alex.moskalyuk

Steve Makofsky’s post about troubles he has had with Vonage’s VOIP service prompted this write-up, as about a month ago I became a Vonage customer as well. Right now my phone number is in the process of being transferred, and until then I am happily using the landline provided by Qwest for the last few days, but there were some quirks to the sign up process that made me mad as well when dealing with their support.

• They charged me right away for the adapter box and first month of sign-up. I got referred by a friend and by their scheme you get a second month off if you were referred by a current user (by the way, e-mail me if you want to sign up, so we both get a free month), which makes sense. Except that in my case the adapter box didn’t arrive for 2 weeks. Nevertheless Vonage felt that it would be fair to start charging me right on the day when they sent me the box, not the day when I actually plugged it in. If the UPS man never finds you at your house, it’s not their problem. So Lesson 1: use your work address for UPS delivery, if no one can provide the signature at home.
• I am currently waiting for my number transfer and am not willing to use their temporary number except to make some outgoing calls. Which doesn’t decrease my bill. I’d rather have them suspend the service, until the number is transferred, but no cigar - Vonage claims that even if you don’t use their VOIP service right away, because the number isn’t there, you still have access to voicemail and all the features.
• The customer service reps are not exactly rude, but they are in that eternal fake politeness mode, where everything they don’t want to do will be accompanied with the excuse “It’s the company policy not to…”. At some point, when explaining that the box took 2 weeks to arrive (not exactly my fault), I was ready to reply “F*ck you, and my policy is not to put up with this crap”, but then he gave me me $5 credit towards the 2 weeks that the adapter has spent on the UPS truck.
• Their help pages feature pop-ups and new links with _blank href’s, which is not Firefox-friendly at all, especially if you have one of them SingleWindow extensions.

Overall, however, the service is pretty good for what they charge. All the billing, the calling log, and voicemail happen on the Web site, so you can see right away how much that call to Germany cost, as it shows up on your bill almost in real-time. The same for voicemail - it’s all available online, although it’s not perfectly clear what storage they allow for it. Instant call forwarding and 911 management via Web site is convenient as well, so overall if you sign-up goes smoothly, it’s a good company to be with.