Ya know, I really hate to be saying this as I liked the company, saw them as somewhat an underdog, and was cheering for them to stick around keep up the competition for the big old, evil, phone company but Vonage went from a company that I would have highly recommended to one that I will now recommend that potential customers stay FAR, FAR AWAY from.

What caused the change?  Well, it's a bit of a long story and I've typed up enough of those here lately so I'll try to keep it real short instead.

Apparently Vonage isn't so good at understanding the dates on their transactions.

2/20/2007 I took advantage of an offer to pre-pay for a year of service from Vonage.   Limited time offer, available to sign up through end of March 2007.  Pre-pay $239 for a year of service (plus taxes and fees on top of that for another $15 - $20, give or take) and save money.

Monthly rates were approximately $29 (after fees and taxes), so I did the math, saw that I could save about $40 - $50 for the year by prepaying and figured what the heck.

I was told at the time that the service would automatically renew on 2/20/2008, made notes indicating that to remind myself when the next big lump sum payment was going to be due and went on my way until about 2 months after that when I heard that Vonage was being sued out of business by the big evil Verizon phone company.  As it turned out, I waited at that point, showed faith, figured it would work out in the end and that I could keep using service until the company was gone.  What looked at first to be a death blow was put aside and the two companies worked out their differences with Vonage having to set aside a lot of cash to pay to Verizon.

A few more months passed in the interim and a few other companies came out of the wood work to sue Vonage.  I got more worried as I saw the amount of cash that Vonage was sitting on dwindling and saw more companies trying to sue them out of existence.  The decision with Verizon was hanging out there still, and I started worrying about losing my existing phone number and didn't want to have to change it.  So... I called up Verizon back in October and signed up with their VoiceWing service (a similar product to Vonage).  Big mistake.  Worst. Service. Evah.

I could have gone back to Vonage, but my number was already over with Verizon at that point and I still feared that Vonage was not going to be viable long term so I started getting intriqued by the idea of a free HDTV LCD 19" TV that Verizon was offering if you took advantage of their triple play offering.  Hmmm, free TV you say?  So, I signed up for the big mothership at Verizon.  Took TV service (that I don't need), phone service that is just like good ol' Ma Bell used to provide (i.e., FAXes work now, TiVo modems work now, etc.), and kept going with the same internet service I had been using.  Yay.  Except, uh, I lost my phone number.     Couldn't be helped, was from outside my area, etc., etc.  Oh well, by a twist of fate my original home phone number from 3 years ago was available so I said I'd take the Verizon deal if I could get my old home phone number (so I wouldn't need to learn a new one ).  Done deal.

Now, I knew at that point that I still needed to cancel service with Vonage, but I put it off because I didn't want to get hit with an early termination fee on the one-year pre-pay.  I kept waiting, procrastinating a bit, expecting to call about, well, now, except Vonage beat me to it.  It turns out that Vonage charged me for service again (for a year) as of the 29th of January.  Uh, what?!!?  29th January .not equal to or greater than. 20th February.  What is going on?

I called up Vonage, spoke with a nice CSR (customer service rep) that tried to keep me from cancelling service and did his best to keep me as a customer.  I understood him needing to sell the service and not wanting to take no for an answer, but I was already ticked off by the early renewal charge, and I wanted that refunded and service cancelled.  He tells me he can cancel the service, but can't refund the charge.  Uh oh!

I demanded to speak to a supervisor, the CSR got one as I waited on hold, I reiterated that I wanted service cancelled and expected a full refund for the unused service as I had not yet used even a minute of that service.  Sorry, not possible.  $285+ gone, or so they want me to think.  Ha!

As I told the CSR and his supervisor, I would and have taken the issue up with my credit card provider and am protesting the charges.  No way in hell will I live with the charges as Vonage tried to pull a fast one and charge me early for service.  How do I know it was early?  Well, I have the charge statements showing when I paid for a year of service back in Feb. 2007, specifically Feb. 20, 2007.  So, at the earliest I shouldn't have been charged until approx. Feb. 19, 2008.  Ooops.  Vonage claims that I was charged again because my 'anniversary date' with the company was Jan. 29th.  I asked what that had to do with anything and they informed that meant I was entering my 13th month of service after the last pre-payment was run out.  What?!!?  21 plus days of pre-paid for service were gone as far as Vonage was concerned.  No stinkin' way.

Vonage insists that I'm due for renewal (according to their accounting system) as of 29 January 2008 because of that anniversary date even though I hadn't passed the one year mark from when I prepaid originally, even though the amount I prepaid was more than the amount printed on the offer for service (which meant I prepaid for at least one year of service, plus those stinkin' taxes and fees).  Not quite homeboys.  At least I don't expect so after my credit card provider gets done processing the protest of the charge.

In the end, over the next week or two I expect that the credit card provider will reverse the charge completely and Vonage will find they have a $285+ hole in their accounting for the month.  That makes me want to cry them a river. { Borat } NOT! { / Borat }

Sorry I went long again, as I really didn't mean to, but yet again I'll say this: DON'T DO BUSINESS WITH VONAGE.

While their service worked ok, their accounting practices and customer service leaves much to be desired.  They full well *could have* issued a refund for the charges they knew weren't valid but they refused and claimed they couldn't.  It wasn't a matter of couldn't, it was a matter of wouldn't and that is completely unacceptable.

Companies that don't respect their customers don't deserve my support, or your support, or anyone's for that matter, so again, if you are considering doing business with Vonage move along.  You'll be happier for it.

If you are already doing business with Vonage, watch your bills very, very carefully and be wary of getting screwed by them.