Last week Helene, my fiancée told me the Vonage Linksy PAP-2 telephone adapter had gone on the fritz. It just stopped working, so she brought it to our Del Mar house and I did the usual call to support, provided all the details including model number, serial number, etc. The call, which was a VoIP call to some far off country went rather well, if not ling as they seemed to want to validate my information more than once before telling me that I have to return the damaged one or facer a $99.00 charge. No big deal, as shortly after I hung up a Return Authorization email arrived complete with shipping instructions and I sent it off.
A day or two later a box from Vonage, with a Linksys RTP300-VD Broadband Router. Not only is it a two line unit, but its like five times the size of the PAP-2 and clearly not what’s needed, as Helene’s house is fully wireless since almost a week or two after we started getting serious last November.
Today I called back Vonage and after navigating through their labyrinth of touch tone decision trees I reached another off shore support person. She insisted that Vonage only supplies the RTP300 these days and that the PAP-2 was no longer available for sale. I asked for a supervisor and was told to call another number, the one for Tier II support. It seems Vonage offshore can’t transfer between the two groups.
Anyway, the person at what ended up being tech support I spoke initially was thinking that the PAP-2 wasn’t available any longer, but low and behold after talking to the next person in charge she found out that it still was offered, it just wasn’t the default selection. I should receive it this week.
So let me add up a few things and then compare some other experiences:
Number of calls to Vonage to correct problem – 3 (I hope)
Number of Fed Ex or UPS charges for shipping – 4 @ say $10.00 per
Time On Phone to order replacements – 20 minutes
Now let me relate to my experience with AT&T CallVantage when I wanted to switch from the MGCP based D-Link Telephone Adapter to the SIP Based two line Linksys WiFi Router and Telephone Adapter (Oh did I mention the Vonage device isn’t WiFi).
About five minutes to order. Time to switch from one Telephone Adapter. About ten minutes as we did have to unplug and plug in the network, cable modem and I did something a bit different, assigning the CallVantage box it’s own IP address for reasons better saved for another post. I also was not asked to return the D-Link. I’ve had similar experiences with BroadVoice, AOL, VoicePulse and Packet8 when addressing upgrades or equipment swaps but in those cases I’m dealing with insiders who I know me and not the usual support channels which makes those experiences while pleasant, somewhat irrelevant.
The bottom line is Vonage continues to be operating on the margins and around the edges of being a phone company, moving to fast and wasting time of customers with a steady stream of customer service faux-pas that come to me periodically, and which I just experienced first hand. Being that I’m out of my contract as soon as I can figure how to port the number to another carrier its going to be So Long Vonage in Sacramento and hello someone else to “experiment” with.
You are far to humble just wait till Vonage owes you a rebate or an incentive they promised if you would recrute them customers and see the hoops they put you through and then never credit your account for it anyway. Also in Canada they advertise all over “Unlimited USA-Canada Calling for $24.95 but when you signup the charge will actually be 39.95 per month their excuse is “oh that is our US pricing. Let’s face it Vonage is the traditional telephone company’s secret little nitch because when they do not provide an internet number or PC to PC number who are they keeping alive? Doing such also requires everyone calling you to have a pay account defeating the whole point of creating VoIP. Another point of their scam is to charge an additional fee if you want to use a softphone (software phone) to access your account you got it…. they screw you again for additional fees and limit you to use their softphone software.