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Review by ben14  UPDATED: 291 days ago member for 6.1 years, 822 visits, last login: 12 days ago
Hollywood,Broward,FL
$12 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Excellent uptime, excellent audio, great staff to help. Creating new features all the time!"
"It was hard to reach support during SR crisis. Support is easier to reach now!"
"The best VOIP service avalable at the moment at the lowest price possible."
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings above consensus)
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I came from Sunrocket, in May 2007. I was lucky got my full two years out of them. Viatalk, is a better quality VOIP company as far as I can tell. Though the terms of the contract if you don't stay aren't as good as they could be. I have lead six friends to them and we are ALL happy.
Support was particularly helpful in the porting of my parents and my numbers to them. My number was ported AFTER Sunrocket went belly up. I my parents done in a week from AT&T. Support now calls you back if too busy at that moment.
Its now February 2009, I have nothing but goood luck with Viatalk and their personnel! I have three lines with them and they all ran near flawlessly, and with FailSafe, I never missed a single call.
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Review by ttoonz  Posted: 293 days ago member for 293 days, 4 visits, last login: 276 days ago
Newburgh,Orange,NY
$13 per month (24 month contract)
about 1 days
"Great call quality, cheap service, good customer service so far..."
"None, so far..."
"So far, so good...I'm in..."
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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Read a lot about VOIP before choosing a provider. Every single one of them had their share of bad reviews. You have to keep in mind, though- that most people who are happy with the service are too busy using it to post a review. It's the dissatisfied people who are always the loudest, and you have to take what they say with a grain of salt. Not that there aren't a few companies out there who deserve their bad rep- however, I don't feel that ViaTalk should be lumped in with them...
I chose carefully, considering call quality, cost, location, and customer reviews. Although I did have some reservations, I was so sick of paying Verizon a fortune for plain vanilla service, that I simply had to try ViaTalk. Currently, I am very happy that I did.
I asked them several questions regarding pricing, equipment, number porting, etc prior to signing up. Every question was answered in a surprisingly timely manner with complete and accurate responses. I chose BYOD and paid for 2 years of service up front. My only sore point is that they need your CC so that they can bill you for taxes, surcharges, and fees on a monthly basis. Not a lot, mind you- Verizon was nailing me for about $25 per month on a phone I never used, so a couple of dollars is not a big deal, but I would have rather paid *everything* up front than to be billed monthly for a couple of bucks...kind of silly, if you ask me...
I received my information to connect my device to their service within 24 hours of signing up, and had no problem placing my first call. The sound is clear and loud, and the bell and whistle features that come with the service would cost you a small fortune from Verizon. The fact that I will also no longer see a bill from AT+T for long distance is just icing on the cake...
I had a few questions about device configurations, and their support staff got back to me, usually within hours or even faster- with clear, easy to understand answers, and imo, went over and above to help out a new BYOD subscriber.
I was going to audition the service for 14 days before porting my number, but after about 5 days, I was sold, and asked them to port my old Verizon number over to their service. Although they said that it might take up to 20 days, the porting was complete in just 4 days flat.
I am very happy with the service thus far, and would recommend ViaTalk to anyone with a good reliable broadband internet connection and a desire to stop being raped monthly by Verizon and AT+T...I am now paying roughly a third of my usual phone bill and getting ten times as much for that money...
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Review by rsrussell  UPDATED: 297 days ago member for 2.9 years, 43 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Richardson,Dallas,TX
$12 per month (24 month contract)
about 12 days
"Inexpensive"
"Customer Service is spotty"
"Good VoIP service -- if you don't have problems"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
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As with all of life, sometimes things get worse, sometimes they get better. I was disgusted with ViaTalk in late 2007 and early-mid 2008. Customer Service was unreachable and network and CPE outages were more common than I could accept.
Since then, they've worked through most of these problems, and while my VoIP voice quality isn't sparkling clear, I can at least reach customer service and my service is almost entirely stable.
