Move on to what, may I ask?

I just cancelled Vonage service that I never even had an opporturnity to use. I called to cancel their customer care center and let them know I needed to cancel with in the time frame to avoid the cancellation fee. I notified by E-mail as well. I had also e-mailed them 2 times about cancelling. Yesterday I was told by a customer management person, that if I did not speak to one of them in that department it is not considered cancelled.

I did not want their service and in fact never used the service that I had already been charged 28.76 per month for without any services. I was on the phone 3 hours trying to set up service and their technitions could not get the modem to function with the computer and the high speed internet. I didn’t cancel then but did call a customer Care person who extended my 30 period to a 60 period, but it took longer to get a service and get my phone number back. Vonage told me If I didn’t cancel with the customer manager between 8 Am and 4:55Pm, then My account was not cancelled. It didn’t matter that I had called customer care, nor e-mailed them on two occaisions.

They still charged a cancellation fee and a fee for not having the service 12 months, in addition to charging me already for two months of service I never received.

I asked for my unused Vonage account to be canceled this past weekend when I was still in the trial period. No one responded, so when I call today to cancel I am passed through three phone banks and then finally get to speak to someone who tells me that he will have to charge me $99 dollars to cancel? That is the most absurd thing that I have heard and not a practice that any valid company tries to implement. Not only is this wrong and illegal, I never agreed to it either verbally or in written form. The young man was inflexible with this and refused to close out the account unless I authorized payment of this fee.

Now I want to cancel at this time for a variety of reasons, but trying to hold me hostage with a $99 dollar fee is strong arm tactics and will not hold up in a court of law.

People should be aware of the illegal, ineffecient and hostile business practices of Vonage. I certainly will not recommend their service to anyone and will strongly advise using other optiions.

I had to comment. I just cancelled my Vonage service. The first time I called, I spoke to a very rude woman who kept trying to talk me into staying. I explained to her that I had been having continous issues since April of 2006. She continued to try and convince me to stay. She fnally seemed as if she was going to cancel it and said she could waive my $50 cancellation fee if I stuck around for 1 more month to help them resulve their issues. NOTE: I have been waiting for them to get their issues resolves since April to no avail. I finally got angry and said, “This is simple. Cancel my Account today. Please cancel my account.” Her angry response was “This is not simple,” and she put me on indefinite hold. I eventually hung up and called back. After waiting for 20 minutes, I finally got someone live and went through the whole process again. FINALLY, the new lady named Summer gave in, charged me a ridiculous $39.99 cancellation fee and said I will receive a notification via e-mail. we’ll see if that really happens. I can see a future for VOIP technology. In fact, I recruit for a Telecom company that is investing millions in VOIP for 911. All I can say is that for the personal user, VOIP leaves something to be desired and Vonage is a company to stay away from. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

I also had a difficult time cancelling Vonage today 4 December 2006. It took over 45 minutes of waiting and responding to questions. I already switched to Verizon Voice Wing about 2 months ago to see if it was more reliable and to me it is much better. I talked to a woman by the Name of Marria and she was not rude, but just doing what she is payed to do. I tries to switch my number in earlier november but Vonage rejected the transfer and unfortunately I did not get e-mail from Verizon telling me that Vonage rejected my request because of an illigible signature. Unfortunately, I have now lost my original phone number. I didn’t want to find out what excuse they would use next month if I tried another transfer request again at a cost of ~$30.00 for another month of service fees. These kind of experiences are bad for the VOIP business potential. If I ever hafve to switch again it will be back to land line.

Well, I’ve been with Vonage for the past two years now; experienced some issues, but nothing remotely close to the terrible times some of you have gone through. I would have sticked with the service, but finally decided that it was costing me too much to have a cell phone and a land line, so I decided to drop Vonage in favor of this.

Reading what all of you went through, I was ready to call and be faced with the worst. However, I decided to come up with a story that would thwart even their most seasoned cancellation veterans.

This is what you do: Call their HELP line, go to the cancellation option and then wait. (Luckily, I waited about 5 minutes.) Next, as soon as the person gets on the line say, “Hello, My name is Michael and I would like to cancel my account because I am moving to another country.” This will immediately cause them to lose most of their script and go to Page 2. The kind woman on the other line then asked me if the move was permanent. I told her that I would be overseas for the next 10 years. She countered by saying that Vonage could be used anywhere, it was one of the advantages, etc. I agreed that the thought had crossed my mind, but unfortunately I was moving to a place where Internet service was not allowed. She asked if she might know the location of this country. I told her Ethiopia. She asked if there were any towns nearby that might have Internet access, I told her no, because I was moving to a monastery and it was 100 miles away from the nearest town. Very remote. She became quiet and then asked if there was anyone living in the U.S. that could use the account while I was gone. As this point, I was like, ‘Jeesh…’, but I went on, “No, there’s nobody here in the U.S. I could transfer this too. That’s part of why I’m leaving the country. My family has passed away, my dog just died, and I just don’t value material possessions as much as I used to.’

