Phone rang a little earlier. Man sounded surprised. “Um, I’m sorry…is this (my home number)?” “Yes. Who is this?” “Well, there must be some mistake because I was calling to check my new Vonage work number.”
I then explained to him that this used to be a Vonage number, but I took it with me when I canceled Vonage and went to Verizon a few months ago. He was friendly enough, apologized and hung up to call Vonage and complain.
I’m guessing that Vonage knew that the number belonged to a canceled account, but they forgot to check the eensy weensy little detail of whether they still owned it? Doesn’t make sense. I have no idea how it happened, but it was kinda funny nonetheless.
I’m just glad the guy decided to test it before printing on his business cards.
Update: Vonage tech support (someone with a very heavy accent) called a few minutes ago. I was in the middle of another call at the time. I only took it because the caller ID said “Private” and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t about the kids. As soon as he identified himself and asked, is this (my number), I knew why he was calling and I explained that this used to be a Vonage number and it’s now ported to Verizon. Their new customer who called last night can’t have it.
He confirmed that they didn’t delete it from their database. Oops. Then he asks me for our old Vonage account number. I told him that I didn’t have that information handy at the moment since it wasn’t a current account, all I remembered off the top of my head was my username on vonage.com, which I can’t log in to anymore. He asked for it. I told him, but due to the language differences he couldn’t make out the letters I was saying. When you say, “A as in Apple, B as in Boy…” and he still can’t get it, you know you have a problem.
Finally, I said, “Look, I’m no longer a Vonage customer and you’re taking MY time. I have another call waiting. This is my phone number and it’s now managed by Verizon. You can’t give it out to anyone else. If you’re having trouble looking up the account information of the customer who used it last so you can delete it from your database, then that is simply not my problem. Sorry. Bye.”
I was nice about it and never raised my voice, but sheesh. Vonage, I didn’t like when you wasted my time when I was a customer, I certainly won’t put up with it now.
Judi Sohn 
One response to “What do you expect for $3.99 a month?”
i had a problem with vonage when i called them about a technical support issue and they suggested that i upgrade my phone adapter. they would send a phone adapter free of chrage to me.
i told them that it was not a problem with the phone adapter but was a problem with the way that their software was routing the call since even when i powered off my phone adapter, my call forwarding still didn’t function properly. he told me that this was impossible because if the phone adapter was not there or powered off, call forwarding would not work at all. i told him that it did work since i’ve powered off and unplugged my phone adapter and my call forwarding would work intermittently.
they promised me that i could try a newer phone adapter for free and send it back for free if it didn’t fix my problem. well, as suspected, it didn’t fix my problem. when i called and said i wanted to send it back to them, they told me that i would have to pay to send it back to them. i told them i was promised otherwise. the csr told me that they paid to send it to me for free since they weren’t charging me for the new phone adapter and now it was my turn to pay to send it back to them. i told them that i didn’t want to get it in the first place since i knew it wasn’t a problem with my original phone adapter and the previous csr insisted on sending it for me to try. the current csr insisted that i would have to pay. i told him, sure i’ll pay but since i’m paying to send it back, i might as well cancel my account and told him to send me to the cancellation department.
he sent me to the cancellation department and they apologized and told me that the csr that just transferred me was mistaken and i would not have to pay to send it back. she told me that in fact, i could keep the new phone adapter even if i didn’t want to use it and go back to my old phone adapter. i told them i would send it back to them. the reason for this which i didn’t tell them was because eventually when i do decide to cancel their service, i didn’t want to have to pay to send them back their device. she told me she didn’t understand why i wanted to send it back to them since they told me that it was now mine. i told them that it would just take up space in my place and i didn’t want to go through any hassles in the future over this. she told me that if i wanted to get the credit, all i had to do was fax them a copy of my receipt from the post office with tracking number. they gave me a toll number to fax it to (not toll free).
once i confirmed via tracking that they had received and accepted the phone adapter, i waited 3 business days and then i faxed them a letter with the bill asking them for approximately $10 back. i specified the exact amount i was asking for which was the exact amount that i paid the post office. After 2 days, I still didn’t receive a credit so i called them.
the person i spoke to told me that if i was promised a credit for the shipping it would be honored. he asked me when i sent it. i told him the date. he told me his computer showed that they still didn’t receive it. i told him that the tracking number shows that it was received and accepted and the signature proves it. i told him that according to the post office’s website, it was received over 3 days ago. i gave him the tracking number and he verified this.
he asked me how much the bill was and i told him the exact amount. i also told him that i faxed him a copy of the bill with a letter outlining what i was promised. he told me that he/they don’t have a record of the fax and bill. he asked me how much i paid the post office to send it before taxes. i told him why did he want this since i had to pay the tax! he told me that the system would automatically calculate the tax and give me the proper credit. i didn’t have my bill in front of me since i left it at work so i told him i would have to calculate it. i calculated it for him and told him the value.
he told me that he would give me the credit but he wanted me to re-fax him the same letter and the same bill to him and instead of a generic fax to vonage, i would put his name on the fax. i told him that there was no way that i would fax the letter and bill to him since it was costing me to fax it to him and i already paid to fax the letter to him in the first place which i was willing to absorb the cost of the fax. he told me that i had unlimited north american calling with my vonage and i told him, yes but i don’t have a fax machine at home and i have to use the fax machine at work so unless he was going to give me a free fax machine, my free north american vonage plan was irrelevant.
he said, okay, use the fax machine at work like i did the last time. i said i still have to pay to use the fax machine at work since employees get a bill for their long distance calls and have to explain non-business long distance calls and/or long distance faxes. he told me that he needed something for his records on why he was giving me my ~$9.50 credit.
i told him to just forget about the credit and i will just cancel my account since i’m being made to go through such a hassle to just get back ~$9.50 credit and i already have to pay to fax them the first time so i was actually losing at the end.
he tried to explain his situation and i told him that i understood his situation but unless he could provide me with a toll free number to fax it to, i was not going to fax the bill and the accompanying letter that i wrote back to him. he then told me that i could mail it to him and put his name at the envelope in care of vonage. i said yes but i would then be paying around $0.50 for a stamp to send it to you so the ~$9.50 credit which was already not enough because of the first fax that they lost (which remember i wasn’t asking for money back for faxing it to them, i was asking them for the exact amount i paid at the post office) and now he wanted me to absorb the $0.50 to buy a stamp and send it to him.
i told him to just forget it and transfer me to the cancellation department since if they are giving me such a hassle for only ~$9.50 when my vonage bill for the last 2 years has been over $40/month (>$940 total) where i was giving them a lot of leighway because my call forwarding feature was still not working properly (working intermittently) for over 3 months and i paid to fax the first letter to them, not mentioning the gas that i spent to drive to the post office to ship the phone adapter to them, and all my time, i just want to cancel.
at this point, he changed his tune and said he would issue me the credit, no additional proof required. he told me to log onto the webpage and i noticed the proper credit. he told me that it was no longer necessary to transfer me to the cancellation department unless i still wanted to cancel. i told him that i would be willing to stay for the time being but still wanted my call forwarding feature to work properly all the time instead of only sometimes.
by the way, the entire conversation was polite on both ends although i did raise my voice a few times, no swearing or obscenities were used.
total amount of time wasted on this call: 34 minutes according to my vonage webpage phone activity.