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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain ccs-digital.com)
lodged 182 days ago
 Far Rockaway,Queens,NY
 $10 per month- (24 month contract)
 "the price" "they trashed my two phone numbers and no one can reach me for 3 weeks" "not worth it even if it was free. this company is a bad joke"
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Right after I signed up for two years, both my phone numbers went
dead. Callers get a busy signal. This has gone on for THREE WEEKS and
Joiphone appears to be doing nothing about it. I am cut off, my business is
dead and I am losing thousands of dollars. They have no business being in
the phone business if they can't solve a problem for three weeks. The
service wouldnt be worth it if it was free.
izzy goodman
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed from domain charter.net)
lodged 227 days ago
- Albertville,Wright,MN
- Contract price not specified.
- "call quality, service"
- "Bad company, bad service, bad helpdesk, bad call quality"
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This company has terrible customer service and their phone service is even
worse. Calls get cut off all the time, the phone just blanks out- no dial
tone almost every other day. I have to reset the phone router every day
otherwise it will drop most of the calls. Once it is reset works okay for a
couple of hours then starts to drop the calls again. Company won't refund
your money-oh and they automatically charge you credit card for the next
year, so be sure to cancel ahead of time or you are stuck with bad service
for 2 more years.
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Review by paziu 
member for 5.1 years, 27 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
updated 1.6 years ago
- Winston Salem,Forsyth,NC
- $15 per month
 about 10 days- "99.999% up, used to fax at 2400 bauds"
- "disconnets if a phone call time reaches 120 minutes - need to redial"
- "I am using it since mid 2007 - great service, inexpensive, pay evey 12 months"
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I hope Joiphone will not disappear off the market anytime soon, they are providing rock solid service, I have never had any problems with it, even when I moved and changed the area code... no billing issues - they are calling me by the end of the 12 months subscription and asking if I am interested to renew... basically a great service with very good international rates... the only time it the phone does not work if Time Warner has a problem or if there is a power outage 100% satisfaction
The requirement for the VoIP phone to work well is reliability and quality of the internet access link. There is a lot of people complaining about the VOIP service, only in some cases it is the VoIP provider's fault. You need a well configured router, and Cable / DSL / fiber link that is within the specifications of the VoIP technology. There is a lot of cable internet access customers, which their internet connection is choking due to low signal quality or strength. It will affect VoIP big time.
Mike from N.C.
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Review by alanbob
member for 1.9 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
lodged 1.9 years ago
- 85143
- Contract price not specified.
- "none"
- "ripped us off"
- "do not do business with them"
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When we got their equipment we called during the listed hours for assistance in hooking it up. Nobody answered. When we reached someone the next day they were rude, so we cancelled the service immediately, & returned the equipment. They charged us $79.09 & after several attempts to get a refund they finally returned only $24.14. As of today they refuse to refund the rest of our money. We never even used or activated the service.
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Review by fred410
member for 6.2 years, 2 visits, last login: 2.6 years ago
updated 2.6 years ago
- Crofton,Anne Arundel,MD
- $33 per month
- (month by month)
- about 10 days
- "cheap"
- "poor billing support, poor transfer support, no refunds ever after 30 days"
- "omg, stay away from these people"
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Issue 1: Slow phone service -- after you dial any number, you wait a good 8-12 seconds before getting anything, ie "ringing or busy"
Issue 2: Their "terms of service" say you have "unlimited usage" but they deemed that I was "abusing" the system -- and forced me to switch to a $34 a month business plan, or they would charge me a violation fee of $200. So I had to switch, nice.
Issue 3: If you prepay or pay ahead, you WONT get any refunds past the first 30 days of service.
Issue 4: Email ONLY contact to billing department, who is also slow in responding, about 2-4 days turn around. Plus you always get these "we already responded to email" messages also.
Issue 5: Email ONLY contact to phone number transfer group, even worse slow or no response issue.
Ended up dumping them for fios and phone service with verizonm for $53 a month.
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Review by mpatrick14
member for 4.1 years, 18 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
updated 2.8 years ago
- Las Vegas,Clark,NV
- $1200 per month
- about 999 days
- "Nothing"
- "False Advertising/No Customer Service/Fraudulent use of CC Info"
- "DO NOT FALL FOR THIS COMPANY'S LIES"
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Hawk Communications LLC dba JoiPhone is a corrupt VOIP company who has committed the following illegal acts against me:
Breach of Contract: I never received the equipment or my money back as provided under the TOS, even after receiving confirmation that my account was canceled.
