Vonage No Longer Charging International Rates For Transferred Domestic Calls
Vonage apparently rustled up a map and is now apologizing to customers who were accidentally charged international rates for their domestic calls. Reader J.R., who in April received a $38 bill after Vonage billed a call to Los Angeles as a call to Algeria, sent us the telecom's apology note...
We're contacting you to let you know that due to a technical error you were billed incorrectly for certain calls you transferred from your Vonage phone to another phone.
Rest assured we have already resolved the issue that caused the erroneous billing, and all calls after June 3, 2009, are being charged correctly to your account. Additionally, we are issuing a credit to you in the amount of $8.85 plus applicable taxes for the calls we charged incorrectly.
At Vonage, our goal is to provide you with a great customer experience. We apologize for any inconvenience this error may have caused and hope that we have resolved this problem to your satisfaction.
If you have any questions please contact us at 1-VONAGE HELP (1-866-243-4357). And remember to access your online account to keep track of your charges and phone calls, and explore our many fantastic features than can help you stay better-connected to friends and family.
Thanks for being our customer.
It's great that Vonage is now able to distinguish Africa from California, but it would have been nicer if they hadn't taken almost three months to roll out a fix.
PREVIOUSLY: Why Is Vonage Billing Domestic Calls At International Rates?
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Comments:
I had Vonage then switched to Teleblend. 1/2 the cost and all the same benefits.
@jp:
What do you think of Ooma? $200 initially then free calls for life. Bit risky company might go out of business but it's been around for a few years now
@hypochondriac: only problem with ooma .. which is buried deep in their customer agreement is they cap your minutes. If you go over the minutes they charge you ridiculously
I currently have Vonage and really haven't had any problems. The service is reliable - but only when my cable modem is.
(I'm looking at you, Charter)
In all fairness, Charter has been pretty good lately.
@Nick1693:
They already credited me the $38.94, the $8.85 is apparently for a different call from way back in the past that I didn't even notice.
Consumerist forgot to mention that in the Email there was a link that when I changed the last number in the link to various different numbers it would leak customer information including the billing name and account number, which may be used by unscroupulous individuals to collect information on vonage customers. So they fixed one issue and created another =X.
@Lucky225: Did it occur to you that perhaps Consumerist wanted to avoid notifying said unscrupulous individuals of this security vulnerability?
Not totally on topic, but I've begun to hate how many companies continue to use a 1-VONAGEHELP type number instead of a regular number. Maybe it's just me because I use a smartphone that has a pseudo-numpad without the letters on it so I have figure out the numbers beforehand.
I don't use Vonage but it's good that they corrected their billing issue. Of course, it's not the first time a company has made a billing mistake, and it certainly won't be the last...
6-year Vonage customer and been quite happy. But it's very reliant on your ISP and their quality or if you have big downloaders in the house.
Did it occur to you that this is considered security through obscurity, and the only way to get big corporations to realize their mistakes is to point them out.
Well Los Angeles is kind of like another country... Hell, it's like another world!
I have been unemployed since October. It's rough out there, but companies like Vonage are making it worse for the unemployed. I was having major DSL problems and, due to high DSL charges and the bad connection, I had to disconnect my DSL. No DSL means no VoIP. Well, because I was canceling service before my year contract was up (and who knew I was signing a year contract? The tiny print did, that's who), Vonage wanted to charge me a cancellation fee of $40, cost of the device ($80), and taxes. There are millions of unemployed people who can't afford their houses or even food and Vonage is making it harder for us all to cope.
According to the article here, the entire call was $38.94, not the entire bill. If this is true, why are they only crediting him $8.85 plus taxes/fees?