I was satisfied enough that I didn't decide to port my number elsewhere when my contract ended last November. Somehow, I guess that says the most.
It's still a good value for the money.
------ EARLIER UPDATE ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
When I wrote my original review (below), I couldn't say enough nice things about ViaTalk: great customer service, good quality, fantastic deal for the money.
Then they fell apart.
Now, customer service tickets remain unanswered for weeks, calls to customer service (CS) involve 2 hour wait times, and their technical service quality has grown poor. Some servers seem to work well while others have major problems with making and completing calls. If you're lucky, you reach the one CS rep who knows about this and will switch you. If not, you suffer over & over again.
Until this Summer, I thought I'd found a quality replacement for AT&T / Verizon / Qwest phone service. ViaTalk has now lost my trust due to poor support and spotty service. I still use them, but with 14 months left on my contract, can you blame me?
-------- ORIGINAL POST -------------
I ordered ViaTalk over the Thanksgiving holiday to take advantage of their 2 years for $199 deal. The reviews here showed it consistantly to be the best consumer VoIP service for the money.
For some reason, it took them about 5-6 days to process my order, but after that, everything proceeded smoothly. I received their access device in about 3 days, plugged it in, and all worked. It then took them about 8 days to get my number ported, which between AT&T and ViaTalk resulted in about 5 hours of service downtime. They did send me an email to notify me that porting was complete, which was appreciated.
Since then, I've had little glitches, all of which I've handled using their online problem reporting system. In all cases, I've received a response and/or fix in 1-2 hours or less, which I consider fantastic customer service.
This is a good, reliable service with great customer service. I'd recommend them in a heartbeat.
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Review by Cwmson  UPDATED: 304 days ago member for 9.1 years, 2463 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Richmond,Henrico,VA
$16 per month (12 month contract)
about 4 days
"FAST, Easy Set Up"
"Updated---NONE!!!"
"Call quality good when it's working which is most of the time :)"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings match consensus)
|
---------------------------------Updated FEBRUARY 2, 2009----------------------------------------------
Looks like Viatalk has worked out most of the kinks with the new servers....had a few hickups but my service is flawlessly working now. Let's hope it stays that way for a while. Using the Fax2Email service that Viatalk offers, GoToFax....works...still wish Viatlak could have fixed their Fax2Email service, it was just a little cheaper.
----------------------------------Updated OCTOBER 14, 2008-------------------------------------------
Still seems to work around 95% of the time which isn't bad. I still haven't had my Fax2Email problem working as advertised. They did give me a credit for the service. I haven't heard anything from them on the Fax2Email problem since July 31, 2008 and it has been put "On Hold" by them. My ticked had been originally opened in May of 2008 though.
VTBrendan offered me one of the new Grandstream adapters but it wouldn't work for me as it was supposed to. I have Verizon FiOS and they use the Actiontec wireless router. However I was able to "now" put my Linksys WRT-150N router in front of the Actiontec and it's handling all of the DHCP. The Actiontec only handles the T.V. part (coax). It's working very good this way, better that before and I wish I had of kept the Grandstream to use with the setup I have now. 
Oh well.
Over all I'm still pleased with the service but the tech support wait is impossible at times. Of course they now will call you back if there is a longgggg wait which a good thing.
------------------------------------UPDATED JULY 27, 2008----------------------------------------------
The phone service is working at around 99% for me........my only complaint is the customer service......at first they would communicate with me almost as quickly as I made a request via support ticket. My problem lies in the FAXTOEMAIL service. It works fine via email unless I add attachments in the .pdf format....which is their recommendation.....it truncates/cuts off the top portion of every page. I have had this ticket open since June 7, 2008. At first VTBrendan was on top of this problem and told me they would get right on my problem....they probably are but when I ask for an update I get NO REPLY. That's what really irks me, I don't mind waiting to be fixed but I would like to know that someone IS working on the problem. I have been very patient so far and I will try to continue this. I work on computers for a living so I know what kind of things can happen but I value customer support over anything else....that's what keeps your customers coming back...I know, been in business for 10 years and I actually recommend ViaTalk to my customers who are looking for alternative phone service.
