Vonage advertises no contracts, but they are not telling us the truth!
It's very sad when companies have such strict rules and regulations that they loose sight of customer service and the reason that they started. It's also very sad when companies have to resort to deception to achieve their sales.
Such seem to be the case with Vonage.in their commercials, they promote lower prices than the phone company and no contracts. But after talking to them and trying to cancel, I found out that they indeed do not have contracts. They are able to say that they do not have contracts, but they have replaced this word with the word commitment.
So Vonage does not have a 2 year contract, but they do have a 2 year commitment. Does this amount to the same thing and mean that they are guilty of false advertising or at the very minimum, deceiving the public?
In my opinion, yes they are guilty!
Ok, so here is my story. My wife got a job working from home. Her boss told her that she needed to get Vonage to make her calls with. She was calling on over due accounts. We signed up for Vonage, the 30 day free personal plan, and everything went well. The calls very clear and everything was fine. But then after a month, she quit because she was offered a higher paying job. We were about 32 days into our service. Vonage had already charged us for the next 30 days. Seems that they charge a month in advance.
I called to cancel my account. The first time I called, which was on August 11th I think, the lady told me that if I stayed, she would give me the rate of $14 a month. She said nothing about a cancellation fee. I told her that I would think about it and let her know. I was considering it because the price was pretty good and I thought it might work out.
We just got locked into a cell phone contract with Verizon, and they don't have any plan smaller than 700 minutes. If they had, maybe it would have made financial sense to keep both. But since we cant afford to keep both, Vonage needed to go.
So I called back on August 13th to cancel. After trying several times to convince me to stay, I was told that there was an early termination fee of $90. I was shocked at this because I, and everyone I know, is under the impression that Vonage is a monthly plan so they have no contract. I was told by the CS person that it is not a contract, it is a commitment. I tried to tell her that this amounted to the same thing and this was wrong. But of course, I was spitting into the wind. I asked to talk to a supervisor. She resisted his strongly. It took me another 15 minutes to get her to let me talk to a supervisor.
Finally, she let me talk to a supervisor and I explained my story to him, but he would not budge. He put me on their cheapest plan, which is $4 a month incoming only and gave me 3 months free. I do applaud this effort, but I strongly disagree with Vonage having a commitment, when they advertise no contract. I also think I should have been eligible for the money back guarantee since I was just a few days outside these 30 days.
My only recourse now is to cancel my credit card so Vonage cannot charge me their monthly fees. They may of course turn me over to collections, which will damage my credit. But I do not seem to have a choice.
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