I got vonage about a month ago, and immediatly I started recieving calls and getting mean voicemails about calling and hanging up on people... I didnt even have a phone hooked up yet.... It got to the point where i'd get 20 calls a day,....

After almost a month of this, I called vonage (yesterday) and got a different number. Now the calls have started again, They actually started about 5 minutes after the change was complete, I just had some women screaming at me that I showed up on her called ID. When I explained that I just got this number, and that I didnt know what to tell her, she gets more irrate..

Anyone else ever experiance this? Should I get another number change? or does vonage hand out a bunch of garbage numbers?

 

I don't have Vonage, but a few of my customers do.. I haven't seen this issue, but it sounds like the problem is something is randomly calling numbers.. Could be the vonage modem is bad or a virus maybe.. I sounds like a number change didn't fix it so another one probably would do the same.


It could also be noise on the line that is causing the problem. Do you have static on the line when trying to make a call?

 

I'm no expert here but I'd ask vonage for a new modem and arrange for a new number once you install it.

 

Vonage eh? Heh Heh... When I first got it, I couldn't receive calls from the local area. The only calls that were coming through were long distance. I called their customer service and learned something interesting about Vonage. When you call their customer service, you're talking to someone in either the Phillippines or India, literally. Now, I don't want to sound racist, but those folks spoke broken English at best. I probably called that customer service line at least 12 times and talked to someone different every time. My point is, how the hell can you help someone if you don't speak their language? No, I will not press 1 for English. I'm an English speaking man sitting in my American home, having trouble with my American phone service. The least they could do is hire customer service people who speak friggin' English! Anyway, after about a week of frustration with customer service, I started doing a little detective work. I found a forum called Fuc*Vonage.com. On that forum, I found the CEO's contact info...ALL OF IT! I'm talking about his home phone, his home address, everything. I decided to remain on the high road and just call his office. That forum had quite a bit of other stuff on it too. Vonage is a shady, shady company. After leaving a message on the CEO's machine, it took about an hour for some higher up to call me and fix the problem. I don't remember his name but he kinda talked like Sol Rosenberg from the Jerky Boys. He was a very helpful and likeable guy. He's the one single positive experience I've ever had with Vonage. Except for him, Vonage sucks in every way. Also, I don't know if it's my ISP or what, but I can't talk on the phone and surf the web. I have everything set up the way they say to do it, I've done all the troubleshooting, I've done everything their "experts" say to do with no results. Their service, while a great idea, sucks in quality. You get what you pay for. The timing of this thread is funny because we're canceling Vonage tomorrow.

 

Never say never but I highly doubt your equipment was making random calls by itself. I would try to get more info from the irate callers as to what was the source and nature of the offending calls. Were they ALL just call and hangup? You may be able to find out the previous owner of the phone number(s) by doing a reverse search ... http://www.whitepages.com/5050/reverse_phone

I'm not familiar with Vonage's options but I have SunRocket and they let you block incoming calls from any given number. If there are say 20 angry people out there that just won't back off, you could block them from calling you.

 

Tired Vonage, and had nothing but dropped calls, calls with quality problems and delay so bad, you had to say "OVER" when trying to talk to somebody!!!

Ended up paying the penalty, went with Time Warner VoIP, and haven't had a dropped call since!!!!

 

WOW, I can't believe how different our experiences are with Vonage. So far it's been the best thing since sliced bread in my house. Two things here though, first is that I was switching from DSL to Cable at the time I got Vonage and there was a difference. I had a 1mb DL and now I have a 4mb, turned it from an okay thing to a great thing. Second is I can't use speed dial anymore. Other then that you guys are making me feel totally lucky!!!

 

re:random calls

Reinstall the software and change the password on the router to something that is not so obvious (Bellsouth is your phone number and name ) to at least 14 characters and enable the built in firewall. Though the Vonage setup is a bit different, still easy to guess if anyone knows you and wants to harass you.

 

thats the thing, I got vonage on dec 10, but didnt end up actually plugging the voip box and hooking it to a phone till after christmas.... During that time, I probably got 100 calls All ov the VM I got said that I was calling and hanging up. once I got the box and phone hooked up, we were then getting lots of calls where people were hanging up on us.... a computer maybe??

the actual quality of the service is great......I'm also sitting on 6 meg cable

after the number change, we get ALOT less calls, but we still get em...

 

Forget the VOIP it's an absolute joke. No stipulations on these companies. Ever tried to get a tech out?

 

There are none. No techs, no customer service to speak of, just a little box and a "'how to" pamphlet. People are happy until the inevitable situation arises that calls for some sort of tech/billing support, then the old saying "you get what you pay for" becomes painfully evident.

 

i've had vonage for a while now and got a couple weird calls. once i explained about the service to the caller they stopped. as to service, i've called 1 time about a # change and the "operator " was extremely helpfull. i re-boot 1x a month just to freshen it and will say i'm extremely pleased.
now that i've said this openly all hell will break lose, but untill it does i recommend it if you're tired of crap the big names put you through

 

Well, I cant complain, I pay a hellocva lot more for business dsl, and when that goes down (mission critical) it takes 1-3 days to get a tech out....

 

Well good luck to you sir, and to all who roll the dice on Vonage. I got tired of being ripped off by the phone company and p!$$ed off by Vonage, so It's strictly my cell for me...so far so good...

 

I agree with the comments about "tech support". I have Sunrocket and their idea of support (when you can reach anyone) amounts to having you power down their unit and power it back on until it works or send it back for a replacement. I don't have the problem with phantom calls that some of you with Vonage have and I can call out fine, but receiving calls is an iffy deal at best. Luckily we have cellphones as well so we can be reached.