Like I said, I'm happy with the phone service...just wish the FaxToEmail would work. I use that to send invoices to my customers.
-------------------------UPDATED APRIL 23, 2008 -------------------------
I just signed up again last week, April 14, 2008, and I had a couple of issues but they were worked out quickly. I also had my old Verizon telephone number ported to ViaTalk and that only took 5 days. Not bad!
It's been exactly 2 years since originally had service with ViaTalk and I must say that it HAS gotten much better. The DTMF issues I had the first time are non existant. I signed up for 1yr. with 1 Free year, free equipment, $1.95 for 50 Fax to Email's, that works great, and I can even send and receive faxes normally......not bad. I'm very pleased so far this go around. I did have a problem faxing out at first but I figured that out myself and then after they ported my number the email that I wanted my Fax to Emails to come would not save but I put in a ticket.....that didn't get any response so I called them this morning and they had me fixed up in about 10 mins.
================================================================================== ======================================
I have been reading reviews and posts looking for a VoIP provider for a while now and I finally went with ViaTalk. The price pulled me in because of the deal with the "coupons". If you use a coupon you can get up to $35 off of your setup as I did. I was offered that money towards any international calls but I don't make any.
If you decide to sign up you can use DSLREPORTS as your coupon code as I did but you may have to contact them to make sure you get your discount. That's what I had to do.....but the customer service guy "Jim" was a pleasure to work with and took care of the problem in a few minutes via email support. I Signed up on Sunday night and hadn't heard anything so I contacted them via there LIVE customer/sales service right from there website. The lady I talked with checked my order and validated it for me while I was chating with her and I was set up right then. I got the confirmation email a few minutes after. That's what I call quick. I didn't have my own equipment so mine is on the way and should be here tomorrow.
Update....while I was writing this review my equipment arrived. Will update in a few moments. (Got to set this up)
OK. Everything went smooth and I'm using my phone now. This is new so I will be back with any good or bad advice I have. So far so good!
May 3, 2006 - I ordered another line and adapter a week ago for my second line and it is working fine. I have been having some issues with the voicemail setup on my first line. Also having problems with my faxing on line2. I paid for the ability to fax in or get faxes. I have a ticket for both problems.
Other than that, everything is great!
===========================================================
I canceled the Fax service as it was never set up.....I found out I didn't really need it. I can send and receive faxes fine.
I'm having problems using the touch tone to enter in codes to my office voicemail. When they fixed that, I started having problems trying to get my voicemail from ViaTalk. I called and the support tech, Karen, put in a ticket with Level 2 support.....we will see. My other adapter works fine, it's the new model with the green lights....no problems with it. The one I'm having problems with it the older BLUE light model. Maybe they will send me another one.
Other than a few hickups, everything is fine.
================================================================================== ====================================
Finally had to switch back to Verizon as I could never get the phones tochtones to work with outside/other services..........sorry to had to cancel the service, but need the touch tones for my work vmail services........................
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Review by Dogfather  UPDATED: 308 days ago member for 1.9 years, 684 visits, last login: 290 days ago
Huntington Beach,Orange,CA
$20 per month
about 10 days
"Decent features, when they work"
"Ever increasing junk fees, VERY unreliable, WAY overpriced"
"Going downhill, actually in a freefall - Good-bye lamers!"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
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1/21/08 Got the cancellation processed and paid the $50 "you keep the ATA" fee. Good riddance. Over the last couple of weeks ViaTalk was HORRIBLE, with constant outages, even the weekend before they took the big hikes the service was down. Looks like I got out just in time. ViaTalk is in a quality free-fall and STILL they have the balls to double the junk fees.
1/14/08 I've had it. On the heels of being delisted from the BBB and all the outages, they take a hefty increase in junk fees. This is exactly the same reason I cancelled Vonage. These latest increases amount to a 20% increase in my bill which was already high compared to other VOIP providers.
