Category Christopher Kusek

WTF Vonage? Price Hike on the "Cheap Package" ?!

Here’s a fun email I received today!

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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

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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.

This is definitely the spirit of giving!

For those of you who saw this Tweet that I tweeted from @CXI, our good friend @chrispirillo has a little Contest going on for the holidays, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.

Chris Pirillo is participating in Receiving the Gift of Giving, under the Don’t Just Give a Gift, Grant a Wish effort.

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So, I encourage you who are interested in winning or just helping out in this spirit of giving, to check out Chris Pirillos Receiving the Gift of Giving post!

Thanks everyone and have a happy Holidays! :)

The Spirit of Giving Vista Giveaway award winner!

Hey everyone who participated in this contest, I want to thank you and I appreciate your interest in getting some of the many things I have so you can use any benefit from them!

After tallying the responses when I closed the contest this Friday, and running it through my random ‘winner’ picker, we have a winner! Brian J. Greenberg is indeed our official winner!

Brian’s Blog found here will be the bearer of this, and special thanks to his tweet on twitter from @bjgreenberg.

So, the next contest will be announced on Monday, either for a Zune, a copy of Vista (32bit) or who knows… but that is my plan for kicking it off on Monday (hopefully, if life doesn’t happen!;))

Thanks, and the determination of how long to keep the contest open is derived based upon the number of entries divided by the number of hits/interest, so I look forward to the next one!

Thanks everyone!

Christopher – @cxi

Get your Fusion on for the Holidays!

That’s right! It’s not Black Friday, It’s not Cyber Monday, it’s not even Taco Tuesday!

But VMware has brought back the deal of a lifetime again! The money off on Workstation and Fusion! Our good friend Mr Duncan cites the whole deal right here for you to work from!

Enter the coupon code “VMWHAPPYHOLIDAYS” in the “Promo Code

And don’t forget to take advantage of your Competitive Rebate for $30!

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So get out there and get deals like this! Never hurts to save if you’re going to spend anyway!

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Enter the coupon code “VMWHAPPYHOLIDAYS” in the “Promo Code

So, if you’re looking at Fusion, Workstation or even VI! Get out there and pay less for it!

This promotion will be good through 11:59PM PT on 1/15/09.

Please wait while I lag you to death

I came across the most amazing website today! Apparently Glaceau.com wants you to WAIT to see their website.  I guess this is in respect to not showing you some kind of error, they’ll let you sit there for what may seem like an infinite amount of time staring at this.

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You know, good things to come to those who wait, those who close that damn tab and move on to another site.  Sorry guys, but seriously?! and 00%? Couldn’t code it for 0%?!

And if you do finally get past that initialization point, they treat you with a patronizing tone:

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While I love your product, I cannot stand your web attitude.