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llast08
join:2004-08-05
Boise, ID

llast08

Member

[VoicePulse] Warns Stranded VoIP Consumers of Predatory Policies

Text from »www.primenewswire.com/ne ··· d=124961

VoicePulse Warns Stranded VoIP Consumers of Predatory Policies

JAMESBURG, N.J., Aug. 14, 2007 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) -- VoicePulse Inc. issued a statement today warning stranded VoIP consumers of deals accompanied by unethical and predatory policies. Hundreds of thousands of VoIP customers were recently left searching for a new provider due to the demise of SunRocket, a defunct Virginia-based service provider.

"Consumers should thoroughly read the terms of service they are agreeing to before signing up," urged Ravi Sakaria, VoicePulse's President. "It's very easy to skip over the details of the trial period, refund policy, or support hours when you're scrambling to restore service. Companies offering a deal in exchange for a one or two year prepayment might have no reason to continue offering you satisfactory service after you've paid up."

Many startup VoIP providers offer an insufficient 14-day return policy. Consumers should ask for an extension, especially if they are porting their phone number, a process which can take more than 30 days. VoicePulse offers a full 30-day Money Back Guarantee with terms listed on www.voicepulse.com.

"We work hard to satisfy our customers every day," says a Customer Support manager at VoicePulse. "If we didn't, our customers would take their money elsewhere. To charge a customer in advance for two years of service and then provide inadequate support is unfair and misleading to the customer and damaging to the reputation of the VoIP industry."

Another possible pitfall to watch out for is an early cancellation policy for prepaid plans. Providers may refuse to refund as much as 50% of the prepaid amount after the end of the trial period. VoicePulse only offers month-to-month calling plans, cancellable at any time.

"Offering a stranded customer a deal on a two year contract and not letting them have their money back three weeks into it is just a bad business practice," says Sakaria. "We still have active, paying customers who signed up in April 2003, our first month of service. That's only because we've met and exceeded their expectations every month since then, not because they're locked into a contract."

VoicePulse's Customer Support department is consistently rated highest in customer satisfaction based on actual customer reviews at BroadbandReports.com. VoicePulse is also the highest rated overall provider, for the past three years, based on over 190 reviews. Other service providers ranked include AT&T, Optimum Voice, Primus, Vonage, Comcast Digital Voice, ViaTalk, BroadVoice, Packet8, Time Warner, Lingo, SunRocket, VoiceStick, and Teleblend.

About VoicePulse

VoicePulse is a New Jersey-based communications company that uses its VoIP network to deliver advanced features and high-quality phone service to residential and small-business consumers. The company leads the industry in delivering innovative features and excellent customer service. For more information about VoicePulse, please visit www.voicepulse.com. VoicePulse is a trademark of VoicePulse Inc.

kieranmullen
Premium Member
join:2005-12-12
Portland, OR

kieranmullen

Premium Member

Re: [VoicePulse] Warns Stranded VoIP Consumers of Predatory Poli

Viatalk.com is going through this right now as they are charging people for a 14 day trial of non service.

KieranMullen

ptrowski
Got Helix?
Premium Member
join:2005-03-14
Woodstock, CT

ptrowski to llast08

Premium Member

to llast08
All that is is a PR release for them. If I actually thought there was "concern" well then...

Looks like someone wishes they got a bigger piece of the pie.
llast08
join:2004-08-05
Boise, ID

llast08

Member

Well, taking into consideration that:

•VoicePulse didn't swoop in like vultures and offer an unprofitable 2-year deal just to grab customers
•The points they make are true regarding 14-day return being too short and 50% refund being a scam
•Providers offering 14-day return and 50% refunds are up to their necks in $%!t (click ViaTalk, Teleblend tab)

Every press release is a self-promotional item, unless it's to fulfill disclosure requirements for publicly traded companies. On the other hand, if people had taken their advice when SunRocket went down, they wouldn't be reporting unshipped devices, nonexistant refunds and support queues 100 people deep.

CajunWon
join:2005-12-30
Cary, NC

1 edit

CajunWon

Member

said by llast08:

On the other hand, if people had taken their advice when SunRocket went down, they wouldn't be reporting unshipped devices, nonexistant refunds and support queues 100 people deep.
What advice was that? "Signup with Teleblend"
True: device supply was not the issue, device lock-down an issue for some.
True: refunds, however the company is still less than a month old so time will tell.
True: Support queues short -but shallow since support was merely excuses for inoperable equipment.