Thanks for no thanks. If I want to be ripped off I can go back to Verizon which gave me at least 4 9's reliability if not more, plus superior call quality of Cu. Customer service during the call was quick and polite. No confirmation number but said I'll get an email later on with HW return instructions. We'll see if the email actually shows up.
--
After being sick of endless new junk fees with Verizon and the fact that I don't make a lot of calls (this is for my other house) I decided to try VoIP. First I tried Vonage which was a nightmare of downtime, calls not completing, calls getting dropped and horrible, rude, actually the worst customer service in the history of the planet. Before going back to Verizon I decided to try ViaTalk (500 min limited plan) who at the time was highly rated.
Web-site (4): The website has quite a few features including how to handle annoying incoming numbers. The only reason it doesn't get a 5 is because it has some quirks like not keeping my chosen time zone and the lame way the do-not-disturb schedule is laid out. Other than that, it's very nice.
Ease of install (5): Just plugged the ATA in and within seconds I had a dial-tone. Can't ask for much more than that.
Call quality (2): Compared to POTS it sucks, it's tinny, fades in and out, but it's certainly good enough for ordering a pizza. To give you an idea of how back the call quality is, people I'm talking to with it can easily tell it's VoIP. It sounds to them like old analog cellular calls on the verge of dropping.
Reliability (2): My POTS was up 24/7/365 as I had a fax machine that would register an error if it ever lost a dial tone. Literally in the 6 years I had it, not a single time did I lose dialtone. ViaTalk is not the same, far from it. It goes down for minutes at a time on occasion and like today 1-11-08 it was down for a while. It seems to have gotten significantly worse lately.
Tech support (1): Would have rated them higher if you could actually get a hold of someone.
Value for money (2): I'm paying a bit more than 1/2 the price I paid for POTS and in exchange for it being cheap I get lower call quality and mildly spotty reliability. The mediocre value is made worse by bullcrap junk fees. You expect the bullcrap bill itemizing from the whores at Vonage or Verizon, but oh well. With the junk fees and given this level of poor quality, I consider it still a bit over priced. For $10 sure, but not almost $20.
Overall I wouldn't recommend ViaTalk to someone who uses their phone alot as they seem to be headed in the wrong direction. I would recommend sticking with POTS or a cable VoIP provider that has higher reliability. ViaTalk is going through a lot of pains right now and isn't the value it used to be. If it gets any worse I'll jump ship for a triple play cable promo. At least for the first year they'll match the price considering the lower prices of CATV and HSI I would get.
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Review by SquareSlinky  UPDATED: 312 days ago member for 5.5 years, 2058 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Tampa,Hillsborough,FL
$22 per month (month by month)
about 10 days
"Easy set up, lots of options for configuration. American Customer Service"
"None so far"
"Great option for those with the bandwidth."
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings above consensus)
|
I have been a VoIP customer for over 4 years now. I have tried Voicewing, Vonage and now Viatalk. I like Viatalk the best so far.
Update January, 2009: Still on ViaTalk. While there have been hiccups over the time I have had their service, I have found it to be reliable and a of good voice quality. I get no complaints from the callers on the other end either.
Keep up the good work ViaTalk.
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Review by Tigertoy  UPDATED: 315 days ago member for 364 days, 12 visits, last login: 166 days ago
Jacksonville,Duval,FL
$22 per month (12 month contract)
"Have not found them"
"Tickets have been opened and not looked at, Service has not worked in over 3 months"
"Service does not work."
