Vonage - Loyal Customers Dropping Like Flies! Why?

As a long time loyal Vonage customer, there are certain things about the service I really like. They have a very good online search for checking phone calls made and received, and it saves all your calls from the beginning of your service. In my case, that is over 5 years of service.

This feature is the only thing that has kept me as a customer this long. Their service is relatively inexpensive, but I realized last year that they were passing on or making up erroneous charges that effectively increased their advertised price by over 40%. With $24.99 per month service plus over $10 in taxes, these cannot all be real. Check your phone bill from phone services like Verizon or TMobile and see for yourself. Note that if you get one of Vonage's extra phone numbers for $5 each, many of these extra fees will double or triple the advertised cost ($10 or $15 for the $5 line). Vonage has never disclosed this information properly, which may be illegal.

You won't see 40% in taxes on other phone services. And take a look at the 911 fees - yes there is more than one 911 fee - county and something else - totaling (currently) $3.49 in monthly taxes. This represents a 14% tax just for 911 service. This is ridiculous. I don't know any other phone services out there charging this much tax. There was no 911 tax in 2006 from Vonage, and other phone services still don't have this charge, so it is not necessary. And, for those that take the time to learn their emergency numbers, dialing 911 is slower than dialing direct - it's not necessary or wanted.

Vonage is now talking about reinventing itself, but the reality is that their customers are dropping off like flies moving past a vatt of poisonous spray. With services like MajicJack providing a year of phone service for less than $20, or Skype providing service for free, Vonage is up against some stiff odds of maintaining it's hold on customers. They are also having trouble simply existing, with bankruptcy knocking at there doors several times recently according to Forbes magazine.

I may follow this up later with some details on what these charges are and how much they should be. There is no good reason for some of these additional 40% in services (taxes), and like I said, I think some of these are just being made up by Vonage, or at least way overcharged by Vonage.

Wow, that was quick. I did a quick search on 911 fees and found that Vonage is more than double charging for 911 fees. CLICK HERE to check the .gov site yourself. I don't want to support this kind of fraud. Another reason I am dropping Vonage is that their service is not working well. People I call are finding my number with no caller id information even though this works used to work for them, and calls are being dropped here and there, or they just don't go through.

Even more proof of overcharging - CLICK HERE to see that Vonage is supposed to be charging me $0.75 sales tax in VA - they are actually charging me 300% more. When you see this level of blatant overcharging from a large corporation like Vonage, it makes me wonder how they are getting away with it. I will miss the search feature, but other phone service suppliers are catching on and are working on providing this feature.

Details on Vonage customer loss. Vonage is growing, but customer loss is a serious issue. To grow by 27,000 subscribers in 2008, Vonage had to sign up 952,000 gross subscribers in the same time frame. Customer retention is a huge issue for Vonage, and the issues covered here are going to make it even more difficult.

http://www.businessinsider.com/vonage-now-losing-customers-2009-2