Review by nitzan 
UPDATED: 226 days ago
member for 1.7 years, 1085 visits, last login: a few hours ago
 Wylie,Collin,TX
 $27 per month (24 month contract)
 about 10 days
 "Cheap, acceptable quality."
 "Shady practices, after-the-fact price increases, apathy, etc."
 "Avoid."
| Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Disclaimer: I operate a competing VoIP provider. I am very biased. Today however, I am writing as a ViaTalk customer. Read below...
4/8/09: Just updating the review to increase the score. I still think tech support stinks (bunch of arrogant a-holes) - but they (VT) is most definitely not the worst out there.
I first started with VT a couple of years back. They were my first VoIP experience. The first few months were excellent, things just worked. I ended up getting a second line for a friend.
After SunRocket went belly up however, quality degraded, and contacting support was like trying to play catchup with a race car - I recall wait times of 20 minutes on their support line, and email tickets were completely ignored.
To add insult to injury, VT then raised their junk fees twice-fold this year. A service that originally was advertised as "$199 for 2 years" ends up cost $199 + $30 "activation" + $10 shipping + $3.5/month junk fees. I originally thought "cool! 8 bucks a month!" - only to be disillusioned when I realized that the actual bottom line is $13.5/month.
Don't get me wrong- $13.5/month is a great price and I would have bought it anyway at the time had they advertised it as $13.5/month. It is the dishonesty of raising monthly b/s fees on customers who are already locked in and paid for 2 years that gets to me. If you cancel - you're screwed because their TOS ensure you're not going to get your money back - if you don't cancel, you're stuck with a monthly fee that you didn't sign up for. Please keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "regulatory recovery fee" - it is a made up term, and when I inquired about what charges are actually included in the fee aside from E911 - the answer was deafening silence. They arbitrarily decided to raise the price on masses of people already locked into contract, which is quite possibly illegal.
Other horror stories I've had with them include getting disconnected with no warning when my card expired. Instead of sending me a message "hey! your card expired! please update it!" and giving me a couple of days to do so, they just disconnected the line until I had a chance to call them and update the card.
And yet another problem- when I wanted to create a third line for another friend. I got hit with the "send us a utility bill" verification request. I proceeded to open a support case to waive this requirement considering I already had 2 other accounts in good standing- only to be completely ignored. Total apathy. This is what sent me to explore alternative providers, and eventually start my own.
Bottom line: ViaTalk in general is not the worst, and they do have potential. But management (that's you, Brandon!) needs to get their head out of the sand and realize they're dealing with human beings. Apathy is going to lose you customers in masses- you can't survive on price alone - IMHO.
Followup comments:  
ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | First line says alot.... "Disclaimer: I operate a competing VoIP provider. I am very biased."
You do realize that it will be hard for someone to think this is an accurate review when you run Future Nine? | |
|  | nitzan
Premium,VIP
join:2008-02-27 | Re: First line says alot.... Fully realize  - which is why the disclaimer is there. However this has been my genuine experience with ViaTalk as a customer. As always with reviews- take it with a grain of salt! | |
| | | | | | | | celtic
join:2001-02-08
USA
| said by ptrowski :"Disclaimer: I operate a competing VoIP provider. I am very biased." You do realize that it will be hard for someone to think this is an accurate review when you run Future Nine? Did you notice - (ratings match consensus) | |
| | |
ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium
join:2005-03-14
Putnam, CT
clubs: | Re: First line says alot.... It is not a knock on F9, just reviewing your own company is odd, that's all. | |
| dipswich
Premium
join:2003-06-27
Raleigh, NC | Biased? Maybe, but it's all true! Nitzan admits bias, but if you do the research in the ViaTalk forum here on DSLR you'll see every issue that he's addressed has affected others, too. | |
| jinghui
join:2008-04-28 | Not true Obviously biased.
Future Nine services even worse than ViaTalk, but cheaper. That's a lesson to me.
I was using Viatalk and am using Future Nine. | |
| | pbp776
Premium
join:2007-07-30
Piscataway, NJ | Re: Not true My experience with F9 service always great. Compare to my old provider Sunrocket, AT&T and Lingo, the quality is 100% excellent.
PBP | |
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