RE: Vonage is horrible!

I decided to join Vonage. I went to their website about 1 month ago, I couldn’t decide which Vonage box would be best for my broadband setup so I called them.

The guy was very nice. I told him I wanted the wireless box but that it didn’t seem to come with a router and I would need one.

He said, “No problem. We’ll send you one with the box.” I said great.

He also said that they would cancel my account with the phone company and that I should NOT call them. He stressed that.

I got the box about a week later and couldn’t hook it up because there was NO ROUTER.

I called back and told them that I still needed a router. They played dumb and said, “But mam, that box doesn’t come with a router.” So I talked them through the original conversation about how the guy said he’d send a router with the box. They repeated, “But it doesn’t come with a router.”

And they kept repeating it.

I spoke to 7 different people that day. NONE of them would agree to just send a different box. NONE of them could get past repeating the fact that the box THEIR GUY had sent to me didn’t come with a router.

This went on for about 3 days. Finally I got one of them to agree to send out a different box to me, but then he said he was going to charge me for it. BECAUSE THEY’D ALREADY SENT ONE OUT!!!!!!! I couldn’t believe it.

I said, “Screw this. I’m canceling my account.” And I decided to just go back to my original phone service provider.

When I called them, they said that they had NEVER heard from Vonage and that my account HADN'T been cancelled and that it was a good thing I’d called, because if I hadn’t, they would have charged me for another month!

I was happy they hadn’t cancelled my account until I found out that since Vonage was involved, to take me back they’d have to sign me up for new service. AND since it was new service, they would NOT be able to take me back at all, because they are no longer accepting clients in California. I’d been gone like 5 minutes and they wouldn’t take me back.

Great.

By this time, my phone service was not working at all. After our conversation, the previous provider transferred me to Vonage, so without using their box, I had no phone. I couldn’t even call Vonage to handle the problem. So, feeling very defeated, I unplugged my internet and hooked up the Vonage box so I could call Vonage again.

This time after telling my story for the EIGHTH, NINE and oh yes, TENTH TIME, the people informed me that I’d have to call back because they couldn’t understand me with all the static!!!!!! I called a few more times USING THE VONAGE BOX and NONE of them could understand me. I couldn’t believe it.

Finally I hooked my internet back up to the computer and just put the Vonage crap back in the box since it wasn’t working anyway.

So, now I had no phone at all.

I called them back from another phone to just cancel the damn account. The girl asks me, “Well mam, how would you feel about us sending out another device for free?” I really didn’t want to go back to SBC because I remembered them being expensive, and the phone service I had been using wasn’t doing business in CA anymore… so I said, ok, I’d take the new box.

I waited another week.

The second box showed up and guess what. SAME DEVICE! Yes. They’d sent the same device that was already sitting on my damn floor, still in it’s box.

So now I had two boxes and still no phone.

By now I’d been without phone service for TWO WEEKS.

I caved and called SBC, who I then found out had joined with AT&T. They signed me up no problem, but said it would be about another week before they could transfer service. That it would be slow to process because it was VONAGE!

I called Vonage back, told them what I was doing and not to cancel my service (because I was trying to keep the phone number I’d had for years), but to notate my account so I wouldn’t have to re-tell the story again when I called to get my money back.

I waited a week. No phone. (We’re up to 3 weeks now.)

Finally I called AT&T to ask when they’d be hooking it up. They said they had a tentative transfer date of about the 16th. That was another week away!

So I asked what they could do if I just said screw keeping the old number, and let them give me a new one. They said it would be faster, but that I’d have to stay home from work to let the phone guy in because he’d need to do some rewiring (since VONAGE was involved) and then he’d need to test my phone.

Great. So, I don’t have a phone for 3 weeks AND I get to lose a day of pay.

Well, AT&T finally just hooked up my phone. I called Vonage to cancel the account and not only do they not want to give my money back, they want to charge a cancellation fee! Granted, it’s a “temporary fee” that they promise to refund to me upon “receipt and inspection” of the two Vonage devices. But still! I CAN’T BELIEVE THEY WOULD PUT A CHARGE THROUGH ON MY ACCOUNT FOR A SERVICE I HAVE NEVER EVEN BEEN ABLE TO USE!

And when I told them that, they said it was really my problem since I agreed to the terms of service when I signed up! I told them, “HEY! You guys AGREED to provide me with a phone service, and I haven’t had a phone since I signed up with you! What about that???”

And guess what.

They offered to send out another box.

I couldn’t believe it. I have never cussed someone out so badly in my life.

So, here’s the thing. I’m going to send these two boxes back to them tomorrow. I’m sending them DHL so I can have proof that they receive them. But I have no guarantee that they are going to give my money back because they’ve already said that they’ll decide whether they are going to do that or not after they inspect the returned devices.

There is nothing wrong with the devices, they’ve been out of the boxes for about 5 minutes each. But with all the other problems and the ENDLESS uncaring rudeness and incompetence and disregard, I gotta tell you, I’m having serious doubts that they’re actually going to willingly refund my money.

Also, I went online after all this started and found 28 pages of complaints about Vonage. All of them reflecting my own experience. And all of them ending by saying that not only did they NOT get their money back, but that they were still being charged monthly fees even AFTER canceling their accounts.

Unbelievable. I'm afraid I'm being set up to have the same problems. I'm afraid they aren't going to refund me at all. And I'm not talking about just the cancellation fee. I'm talking about the money that was paid for the service to begin with. Supposedly, I still fall under their money back guarentee, but this isn't looking good.

I don't know what you can do. But something needs to be done about this business period. They are horrible!

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