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Review by ZeekWatson 
UPDATED: 175 days ago
member for 7.8 years, 203 visits, last login: 116 days ago
 undisclosed location
 Contract price not specified. (month by month)
 about 999 days
 "Great sales people"
 "Sound quality, choice of ATA, billing, customer support, constant lies"
 "A couple of tin cans and a piece of string is better than Vonage"
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(ratings well below consensus)
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I signed up for the Vonage VOIP service last November. When I signed up they continually touted their "60 day money back guarantee". How could I lose? Unfortunately they were never able to transfer my number or provide me with a working phone. I attempted to port my number to Vonage 4 times.
I canceled the non-functional service and requested my money back as per the 60 day money back guarantee. Vonage now points me at their terms of service (which I never agreed to when signing up) that says they don't provide a refund for pre-paid service. They think they don't have to provide a refund!
I've quoted the relevant section:
3.10 No Refunds for Pre-Paid Service Plan Customers. Subject to the Money Back Guarantee and applicable law, we will not refund any Service Fees or any other amounts paid in connection with any pre-paid Service plans.
»vonage.ca/features_terms_service.php
Despite the many cancellation calls and emails they continue to say my account is active and try to charge me monthly fees. I successfully put in a dispute with visa on the Vonage unauthorized charges. I'm back with Telus. The future is friendly!
Followup comments:  
FrankLew12
@comcast.net | lousy review I can understand your frustrations, but how can you give them a poor review on call quality if you never got to use the service. Also, by signing up for their service, you agree to their terms. It's your fault you did not read them.
-Frank | |
| | ZeekWatson
join:2002-02-05
 ·Vonage
| Re: lousy review said by FrankLew12 :
I can understand your frustrations, but how can you give them a poor review on call quality if you never got to use the service. Also, by signing up for their service, you agree to their terms. It's your fault you did not read them.
-Frank
Vonage employee alert!
I did talk to their technical support personnel using their ATA so I am familiar with their poor sound quality.
I'm not sure what terms you're talking about? The part where they clearly claimed they have a "60 day no questions asked money back guarantee." and then reneged when I went to use the money back guarantee? Vonage is nothing more than shysters.
Vonage -- you *will* be disappointed! | |
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| Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
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 Review by coastjam
UPDATED: 176 days ago
member for 8.7 years, 1352 visits, last login: 57 days ago
Atascadero,San Luis Obispo,CA
$34 per month
about 3 days
"Great Service all the way around"
"Needs prefix within area code"
"No Longer use the service"
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Sorry to say, I know longer use Vonage. I liked the service. Just no longer have the need for them.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
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 Review by GeekJedi
UPDATED: 177 days ago
member for 8.4 years, 3281 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Mukwonago,Waukesha,WI
$30 per month
about 3 days
"Service works well"
"Bunch of unfees"
"They're good, but there are alternatives"
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I had Vonage on and off over the past several years, so I was familiar with them. I had been using Skype with a phone adapter, but it would often drop calls and give me other sorts of problems. So, I decided that it was worth the money to switch back to Vonage. Porting my Skype-in number went without a hitch.
UPDATE 6/8:
I am canceling my account and transferring to VOIPo. While I think that while Vonage has a good offering, development of new features has stopped, and the price keeps creeping up. I'm paying my cancellation fees and moving on.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
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Review by macthetiger
UPDATED: 178 days ago
member for 4.2 years, 7 visits, last login: 178 days ago
Estes Park,Larimer,CO
Contract price not specified. (month by month)
"Voice Quality, No prompts to verify your 911 location"
"Fax does not work, No Outbound CID Name, No Speed Dial"
"If all you want is voice quality and not much else, this service is for you"
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In a day when DVR's have to dial out for PPV purchases, your home security system dials out, and you send an occasional fax, this service is NOT for you. A CallVantage customer pending demise, I tried Vonage service with their assigned phone number for 30 days. While the voice quality was almost as good as CallVantage, some signficant annoyances immediatly started showing up.
1) I cannot send or receive faxes. Vonage says newer fax machines may or most likely wont work.
2) A call from the security system monitoring company, my system had not dialed out in weeks.
