Buyer beware

Laura & Chongsun Ahn
<address removed for privacy purposes>

Better Business Bureau of New Jersey
1700 Whitehorse Hamilton Square Road, Ste. D-5
Trenton, NJ 08690-3596
http://www.bbb.org/complaint.asp

Dear Better Business Bureau:

When my husband and I called Vonage to sign up for their Residential Premium Unlimited Plan, we were told by their sales representative (hereafter “sales rep”) that all charges, specifically including return shipping of the Vonage device, were “fully refundable” under the 30-day money back guarantee.  However, upon calling to cancel the service 3 days later (the earliest possible date since the Cancellations department has limited hours compared to the Sales department), they told us that only 72% was refundable.  Not only does this violate the Vonage Terms of Service we agreed to, as I will detail later, but it also constitutes:
§    false advertising on Vonage.com;
§    dishonest sales practices - using false information from phone sales reps to secure transactions;
§    and charge of fees for no service.

False Advertising
The Customer Care Manager in Cancellations, Sharon, told us that we would not be refunded for the Virtual Phone Number feature (VPN).  However, the Money Back Guarantee detailed at http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=guarantee advertises: “There's no risk to trying Vonage service. Our no-hassle Money Back Guarantee policy guarantees your satisfaction. If for any reason you wish to cancel service within 30 days of activation, we'll refund your money with no questions asked.
”Specifically, she stated that the VPN was non-refundable because it qualified as a “second-line.”  While a second line is listed as an exception to the Guarantee, the website advertises the VPN an “add-on” feature, as does the Terms of Service.  From the Terms of Service, section 3.1:
“Advanced Features, Add-Ons, Premium Services - Vonage charges additional fees for enhanced features and services such as Virtual Phone Number…”
Additionally, the description of the VPN at http://www.vonage.com/features.php?feature=virtual_phone_number is:
“Vonage Virtual Phone Numbers are inexpensive secondary numbers that ring to your primary Vonage line.”
How is a consumer expected to know that VPN is a secondary line if it rings to the primary one and is called an “enhanced feature!”  Extremely misleading for customers.

False Information
The Vonage sales rep we first spoke with gave us two crucial pieces of false information which influenced our purchase decision.  First, she kept repeating that the transaction was “fully refundable,” which it was not.  Second, when specifically asked, she affirmed that return shipping of the device was also refundable, also untrue.  When we later told the cancellations manager, Sharon, the sales reps’ verbal promises regarding the service, she said we should have read the Terms of Service before or while calling the sales rep to ask questions / order service (Whether or not it was possible to be both viewing the webpage online and making a phone call made no difference.).  I’ve already addressed the Terms of Service above, but Vonage needs to act in good faith knowing that consumers call in to get more details than what the website offers.  As oftentimes offers and details are not listed on websites, we trusted the sales rep’s statements as the most informed.

No Products or Services Received
I would also like to make it clear that we received no services or products for the charges made by Vonage to our credit card.  In order to use Vonage service, to receive or make phone calls, the customer must have the Vonage device.  While Vonage did assign us a phone number, we never at any point had the required device in our possession to possibly use the VPN or any of their services.  Since we cancelled the service before the device was delivered, we called DHL to refuse the device delivery before it ever reached our doorstep, and hence never used their product.

We have been charged for service we never used and have been denied a full refund.  Please help rectify Vonage’s false charges and false advertising.

Sincerely,


Laura & Chongsun Ahn

CC: US Federal Trade Commission
CC: Better Business Bureau
CC: Vonage USA

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