WTF Vonage? Price Hike on the "Cheap Package" ?!
Here’s a fun email I received today!
Dear Christopher Kusek,
At Vonage, we’re committed to providing exceptional phone service at a great value you can rely on. On December 1, 2008, the price of our Residential Basic 500 Minute Plan increased from $14.99 to $17.991. The new price will be reflected in your February 2009 bill. We’re proud that we remain one of the most competitive choices among home phone providers.
Don’t forget, with the Vonage Residential Basic 500 Minute Plan, you will continue to receive 25 great features, like Call Waiting, Caller ID, and Voicemail Plus that many phone companies still charge for. International calls are still as low as 1 cent per minute.
As an option, you might consider the Residential Unlimited Plan for only $24.992 a month. For just $7 more you will get:
- Unlimited local and long distance calls in the US, Canada, and Puerto Rico
- FREE calls to landline phones in Italy, France, Spain, UK and Ireland
- Peace of mind – never worry about going over your minutes again!
For even more savings and the convenience of one bill each year, you can pay in advance with our Annual Pre-Pay option and save 20% off the standard rate3 or just $19.99 a month.
Click here to access your Online Account and check out these options and more. If you have any questions, you can call 1-VONAGE-HELP and speak to a customer care representative.
At Vonage, we continue to provide you with the best service at the lowest possible price.
Thank you for your business,
Vonage
Here are some of my favorite parts:
1 Maintaining Vonage service on or after your adjusted bill cycle date confirms your agreement to the rate change.
Uh, WTF? “Watch as we screw you, and you standing by and taking it is your way of agreeing!”
As an option, you might consider the Residential Unlimited Plan for only $24.992 a month. For just $7 more you will get:
Hey, we’re charging you more, so it doesn’t look so Economically bad for you to Pay us even MORE money for the same non-service! Sound good? IT’s only another $7 ! ! !
I stood by and let the fake ‘surcharges’ and other BS slide for the longest time (I’m a far stretch from when I was paying only $16.91 a month, which was a lot considering our non-home phone usage. And then after ‘bs surcharges’ it went up to ~20 (Which was more than I paid ATT) But now, you’re raising it even more, so after surcharges I’ll be paying roughly ~25 dollars? Yea, sorry. I don’t think so.
Who knows what type of VoIP service I will switch to in order to maintain a home phone, but I can tell you it won’t be Vonage for much longer.
Greg Kaiser
I’ve used Magicjack for about 6 months now and they went through some of the same growing pains vonage did at the start, but for $20/year you cant beat the service. I’ve been able to fax off my voip line through magicjack and everythings worked fine most of the time.