As promised, this is the continuation of the last post. 10 days later and the game Vonage set in motion continues.
I signed up for Vonage January 1, 2009. I was told that it would take 10-14 days to change over our existing phone number. 14 days passed and our old phone number still had not been changed over. I called Vonage. I was told they needed my old phone number account and then they would resubmit the request to have our number changed over. I was told this would take 2-3 days. 3 days later, I called again to ask why our phone number still had not changed over. I was told they didn't know why. They said they would re-resubmit the request [and it should only take 2-3 days]. This pattern continued into the first week of February.
I finally tried calling our old carrier to find out what the problem was. They told me, that according to their records, they had agreed from day 1 with Vonage to release our phone number on February 10th. From day 1!
The day our old phone number finally switched over, I called Vonage and explained that I did not want their service any longer. They explained that they would have to charge me for three things: The equipment, early cancellation fee and the entire month of February. I asked them how they could justify for charging me for anything at all when they did not live up to their end of the bargain and the fact their customer service reps were never upfront with me about when the changeover date would take place. The cancellation folks at Vonage told me it was out of their hands. If I wanted to, I could submit a request in writing, to their billing department and spell out my reasons for requesting a refund.
I wrote my letter.
I received a response saying that they were going to expedite my case.
They informed me that they would refund me the price of the equipment if I sent it back to them.
I said fine. What about the rest of the fees?
They wrote back. They said they would refund the early cancellation fee.
I said fine. What about the charges for February?
They still have not responded.
You can call a skunk by any other name and it will still stink like a skunk.
When Vonage canceled our account, they shut us down right then and there. Somehow a third party ended up with rights to our phone service. We have not been able to receive any calls. We can only make local calls. When we called our old carrier to "re-sign" up they told us that they could not give us our old number yet, because Vonage still had it listed as connected. They informed us that the third party that currently controls our temporary number is charging us 10 cents per minute for local calls...what more would you like me to say?
4 comments:
In today's business world it is critical that companies learn about the social media outlets, namely blogging and sites such as Facebook etc. See, it only takes one article like this and pretty soon there is a barrage of posts, comments and tweets with people all over the internet sharing their bad experiences. A company stands to lose thousands and thousands of potential customers simply by one person sharing his/her bad experience. The power of the grapevine has grown exponentially. Those that learn the quickest will take away business from competitors that don't - it's that simple.
Sorry you had such a bad experience - thanks for posting about it though. We change the world one post at a time.
I thinks that's one reason why Dell is making a comeback in customer service. They have a team dedicated to searching complaints on the internet and do their best to act as advocates for the injured party [if such a grievance really exist].
Last week I received an offer from Vonage, inviting me to come back and they would give me 2 months free [so after 3 months of service, I would end up paying $24.99].
Today I received an offer from Vonage saying that if I come back, they will give me 3 months at $9.95.
Do the math. Who are they trying to kid?
It's been over a month and I've corresponded with Vonage at least twice a week now and the issue still has not been resolved. They won't tell me whether or not they'll refund the rest of my money.
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