Unjust Enrichment: In addition to taking the money I paid for their service, which I never received, they have repetitively charged my credit card 4 times so far in the amount of 200.00 each time with no explanation. All requests for explanation of these charges have been ignored. I have received nothing of value from this company, yet they have stolen over $1,200 of my money.
Fraud: They have engaged in false advertisement and misleading sales pitches, including the use of the word "Unlimited" when referring to their VOIP phone service, which, in reality, is severely limited. There is very vague verbiage in their Terms of Service that says using the phone more than 5 times the "average" residential line is considered "abuse of the system." Basically, if you use the phone more than they want you to, despite the lines being advertised as UNLIMITED, they can charge you fees, and/or discontinue your service, while keeping all of the money you prepaid. There are reports of very limited amounts of usage resulting in this type of activity. For example, one customer received a threat of cancellation after using the phone for 500 minutes over the course of 15 days - does that sound like UNLIMITED to you? There are also reports that any call longer than 60 minutes is viewed as "abuse" and can result in your line being blocked.
They also advertise a 30 day no risk guarantee, yet they do not even deliver the equipment required to initiate the service within 30 days, thereby ensuring that if you wait for the equipment, you have no recourse under the 30 day guarantee. Also, if you do cancel, as I did, within the 30 day period without ever having received equipment or using the service, they do not return your money.
Embezzlement: I entrusted them with access to my credit card account and after they confirmed my account cancellation, they charged my credit card four additional times so far with absolutely no justification. I do not have a service with them, so any justification based on a "Terms of Service" policy is unjust.
This company fails to meet their obligations, outright lies to its prospective customers, and engages in fraudulent activity.
It is also worth noting that Hawk Communications dba JoiInternet was found guilty of many of these practices in Atlanta, GA, including false advertising, breach of contract, and limited access. There was a settlement involved, and the company suddenly folded, leaving many customers without service that they prepaid for.
Several companies that were subsidiaries of Hawk Communications have folded unexpectedly. The reason this matters is because almost all of the deals JoiPhone offers involve prepayment for 12-24 months of service. Personally, I find it highly unlikely that JoiPhone will be around long enough to fulfill these contracts, and based on their current behavior and the actions of former Hawk Communications companies, I have a feeling many JoiPhone customers will soon be out a great deal of money and have no service.
If you do take the risk of signing up with this company, I URGE you to sign up for a monthly plan with no prepayment and give it 6 months or so to ensure the service is worth continuing.
If you want to see more info on this corrupt company, check out the BBB info on Hawk Communications LLC, Joi Internet, and JoiPhone. All of them have unsatisfactory ratings with the BBB.
UPDATE: I was successful in disputing all of the fraudulent charges with my credit card company, and getting my full money back. I encourage anyone who is also having issues getting their refunds do the same thing!
UPDATE: I see people are still posting bad reviews of this company. Looks like they have done NOTHING to improve their level of service. BUYER BEWARE - before you give these people any money or cc info, ready all of the reviews!
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Review by adserver7199
member for 3.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
updated 3.5 years ago
- Winter Garden,Orange,FL
- $20 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 25 days
- "Providing Voip services"
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Providing Voip services
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Review by ozamora
member for 7.6 years, 263 visits, last login: 16 days ago
updated 3.9 years ago
- Fort Lauderdale,Broward,FL
- $20 per month
- (12 month contract)
- about 5 days
- "Very Inexpensive for International Calls, A bunch of included features."
- "No Caller ID Name. Tech Support can take long to respond"
- "Best Bang for the Buck for customer who call outside the US."
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As a former Sunrocket Customer, I had difficulties finding a provider that was inexpensive for international calls (Lima, Peru).
I ordered in December but took them so long to send me the Adapter, so I decided to cancel. I ordered again on January and they sent it in 5 days.
Adapter is Plug & Play. I am using it behind my router (WRT54G with QoS enabled) with no issues. Completely transparent. 7, 10 and 11 digit dialing, all do work (just like Sunrocket). I got DSL Direct From AT&T (no landline), 1.5 Mbps/256 kbps.
