Hello, my name is E. D., I work at home using my home phone. I live in Florida and the company I work for is in California . In a time of recession, when there are just about no jobs anywhere, I do what I can legally to make some money to keep my bills paid. My husband and I first had the phone company Embarq aka (Century Tel). Since we thought we had unlimited long distance, we figured there would be no problem. After 3 months of working from home, I got a letter from my phone company telling me that I had broken their rules and regulations for unlimited long distance!! I was confused. I called them. They told me that there is a minute limit for unlimited long distance however, they would not tell me exactly what that limit is! Wait a minute... let me look in the dictionary
UNLIMITED- boundless, without restrictions or boundaries; infinite
With that in mind, I told them that I was working at home and I don't telemarket or make continuous outbound calls. They said, oh no, you need to have a business line to run your business. I tried to explain to them over and over that no, I don't run a business, I am an employee for a company that pays me and takes taxes out of my paycheck. I told them that this job is the reason they get their money every month. Well, they said I have 3 choices. #1 stop calling that number. Okay, this won't work, because this is my job. #2 disconnect my phone service. Okay, this definitely won't work. #3 go to a business line. Of course, they want more money. So I went ahead and said fine, I'll get the business line.
This seemed ridiculous to me, but whatever will allow me to keep my phone line, and not get disconnected. After I agreed to get the business line, they asked me make up a “business name”. I felt like I was doing something illegal. They told me that it doesn't matter that the business doesn't exist, I just need a name. So I made up some crazy name, J&L ILY (J and L I love you). Soon after complying and getting this new and more expensive “business” package, I get another letter and e-mails, that I have saved, stating that I now needed to get a second phone line mirrored off of the first line!! More money!!! About $60.00 more per month to be exact!!
I was so fed up by now that my husband and I called Vonage. Vonage advertises everywhere their unlimited long distance. There is no * by the word unlimited! So my husband calls Vonage. We didn't have any money on our pre-paid credit card, we were just looking for information. My husband explained to him that we would get the service in 2 days when we had money, we just wanted to know if it was really unlimited! The man promised him the world. He told him yes, it is completely unlimited, he could talk 24/7 if he wanted to. My husband explained to him that I work from home, and he needed to make sure that it was completely unlimited.
Again, the guy convinced my husband saying “yes it is completely unlimited”. No restrictions what-so-ever. The man was adamant on signing my husband up that second. We explained that there was no money on our card. The guy told us that because he valued our business, he would wave all of the first time fees, and start up our service for free. He put us on hold while he checked with his supervisor. He came back and told us yes he could set us up today for free! So we agreed.
We gave him our credit card number for later billing, with the promise that he wouldn't charge it now. Shortly afterwards, the guy got disconnected from my husband. My husband called back and got another operator. When she looked up the account, she saw that we had been charged $42!!! We were irate! We had been lied to! This is when my husband went on a mission to investigate. He read through all of the terms and conditions on the Vonage website. In section 5.4 Inconsistent with Normal Use in the middle of their terms of service he found a section that said that there was a limit to unlimited. Vonage has limit of 5, 000 minutes per month for residential lines and 10, 000 minutes for small business lines! So what is limited unlimited long distance??
We have seen the Vonage commercial everywhere and have never once seen it say: *Unlimited long distance or even Unlimited* long distance . So that you can read down below and see that it says SPECIFICLY 5, 000 minute monthly “LIMIT” for home and 10, 000 minute monthly “LIMIT”. They are false advertising and manipulating for business!! I have to fight in order to keep my job with all of these phone companies! How is that right? They are changing the English language! Unlimited means one thing, how are they allowed to put limits on it? We are not running a business out of our home, I am a wife trying to make a living for my family!
Please don't take my word for it, I challenge anyone to look it up yourselves. Also test out their customer service reps and call them for some information. None of them will tell you that their so called un”LIMITED” packages are really LIMITED!!! Also see what happens when you point out their own policy to them!!
Here are some Vonage phone numbers:
or
1-877-816-5911

Here are some links to Vonage:
www.vonage.com notice there is no * DIRECTLY by the word unlimited.

Then go to their other link : http://www.vonage.com/features_terms_service.php?lid=footer_terms&refer_id=WEBTS0706010001W1#SERVICE and read section 5.4 Inconsistent with Normal Use and make note of their limited unlimited!! These companies are going as far as changing the English language and confusing people who are just learning English!!
My husband and I finally found a truly honest company named Cox Digital Services and they stand by the true meaning of UNLIMITED!!!
So to all consumers who are needing to get truly UNLIMITED long distance home phone services beware of lying and manipulating phone company scams!! Also always ask customer service reps about their tariffs and terms of service or read the individual companies terms yourself.