got a message that I would face a long wait. This was getting ridiculous, I didn't have time to sit on hold! Finally this morning I decided to try phoning early again. After more than 45 minutes I finally got through!!

6) After speaking to the customer service person this morning they then informed me that there was a $45 cancellation fee (which I was aware of), but because I was cancelling beyond the 30 day trial period that I would face a $150 rebate fee!! I was shocked - I did not remember seeing that anywhere when I signed up. I have since gone back to the website and checked the sign up page where I signed up for the Router and the rebate. It says NOTHING about paying back the rebate fee if you cancel after 30 days. However I discovered that if you click on "more information" and then AGAIN on "Full Device Description" there is a brief mention that you have to pay back the rebate fee. This is extremely misleading and very poor business practices. If this had been clear to me I would have been very hesitant to sign up in the first place.

7) As a final insult, when I spoke to the customer service person last week they tried to convince me to stay with Vonage and to speak with their "Advanced Technical Support" people to help solve my problems with the service. I mentioned that I had very poor service with the technical support people and that they couldn't even communicate properly with me. She said that these "advanced" folks were based in New Jersey and could speak English. My question is, WHY was I not offered the full and proper technical support in the first place? Why was I only being offered this option once it was clear I was looking to cancel? And finally why would I want to continue given the problems I've encountered?!

I have requested a refund from Vonage but have yet to get a response.