She got started on canceling my account….

So, when faced with such an obstacle, don’t fight them. They want you to give them reasons to continue attempting to keep you. Just tell them how great the service was, and then come up with some outlandish story to which they have no response to. Good luck!

Thanks Michael, great idea!

Leanne

While trying to cancel my account with Vonage today, my call was dropped (this is one of the main issues that I have been having along with the fact that I am never able to call the UK because the lines are always busy). I called back and I wish I had read Michael’s suggestion earlier, because it was a 30 minute debate with 2 seperate people and a hold time in between the 2 reps. of 22 minutes. They offered to send someone from their elite team to my home to troubleshoot the problem but, because they first person was so arrogant to assume that they offer the best service, I declined the 2nd person’s offer. Also, they told me that I would have to pay the $99 fee to cancel the service. I advised the person that i would not pay the fee and he told me that if i did not agree to pay the fee that he would not cancel the service as i requested. Being completely angry at that time, I asked him if he was insane? He stated that by calling him insane that I was being beligerent with him and that he would disconnect the call. I told him that if he thought the he could somehow force/bully me to keep the service, he was insane, at which time he disconnected the call. I will call them again later today and use Michael’s spiel and see where that gets me. This can’t be legal, can it?

I tried today March 13,2007 to Cancel Vonage, I ported my Number on Feb 7 2007 to another service. I called today as they are still billing me for service. I asked for them to Cancel the Service and to refund the payments made for the time the number was ported away from there service. Well that satarted the questions. I just stoped them from talking and said I want someone who can do what I asked. I was told I can cancel your service but can not give a refund. I said put somone who can on well the next guy went thur the same questions (phone number, account number, ect. He then said how can I help you Sir told the same story and he said I can not give a refund but I can Cancel your account. I again said get me someone on the phone that can help me. He said hold on Sir I will and the next thing I heard was a fast busy and disconect. I called back now I have a lady on the phone same questions. Told her the story she also said I can cancel the account but no refund, I asked how do I get my money back she then told to file a dispute with the CC copany!!!. They will not give me a refund just because I did not use the service no useage don’t cancel the account I said you don’t even have the number anymore how can you charge me. I Hung Up so mad by this time. I got my wife to stand next to me and I called back and put them on speaker so she could hear. I said again I want To Cancel and Want a refund for service I did not use. Time for Questions again, After all the account questions I said can you help me she said yes Sir I can cancel your account I said fine cancel it. I then again asked about the refund and she said WE DO NOT GIVE REFUNDS!. I said I am going to file a complaint to the FCC and the BBB about this issue. At that time she said I will Cancel the service and she HUNG UP!!. So I guess I will have to file the complaints with the FCC, BBB and the CC Company to get this right. ALL WHO READ DONOT USE VONAGE!!!!!!!!!!!! EVER

Michaels advice was great! Not only was it humorous, but it gave me my own script to use against their script when I recently called to cancel my Vonage service. Total time to cancel was less than 10 minutes, and no headaches. They did hit pretty much all the same quesitons he indicated though. Hehehe. Thank you for the good natured advice, Sir!

FYI - in case anyone cares, Vonage was great for me when I lived in an area where it would work for me. I recently moved to the country where cable and DSL are unavailable. I use a cellular wireless card, and get decent speed, but wasn’t able to tweak vonage to the point that it would function acceptably for business purposes (home office) over that type of a connection. Oh well.

Wow! This is great. Thank you all for these posts. Just moved to the US and was considering Vonage because of a great offer to call overseas, but when I called them, the woman was really pushy when I told her that I didn’t want automatic payments from my credit/debit card. I told her that would not be possible for me. She talked my ear off, barking at me that Vonage gives me so many options: I could, for example, get a credit card specifically for Vonage that would have a $32 limit since my bill would never be more. RIGHT!! Like I’m going to do that. The fact that she suggested such a thing totally made my decision for me right there! Your posts have confirmed what I initially thought when she said I could not receive a bill and that payment was automatic. Joining is easy. Cancelling is near impossible. and they just keep billing and billing. And you gave them authorization to do so… These things always seem fine until the day you want to cancel. AIE AIE AIE. Never said hello to Vonage, so I don’t have to say goodbye.