800 free minutes for Some International Locations (Lima, Peru included), Unlimited US, Canada and PR. What would have cost me several hundred dollars per month with AT&T is now ~$20.
The only little thing that bothers me is the lack of Caller ID name, and the not-so-for-dummies website. Who was gonna figure that "xDR Browser" was equivalent to "Call History" and "UM Preferences" was equivalent to "Voice Mail Administration". Anyways, those are easy to overcome as calling is the most important thing. Once it is wife-proof, we got a winner.
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Review by greghillus
member for 5.1 years, 7 visits, last login: 3.5 years ago
updated 3.9 years ago
- Boulder,Boulder,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- "Cheap, features"
- "service, technical hassles"
- "You get what you pay for"
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I've been with joiphone for one year now and basically, it works, most of the time. I've had to call in to tech support several times, experienced the extended wait times, being disconnected after extended wait times, technical issues of all sorts, etc. etc.
Personally, I think their account management and voice mail retrieval system needs some MAJOR overhaul. It is not very well organized, and virtually undocumented.
On the plus side of things, I took their adapter to Thailand, plugged it into my laptop's RJ-45, connected a phone, then using my wireless connection through my laptop, made calls back to the states. The voice quality wasn't great, but jeeze, what would you expect going through a wireless connection on my laptop, half way around the world!!!
Another plus: I've been able to receive faxes to my voip account and download them from the message center. I can do some fancy call forwarding functions based on time of day, etc - if I wanted to, but don't.
I have just received the 12 month renewal charge on my CC of $108 for 12 months of service. I believe it should have only been about $70 because I thought the setup fee of $30 would get me a $30 credit towards future service costs. I sent them email one day ago and haven't heard any response yet.
The installation was mediocre. It didn't work at first, and so I had to call and get them to do some things. Now, part of the fault was mine too. I was doing some weird things with my internal network, that SHOULD NOT have mattered, but they did. I know it wasn't what I was doing with my internal network because I had vonage, and it worked, but joiphone wouldn't...
I also had to have their tech support change some things, like my timezone, which seems like I SHOULD have been able to change it (because I could see it in the web gui, but it was grey'd out)...
As a comparison, I also have vonage and viatalk and this is how I would rate them in comparrison:
(1 = terrible, 5 = best)
Vonage Viatalk JoiPhone
Voice quality 3 5 2.5
Tech support 3 4 1.5
Technical issues 3 5 1.5
Cost 3 4 5
Web interface 3 3.5 2
Features 3 4 3.5
Voice mail usability 3 3 2
Notes
* Vonage: I can send faxes, but I cannot receive faxes.
* ViaTalk: Their deal for $199 for two years/two lines is false advertising, my cost will be over $360 for the two years. They have several "fine print" gotchas.
* JoiPhone: Their voice mail message "Joiphone, we bring good things to life." is THE MOST DEAD VOICE I HAVE EVER HEARD!!!
Hope someone finds this helpful
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Review by invknight
member for 4 years, 3 visits, last login: 3.9 years ago
updated 4 years ago
- Woodstock,Cherokee,GA
- Contract price not specified.
- (12 month contract)
- "was good in the beginning, promised much - did not deliver"
- "did not transfer numbers, lazy support, hard to reach and even harder to cancel"
- "Avoid - utilize Vonage or others that are far better - they will overbill you"
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Right now to give you a brief idea, the company - Joi Phone and its previous owner Hawk Communications LLC lost four cases already in Federal Court that forced Hawk to sell the company to itself under a different LLC at the same address to avoid collections - that is the type of company you are going to be dealing with from the start. FAIR WARNING.
Avoid, they will raise rates and bill any information without required notification and attempt to bully consumers who have no knowledge of the regulatory laws that are in place to prevent such actions. Getting support from this company is another matter - both in their constant admittance that their own accounting systems are wrong and try to overbill repeatedly and after eight months still have not been able to fix - shows a real pattern for deception and anyone having this company has really not looked at better and fiduciary stable companies or I believe is just intellectually lazy - regardless "Caveat Empor" with this corporation.