3) A PPV purchase caused my DVR to lock out state until I contacted my TV service provider.
4) Friends complain that my caller name shows unavailable.
5) No speed dial feature means I have to program each phone in the house.
6) The service gets feedback when talking and running water in a sink.
With CallVantage all these features and services work. For me Vonage is not ready for primetime. For now I will continue to test / research VoIP providers and stick with CallVantage until I can find a better solution or am forced back to land line.
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Review by optodata
Posted: 183 days ago
member for 5.4 years, 40 visits, last login: 57 days ago
San Mateo,San Mateo,CA
$17 per month
"reliable, inexpensive and full-featured"
"outgoing caller ID only shows number"
"much better than land line"
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I've had Vonage for almost 3 years and the only problems I've had (maybe 6 times) were easily resolved by rebooting my router and/or VoIP adapter. Fortunately, any missed calls end up in voice mail, and I really like having them instantly emailed to me - no more calling home to check the answering machine  .
The website is helpful for reviewing calls and bills, but it would be nice to quickly jump to a certain date or week, and also to search for a specific number from my entire history rather than having to check each page one at a time.
Overall, I am happy I made the switch and have also transferred my business line to Vonage as well.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
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Review by Darkev
UPDATED: 185 days ago
member for 350 days, 32 visits, last login: 40 days ago
Gatineau,QC
$45 per month (month by month)
about 3 days
"CNAM, Free Call Forwarding and Simulring, Wide range of area codes to choose from"
"Does not offer BYOD, Canceling service can be a huge issue, Expensive"
"They offer good quality audio, but they are expensive"
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The audio quality was not the best when I was with Vonage. I stayed with them for 4 years. I concluded that it depended on who I was calling. The audio quality was better when calling someone on a PSTN. If I called my friends who were using Vonage, the audio was choppy and would echo. Their gateways seem to be optimized for PSTN. This is OK considering that's what most people would be calling. It's a shame that they could not have perfect audio quality for both PSTN and SIP based phone systems.
The cost was higher than many of the other VoIP providers. Especially if you are in Canada. In the US Vonage is currently charging $24.99 for unlimited local and long distance, but in Canada they are charging $39.99 for the same thing. That's almost 62% more costly than what customers in the US are paying. The Canadian exchange rate was hovering around 20% for the longest time, but over the past few years the Canadian dollar has been either better than the US dollar, on par, or slightly under. It seems as though Canadians are being gouged on the Vonage unlimited plan. Granted, it's still cheaper than Bell Canada or any of the Bell affiliated companies across Canada.
Vonage does not allow customers to hook up their own device/gateway (BYOD). With fancy IP phones on the market and new ones being introduced all of the time, going with a company that won't support these phones or new features limits you. Many people who would switch to VoIP tend to like electronics and gadgets. So there is an underlying conflict between companies that offer voip, but do not allow BYOD - bring your own device. It's also more of a hassle should you quit service with the company as in many cases you'll need to return the device. They claim due to security and stability they won't offer it. Yet Vonage does offer a softphone that can be configured as BYOD - it will only give you 500 minutes per month outgoing, and it costs an extra $12.99 Canadian plus taxes, and you must also have the ATA service with it. You cannot get their softphone service alone. Why? Who knows.
Canceling your service is another reason to watch out for Vonage. After being with them for 4 years, it took me 4 to 5 months to finally cancel my service with them. I was told they could not cancel it by one representative. He told me to call back between 8 AM and 4 PM EST. I did but that person lied and said she was disconnecting my service but my number would stay active in case I wanted to come back to them. 3 months later they charged my credit card and when I called about it they told me that my account was temporarily suspended for 3 months. I asked to have it canceled again and they kept me on the phone trying to convince me to stay. I was on the line for almost an hour arguing with them. I asked for a supervisor and he would not put me through to one. More charges went through to my credit card. Finally, I ended up finding the phone number to Vonage Canada and called their office in Toronto. They were able to cancel my account, but not before I canceled my credit card. My bank recommended that I cancel my credit card to avoid any future charges from Vonage. It was inconvenient, but it worked! This happened in early 2008. Whether they have changed their practices since then, I don't know for certain. Doing a Google search shows me that they still appear to be doing this to people. Just type in, "VONAGE CANCEL" One website even posted an MP3 conversation of his call:
»blog.tmcnet.com/blog/tom-keating···ties.asp
On the plus side, their website was pretty good. Call quality was good (not excellent), they were reliable. I was never down when I was with them during the 4 year period. I traveled with the Motorola gateway and had no problems with it. They offer a toll-free number that will prompt you for the Vonage customer number. You can call from Canada or the US and get through for free to any Vonage phone line, which would save money. The Simulring feature was awesome.