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings well below consensus)
|
Had the service with their Linksys PAP adapter, and it worked great for a while, until August of 2008. I called, and after several hours on the phone, I was told that I need a new adapter. I was sent a new device, and it does not work. I am told that it needs to go after the DSL modem and before my router, but it will not give all the internet to go through the device. I have a ticket that has been opened since 9/28/2008, still opened. I tried putting the ATA after my router, and I have 5.8 meg coming down and 400 KB going up, enough to support 7 VOIP lines. Viatalk will go directly to Voice Mail when you call the number. I have called in Mega times, and when I do get through, they can spend up to an hour on the phone, we try the same things over and over, and the INTERNET DOES NOT GO THROUGH THE ADAPTER!. I can get a dialtone, but no matter what number I dial, I get a busy signal after dialing 5-6 digits, not able to get 7 digits in there for a local number or the full number for a long distance number. Tech Support says that the device is working perfectly, but with NO SERVICE, I have to question that. At this point, I would NEVER recommend them, and I strongly feel that I need to find service elsewhere.
Update on 12/15/2008
On 12/8/2008, I somehow got through to Tech Support, spent almost an hour and a half on the phone. I can get into the Grandstream device that was sent when it is not registered, but not when the phones register. I was told to change the dsl router to bridge mode, which I did, and gave the username and password to the grandstream, but everytime it came up, the 9 character password was changed to 8 characters. On 12/9/2008, I was told that is hardcoded on their end, and had it changed, then told I have to contact them everytime it changes. Mine is set up to need to be changed every 3 months. This is a problem, whenever the password changes, I will spend several days without service until someone changes it in the system? Once this was corrected, I tried the device right after my DSL modem. It came up, gave me phone service, but the internet would not pass through. I unplugged everything, started with the dsl first, then the grandstream, got phone service, then tried plugging my computer directly into the grandstream. I rebooted twice, but could not get internet service. I plugged my computer to the router, then the router to the grandstream, no internet service. The router would not even get an IP address. I unplugged everything again, plugged the grandstream in, then the router, then the computer, and I was able to get an IP address for the router and able to get into the grandstream. I plugged the dsl back up, and as soon as the phones were registered, lost the ip address with the router. I tried calling in, it said 20 people were in the que, I waited, and after 5 minutes, the grandstream rebooted and the call dropped. I let it come back up, after the lights were solid for several minutes, I tried calling in again, it dropped the call after 5 minutes and the grandstream rebooted itself. I took the grandstream from between the dsl and router and put it behind my router. If I don't have internet access in order to have phone service, it is not worth it to me. I definitely can not recommend Viatalk to anyone.
Update on 1/22/2009
I sent the equipment back in via USPS Priority Mail. As soon as I had confirmation that the equipment had been received, I put a ticket in to not renew the service. Received two responses, one from a ticket that was several months old telling me to call in, that the wait time was less than 5 minutes. The other that came 2 minutes later said that the account was cancelled per my request. I am not upset with that, the service had not worked for several months, and I have to agree with PTrowski, the Grandstream was either a faulty one that I had, or the config file was set up incorrectly for my service, or something like that. I do believe the service could have worked, but after spending so much time trying to get through, and then the times that I did get through, if that is all that is counted, then I would say I was on the phone with Tech Support for almost 40 hours, and all we were able to do is get the device to work once in a while for up to 5 minutes. Had we changed out the device, that may have solved the problem, provided it was not the problem with the config file, which would have transferred to any device we had there. 5 months without working service, even the 40 hours with Tech support, that was too much for me.
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Review by icici  UPDATED: 321 days ago member for 3.9 years, 1016 visits, last login: 1 days ago
Ashburn,Loudoun,VA
$12 per month (24 month contract)
about 10 days
"lots of features, good tech support, cheap"
"nothing worth mentioning (so far)"
"worth the 2-year contract (if they last that long :-)"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings above consensus)
|
I had been with Vonage for 2+ years before I decided to switch over to viaTalk. Reasons for the switch: ever increasing vonage bill. I was on the 24.99 unlimited plan. The bill gradually increaded from 27.48 to 31 when I switched. Why I chose viatalk: 1. Good reviews on this forum and also nearby colleague(s) 2. Good price (I got the 199 BOGO free deal). 3. Lot more features. 4. I (currently) prefer the company to manage the adapter but will like to have the option of BYOD in the future if needed.
