Disenchanted with Vonage, annoyed with Comcast. Is there a VOIP carrier that's actually good?
I'm typically the last person on Earth to bash customer service representative -- the pay is poor and everyone treats them terribly. I can understand why they're so bitter all the time.
But what Vonage is doing to me is totally inexcusable. There was a time when I would champion Vonage. Why not? The service quality was great and more importantly cheap.
However, things took a dive for Vonage about a year ago. Dropped calls, odd digital tones during my calls, sporadic voicemail. In September my Visual Voicemail stopped working altogether, but someone still charged me $0.25 per transcribe.
In October I decided I had enough. A very polite CSR took my account closure and everything started cordial. It was very obvious that the call center was in India, though I knew the girl was just reading a prompter card. Nothing personal, right?
About 15 minutes into the call the tone changed from "We appreciate your business" to "OK, I'll just get your billing information from the system so we can extend your contract." WHAT?!?
It took me three times to demand that I did not want to upgrade or modify my service. I recently switched my insurance carrier and it took less time than it did to get Vonage just to cancel my service. Even after explaining to her that if she tried to upsell me anything else, I would start telling my friends to cancel their Vonage account as well.
"So would you like to enjoy Vonage for free for the next three months?" was her response.
Incredible. I know Vonage is on hard times, but I didn't realize the bottom line is borderline criminally pervasive.
Two months have passed. My new phone carrier, Comcast, is certainly not much better on phone quality. I also have to deal with the 6 to 10 telemarketers per day (half of which are hangups), even though I'm on the Federal DoNotCall list.
Things went from bad to worse, but at least I don't have to deal with Vonage's horrible customer service anymore.
That is, until I noticed the flurry of Vonage emails in my inbox this week. Five unsolicited emails from Vonage to be exact, and I opted-out of all marketing communication from Vonage in October. When I called Vonage to force them to remove my email from its mailer, nobody had any idea what I was talking about.
After calling Vonage's bulk mailer, PM Digital, I was told I can expect my opt-out in up to 10 business days. Would I receive emails between then and now I inquired? "Maybe," were the exact words.
I'm starting to think the actors in all those asinine Vonage commercials are all company employees.
"Spreading the rumors, it's very easy because the people who write about Apple want that story, and you can claim its credible because you spoke to someone at Apple." -- Investment guru Jim Cramer
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