BBB has revoked Vonage for complaints as of March 2007

All you have to do is tell them you lost your job and you already canceled you high speed internet access and now your canceling your vonage account because you don’t have the money to pay for it. There is nothing they can now say since all they want is your money. Worked great for me.

DO NOT SIGN UP WITH VONAGE EVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY ARE A BUNCH OF LIARS, THEIEVES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THEY WILL RUN YOU IN CIRCLES TO CANCEL, AND WHEN YOU DO CANCEL, THEY WILL CHARGE YOU OVER $100 NO MATTER WHAT THE CONTRACTS SAYS!!!!!!!!!!!

DO A CHARGE BACK ON YOUR CREDIT CARDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DONT LET THESE THIEVES TAKE A DIME FROM YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You can stop further charges to your account by accidentally changing the payment info on your Vonage account. You will eventually be disconnected without the possibility of reactivation according to Vonage’s own policy which was intended to get you to purchase a new device each time.
I discovered this after they screwed me the last time, so I used it against them.

I tried to cancel vonage today and spent 3 hours on the line. The terms of service clearly state that you have 60 days to cancel. I was told that I would be charged $99 because I have used the service for more than 30 days. The customer service is horrible. I looked them up on the BBB website and they have over 5000 complaints. I too was held hostage and told that I would have to pay the $99 to cancel. I’ll be filing complaints with my credit card company and the FCC as well.

I am going thru the EXACT same situation right now. I switched to Verizon 3 months ago and have been charged by Vonage for the past 3 months. I called for a refund today and they told me the same - they don’t give refunds. Have you had any luck getting your money back? This company is a fraud from all the complaints h i have been reading today online….. STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE!!!!!

I just tried to cancell from vonage for the past 3 months with no success … they say no problem and than nothing … i still get billed …. this is very sad I don’t know why they are doing this … Sooner or later they will start loosing costumers because of this … and will not gain any new ones … I tried again today and hopefully it will finally happen …

Wow. What a crappy way to treat customers. I WAS thinking of signing up, but no longer. Glad I decided to do a little research. Thanks.

September 13, 2007
Dave Bertril @ 1:52 pm:
You can stop further charges to your account by accidentally changing the payment info on your Vonage account. You will eventually be disconnected without the possibility of reactivation according to Vonage’s own policy which was intended to get you to purchase a new device each time.
I discovered this after they screwed me the last time, so I used it against them.

Hi Dave,
I am preparing to cancel my 7-month old Vonage account and feel like a gladiator preparing for the Coliseum! If I change the cc number, if it is bogus won’t their website detect that? What if I change it to someone else’s #? How long does it take this scenario to play out before they disconnect me?
Barbara

I had very similer problems with vontage chared for about 4 months of sevice that I tryed to canncel then told about a cancalation fee that I never agreed to or notifide about if there are any lawsuits concerning these issues of not being able to cancle or having money stolen from you let me know

charged
lol danm typo

please cancel my fax number and all the others # that is in my name
thank u!

Vonage representatives have taken their tactics to an all time low….

I received a threatening phone call from a Vonage representative this evening. The man who called me indicated that he knew where I lived and was sitting outside my door and he then proceeded to repeat my home address as well as my name… After he hung up on me I dialed *69 and received this telephone number (732) 907-2113…I performed an online ( Intellus ) background check and the report revealed the information listed below:

NAME: VONAGE
SERVICE TYPE: Land Line
CARRIER: Paetec Communications, Inc. - NJ
ADDRESS: Highland Park, NJ 0
COUNTY: MIDDLESEX

I called Vonage and spoke to a customer care representative, who apologized for any inconveience….I then decided to goggle the telephone number and found several forums in which others had also been receiving calls from the above phone number… I am really scared because this man knows my address. I hope and pray something is done about this situation….This company needs to be put out of business!!!!!

All of the people running Vonage retention came from AOL!!! HMMM… no wander. They will do anything to keep you paying but basically will just make it so hard and inconvienent to cancel that you will stay on. The Govt. will come down on them eventually if they keep it up.

STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE!!
Absolute disaster! They are dishonest theives who won’t let you cancel. They will try everything including hanging up on the call after 45 mins of wait, transferring you all over the place asking stupid questions over and over again etc etc..

I strongly urge you to look elsewhere for your VoIP services. This company should be defending class action lawsuits everyday!