Though we experienced no real service outage (SR -> VT), this situation has been an inconvenience due to Port delays.

imo the only solid advice is to go back to POTS until this mess clears-up.
tj008
join:2004-06-24
Cincinnati, OH

2 edits

tj008 to llast08

Member

to llast08
This press release expresses the concern I had when SR died, resurrected and fizzled again.

Most people do their due diligence on many purchases. When SR died, many panicked. In their panic, they jumped to anyone that offered a hand.

Now, in the SR/TB forum complaints are beginning to sprout about the place some people turned. Some people turned to unknowns; some turned to companies that are notorious for being unable to handle huge volume and some actually turned to decent companies.

Only more time will tell how the New, the Bad and the Tried and True will sort themselves out.
llast08
join:2004-08-05
Boise, ID

llast08 to CajunWon

Member

to CajunWon
The only advice I see in this press release is buyer beware.

Signing up with Teleblend was a 100% mistake for anyone that did it. You have to be a fool to sign up with a company with no track record.

Signing up with ViaTalk was a mistake for most that did it. You have to be a fool to sign up with a company that takes a week to fulfill orders during non-peak times, makes you pay to even have a chance to get through to support, and offers only half your money back if you are unsatisfied.

I think it's a wise move on VoicePulse's part to point out to consumers that they have a proven track record of customer satisfaction and not a short record of screwing people out of their money. If only Fogg and Brader had an equally competent PR agency!
Fisamo
Premium Member
join:2004-02-20
Apex, NC

Fisamo to llast08

Premium Member

to llast08
Though it did seem that this press release seemed targeted at ViaTalk (14-day cancellation trial period before you lose 50% of a prepaid term), the advice here was sound. Look before you leap.

The difficulty in this situation was that people could well have felt that their POTS number of 30 years was in jeopardy, so they didn't look before leaping on what appeared to be a good deal. Anyone willing to take the time to read through the forums would have seen that ViaTalk has these policies that, should you decide to cancel, dramatically affect the 'value' of their deal.

For those who are die-hard set to have their POTS numbers, I think CajunWon See Profile had the best advice--move back to POTS (to keep your number "safe") until you can evaluate your options and make the best choice without undue pressure of your number going away. (One advantage of going back to POTS is that you would then have an easier time of porting to CallVantage. )

That this piece was a little bit of self-promotion is also to be expected. I don't think there's anything wrong with a friendly reminder to check the fine print. I am a bit curious about the method, though. Who's going to see a press release from a relatively small voip-only company, besides those who frequent the forums? Also, would it not have been much more effective to release it 3 weeks ago?

voiplover
Premium Member
join:2004-05-28
Portsmouth, NH

1 recommendation

voiplover

Premium Member

I've been watching VP for a long time. They don't want SR refugees. They charge a little more so that their CS doesn't get bogged down by us penny pincher's.
Look at SR's CS hours or at what Fogged claimed to be 7K to 15k of calls a day. Where could the profit in that be???
The call volume has totally crashed VT's reputation.
VP is putting out the warning because they are in the voip business and they see the black eye that is being caused by companies like Voip.com.
They know that many will pay an extra dollar/month not to go through the voip woes.
Just my guess.
Fisamo
Premium Member
join:2004-02-20
Apex, NC

Fisamo

Premium Member

My question regarding "why didn't they release this note 3 weeks ago" was not coming from the business point of view (gain SR refugees), but from the 'spare SR refugees some pain' point of view (in that most would have made at least an initial decision by now and could be experiencing headaches with the likes of Vonics, voip.com, or ViaTalk). I'm not entirely thrilled to be putting ViaTalk in with the other two, but as long as they're not extending their trial period during this period of long tech support queues, IMO they deserve the hit on their reputation.

