Canceling Vonage
It’s nigh impossible to cancel your Vonage account. I want to say at the outset that I never had a problem with the Vonage service. The quality was always good and I enjoyed all of the features that they offer. With the recent hullabaloo over the guy who was trying to cancel his AOL account, I thought their customer service might have gotten the message.
However, I spent ten minutes telling the guy I just want to cancel my account. He kept trying to sell me on keeping it. He was offering me lower and lower rates, giving me reasons why I should keep it. What I really wanted him to do was to just cancel the damn account.
Add to this the frustration of my having sat on hold for 30 minutes just to talk to the guy. That 30 minutes came after spending 15 minutes telling a first person what my issue was only to be transfered and have to go through the account verification process all over again. I was getting sucked into the customer service hell that Dell has become known for all over the web recently.
I understand that companies want to hold on to customers. Why, though, when I tell them that I like their service, that I recommend it to friends, but that I need to cancel at the moment, why don’t they just do what I ask? I have been a Vonage customer for almost 18 months. It’s clear that I appreciated the service. Why alienate me at the moment of our last contact?
Technorati Tags: vonage, dell, voip, customer service
July 19th, 2006 at 7:05 am
[...] I hard a hard enough time trying to cancel their service. Today, I get an email saying that I can still get some free months if I refer friends to them. This is incredible. I used to recommend them all the time, but never again. [...]
August 17th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
I subscribed to Vonage to save money.
Voice quality wasnt that good, I wanted to cancel after few months, but was told there is a $39 cancelation charge, if I canceled before end of 1 year.
After i year of service, I called to cancel and was told that i would have to wait 13 billing cycles, and was told to call on day after 13th billing cycle ended.
Now I called … they canceled my account BUT
they have allready charged me for the 14th month.
Now they refuse to refund me a full month of charge that I didnt use, that they have allready charged me for upfront.
I AM EXTREMELY UPSET WITH VONAGE.
STAY AWAY FROM VONAGE.
August 28th, 2006 at 1:13 pm
Vonage has a good service, but their cancellation policies are criminal. Here’s what took me 45 minutes of actually talking to the guy to find out.
When you take the service, you agree to 12 months of service, or face a $40 cancellation fee. Fine. However, you cannot actually cancel until the anniversary date! You cannot call beforehand and say “Cancel this when my 12 months is up.”
“So what is the big deal?” you might ask. Here is the big deal. They bill you for the 13th month at the stroke of midnight on your anniversary date.
Here’s what I have done - don’t know if it will work. Remember now - I have paid them for their 12 months. I have gone in and changed the expiration date on my card to the wrong date. It should not go through. Then I will call and cancel as they require, on the anniversary date.
We shall see. The most ridiculous cancellation policy in history. Sheesh.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:06 am
I was furious when they told me I cannot cancel my service without $40 penalty till after they charge me the 13 th month. I’ve never had some shameless service. Please tell all your friends to keep away from Vonage.
November 20th, 2006 at 8:00 pm
I spent and HOUR AND A HALF cancelling my vonage account AND getting back the thirteenth month charge. I signed with Vonage up last November and never used it because can’t port my local number to them {I use my phone for my service business).
I tried to cancel the last week of a 1 year service contract and was told the early cancellation charge would be applied. I then cancelled the day after and was charged an additional month because I was “late” cancelling! I went through 8 people before I got the right answer (we will recind the charges). The charge has not yet been restored to my credit card but, I’m hopeful. Do business with Vonage at your peril! Once they get your money, they hold on to it like a pitbull! Caveat Emptor, Buyer Beware!
February 2nd, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I have an old pay card from my old job that I have 5 bucks on. If something tries to debit my account for more than 5 dollars then it will be decline.
So when I get ready to cancel I just change my billing info.
February 7th, 2007 at 1:56 pm
AS many of you know you should ALL LEARN to read the TOS before signing up a service. So none of the “surprises” of canceling come about. There is no excuse for your LACK of reading of a TOS.
February 7th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Just so you all know, the comment from “Required” came from “*.vonagenetworks.net”. Looks like the Vonage folks are trying to quell the discontent and they won’t even give their name when they do it.
February 23rd, 2007 at 8:41 am
I had Vonage for year. I lost service every time there was a power glitch. I have to reboot my cable modem and vonage modem in a sequence to make it work. Quality some times was not good as it had walkie talkie feel. I switched to another carrier. Suddenly I realized I am not getting calls form certain friends. Found out that I cannot receive calls from vonage customers. I called vonage and it took me 45 minutes to cancel as they keep asking questions. I was persistant that I have already transferred my carrier so i do not need their services. I had to pay cancellation fee plus extra month service fee. It seemed that they were testing my patience so that I can agree for continue their services.