I decided to cancel my Vonage account because I was no longer using it. I have never encountered a company that worked harder to keep a customer.

Of course, any company will try to verify that I am the “owner” of the account. But verifying my name, account number, billing address & Vonage phone # wasn’t enough. I also needed to verify the date my account last billed and the amount of my last Vonage monthly statement. Isn’t this ridiculous? What kind of company asks you to provide all of this information? They then needed the model # of the Vonage modem. If I hadn’t been home, I wouldn’t have been able to cancel–just what they hope will happen to many who call.

Even my “Account Manager” started in with a slew of questions about how I felt about my Vonage service. I told her I had barely used it at all, and that limited usage had been over 2 years ago. She pushed on and continued to ask questions about the service. I continued to say I wasn’t going to answer questions about the service and just wanted to cancel. She then moved her focus to switching me to a lower cost plan. Even though I continued to state that I just wanted to cancel, she still tried to sell me another plan. I was almost shouting CANCEL by now. I finally had to tell her that if she wasn’t going to cancel my account she needed to transfer me to a Supervisor who would do it for me. That did it. She cancelled the service.

I’m certain that many Vonage customers would have given up in frustration before reaching this point–which is precisely what they hope will happen.

I decided to cancel my Vonage account because I was no longer using it. (I had installed it to have a separate line for a side business I was operating for awhile.) I have never encountered a company that worked harder to keep a customer.

Of course, any company will try to verify that I am the “owner” of the account. But verifying my name, account number, billing address & Vonage phone # wasn’t enough. I also needed to verify the date my account last billed and the amount of my last Vonage monthly statement. Isn’t this ridiculous? What kind of company asks you to provide all of this information? They then needed the model # of the Vonage modem. If I hadn’t been home, I wouldn’t have been able to cancel–just what they hope will happen to many who call.

Even my “Account Manager” started in with a slew of questions about how I felt about my Vonage service. I told her I had barely used it at all, and that limited usage had been over 2 years ago. She pushed on and continued to ask questions about the service. I continued to say I wasn’t going to answer questions about the service and just wanted to cancel. She then moved her focus to switching me to a lower cost plan. Even though I continued to state that I just wanted to cancel, she still tried to sell me another plan. I was almost shouting CANCEL by now. I finally had to tell her that if she wasn’t going to cancel my account she needed to transfer me to a Supervisor who would do it for me. That did it. She cancelled the service.

I’m certain that many Vonage customers would have given up in frustration before reaching this point–which is precisely what they hope will happen.

I have been with Vonage for several years. One of the things that bothered me about them was the fact that their 1-800 service did not work for all calls in Canada. I switched to another VoIP company in Canada, and had no problems at all. So after a few months I decided to cancel my Vonage account. A woman answered the customer service line and asked me a battery of questions as to why I was leaving. Then she tried to get me to hook up with the $10 per month plan. Then she said she would keep my phone number active by putting my account on hold - just in case I wanted to come back. Holy smoke!! I was on the phone for 30 minutes just to cancel my service. I unplugged the adapter, and haven’t heard a thing from them for about 3 months. Yesterday I received an email stating that I was being billing $10. Huh? I called them tonight. 45 minutes later the guy finally acknowledged that he will cancel my line. He said putting it on hold doesn’t cancel it - yet the lady 3 months ago said it would. What a terrible way to treat customers. He said he would ensure that it gets canceled this time, but will he? Your guess is as good as mine. I know one thing for sure, I’m not paying for something that I don’t want and asked to have removed. If they continue to bill me I’ll be refusing the charges on my Mastercard bill. I’ll take them to small claims court for my money back, and the anguish that they’ve put me through.

I was reasonably happy with Vonage before this. Canceling my service with them has been a nightmare. My advice is to stay away from them. They appear to think if they have your credit card number that they can go wild with it. Don’t dare give them your credit card number. It’s like giving a child a cabinet of candy that they can help themselves to whenever they like.

I sat on the phone with Vonage for over 30 minutes to cancel in Sep ‘07. I started seeing bills to my card again this April. WTF? I called and was told that even though I cancelled the service in September I had actually not cancelled my service.

Apparently, the notes reflected I had decided to “change” my service and as a reward they had given me several months of service free and started charging again in April.

Again, I spent over 30 minutes on the phone with a rep who just kept stonewalling me. When I finally made it clear that yes, I really, really, REALLY wanted to disconnect. She put me on hold three times for over a minute and thirty seconds each time while she was “disconnecting” the service.

When she cam back on the third time, she tried again!! She tried offering me a credit of a month to keep the service.