In case you needed mroe evidence - look below at what the Better Business Bureau says about them, including repeated fines against them
Customer Experience
Based on BBB files, this company has an unsatisfactory record BBB Definition:
unsatisfactory record - A company has an "unsatisfactory business performance record" with the BBB is based on the experiences reflected in BBB files. This file condition results when the company has failed to resolve or respond to complaints, repeatedly failed to respond or resolve issues in a timely manner, failed to resolve the underlying issues for a pattern BBB Definition:
pattern - More than 2 complaints involving the same allegations usually within 12 months that are significant in relation to the company's size and volume of business.
of complaints, failed to honor their commitment to mediate or arbitrate disputes or honor mediated agreements or arbitrated decisions, failed to substantiate, modify or discontinue false advertising claims that are challenged by the BBB, or failed to discontinue unauthorized use of the BBB name and logo, a Federally protected trademark.
with the BBB due to unanswered complaints. The company has resolved BBB Definition:
resolved - The company resolved the complaint issues.
some complaints presented by the BBB, however, the company did not respond to other complaints BBB Definition:
other complaints - This refers to complaints from individuals or businesses that do not fall under a specific category.
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When considering complaint information, please take into account the company's size and volume of transactions, and understand that the nature of complaints and a firm's responses to them are often more important than the number of complaints.
The BBB processed a total of 9 complaints about this company in the last 36 months, our standard reporting period.Of the total of 9 complaints closed in 36 months, 2 were closed in the last year.
Billing or Collection Issues BBB Definition:
Billing or Collection Issues - Claim alleging billing errors, unauthorized charges, or questionable collection practices.
Resolved BBB Definition:
Resolved - The company resolved the complaint issues.
2 - Company addressed the complaint issues. The consumer failed to acknowledge acceptance to the BBB.
Administratively Closed BBB Definition:
Administratively Closed - The BBB determined that the complaint could not be satisfactorily settled using standard methods of voluntary dispute resolution
1 - BBB determined the company made a reasonable offer to resolve the issues, but the consumer did not accept the offer.
Repair Issues BBB Definition:
Repair Issues - Claims of alleged incorrect diagnosis of a problem, delay in completion of repair, or inferior workmanship.
No Response BBB Definition:
No Response - The company failed to respond to the complaint.
1 - Company failed to respond to the BBB to resolve or address the complaint issues.
Service Issues BBB Definition:
Service Issues - Claims of alleged delay in completing service, failure to provide promised service, inferior quality of provided service, or damaged merchandise as a result of delivery service.
No Response BBB Definition:
No Response - The company failed to respond to the complaint.
2 - Company failed to respond to the BBB to resolve or address the complaint issues.
Refund or Exchange Issues BBB Definition:
Refund or Exchange Issues - Claim of alleged failure to honor company policy or verbal commitment to provide refunds, exchanges, or credit for products or services.
Administratively Closed BBB Definition:
Administratively Closed - The BBB determined that the complaint could not be satisfactorily settled using standard methods of voluntary dispute resolution
1 - BBB determined the company made a reasonable offer to resolve the issues, but the consumer did not accept the offer.
No Response BBB Definition:
No Response - The company failed to respond to the complaint.
2 - Company failed to respond to the BBB to resolve or address the complaint issues.
Government Actions
On December 19, 2005, Hawk Communications, LLC entered into an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance with the Georgia Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. This was because the company allegedly did not provide a full seven day trial period as their advertisements indicated, did not honor pro-rated refunds or cancellations as stated in advertising, misrepresented dial-up access that was up to "ten times faster" when such was not true, offered "quality" or reliable access, when most consumers after signing up were never able to either access or consistently use the services after signing, offered unlimited internet access with JOI Internet services when consumers were limited to continuous access only in five hour increments and then were automatically discharged from the system. The company signed the compliance agreement and paid fines in the amount of $20,000.00 and a civil penalty in the amount of $10,000.00
An Assurance of Voluntary Compliance is not considered an admission of guilt or violation of law, but is used for settlement purposes.
Additional File Information
Hawk Communications, Inc. is the parent company for Joi Internet Access, on which we maintain a separate file.
Additional DBAs, Addresses and Telephone Numbers
Additional Addresses
6025 Sandy Springs Cir NE # 311
Atlanta, GA 30328-3863
6025 Sandy Springs Cir NE Ste 311
Atlanta, GA 30328-3863
Additional Phone Numbers
Tel: (404) 373-4591
Tel: (888) 237-0607
Tel: (770) 671-0699
Tel: (770) 349-3428
Tel: (770) 864-0600
Tel: (800) 417-4196
Additional Fax Numbers
Fax: (770) 730-8866
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