Come On, You registered here at BBR in '99, have visited over 2000 times, and yet this is your review? You rate ALL aspects of Vonage at the lowest level, yet you only complain about number porting and "extra charges". As a regular at BBR, I would assume you knew to READ THE TOS and other legal documents at Vonage before you Signed-Up! - it CLEARLY states the additional service fees you are complaining about. And how did this affect your ratings of call-quality and their website? Call quality must have been good - you were going to port your number after 4 days of service! If you don't like their billing practices and customer service (and as happy as I am with Vonage, their first-level techs are generally useless) then by all means say so, but be honest with the rest of their services. The ratings you gave for all other aspects of the Vonage service have nothing to do with your failure to read their TOS, or at least ASK the rep what the costs would be before arranging to change services.

I agree!

Not to mention, if he paid attention and cared to look further, it sounds like he got his service direct from vonage and the $39.00 fee is for the TAD, and not an early cancel penalty. He can return the TAD and not be charged, OR, keep it and pay the $39.00 for it.

That was, at least, the way it was in my case.

The fees to change levels of service? Simple - it's on their website, it's right there, AND, he could have simply asked the resps before signing up. I asked questions when I did.

I also agree that his rating everything low was nothing more than a retalitation or attempt to hurt their rating. While I agree that thier phone center and tech support people are worth a low rating, rating their call quality low and other points low because of his lack of attention to detail doens't give his review much credibility.

Good call Comman.

OTOH..............

I have had Vonage for 13 months myself and have no complaints worthy of note.
Fee: debited monthly via EFT
Voice quality: Good
Web site: Very good.
Extras: Full boat of bells and whistles.
911 service: Old fashioned level of 911 works.
e-911 service: e-911 still not available in my area.
Customer service: Never really needed any. If it stinks I have yet to discover it

All calls are logged and accessible via Web site as are monthly bills.

When a VM is left for me I am sent an email notification.

They have, or at least had, a referral program that gives users up to a 2 months service credit when referring new customers who sign up for service.

I have never considered changing to another phone service since starting my Vonage service.

Well at one point my review matched consenses, but the constant attacks from the vonage employees in the forum made me progressively lower it. Matter of fact i just came on just to do that, to but it back to reasonable level, but of course. Your opinions have just proved my point again. Its stays were it is. "no contract" in vonages world means 13 months of service

I have had Vonage since early 2004. I have nothing BUT positive things to say about them. Of the service outages I had, they were of short duration and fewer than the outages of my ISP, which at that time was SBC DSL service...when my ISP was out so was my POTS service as well...therefore I would say that Vonage has been more reliable than the phone company. Now for customer service...I have called a total of three times, and been greeted and treated by very courteous and helpful individuals. When I had a question that the first support tier couldn't answer, they told me that fact and promptly transferred me to someone who could. I never received that sort of customer service from SBC in any aspect...and I was paying more for a business-level account. I am never going back to POTS...Vonage has made phone service MUCH better.

Lets see "no annual contracts", means i dont incude any expense by stopping service. Thats not whats implied. Maybe you should read a dictionary.

You can scream about no annual contracts all you want...the fact is that, like all services, you should have read the ToS. Its stated quite clearly that early termination of your phone service will result in a cancellation fee of $39.99 per line.

Last I checked, the phrase "no annual contracts" doesn't exist in the dictionary...but just for all intents and purposes, lets go ahead and give the "textbook" definition. "No annual contracts" is a buzz phrase that quite clearly states that you are not locked into a binding contract for a predetermined amount of time. True, you pay a cancellation fee if you left the service before a year, but that really covers the free month of service you were given, waived start-up fees, cost of equipment, etc. These sorts of practices are very common. With my cable internet provider, I got 1-month free for signing up. No contract...I could cancel at anytime...but the ToS clearly stated that had I cancelled within the first 6-months, I would be charged for the free month. Does it seem unfair? Yes. But I knew about it beforehand and agreed to it, so therefore I cannot complain. I understand you're upset about the cancellation fee...but in all seriousness, you had a free month, PLUS a 30-day money-back guarantee. If it took you longer than the initial month to decide you no longer wanted the service, you suffer the consequences of early termination.

And while they don't force you into an annual contract, its unreasonable to suggest that they not try to protect themselves from people hopping on, using the system, then leaving. They have costs that are incurred, and by someone not establishing themselves as a long-term customer, they take a huge hit on that. Check around...no-contract cellular services have a HUGE cancellation fee if you cancel within the first year. They took a hit in having your service. They provided low-cost/free equipment, waived fees, and even offered free service...they have to recoup for the loss they took because you left without establishing yourself as a long-term customer who's worth the lost money.

Me? I've been using Vonage for over a year now and have had no problems with the service (on the contrary, I have been offered discount shares of their IPO). I've never been late in paying, never had a dropped call, very minimal echoing (that was being caused by my ISP, not Vonage), and have yet to need to contact CS. I think I will place a review to erase your paltry bickering. Next time, read the ToS.

well i am not their customer anymore, i guess they did a poor job, proving that to me. There are no "no contract" cellular services, i think you mean prepaid, which cost of service is paid outright. Again notice i am not there customer... That says it all

You know, not many places actually have porting number over for free. Verizon Residential charges $30 or so. Which is weird because Verizon Voicewing is free. But, there are some out there that charge. I would look into that before you choose a company if porting is that important to you.

I have had Vonage since December of 2002 and never had any horrible customer support issues. In fact they mananged to hack my Cisco ATA router to allow Tivo to work, even though they don't "officially" support it. Don't know what to tell you. Good luck with your CableTV Phone.

Are your ratings so high if you had all these issues? Just curious.

There was a previous discussion , that seemed to have been deleted, where i was attacked for giving vonage a bad score, so i just put everything at 100% so they would stop attacking.