Would I go with them again should they offer BYOD? No, due to the cancellation fiasco. It was a nightmare for me and I would not trust them again. All I can say is - Buyer Beware!
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Review by rwizard
UPDATED: 193 days ago
member for 5.6 years, 40 visits, last login: 54 days ago
Roswell,Fulton,GA
Contract price not specified.
about 7 days
"None."
"Once you are signed up with them, good luck cancelling"
"I tracked them down thru the NY Sec. of State and served notice on their atty."
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Below is my original review - I would now (5 years later) like to warn everyone to stay as far away from Vonage as possible. They were one of my worst mistakes ever.
OLD REVIEW:
I got Vonage about three weeks ago, because anything that has the potential to let me ditch Bellsouth is worth trying. Quality over my slow cable modem connection was fine inbound, but the outbound quality was difficult for the people I called to understand. When I moved it over to one of my faster DSL circuits it was just great in both directions.
While I really love Vonage so far, and have had no problems with it, nothing is ever perfect, so hear are the cons: I can't get local phone numbers in the other two local dialing areas that I would like to have them. I could spend less money by going with Bellsouth's unlimited bundle.
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 Review by ranschultz
UPDATED: 194 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 1971 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Canyon Country,Los Angeles,CA
Contract price not specified.
"Has been reliable for three years"
"web sub-sites occasionally inaccessible, concurrent computer network access can make conversations difficult"
"I'd get it again"
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Had problems with the service for the first few months, but that was over three years ago. Since then there's really not been any issues other than the rare occasion that I can't access the voicemail section of the web site.
If other network activity is occurring, communications can be difficult some times and there isn't a 'default' way in my LinkSys Vonage router to improve the Quality of Service for the voice communication.
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Review by shadow0120
Posted: 194 days ago
member for 6.7 years, 642 visits, last login: 189 days ago
Chauvin,Terrebonne,LA
$38 per month (24 month contract)
about 4 days
"Have all the calling features for less"
"At the mercy of your ISP"
"As little as I use my phone a few outages would not matter."
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Placed order on a Friday afternoon received adapter on the following Wednesday. Plugged in and instantly linked up to the internet and was working. I have a voice line and a dedicated fax line on it. Was able to port my ATT pots line over after going to war with att over dryline serivce. Att was charging a total of $78 just for local and long distance. Now with vonage I have unlimited voice and a dedicated fax line instead of a ring master line for less than $40. So far so good my number has been ported and no issues as of yet.
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 Review by phodge
UPDATED: 198 days ago
member for 9.4 years, 280 visits, last login: 57 days ago
Mckinney,Collin,TX
$34 per month (12 month contract)
about 7 days
"Price, Features"
"tech support, cable internet connection dependent"
"Great value!"
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Signed up 1/04 for a single line service for home office. Plugged in the Moto ATA into my home network and after a few minutes configuring it, got a dial tone. I did not put the ATA in front of the firewall - instead I port forwarded to it after giving it a static IP. Getting the Sonicwall TZ150 tweaked for the service took a while but now the TZ150 allocates bandwidth to the SIP traffic when I pick up the phone, so all calls sound great when there's a load on the connection. Added a fax line several months later, but had to install a DSL line filter and contact tech support to resolve some faxing issues. Tech support can be slow to respond to issues.
Update 5/09: No major issues. Still using OEM Motorola ATA, which is now over five years old. Still no name transmitted with CID on outbound calls. Fax service reliability has improved since last review.
Followup comments: | Forums » comments on review of Vonage |
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