How Do I Cancel Vonage?

So after 2 months trying out T-Mobile’s Hotspot @Home (my review) and liking it very much, I decided to drop Vonage. Since most everyone already knows my cell phone number, losing my Vonage number wasn’t an issue, except for telemarketers probably.

I was about to embark on a very interesting ride from what I gathered by reading about earlier horror stories of people being on hold for hours before they can reach someone. So reluctantly, I called the customer service number. After navigating through the web of voice prompts I selected the “Cancel My Service”. I figured this one takes you to a hold queue of 40 minutes then to some person that will do whatever they can to not let you cancel.

To my surprise I was only on hold for 5 minutes until I reached Debra (ID: E25293). Here is where the fun begins. She asked the usual account verification questions, then asked my why I wanted to cancel. I told her that I have this new cell phone. (I wasn’t about to explain to her what Hotspot @Home was since I knew she would never understand it). She then started to tell me how much more my cell phone costs than Vonage. I let her go on for a bit, before I started to become agitated and asked her if she heard what I was saying “I WANT TO CANCEL!” She would just ignore that and tell me what a great customer I have been. This went on for about 10 minutes as she asked a list of questions, which I wrote down. I started asking for her supervisor and each time she told me she was an account manager and then proceeded to offer me more free service. I think I was up to about 4 free months before I told her I was calling their corporate office hung up on her. I was pissed. What a waste of 15 minutes!

I almost called their corporate office, but wasn’t sure which number would get me anywhere. After calming down a little I thought about it and came up with the right strategy … Don’t give them a reason to try to keep you. And that means lie if you have to!

Here was the plan. (I wrote down all the questions I was asked on the previous call and devised answers that would not make it easy for them to keep me).  There are the responses I would use on the next call to cancel:

• When asked why I was cancelling: “I don’t use the service anymore” (This was true since I haven’t had the device plugged in for about 2 months)
• When asked what am I using instead of Vonage: “I am using a cell phone” (Truth)
• When asked how much are you paying for a cell phone: “My company pays for it” (Total lie here)
• When asked if I wanted to keep it for a backup: “My wife has a company paid cell phone that we use as a backup” (Again, another lie)
• When asked if I want to transfer my service to any friends or family: “My family all died in a horrific plane crash on the way to a family reunion and my friends are now homeless after the stock market crash” (Some of my finest work ever)
• When asked about the quality of Vonage when I did use it: “There were so many outages. And the wait time to talk to support was ridiculous!” (Partial Truth)
• When asked if there is anything more she can do to help me keep the service: “No Thank You”

Again I placed the dreaded call to their customer service line and the wait time was less then 5 minutes. This time Christine was my account manager. I didn’t even bother to ask for her ID in the beginning since I thought I wouldn’t need it. So I went through all the questions above her and she noted down my responses. Don’t know if she bought the plane crash one or not! After the last question, that was it! She cancelled it, I got a verification email and no more service. Damn they were persistent though. I guess when you are hit with multiple patent lawsuits you need to keep your customers!

I hope this helps anyone trying to get away from that crazy company!!! Just preplan what you are going to say. Don’t give them a reason to try to keep you as a customer. Don’t elaborate on your answers make them short and sweet. And getting angry and asking for a supervisor did nothing. Just keep calm and keep saying “No Thank You!”, if you can last.

 All I can say here is that Vonage wasn’t a bad service, but with that kind of customer service, I will never touch them again!!!!

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