Helena of Briarwood NY

I signed up for this internet based phone company in Oct. 2006 because the company promised to save me money and provide excellent phone landline service. My phone never worked from the start- friends and family members couldn't reach me at my home so we had to use our cells phones all the time.

My husband and I were on the phone with tech support guys numerous times where we were given different kind of explanations for service interruption, echoes (if they phone did work) and audio static. Keep in mind that in order to reach customer care/accnt manager or tech support, we had to use out cell phone after long day at work, stay on hold for hours and then learn the excuses that our internet speed is slow.

Account managers do not take notes or give out confirmation numbers of the complaints or discussions with the customers. We had to repeat ourselves again and again...Being naive, we've changed the internet providers twice in hopes that the phone will finally start working smoothly again. Finally, after 8 months of hell we realized that it's not internet that's causing the problems but simply Vonage service.

On June 20th 2007, I have called Verizon and asked them to switch me. At the same time, I've read reviews of other upset Vonage customers that kept receiving bills even after their phone service was terminated. I decided to call customer care and inform them in advance that I'm switching to Verizon and that I do not want to be Vonage customer ever again! I had to learn that for terminating Vonage service I have to pay $40 + tax as a penalty. This is something that was never discussed by a sales rep when I initially signed up. Nor did I receive any paperwork with a clear statement about rules and regulations of service fee disconnection.

To make matters worse, the account manager discontinued my service AND shut down my phone # completely that I've had for nearly 8 yrs. When Verizon agent called me and informed me that my old ph # is not available anymore, I was in tears and could not believe how stupid the employees at Vonage are.

Bill of Gloucester City NJ

I ordered Vonage phone service for my business. They didn't tell the full story that with my phone system they couldn't accomodate it. So the system arrived on 9/26/07 and was hooked up and never worked. Our previous service (Verizon) was disconnected and the new service kept saying that the # was not in service, and you are supposed to be able to keep your same phone #. It is now a week later. Vonage didn't want to release the phone line so I could go back to Verizon and now they are saying that this can't be accomplished till 10/9/07 which is another 2 weeks. I need to have this corrected sooner. Vonage didn't want to release the line even though they couldn't provide service from the beginning even though I paid in full plus. I have customer accounts they are having a hard time reaching me, and any street customers which I have no way of knowing about aren't reaching me. The main # is 856-456-4297. The secondary # 856-456-4352 and at times there are problems getting in on that. Vonage claims that they wouldn't release the main line due to being owed $39.00. They were sent a check for $101 and say they lost it. Then I had to pay them an additional $39and change because they said they hadn't got their equipment back and so therefore wouldn't release the line. I sent their equipment back last Thursday since none of it worked. They haven't received it as of yet. Lied about the whole service. Vonage told us we only needed the one line charge for the two line systems, and then said we needed to be charged for another line and didn't tell me that these phone lines could only be generated through a computer which wiped out my phones in my shop beside the office phones.

I am losing anywhere from $1000-$1500 or more a day. I have no idea the amount of business I am losing. I put an ad in the paper to give a discount and the ad started running the same time I started with the phone problem. So the ad's a waste of dollars since no one can call in and all they get is a number that isn't in service.

Mark Delehant of Morganton NC

I have been a customer of Vonage since Dec. 2006. For some reason, beginning in Feb. 2007 they began charging me for a second phone line which doubled my bill. I have lived in my house for over 15 years and have only had one line and one phone number. My efforts to resolve this matter only resulted in a major run around. I plan to get the tape-recorded conversations of my calls to vonage and pursue this to the end. As I see it, I trusted them with my checking account information and they stole from me, and once caught, refuse to give it back.

Over billed $250.00 and spent 5 hours on the phone in an effort to resolve the matter only to be offered an option of paying an additional $40.00 to cancel. Enormous amounts on mental and emotional torture while trying to resolve the matter peacefully. And in reading the other comments on this site it appears I am not the first. Can you say Class Action Lawsuit !!

Dick of Hortonville WI

When I signed up for Vonage, I had lots of problems getting it to work. No one at the customer service spoke English very well. I have had lots of problems involving billing, calls not going through, voicemail not working. The voicemail signal quit working within a month. I placed about 30 calls trying to fix this, and 2 years later it still doesn't work. In the last two weeks I have not been able to get an online bill, and this is the only way to get a Vonage bill since everything is done via the internet. I have placed 20 calls trying to get this fixed. They act like I am the problem.

I finally received a call from their Executive Response Team saying their engineers were working day and night to fix the problem. A week later, they said no one using the $14.95 (500 minutes) plan was able to get their bills. They said it would be fixed the next day. Two days later, they said it would be fixed by November 1. No one seems to care when you call this company because they know that they have you where they want you. I thought this experience would be so much better than the regular phone companies, but now I wonder.

Alybadras of Gahanna, OH

In January 2007, I contracted with Vonage as my land phone carrier. My bill was paid automatically via my Visa credit card. Starting in March 2007, without my request and unknown to me, a second number was added to my account and systematically charged to my credit card. This went on for 8 months. When I realized it on October 29, 2007, I was told that Vonage would not refund anymore than $24.99 x 2, within 3 to 5 calendar days. I am owed in excess of $220.00, taxes included, with little to no hope of recovering it any time soon. I've spent much time on the phone with overseas staff. This is outrageous, especially considering that it seems to be a recurrent theme with Vonage.

Should anyone wish to start a class action, I am more then willing to participate in it and stop this fraudulent scheme by a company which does not have any office nor representative in the state of Ohio. I, for one, view these tactics as a direct violation of each and every law, forbidding unfair and deceptive business practices.

Avoid Vonage Like The Plague

For those of you considering switching over from a traditional phone service to a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service AVOID Vonage like the plague! I speak from personal experience and information I’ve gathered over the web.

Vonage offers you all kinds of services for a low monthly fee. What Vonage provides is poor service, poor technical support, and poor business practices. There is virtually no communications between departments at Vonage. The left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Shortly after switching over to Vonage from Verizon I began to experience problems receiving calls. The phone wouldn't ring at my house and I wouldn't receive voicemails. Family and friends were telling me that they would receive messages that the number they called was out of service. Numerous calls to Vonage tech support both off-shore and here in North America failed to resolve the issue. Vonage tech support will issue a trouble ticket number for future reference and when you call back they will have no record of any previous tickets, this is a common complaint. Their primary technical support is based off-shore. One night I was on the phone for 2 hours with an Indian support representative who was having difficulty understanding english. I had to resort to spelling words phonetically, it was very painful.

After 4 months of being in phone hell I switched my phone service over to Optimum Voice. Another common complaint is that Vonage will continue to bill your credit card or do electronic withdrawals after you have cancelled their service. To add insult to injury Vonage charges a $39.99 disconnection fee to dump their poor service. NO OTHER phone company I ever dealt with had to be notified by the customer that the phone number was being switched to another phone company. NO OTHER phone company I ever dealt with had a disconnection fee.

Vonage is very good at stringing their customers along with offers of free months of service to customers who are unhappy or want to leave. The truth is, if I had to I would have gone back to Verizon and paid double if that had been my only choice for phone companies.

Vonage recently lost a patent infringement case to Verizon and currently has a stay in the courts while they appeal the decision. If Vonage is unable to win their appeal or come out with alternative technology, they could be forced out of business. I hope Verizon sues Vonage out of existence so they can't rip off other consumers or business owners.

In closing I would not recommend Vonage for residential and especially business phone service. Avoid Vonage like the plague!