I agree that VP isn't about to 'sell themselves' to gain the lion's share of SR refugees (they would have already, were that their plan). It's clear that they desire to offer a solid product to their customers at a fair price (e.g., using a sustainable business model, unlike SR).
nonymous (banned)
join:2003-09-08
Glendale, AZ

1 edit

nonymous (banned) to llast08

Member

to llast08
Some companies are more solid and more expensive. The SR refugees where looking at price.
If Voicepulse or others had gotten the same influx of customers they may have crashed also on support.
Some like Vonage have enough of everything. Adapters everywhere. So cheap people buy them and try and unlock them. Vonage may end up with other financial problems. Just too much of everything.
There is a balance between too little and too much. Right now the SR collapse just put a strain on the too little side. The too much side comes when they do not have enough customers to foot the bills.
Plus on the porting side even the likes of Level3 or Global probably are not set up for hundreds of thousands of ports on top of the normal day to day stuff.

VTBrendan
Viatalk
Premium Member
join:2005-06-27
Clifton Park, NY

1 recommendation

VTBrendan

Premium Member

said by nonymous:

Plus on the porting side even the likes of Level3 or Global probably are not set up for hundreds of thousands of ports on top of the normal day to day stuff.
I can 100% assure you that this is the case. L3, porting wise. L3 is barely setup to handle regular porting volumes.

-Brendan

ptrowski
Got Helix?
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join:2005-03-14
Woodstock, CT

ptrowski to llast08

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to llast08
I think it would be tough for any smaller company increase their business by 1/3 after the SR demise.
Does VT have their issues before and after? Of course they do, no one is perfect and SR clearly pointed that out.

Just interesting time for a "press release".

SuperCPA
Premium Member
join:2002-11-28
Dayton, OH

SuperCPA to voiplover

Premium Member

to voiplover
Agree.
csudsu11
join:2004-05-28
Hackensack, NJ

csudsu11 to VTBrendan

Member

to VTBrendan
said by VTBrendan:

I can 100% assure you that this is the case. L3, porting wise. L3 is barely setup to handle regular porting volumes.
-Brendan
You're not blaming Level3 for ViaTalk's delays, are you? Because that would be a cheap cop-out. Every other provider has no problems fulfilling orders in one business day using a temporary number and then assigning the ported one when it's ready. People expect Level3 to take 30 days to port the number, they don't expect you to take 30 days to tape up a box.

VTBrendan
Viatalk
Premium Member
join:2005-06-27
Clifton Park, NY

1 recommendation

VTBrendan

Premium Member

said by csudsu11:

said by VTBrendan:

I can 100% assure you that this is the case. L3, porting wise. L3 is barely setup to handle regular porting volumes.
-Brendan
You're not blaming Level3 for ViaTalk's delays, are you? Because that would be a cheap cop-out. Every other provider has no problems fulfilling orders in one business day using a temporary number and then assigning the ported one when it's ready. People expect Level3 to take 30 days to port the number, they don't expect you to take 30 days to tape up a box.
I was talking about number porting.... hence the quote in my post, and the actual specific comment that you even quoted. I have a fairly good view of what goes on behind the scenes when it comes to dealing with L3 and porting, along with everything else.

-Brendan

digiblur
Premium Member
join:2002-06-03
Louisiana

digiblur to llast08

Premium Member

to llast08
Very true release from them. Still a paying customer and wouldn't have it any other way since the summer of 2004.

Excellent customer support and reliability. My only utility company I use that has them beat on reliability is my water company.
netscooby
join:2007-07-22
Raleigh, NC

netscooby to VTBrendan

Member

to VTBrendan
said by VTBrendan:

I can 100% assure you that this is the case. L3, porting wise. L3 is barely setup to handle regular porting volumes.

-Brendan
Hmmmm, Here's my experience...

I tried for a couple weeks to get Viatalk to port my number and they hadn't even submitted it. I then switched to Net2Phone and the port was done in one day. My number was already existing on L3.

Camelot One
MVM
join:2001-11-21
Bloomington, IN

Camelot One to voiplover

MVM

to voiplover
said by voiplover:

VP is putting out the warning because they are in the voip business and they see the black eye that is being caused by companies like Voip.com.
I agree with this 100%, and I think VP is right to be worried about it. Sure you have the tech crowd who all know the difference between VoIP company A and company B, but a large percentage of the public doesn't. VoIP, or "Internet Phone" is all the same thing. A bad experience with one company could be enough to send them running back to Ma Bell, and warning all of their friends to do the same.