Screw you, Vonage. I hate you. You have made the past 2 days miserable.

What an ordeal. Here is a word of advice; if you have something that is auto-debited from your checking account, make sure you check it every month. I had auto-debit for Vonage all set up. All of my information was correct, yet, they did not debit my payments for about a year. I now owe them that money. I am angry both at myself for not catching it as well as Vonage for not notifying me at all that my account was in this state. If you don't pay your gas bill for 2 months, don't they threaten to turn it off?

I then spent hours dealing with their support which, I think I spoke about last night. My whole experience is summed up in the letter that I sent to the Customer Care Department:

To whom it may concern:

I would like to take this opportunity to voice my displeasure with Vonage billing and customer support. I had auto debit set up on my account at some point. Yesterday I noticed that my account balance is $<a lot>; an accumulation of around 13 months of phone service. I did in fact verify that all of my account information is correct.

My account had not been debited in over a year. I would like for it to be clear that my anger is not displaced. I absolutely should have noticed that this was not being paid via my checking account.

My displeasure stems from the way in which this was handled by Vonage. I received absolutely no communication from Vonage indicating that my account had a balance or that a single payment was late. My account never went into a grace period and was never terminated. Additionally, I spent upwards of 2 hours on the phone yesterday with one of the most subpar customer support teams I have ever experienced. After 2 hours on the phone I felt more frustrated than when I initially called and felt that I was no further along. As a support engineer myself for a very large company, I make it a point to not waste people’s time on the phone. I suggest your engineers attempt to do the same.

I am now in the process of paying my balance to Vonage. Once it is paid in full, I do not plan on using Vonage services again in the future.

On a positive note, the only engineer that I felt really helped me was Sal. He did not give me his last name, but his ID number is 24856. He was extremely polite, efficient, and about 1000x more helpful than the first line of outsourced people that you have “helping” your customers. Had I spoken to Sal initially, I probably would still be a Vonage customer.

Sincerely,

Bryan <last name>

If you ever have any issues with Vonage. I will be happy to give you the address that you need to write to.

Note: The opinions expressed here are my own. If you have Vonage and you have had good experiences, more power to you.