In a nutshell, Vonage service might be good for customers who use phone a lot. For placing "free" local or US long-distance call you need high speed internet modem ($100-200), high speed internet provider (minimum $20 for the slow one which you will upgrade anyway), phone adapter (free), activation/startup fee ($50 waived if promotion), subscription (minimum $15). I do not use phone a lot, so my DSL (upgraded) + phone cost me $35-40/month through SBC/Yahoo and 10-10-... long-distance service. In my case switching to VG service does not make economical reason. If they would sell service in bundle with internet, then maybe, but not probably. Googling vonage quality did not bring much excitement. Quality is almost always worser then traditional land line and depends on bandwidth of DSL/cable connection, so you better get decent speed right away. I liked their website though, it is cool. Not sure what their business thrives from? Clues?
Scotty for dickhead of the weekend award. Competing hard with his hill billy cousin cscott for ET 2007 Darwin Award.
If you had a lunatic walking around in your backyard would you just ignore him or blow his head off with a shotgun?...
I have a friend who subscribed to Vonage and changed services, he attempted to cancel Vonage service, but was referred to a department that is common in some types of companies. This department wouldnt cancel his service and kept on giving him the run around. Finally this friend relegated the matter to his secretary, and secretary is kind of vicious. She was able to cancel his service for him. Just to point out another thing that is common, I subscribe to multple quote services for different instruments and service plans. When you cancel a service, the company seems to 'forget' that you cancelled their service and keeps billing you for a extra few months till you notice it again on the credit card bills. Come Monday because of this I will cancel all services from this company. I wont state who this company is. They have lost my business for life. But these types of practices only seem to surface in companies that are having a hard time holding their subscriber base. Chris
I hate all these internet services with auto-renew or monthly billing. You try to cancel, and they either make it really hard, or they offer a month or two free and you forget to call back and cancel later. For all, it is best to make your initial attempt to cancel, then follow it up immediately with a paper letter indicating your wish to cancel, certified mail, return receipt. Then, if they ever charge you again, don't bother wasting time on the telephone calls, just dispute the charges using your cancel letter as backup. It is too bad that the world has come to this.
I just write a letter to the company explaining how unless they cancel in a week I will take them to small claims court. Works well.
It does not sound good. The VoIP is actually might be cheaper then traditional phone, plus they offer many extra useful features for free, but quality is a concern. Look at www.top10voipproviders.com . Vonage is #7, not the cheapest one, not sure if it delivers best quality among them either, but I can see their advertisements more often then the rest.
When I first signed on to Vonage (at the suggestion of my roomate), I thought it was a Gem, super low prices and multiple ways of accessing my calls, as well as easy screening of sales people, prankersters, etc. For a couple of months I was like the cat that ate the canary. Several weeks ago, I remember seeing an article that Vonage was having problems and needed a business loan to stay afloat, that piqued my ears up, but the service seemed to still be fine ... ... two weeks ago I started having severe service disconnects, and when I called the Help Line, I got someone nameed John Smith, but he had an East Indian accent (I kid you not). I (obviously) am in the process of changing services, and to avoid the run-around I'm having my new service manage the process, and I'll be sure to disconnect the payment feature when the process is completed as well. Thanks for sharing. Jimmy Jam