freqz
join:2007-07-17
|  Beware: Joiphone
Dear Customer,
Please be advised that the manner and call pattern of your residential
account is in violation of our Terms Of Service. In order to prevent
service interruption you will need to change your account to business
account where you can use 2500 min/mo/line there after you will be
charged 2 cents per minute.
Sincerely
Joiphone Billing
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So I promptly looked at my call logs. 345 min. for this month. So I called tried to get to someone in billing ( Because that's where the email came from) Could only get to support. I explain to support about the message and they told me I need to speak to billing, that they (Support) cannot do anything. I asked to be transfered to billing, and they said the only way to talk to billing is through email. So I sent them a email and I also included my very first contact from them about their service where they wrote "We have a basic line that gives you 100 minutes of local and long distance calls and a REAL UNLIMITED line, that gives you as many calls all over US and Canada for Long Distance and Local Calls, Incomming and Outgoing calls.".... No response from billing.
This morning my wife tried to call me and got the message "This account is blocked" I called support and they said, they cannot help. "You must contact billing, But you cannot talk to them you must email them"
So long story short, Still no service, Still no response from billing. Contact my Credit Card company since I paid a full year under 1 month ago !!!!
I highly doubt complaining to their parent company will get anywhere, I will try anyway.
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CyberSultan
Premium
join:2006-07-20 | Re: Beware: Joiphone Ouch. Sorry to hear this. Hope you are able to get it resolved to your satisfaction. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| Well, I truly think the only way to resolve this is a refund. Who in their right mind would stay after a incident like this ? If they go by "Cut them off first, maybe answer their questions, Only AFTER We take their money, but not before giving them the full run-a-round, to frustrate them to no end" Business practice route, I want nothing more to do with them!
There are way to many other compaines out there that would be happy to gain another customer! | |
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slow mo
join:2002-03-19
USA | 345 min. for the month and it's in violation??? I would call my credit card company and ask for a dispute. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| Exactly what I'm doing. Only bad part is my CC company is asking me to fax them all the details, and screen shots of their web site ( No big deal really ) But the only thing is, No phone line no fax machine. So I had to sign up for a online fax service. Oh well, At least I'll have internet faxing now for a year  ( yea, sign up for a year of that too ) I just hate monthly statements and charges. | |
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 | mazilo
From Mazilo
Premium
join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA
1 edit | Re: Beware: Joiphone said by freqz  :..., No phone line no fax machine. So I had to sign up for a online fax service. Sorry to hear what had happened to you, especially the VoSP company claimed to provide an UNLIMITED long distant calls to you.
I your CC company has toll-free FAX number, you can subscribe to FWD, SIPPhone (GizmoProject), and/or some free VoSPs that support free toll-free numbers to send FAXes. | |
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tester
@verizon.net | I try www.magicjack.com $40 with 1 year phone service.It works fine. | |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| said by freqz :So I promptly looked at my call logs. 345 min. for this month. not to be a wise guy, but today is December 4. If I look up how many minutes I've used "this month" it would be for 4 days. Perhaps you could share with us how many minutes you used in the last full month...
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"Teleblend has an agreement with the Assignee to solicit and support former SunRocket customers." | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| That's the thing, the account in not even a month old yet. Looking back at the call log From Nov 14 to nov 30 1960 min. Mind you, 2 daughters 13 and 14 and a wife that likes the phone too . Plus a holiday weekend where the kids were not in school or wife at work.
Does that sound like a non residential calling pattern ? Are they basing their call pattern off a single adult household ? | |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| Re: Beware: Joiphone if you used 1960 minutes over a two week stretch, it sounds like you're a customer they don't want. Look at it like this. They have to pay to terminate all of your calls. Let's say they pay their underlying provider 1¢/minute to terminate traffic. 4,000 minutes (a full month at your rate) at 1¢/minute is $40. You're paying less than $40/month for your service no doubt. So that means that your provider will be losing money on you each month. So you have been fired. With usage like that, you will likely be fired from any of the cheap providers that are watching their customer base closely. You would be best off getting lost in the large customer base of Vonage or Packet 8. try downloading that free softphone product from www.icall.com (5 minute limit per call). maybe it will work better for your kids than it did for me.
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"Teleblend has an agreement with the Assignee to solicit and support former SunRocket customers." | |
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meister_sd
Premium
join:2006-01-29
La Mesa, CA
| Re: Beware: Joiphone said by RockyBB :They have to pay to terminate all of your calls. Well, I see two problems with this if the minutes are the sole reason for suspension.
