dslreports logo

Review by tmc8080 See Profile

  • Location: Brooklyn, Kings, NY, USA
  • Cost: $6 per month
  • Install: about 3 days
Great to get away from telco & cableco voip!
Website can be buggy and changes not instantly reflected.
You would think the price of premier would at least go DOWN over time, but Nooo..
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

First got Ooma in 2012....

The Ooma forum is very good first line support and circumvents the need for many customer service calls.

As long as my Ooma telo holds out... I'm a happy camper.

2014: Update: I've had the Ooma for 2 years.. and recently (February, 2014) I think Verizon's been messing with their customers because there was some bad voip quality during the month of February. In a few weeks it cleared, but I was annoyed. During the same time I had limited ability to stream video. Maybe I should have called Verizon also to complain but I was too busy working. I still think Ooma is a good deal & the equipment has gotten cheaper. You can buy NEW units for $149 and often you might find deals as low as $99 for a new one. Maybe Ooma will make a newer VOIP box soon. This current one seems outdated by current technology standards. Ooma also has a referral program where you will get Amazon gift cards as a reward. That puts Ooma well below other VOIP services based on cost alone.

2/15

My Ooma telo is still going strong. They still haven't fixed the issue with being able to intercept calls that go to voicemail (ugh). Otherwise, I'm satisfied with the svc.

5/15 Ooma charges sales tax on their Pemier svc in a recent policy change $119.99 (+$8.31 in my case in addition to the $3 to $4 for the voip fees)-- making it less of a value. I would've thought the price of premier should go DOWN by now..

8/16 Same old, same old. Shame since I hardly ever use home phone service and most calling goes over cell and/or voip wifi anyway. Still beats telco or cableco voip.

4/17 Bill creep! The Ooma taxes and fees "passed along" are rising! It was btw 3-4$ for monthly fees, now NY customers are in the mid $5 range! This is starting to make google voice look better and better with each and every price hike! One can understand that these fees were inevitable price grab by Federal, State and local entities, but that's no excuse for not lowering the price of premier svc over time to compensate at least a little.. Also some features that were standard without premier are now premier features such as voip calling and 1 or 2 others [an erosion of value] #Call_It_Like_I_See_it



member for 19.9 years, 2735 visits, last login: 4.5 years ago
updated 6.9 years ago


Elector
join:2000-05-25
Albany, NY

Elector

Member

That tax on taxes is not the taxing authority

I dropped Ooma because of a .33ยข monthly increase on taxes on taxes.
I call the NYS Tax Department who wrote me back and confirmed it's illegal to place a tax on E911/911 services. I also filed a complaint with the FCC which agreed with my complaint.

I contacted Ooma and told them to remove the sales tax on 911 taxes and they kept saying they had the right to charge it and I kept saying they could not. Since Ooma did not want to listen to reason I had no choice but to cancel the service, I put in disputes and charge backs with my credit card company (Ooma was sent overnight letters of dispute and cancellation as well a cease and desist letter to have no further charges to my credit card)

And executive from Ooma refunded every dollar I paid to them for service. Monthly taxes plus the premier service costs. However I was past the return date for a refund from Best Buy for the Ooma Telo device. So it was a $108 cost. But as you can see Ooma could have saved a customer but that $4.23 extra in bogus fees/taxes was more important.

I ported out to »www.voipo.com and it was a better value in at $149 for two years plus one time taxes brought it to $185 great customer service and call quality, more features than any other VoIP service.

Check them out. And dump Ooma
tmc8080
join:2004-04-24
Brooklyn, NY

1 recommendation

tmc8080

Member

Re: That tax on taxes is not the taxing authority

I'm going to stay with them a while longer and see if anything changes with offering a better value, but I am not going to see the service start charging $6+ next year and so forth (possibly even raise the price of premier).. that's ridiculous! The $5.55 they charge still isn't exactly what the website estimator says $5.19, so I know there are bogus charges in there somewhere. I'll weigh my options next year, and might even go cell only for PAID service and use a google voice device such as OBI as pushing $200 a year for Ooma premier plus taxes and fees is real money, not a "SMALL PRICE TO PAY" anymore.