March 23rd, 2007 at 5:52 pm
This is a great company if you want bad service, irrating calls to people you can’t understand, broken English,and delay tactics. They must hire the best sooth-sayers that money can buy to try to keep you as a customer. I was a customer for only one day. Vonage is barely above using smoke signals. Never did find the $90.00 fee she said was in the fine print…even using my glasses and a magnifying glass!
April 2nd, 2007 at 10:50 am
Just had a 45 minute yelling match with Vonage. Just signed up end of Dec 2006, vonage and ISP could never get the service to work properly on my line. Asked to cancel after a month and 1/2 of troubleshooting, was told I would be charged a $90 cancellation fee if I cancel right then and to call back in 30 days and the cancellation fee would be nothing. Called back in 30 days, went through the same CRAP and then was told that I had to wait ANOTHER 30 days to cancel or I would be charged the $90. I argued the fact that I was told this same thing a month ago and was told to call back, they argued with me and basically called me a liar.
I asked for a manager and was told there really is no one else to talk to, I insisted on speaking with a manager and was given off to more than likely another operator just trying to appease me. I asked them to check their recorded phone calls since I have the exact time and date that I called and they will see that I was told 30 days. The acct rep’s so called manager refused. He told me to cancel if I wish and just fight the credit card company for the money back… THESE PEOPLE ARE CROOKS! I reported them to the Better Business Bureau as well as the FCC.
April 16th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
Just like the rest, DO NOT USE VONAGE unless you plan to be a member for life, because it is nearly impossible to cancel. Their customer service people are rude, unhelpful, and they intentionally make it nearly impossible to cancel their service. I went to cancel vonage because I really just do not use my home phone only my cell phone. Due to this experience I will tell everyone I know to not use Vonage, hopefully they will get the message, and hopefully I will be able to cancel my account since I’m still on hold for the 3rd time. Wish me luck!
April 2nd, 2008 at 7:31 pm
I recently had a terrible experience trying to end my customer relationship with Vonage. In order to take advantage of a bundle offer from my internet service provider, Digis, I requested that Digis port my phone number from Vonage to Digis in the beginning of January 2008. I was told the port is required to be completed within 30 days. That did not happen. I had to call Vonage 3 different times asking what the hold up was in transferring my number to a new provider. Every time the Customer Service Rep gave me a different story: My new carrier wasn’t submitting my request properly, my new carrier should submit a request to Vonage’s third party carrier, or my new carrier didn’t ask the right department for the number port initiation. I was assured that Vonage firmly believes in my right to port my number, but their lack of correct information and lack of response to my new carrier’s request says otherwise. Finally, my number ported on April 1, 2008. This time, when I called Vonage to cancel they told me that my number had NOT ported and that if I cancelled my service I would lose it. I called Digis to verify this, and they assured me they were in possession of my number and told me that Vonage does this to all of their customers who try to port away to Digis. Digis’s CSR instructed me to call Vonage, ask nothing about port completion, and just cancel my account.
I called Vonage AGAIN. I asked nothing about the number port, and this time just asked to cancel. It took THIRTY MINUTES on the phone with the Vonage agent. She pretended that she was accessing my account information on her computer and that she was using the down time to address my concerns about Vonage. During this time, she offered me tech support for call quality, which I declined twice, and then offered to let me keep the Vonage service for a two month trial period at a reduced rate ’so I could make sure I was satisfied with my new carrier.’ I politely declined and firmly said I was not interested, but she interrupted me and persisted to offer me this two more times. I finally had to cut her off and almost yell NO I DON’T WANT IT to get her to stop offering it. I told her Vonage had dilly-dallied for so long to port my number that I had had plenty of time (almost a full three months) to decide that I was satisfied with the service Digis would provide. At the end of my very long conversation with her, she finally agreed to cancel my service. I feel I was deceived by Vonage in the beginning with their failure to properly port my number. In the end, I felt that if I had not been VERY firm with them, my account might not have been cancelled. I started as a Vonage customer for 3 1/2 years and had few complaints about our customer relationship during that time. The only reason I decided to change was just to save a little money with the new carrier. However, after this experience, I feel I was strung along, deceived, and dealt with dishonestly.