My ISP: Verizon FiOS. 5MB/2MB plan. Has been rock solid since the day I ordered.
Now to the actual review: Order Process: I ordered online on Feb 14th withe 199 BOGO deal. Final cost (including shippping and other fees) was $240. It took a few days (4, I think) for my order to be processed. Installation: Once processed and while I waited for the adapter to arrive, I setup the softphone and used it a couple of time without any problems. Softphone setup was a breeze and took about 10 minutes. The router arrived on the 23rd and I just had to plug it in and let it initialize. Took no more than 5-10 minutes.
Once setup, I forwarded my vonage numer to viaTalk and used VT extensively (mostly by the Mrs) to test it out with no problems. The feature the Mrs. loved (and was missing from Vonage) was the personalized incomming callerId. After satisfactory service for 2 weeks, I initiated the number transfer on March 9th. I followed up with VT support (via email and phone) to make sure that they received the documents. The port was completed on March 25th.
Call Quality: The call quality has been excellent for most of the time and we have not experienced any noticable outages. The slightly lower rating is because, sometimes (less than 5%) our calls do not get thru, or they get thru but we do not hear a ring tone till the other party answers.
Tech Support: I found tech support to be much better than vonage. I had to call a couple of time: once to get the details of the soft-phone setup and the other was to fix the time in the callerId list.
No issues so far and we plan to keep VT (hoping that it will last for the full 2 year and more)
Update 3/18/2008: I've had viaTalk for over 1 year now. No complains so far..and I LOVE the 2 lines. I'm now in my "free" year and based onmy experience so far, I will not hesitate to renew my contract once it expires.
Update: 1/16/2009 - No issues yet. The service has been solid. Still LOVE the 2-line feature. I will renew before by 2 year term is up.
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Review by piggygirl  UPDATED: 327 days ago member for 2.8 years, 158 visits, last login: 5 days ago
New York,New York,NY
$13 per month (3 month contract)
about 5 days
"ease of setup"
"to many problems"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
|
01/11/2009 I dropped them towards the end of 2008. Every time a new version was rolled out, problems just kept cropping up. It was like nothing was fully tested before it was rolled out. This is not a startup company, they've been around for a while. Looking at the message boards, the problems are just compounding. It just wasn't worth it anymore. //----------------------
08/14/2007 This is a fee based company.
Since SunRocket died, this company cannot handle the volume. I have never been below caller #40 for customer support.
Their website should state: either pay for priority service or simply go without customer support, unless you have up to 5 hours to wait. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 02/18/07 This is my second month , everything went a lot smoother than the first month. Sound quality has been good. I've had to submit a couple tickets, but they we're dealt with fairly quickly. I also had to phone customer service a few times, wait time was ok. So, I think I will stay with them for a while.
Orig Post
I've been a customer since 1/05/07. They have a credit card on file since 1/05/07.
On 1/16/07 i got a disconnection notice stating i owed them $2.50 for E-911 & Regulatory Recovery Fee and it was 5 days overdue.. the invoice was dated 1/15.
They have my credit card on file since day 1. It seems like they don't know how to do automatic payments!!! i manually paid the invoice on 1/17.
On 1/19 i got another disconnection notice stating i still owed them $2.50 for E-911 & Regulatory Recovery Fee and it was 7 days overdue. They stated I have 3 days to pay or i will be disconnected.
I called them twice, the first time i was told it was going to be taken care of, but two days later i get the 2nd disconnection notice on 1/19 i guess it wasn't taken care of. When I called on 1/19 i was again told it was going to be taken care of.
Sending disconnection notices to customer on invoices already paid is pure customer harassment.
They have the credit card on file, if they don't know how to use it, that's they're problem.
If I get 1 more threatening notice, i will disconnect the service myself. My records on THEIR SYSTEM show this invoice was paid. and they still send disconnection notices.
This is not a good way to start.
I would not recommend this company. I don't know if they have to many customers, and just don't know how to handle the high volume.
