I’ve mentioned before that we have had Vonage phone service. Yesterday we said goodbye to VoIP and got a landline installed again. It was part of a package deal. We also switched our internet and cable TV. Now we have just one bill for all three.

But that wasn’t the only reason we switched.

A long time ago I had MCI’s Neighborhood phone service. We got it right when bundling local and unlimited long distance was the cool thing to do. We were so excited to get unlimited long distance for the low, low price of $45.99 a month so we signed right up. And then the rates went up, up and up. Even with my $25 employee discount my bill was almost $40 a month. It was ridiculous.

Then Vonage came along and promised unlimited long distance plus some international calling for just $24.99 a month. That was cheaper than what were paying so we were lured in by their charm and big promises. Last September we signed right up and didn’t look back.

We had problems starting from day one. There are always some hiccups the first day you switch service providers, but our phone was just being wacky. Apparently our phone number hadn’t been ported over correctly. People who called our number went directly to voicemail (which we hadn’t set up yet) and never rang out our house. But our home phone was still ringing only it was always wrong numbers.

That worked itself out by the next day. But that wasn’t the end of our problems.

Not long after that our phone stopped working…again. This time we weren’t getting wrong numbers. We weren’t getting any calls at all. We could call out, but anybody who called us went directly to voicemail. That’s a nice feature when I’m sick of hearing the phone ring, but not so cool when I’m working from home.

Lee called customer service and spoke to a nice, young girl. She was nice, but not at all helpful. We’ve found this is the norm with Vonage’s customer service. The nice, young girl couldn’t figure out why people couldn’t call us. Everything looked fine, but she’d see what she could do. She did something on her end and then called us back (on Lee’s cell phone) to tell us she thought she fixed it. She was wrong. For several days it was hit or miss whether or not a call would actually ring through or just go directly to voicemail.

Then things got better. The phone seemed to work. For several days in a row. It was quite an accomplishment.

But then the crackling started.

I would be on conference calls and nobody could hear me because my phone kept breaking up. All of a sudden my calls turned in to Verizon commercials. “Can you hear me now?” I had to start taking calls on my cell phone. It didn’t happen all the time. But it happened often enough I was worried about making important phone calls from home.

As you can imagine it pretty much sucks paying for unreliable phone service. Even if it is cheaper than the neighborhood. Sometimes you get what you pay for.

So we switched.

Our new provider said they would take care of transferring our phone number from Vonage to them so I didn’t think I had to do anything. But yesterday Vonage took their monthly payment out of my account so I figured I better investigate.

I checked online and saw that my account was still active. I tried to cancel online, but they won’t let you do that…supposedly for your own protection. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the real reason is because they want to try to sell you on their service and change your mind (ala AOL). You can sign up for service, port your number and get a free Vonage router all with your keyboard, but if you want to cancel you need to do that live. Seems like it would make more sense to have to set up in real life to prove you’re really the person who owns the number, but what do I know.

So I called customer service and told them I needed to cancel. Karen, the girl who answered the phone, asked me why I wanted to disconnect. I said, “We’ve switched to a landline.”

We went back and forth with some banter about why I was switching. I tried to be nice and told her we have had limited service due to flooding and our internet being out. I was too tired to argue about bad service. I just wanted to disconnect and move on with my life. But Karen used that excuse as an opportunity to try to sell me some backup service in case my internet goes out. Not interested.

Then she went on to tell me if I kept my service she could give me a free month of service. Not interested. Already switched to a new provider.

Then she asked me if I have any friends or family would would like to switch to Vonage. I said, “I can’t really think of anybody right now.” I was still being nice at this point, but my patience were wearing thin.

Then she dropped the bombshell. “Well the reason I’m asking you all these questions is because you haven’t had your service for a full year yet so there is a disconnect fee.” Ok, I can handle a disconnect fee. She continued, “That would be a charge of $39.99.” Not bad. No big deal. I figured we could just use this month’s payment and I’d throw them another $10 and we’d be even.

But she wasn’t done. “Also, when you signed up we gave you a free router. Since you haven’t had the service for a year you will need to pay us back for that. That’s $89.99.” Woah! Really?!? That’s uncool. I was a little pissed. Ok, I signed a contract with disconnect fees. And I’ll honor that contract, but did we have to go through fifteen minutes of hard selling to get this point. That’s fifteen minutes of my life I’ll never get back. Fifteen minutes I could have been taking a nap. Or folding laundry. Or eating lunch. Or anything other than listening to some minimum wage lackey try to sell me shit we both knew I did not want.

But I remained calm and said, “Ok then I’ll just keep my service going for the next two months.” After all two months of service is cheaper than paying for the router.

“So you want to keep your service then?”

“Yes I guess so. I might as well pay $30 a month for two months rather than $140 for disconnecting now.”

“Good. Maybe you will be so happy with the service you will want to stay with us.”

That totally pissed me off. That bitch thought she had won. She thought she had saved a customer. That bitch pressed and pressed and pressed, pushing all of Vonage’s service like some $10 whore and she thought she won.

And that’s when I lost my damn mind.

“Um no. I won’t. In fact I will never use Vonage again. And I will be sure to let all of my friends and family know they should never use Vonage either. Your service sucks. It’s hit or miss whether or not I will get calls and whether or not they will be clear. And your visual voicemail is incoherent. You better believe I will call you on September 7th to cancel my service. I already put a reminder in my calendar. I’m not even using your service. Right now I’m calling you from my phone number on a landline. A landline that is not Vonage. There is no being happy with the service for the next two month because I am not using your service.”

And you know what she said? Do you know what this woman had the nerve to say to me? She said, “So would you like our backup service in case your current phone service goes down.”

At which point I screamed, “NO!” and hung up on her because I was afraid of what I might say next. I’m pretty sure if she was standing right in front of me I might have punched her. But I do have to say, that girl had balls.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 10:09 pm and is filed under A day in our life. Comments are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.