1) They suspended his account without talking to him first.
2) They based this on ONE month's worth of billing. And considering this is the holidays - well.....
These "heavy usage" issues should be averaged out over a few months and not from a new signup. It sounds like the company didn't even give him the change to signup for the business rates/plan before suspending him! | |
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| | mazilo
From Mazilo
Premium
join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA
2 edits | said by RockyBB :They have to pay to terminate all of your calls. Let's say they pay their underlying provider 1¢/minute to terminate traffic. 4,000 minutes (a full month at your rate) at 1¢/minute is $40. IMHO, the company should not claim the service is UNLIMITED. The word UNLIMITED litterally means NO LIMITS! Regardless how much the VoSP pays to terminate the calls, the company should not put any limit when it claims the service is UNLIMITED. Have you heard of AT&T and/or other PSTN companies do this? I don't think so. Based on your explanation, the VoSP companies should increase their rate if they want to be in business to provide for UNLIMITED services to compensate for the lost or simply stop advertising with the UNLIMITED services. Otherwise, this practice of services is not fair to the end consumers regardless what your math explanation shown above. | |
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tommy13v
Premium
join:2002-02-15
Glenville NY
 ·ViaTalk
| When are VoIP companies gonna learn that if they screw consumers with this unlimited verbiage that they are going to lose customers faster than they can sign them up?
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Click to Call for Asterisk servers
byodvox coming soon | |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| Re: Beware: Joiphone said by tommy13v :When are VoIP companies gonna learn that if they screw consumers with this unlimited verbiage that they are going to lose customers faster than they can sign them up? They will be delighted to lose customers that are not profitable. That is the point.
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"Teleblend has an agreement with the Assignee to solicit and support former SunRocket customers." | |
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voiplover
Premium
join:2004-05-28
Portsmouth, NH | Re: Beware: Joiphone What Rocky just said. | |
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tommy13v
Premium
join:2002-02-15
Glenville NY | Yeah, makes sense. | |
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meister_sd
Premium
join:2006-01-29
La Mesa, CA
| said by RockyBB : They will be delighted to lose customers that are not profitable. That is the point. While I agree to a certain degree with this statement, the bigger problem is that customers who may have tried this provider will be scared away.
I don't know what kind of numbers there are to back up this kind of practice (unknown/profitable/unprofitable) but I would think that they would want to retain customers and try to open dialog to either see if this is a fluke or convince them to upgrade to a plan that would be better for both parties. There was a marketing class I was in that said for every 10 positive it took one negative to balance the sheet. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| I think the thing here is The left hand (Sales) has no clue other than to get sales and say whatever.
Before I went with joiphone, I email and live chatted with a dozen or so compaines to actually find the truth behind this word "Unlimited" I would say 80% of the companies had minute limits averaging to 5000 min. an month. ( ViaTalk is at 5,100 min a month )
In my contact directly with Joiphone through their own ticket system I asked this specific question:
Is your unlimited plan unlimited with no hidden TOS terms. Ie. Anything over 5000 min. a month is considered over the max allowed in your term unlimited"
Their direct response was:
"We have a basic line that gives you 100 minutes of local and long distance calls and a REAL UNLIMITED line, that gives you as many calls all over US and Canada for Long Distance and Local Calls, Incomming and Outgoing calls."
Which in my thinking put them above the rest. STUPID ME, I guess there is no "REAL UNLIMITED" and yes, he did reply to me in all caps emphasizing the real unlimited. Other thing , Stupid Me again, thinking that their system is ticket tracked, Why whould they Lie, or try to deceive someone. | |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| said by freqz :Stupid Me several things could be in play here. none of them are your fault. 1) the sales staff is not informed of their policy, 2) their policy recently changed and they decided not to grandfather existing accounts or warn them of the policy change, or 3) sales staff are purposely not truthful, possibly because the individual rep gets paid for signing up customers. any of these resulted in an angry customer, and a posting about joiphone that will be googled and seen by future potential customers, likely scaring them away. All that adds up to STOOPID MANAGEMENT, not stoopid customers.
