This one sounds like fraud to us…A potential Vonage customer called in response to a advertisement, but after giving her name and address and other info, decided that since she didn’t even use email, maybe VOIP wasn’t right for her. Several months later, she unexpectedly bounced a check. What happened?

From the Philadelphia Daily News:

“I said, you know, I don’t think this is going to work for me,” said Ehly, who had already given Vonage her name, address and bank-account information.

The woman at Vonage sounded peeved about that, but Ehly insisted she didn’t want to switch her phone service. A few days later, Vonage shipped some equipment to Ehly. She refused the package, sending it back to Vonage.

Fifteen months later, Ehly bounced a check and wondered why. She checked her records and found Vonage had been charging her $28.75 a month since November 2005.
Ehly and her husband, Glen, told me that conversation with Vonage wasn’t very pleasant. They claim the customer-service representative called her “stupid” for not noticing the problem earlier since Vonage had been e-mailing her billing statements all that time.

How odd. Ehly didn’t even have an email address. It seems that someone had mysteriously signed Ehly up with Hotmail and began emailing statements to that address. The Philly Daily News was able to investigate the problem and get Ehly a refund for the full amount Vonage had been debiting from her, but there is no news on how the apparent fraud took place. The Daily News points out that Vonage’s customer service reps are paid a commission for new accounts. Hmmmm… Sort of seems like someone didn’t want to give the commission money back, doesn’t it? —MEGHANN MARCO

Phone service ripoff? You make the call [Philly] (Thanks, dgorga!)

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