But their billing system, is something else to be desired.
I really don't appreciate being threatened.
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Review by newsedge  UPDATED: 332 days ago member for 2.3 years, 9 visits, last login: 58 days ago
Los Angeles,Los Angeles,CA
$19 per month (12 month contract)
about 60 days
"cheap, decent service"
"OMG try getting through to them, billiing tech support anything geez"
"eh, good riddance"
| Web-site: Ease of Installation: Call Quality: Reliability: Tech Support: Value for money: (ratings below consensus)
|
Being one of the unfortunates that got booted off sunrocket before my term was up, I saw a bunch of good reviews (BACK then) about viatalk so i decided to switch to them. They had a promotion whereby they extended your contract for up to 3 months if you could prove you still had at least that much time left on your sunrocket account. I submitted all the paper work for that promotion.
Now here's the hitch it took FOREVER to get them to take my money. I mean what the heck??? you dont want money? process my payment already....
Well after several phone calls (another nightmare of waiting HOURS to talk to someone) i finally got to someone, who basically told me please be patient... well after going through that 3 or 4 more times I finally got my ATA etc...
setup was pretty easy and it just worked, website was pretty informative and i was off to the races...
Had a hiccup or two and i called them up BIG MISTAKE hours of waiting... but then when i got through to someone they were actually quite helpful and quite knowledgeable 
now at some point Viatalk changed something within their infrastructure that caused my ATA to no longer pass RTP packets behind my netscreen 5gt... I did my own trouble shooting and saw that RTP packets werent being passed, so I did a few VIPS on my netscreen and i was good to go (or so i though) the netscreen had limitations on the number of vips i could create so i could only do about 50 or so ports problem was RTP had a port range of about 100 ports...
So i called tech support after waiting for HOURS AGAIN i was actually able to talk to someone... again GREAT tech support IF you can get through... The person actually understood what i was talking about when i said i the range of ports for RTP need to be shorten to the 50 that my firewall could handle...
Finally a few days ago (sometime before Christmas) they charged me a renewal... this is when I realized that i never got my 3 extra month of service... I figured screw em I am not gonna wait on hold for HOURS to get them to rescind the charge and give me my extra months so i just canceled the service. I did it on the web but they needed some verification on my account so i wrote them back and included my reason why i canceled (cut/paste follows)
My password is ***, I do not give out credit card information via unsecured methods.
The reason I am canceling service is because of the long waits for technical support, the long wait for sales and the fact that I should have gotten 2 or 3 more months free because I was a sunrocket customer and I signed up during the promotion you had for former sunrocket customers. I submitted the proper paperwork but never got a response. When I saw that I was getting the renewal (took a few days holidays are hectic) i decided it wasnt worth it to fight you to get my free months.
From: ViaTalk Sales To: ***@***.com Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2008 6:41:53 PM Subject: [FJC-18482]: Cancellation
====== Please reply above this line ======
Cancellation
Hello *****,
We are sorry to hear that you would like to cancel your service. To proceed with the request, we will need verification. For account verification, can you please reply with the first 2 and last 4 digits of the credit card currently on your account? The credit card info is preferable, but if that is not available, your accountâs password will do for verification.
Once we receive the proper verification on the account weâll be happy to assist you with this matter. We would also like to know the reason for your request to cancel your service as we are always looking for ways to make our service better.
Ticket Details ========= Ticket ID: FJC-18482 Tracking URL: »https://support.viatalk.com/index.php?_a···JC-18482 Department: Sales Department Created On: 25 Dec 2008 06:13 PM Last Update: 25 Dec 2008 06:13 PM Status: Closed
Then i get the following email, basically stating hey we will refund your money (at least i got that) but since you didnt return your equipment we are keeping $50... That's it no sorry we screwed you over just plain keeping you $50
I just returned the equipment today, hopefully they will refund the rest of my money but i am not expecting much from them...
I will probably have to argue the entire charge with my CC company...
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