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"Teleblend has an agreement with the Assignee to solicit and support former SunRocket customers." | |
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| | mazilo
From Mazilo
Premium
join:2002-05-30
Lilburn, GA
2 edits | Re: Beware: Joiphone said by RockyBB :1) the sales staff is not informed of their policy, LOL ... This started to sound like statement made by Sen. Joe Biden that Bush is one of the most incompetent presidents in modern American history since the President just learned only last week that a recent intelligence estimate says Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 (quoted from CNN). I hate to say this; however, I feel like we, Americans, are losing our own credibilities, let alone in the eyes of people around the world. Company like Joiphone as well as people like the US President who practice such deceptions should be taken down and charged for their malpractice. Unfortunately, what I see here in this country is only those small fishes who have done such a malpractice are the ones who got caught to face the laws while those big fishes are let lose and still running around practicing their deceptions on us. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| Whatever it boils down to is very bad business practice, and it's clear they just don't want me as a customer  Called a few minutes ago and asked again why I had the service shut down and was told to email their billing department, when I said I did they and they have not responded, they said, well there is nothing they can do for me anymore.
I can take the hint, and Yea, I've already disputed the charges, which already show as a credit, there is no way they can pull out of that one, It's all over their web site, Unlimited, their email exchange with me stating unlimited, my account information still on their site stating "Unlimited yearly", etc. I took all that information and "snagit'd and along with my dispute when I faxed it to them. Talking with the CC company fraud dept. they said it's a open and shut case.
The days of taking ones word have long passed. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| And to think that their Unlimited Business is actually 2500 minutes.
In no means is this a plug for Viatalk ( But they so far are the only open company to tell what their unlimited actually is) but their business unlimited is 10,200 minutes a month.
10k minutes sounds more like a business line then 2500 | |
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| jeremyv
join:2007-05-22
Los Angeles, CA | Re: Beware: Joiphone Maybe they need to look up for the word "UNLIMITED" in the dictionary.
Nonetheless an account just a few weeks old is not enough to be able to see or tell if its a non residential call pattern. They should give new customer at least 3 months. | |
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Sarath
@intergraph.com
| Hey Joiphone is a realscam
You want to see how many people got cheated by them.
recently they introduced unlimited calling to India at 40$ per month and when the people started making calls they blocked all their accounts with out notification.
Check the below site. It started well and after that see how many users started complaining
»https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID···28370233
Every one started complaing about them to FCC and to GOVT Of USA.
Please beware of joiphone
Thanks
Kingfisher | |
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Syed Khursheed
@net.pk
| I have sign up with JoiPhone on Nov 27th but I haven't recieved my equipment yet. Whenever I tried to customer support they said everything is fine and we will ship your kit very soon.
They charge $14.95 for the shipping and its around more than 11 days and I have not recieved shipment from JoiPhone.
I think this is a BOGUS COMPANY and they are doing the sale as SUNROCKET did. | |
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RockyBB
Premium
join:2005-01-31
Longmont, CO
| Re: Beware: Joiphone sorry, sucker, but you shouldn't buy VOIP service based on price. likewise, you should not buy cheap calendars from discount bins. 11 days after Nov 27 is Dec 8 which hasn't happened yet.
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"Teleblend has an agreement with the Assignee to solicit and support former SunRocket customers." | |
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Syed Khursheed
@net.pk | ohh Sorry! thats my mistake....it was on Nov 25th! | |
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unknvoip
WWJID?
join:2006-07-25
Rochester, NY | Re: Beware: Joiphone said by Syed Khursheed :
ohh Sorry! thats my mistake....it was on Nov 25th!
Dec 6th? | |
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christcorp
Premium
join:2001-05-21
Cheyenne, WY
 ·Bresnan Online
·VOIPo
1 edit | The biggest problem people have with VOIP and the word "UNLIMITED", is what you consider "UNLIMITED". I've spoken with a number of voip CEOs, number of lawyers, state government; attorney general, interstate trade, etc... The problem is, what the company refers to "UNLIMITED" may not be what you think it is.
Now, some can consider that a bait and switch, some can consider it good marketing. What matters most is whether the majority of customers stay with the provider and the provider makes money or not.
The word "UNLIMITED" can imply many different things. Just because it's not what you think it means, doesn't mean it is wrong. For instance; many voip customers automatically "ASSUME" that an "UNLIMITED LINE" means "UNLIMITED MINUTES". The problem is, the word "MINUTES" is not in there. Matter of fact, joiphone on the main page says; "All plans are subject to reasonable residential usage limitations (domestic or international)". So, does that mean that joiphone is lying when they say the line is "UNLIMITED". No really.
