Vonage This is INSANELY ridiculous!! Holmdel New Jersey

In August of 2007, I called Vonage to try to get service. We're a military family, so our extended family is all over the world. Phone service with good long distance rates is ALWAYS a plus. We live out in the country now, so our internet options are either dial-up or satellite. I asked the first representative that I spoke to if the Vonage service would work with satellite internet, to which her reply was "Yes ma'am, you will have NO problems."

I give her our banking information and she starts our 30-day trial period. So, she gives me our new phone number, our new account number and tells me the "Vonage device" will be on it's way. Sure enough, the "device" shows up a couple of days later. We follow the directions to hook it up. Nothing. We call tech support and stay on the phone with them for AN HOUR. Still nothing. During our hour long call with tech support, the man asked FOUR times what kind of internet we had and the answer was the same every time---satellite.

So the tech support tells us that apparently our connection isn't fast enough. Our next option was to go to the next higher package with our internet provider. So, any savings we would have had with Vonage basically went out the window. But we were determined to try it with the faster internet. Still a no-go.

Within 3 weeks of my call to start the service, a representative called our regular number to ask how the service was working out for us. I told her flat out that it DIDN'T. She asked what kind of internet we had, I told her it was satellite and she said "Vonage doesn't work with satellite internet." She apologized and suggested that she transfer me to tech support. I told her that we had already tried that route and that I would like to cancel the service. She argued it a bit, but then relented and said that she would cancel the account. I asked if I needed to do anything, and she said no. I asked about returning the "device" (sorry, that cracks me up. why don't they just refer to it as a router?). To which she also replied "no". She again apologized, and ended the call.

Fast forward a couple weeks. I check our bank account online and see a debit for Vonage. This confuses me, as I had cancelled the service. So I call and I'm told that no, my account is still active. I told her about my previous conversation with the representative and she said that I STILL should have called to have the account cancelled before the 30 day trial period ended. So then, if I wanted to cancel the account, I would have to pay a $50 fee. HOWEVER, if I didn't want to pay the fee, I could go on their Basic 0 plan for 6 months @$4.99 a month, which with taxes and fees equals $8.46 a month.
If I chose this option, she would also give me the first two months for free. So I figure paying $32 and some change is better than paying $50. I asked what to do with the router and she told me to either use it as a back-up router for my home network or just throw it away as it was programmed for MY house and no one else would be able to use it. So out it went with the trash.

Fast forward again to today. My 6 months is up. I call to cancel the service and the woman informs me that if I cancel right now, not only will they charge me the $50 mentioned before, but I will also be charged another $49.95 equipment replacement fee because I entered into a TWO YEAR CONTRACT with Vonage. She says, "If you send us the device, we can take the equipment replacement fee off and you'll only owe $50."

She also offered to hook me up with one of their "brother" companies for "better" high speed internet so that I could use the Vonage service. I explained to her that if I cancel my service with my current provider that I would be responsible for a $300 early termination fee. She told me that I didn't have to cancel my current internet, but I could use the NEW internet in conjuction with it. Which to ME is utterly ridiculous. Why should I have to pay for TWO internet accounts just so I can use Vonage? I can get a regular home phone line for $16 from AT&T.

She told me that the only thing I can do now, is stay on the Basic 0 plan and she'll give me three months for free. Woo h*o. She also said that if I cancelled the account today, she would submit the debit to my bank for $99.95 and there was nothing I could do about it. I told her I wanted to speak to a supervisor. She REFUSED several times before she told me that she was an account manager (equivalent to a supervisor, apparently) and that is why she had the "power" (no kidding, she said she had the power) to offer me the 3 months for free.

So now I have to pay $8.46 a month, beginning in July for a little over a year for a service I can't even use. I know that isn't a lot of money, but why should I have to pay for something that I cannot use, when I asked that the account be cancelled within the 30 day trial? Otherwise I have to pay $100,that I honestly don't have at the moment,to be free of Vonage. I told her that I was going to contact the Better Business Bureau and whomever else I needed to contact and she basically told me to do what I wanted, they would still get their hundred dollars. She told me that I could dispute it, but they would still get their money.

Now I'm going to dispute it. Anyone think it will do any good?

1angrykansan
Somewhere, Kansas
U.S.A.