When I said no - she put me on hold again and finally came back with a confirmation code. Of course, she can’t credit the months charge back - so i will be calling AMEX.

Jesus.

50 dollars only? They are charging me 122.98
Their hours to cancel are insane.

I called to cancel and they told me it would be 120 dollars to cancel. The service doesnot work half the time. I told them it will be a cold day in hell before I pay them 120 dollars. They are crooks.

I received a call today from a collection company stating that I owed Vonage $134.96. I asked what the unpaid account was for, and they stated it was for unpaid services rendered.

I had to laugh out loud.

I tried to cancel my Vonage service for 2 months, without success. The normal run around you hear from the rest of the posts above. I cancelled my credit card to finally get them to stop billing me.

So, I guess they were peeved that they couldn’t get their money from the automated billing, so the would fraudulently bill me the turn it over to a collection agency.

Here is their actual response to my email today, after hearing from the collection agency:
As per your account information, I see that your account has an outstanding balance of $134.89.

Your monthly invoice does not went through from Feb 14, 2008 8:34:07 AM and your account was disconnected on May 9, 2008 8:35:54 AM.

The billing cycle begins the day you sign up for service and your credit card will be charged automatically on a monthly basis. There is no manual process involved and every process is auto generated. Your Vonage billing date was on 14th of every month and your account was active on your billing date hence you have been charged for the monthly service.

If the payment fails on your billing date, your account will be in “Grace” status for fifty-three (53) days and your service will be in “Suspended” status for 32 days. At any time during the suspension period you can login to your Vonage Online Account and reprocess your payment to reactivate service. If the account becomes suspended, you will be charged a $9.99 (plus applicable taxes) re-activation fee, which is due on your next billing cycle. After 32 days, suspended accounts will be disconnected for non-payment. Your Vonage account was disconnected on May 9, 2008 due to non-payment.

For processing a cancellation request, we request the owner of the account to contact our Account Management Department. However, our records indicate that you have not provided the verbal cancellation request to our Account Management representative.

In order to clear the outstanding balance on your account, I request you to contact our Voice Support and speak to a live agent to regarding the same. I apologize for any inconvenience caused.

I definately hear a class action suit coming on. I am sure there are ambulance chasers searching the internet for potential class actions…here you go.

I was lied to in the beginning by the sales rep…told there were no disconnect fees. When I tried to disconnect, my nightmare began. Read the other stories and it’s the same as my story. They started increasing the amount they were taking out of my checking and caused me to bounce. This is so-so silly because now my brain won’t let me stop telling people to “NEVER use their service.” I figure that this will be my new life long obsession. We were treated to dinner out last night and we were able to warn our waitress and two other people that were actually thinking about using them. Wouldn’t it be cheaper for them to do business in an honorable way? I just don’t understand it….. Anyway, my goal is is tell 5 people a day. Thats 1825 people every year. If I do this for 10 years thats over 18,000 people. Please do your part too…I wish I would have been warned against these scam artists.

Please direct me to the proper places to report Vonage….

Vonage is big business…and unfortunately most of us know that big business doesn’t play by the same rules that the rest of the world does. It’s quite obvious how the operate by simply reading the posts above. I too have had difficulty cancelling services. Keep in mind, most of their customer service reps are in call centers in other parts of the world. I most recently spoke to someone in Chile. Just one word of advice…Keep your Peace when dealing with their tactics. They are certainly NOT worth allowing yourself to get all worked up and angry and frustrated. Expect it won’t be easy. Know they’re gonna make it as difficult as possible and DO NOT LET THEM STEAL YOUR PEACE!! It’s yours..they’re already getting your money (like it or not) so don’t let yourself get upset/frustrated/aggravated. It’s just not…they’re just not worth it!!

Yes, STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE!!!!!
I have VONAGE for more of 1 year( December 2007), I tried to cancel more of 3 times in the past year and they always tell me that they are going to charged more of $150.00 fee for cancel the service, the customer services told me to stay 1 year and I will not have anycharge on my cancellation. Now they want 39.00 more for cancel my services. this company is a FRAUD!!!!

hi PLEASE I NEED HELP THIS PPL REALLY GOT ME SO MAD TODAY
i was on the phone with vonage for over an hour and they didnt solve ntn i was trying to cancel the services because i never use them and i never even open the box becasue they had told me i would get an email with my new phone number and my account information and ntn.. they already charge me 28.99 with out my permission from my debit card and now they want to charge me 79.00 dollars to cancel..are u kidding me… please i need help what can i do????