"UNLIMITED" can mean; Unlimited places you can call; You have unlimited access to all of their features; unlimited access to any of their rate centers; Unlimited amount of lines at $8.95 a month each; Unlimited IN-NETWORK calling; Unlimited time 24/7/365 with no different rates like Ma'Bell; etc... There are a lot of things about their line that are "UNLIMITED". Only the customer automatically assumes that "UNLIMITED" implies MINUTES and USAGE are what is "UNLIMITED".
Now, is this misleading, bait and switch, unethical, etc...? That is a separate debate. The real problem is that giving advice is useless. The advice of; "Ask the provider DETAILS prior to signing up for service" is only good advice to a NEW voip customer. The majority of folks on a forum are here usually because they were looking for answers to a problem. Hence, they are already a customer or already has learned their lesson.
So, the truth is, most all of these voip providers are indeed offering "UNLIMITED" voip telephone service. Just not necessarily "UNLIMITED MINUTES". I know it sucks, but that's the truth and how they get away with stating the word "Unlimited". Later... Mike.... | |
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See 10 replies to this post |
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zaldy
join:2007-12-07 | Aside from the "Unlimited" issue from joiphone, how about the quality of the calls? | |
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SMCinAZ
Premium
join:2000-11-29
Glendale, AZ
clubs: | You should buy a couple of MagicJacks, at least for your kids. They get their own numbers and can yack all day. | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| As for Joiphone's quality, about 90% of the time, Callers said I sounded very low/faint.
The only other problem I had was when I connected their adapter in front of my router. It killed my Up/Down speed by no less then 75%. Right now my up/dow speed is on average 14 meg down / 1.5 meg up . Put their adapter Linksys SPA2100 in front of it just kills the bandwidth. Does not matter if your on the phone or not.
Their User control Panel brings back the memory of Basica programming before the days of Microsoft. | |
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| Russell_
join:2006-04-06
4 edits | Re: Beware: Joiphone said by freqz :I can take the hint, and Yea, I've already disputed the charges, which already show as a credit, there is no way they can pull out of that one, It's all over their web site, Unlimited, their email exchange with me stating unlimited, my account information still on their site stating "Unlimited yearly", etc. I took all that information and "snagit'd and along with my dispute when I faxed it to them. Talking with the CC company fraud dept. they said it's a open and shut case. Just wondering if you got your money back from your CC company.
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Russell | |
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| | zaldy
join:2007-12-07
·OneSuite
| Re: Beware: Joiphone said by Russell_ :said by freqz :I can take the hint, and Yea, I've already disputed the charges, which already show as a credit, there is no way they can pull out of that one, It's all over their web site, Unlimited, their email exchange with me stating unlimited, my account information still on their site stating "Unlimited yearly", etc. I took all that information and "snagit'd and along with my dispute when I faxed it to them. Talking with the CC company fraud dept. they said it's a open and shut case. Just wondering if you got your money back from your CC company. Same question here. | |
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mpatrick14
join:2007-12-27
Las Vegas, NV
·Joi Phone
| »Joi Phone
DLSReports.com actually has a section reserved for JoiPhone Reviews and an "Unofficial JoiPhone Discussion Forum"
There is a ton of good information there, including links to other threads on dlsreport.com about JoiPhone, other sites full of reviews of the company, the infamous Terms of Service, and links to the Better Business Bureau site for the company, where you can click the link to file a complaint.
As someone who has personally been victimized by JoiPhone's fraudulent activities, I wanted to try and collect all of the info I could in the actual JoiPhone forum where it would be easier for people to locate.
If you have any questions about the company or how to complain, or even just want to vent, please feel free to shoot me a note!
Thanks!
Mike | |
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freqz
join:2007-07-17
| Yes, I did get my money back from my CC company. It was a open and shut case. I gave all my information I had collected and sent along with my dispute, and my cc company called me and asked a few questions like, did they give you a warning, is it working now, etc. Of course I was turned off and the joiphone recording said that as well. I got the charged reversed and 2 weeks ago, I got follow up call from my CC company saying joiphone was disputing the reversal, and not too worry, the case is closed. Joiphone was saying they never shut the service off or blocked anything. But the CC company verifed the number was turned off, and all the doc's. Basically the CC Company advised me to not reactivate with them if they call.
So In the mean time I've been using Phonepower, while collecting information on other voip companies on the dark-area of the usage/unlimited. Have my final choice narrowed down to 2 or 3 right now. | |
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