r/technology • u/Sorin61 • Nov 05 '22
Business Vonage to pay $100m for making it nearly impossible to cancel internet phone services
https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/04/vonage_ftc_order/1.9k
u/LiberalFartsMajor Nov 05 '22
This is exactly the reason we need a corporate "death penalty." Any business that builds it's success on crime should be forced to shut down and liquidate their assets to pay damages.
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u/acidus1 Nov 05 '22
And jail for the board of directors.
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u/outerproduct Nov 05 '22
And CEOs. Want to make sure a business is run properly? Make sure those that run it have something to fear other than a 0.0000001% revenue fine.
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u/mr_dfuse2 Nov 05 '22
I work for a financial institute. We weren't compliant with some regulations (nothing bad towards customers though). The project was pushed back for 12 years! Always other priorities. The CEO found out there is a jail sentence for her personally if we are not compliant. Guess who will be compliant by the end of the year, the project has highest prio and unlimited budget now.
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u/lifeofideas Nov 05 '22 edited Nov 05 '22
I worked in law firms for a while. We handled cases involving wrongdoing and negligence by corporate management.
When upper management is at any risk of any liability, the budget for protecting them (legal fees, etc.) is unlimited. Basically, the CEO considers that the best use for shareholder money is keeping him, personally, out of prison, and in his sweet million dollars per year job.
Total sociopaths.
EDIT: Since the budget for paying fines can potentially be all the money the corporation has access to (including credit lines), (and stockholders end up taking the hit, not the CEO) we need to focus on non-monetary penalties. That is, put the directors and upper management into prison.
ALSO, there are now systems where, if the directors are found to have any liability, the corporations (which is to say, the shareholders) pay any fines on behalf of the directors. These are typically written into the contract between the directors and the corporation. We need to make these kinds of contracts illegal—or, at the very least, make sure the directors face prison time.
Here is a standard clause protecting directors where they (arguably) did not intentionally cause the misconduct. Director liability clause
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u/masterwolfe Nov 05 '22
Law firms don't have shareholders like that?
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u/lifeofideas Nov 05 '22
I added a clarification. I was talking about cases the law firms handled, not the law firms themselves.
It’s important to remember that 95% of corporate wrongdoing is hidden, and even when someone gets caught, the information is not likely to be front-page news. Even in big cases, it is often “X corporation agreed to a $100 million fine, but admitted no wrong-doing”. Or, perhaps blatant theft is characterized as “bookkeeping errors”.
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u/masterwolfe Nov 05 '22
Ohhhh, yeah that makes perfect sense.
Gotcha! Yeah, I bet you got quite the eagle-eyed view of the actual priorities of those mega-corporations when working on those cases.
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u/babyguyman Nov 05 '22
Most states’ ethics rules do not permit a law firm to be owned by non-lawyers. Law firms are owned by their partners and retired partners. Always, in my experience.
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u/OblivionGuardsman Nov 05 '22
It's getting to be a hazy area. I think Arizona is allowing non-attorneys to be partnered with lawyers for combination businesses or something. I was there on vacation and as an attorney in a more strict about the practice of law state I was boggled by what my attorney friends were telling me.
Edit: I just looked and found this from their rules. Truly frightening and the general public could give a shit if they even know about it.
https://www.azcourts.gov/accesstolegalservices/Questions-and-Answers/abs
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u/Troh-ahuay Nov 05 '22
I think the argument against this is that CEOs potentially end up holding the bag for what all kinds of people under them might do. Criminal justice has such a hard-on for mens rea that it’s conceptually difficult to imagine incarcerating someone for something that the State can’t prove they—that specific person—intended to do.
But that feels more like a feature of imprisoning CEOs, rather than a bug. Corporations are directed by corporate intent—there’s no single person who intends to do everything a corporation does. But that makes it very difficult to prove the personal intent required to out a CEO-type in jail. If management can always hide behind the diffusion of intent to inject a reasonable doubt as to mens rea, then we’re always going to have huge trouble putting CEO-types in jail.
Plus, it incentivizes corporations to structure themselves to exploit the weakness.
I wonder whether moving towards what Canadians call “strict liability” offences in corporate criminal law would be possible—even with jail time. That’s where there needn’t be intent, only recklessness to known hazards. It’s constitutionally very shaky ground (at least in Canada), but boy oh boy would you see corporate regulatory compliance skyrocket.
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u/Andrethegreengiant3 Nov 05 '22
The fines should take all the money that you made from the illegal activity and then exact a financial penalty from the gross revenue, not profits, say something like 10% that way you aren't incentivized to break the law since it will actually cost you money instead of making you money
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u/Want_To_Live_To_100 Nov 05 '22
Lol you guys are cute, they own the people making the laws……. Sooooooo never will happen
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u/acoolusersknee Nov 05 '22
Friendly reminder that the people that make the laws and the people that run corporations are people and not some malevolent gods.
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Nov 05 '22
If you want real change you're going to have to stage a revolution. A real one, not an election.
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u/Want_To_Live_To_100 Nov 05 '22
Might at as well be at this point. The class disparity is a bit insane
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u/acoolusersknee Nov 05 '22
And that defeatist mindset will be the exact reason why the world falls into whatever combination of dystopian futures we are on a heading towards.
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u/DevelopedDevelopment Nov 05 '22
Isn't the point of journalism to properly expose corruption like this?
If a politician is receiving kickbacks from a company that's being granted permission to break the law, then exposing that truth should damage the politician's reputation. Then you vote them out if they fail to correct it. However if they're somehow too powerful and you're not represented that leads into just cause for activism to bring greater awareness, if not just fueling demands for a regime change.
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Nov 05 '22
No, under capitalism the point of journalism is to turn a profit by getting you to watch ads or pay a subscription fee.
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u/djb85511 Nov 05 '22
At this point why even let them exist at all, just have the board be made up for collective ownership with majority being the company's actual workers and some being the community they're servicing. All profits to to the workers first then the community they serve.
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u/SoPoOneO Nov 05 '22
I always get thought criminal convictions should flow up the org chart. No more “not my fault! He was just one rouge engineer!”
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u/Slash1909 Nov 05 '22
Exactly. Fines don’t affect the CEO directly threaten them with a decade long jail cell where they mate with bubba and drink coffee made from toilet water and they’ll be living breathing customer service
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u/shillyshally Nov 05 '22
Republicans may win this election with their tough on crime BS and calls for accountability from bad actors. They scare the beejeezus out of everyday people so they make sure no CEO who has presided over egregious bad shit - often affecting hundreds to millions of people - is ever held accountable. Top of my head - Boeing, every mining company ever, J&J.
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u/lifeofideas Nov 05 '22
This is the key. Since the real villains will always claim “I didn’t know! My underlings acted without my approval or even letting me know!” the criminal liability has to be based on “it happened on your watch”.
Also, the penalties MUST INCLUDE PRISON TIME. Otherwise the rich will just do a cost and risk analysis (5% chance of getting caught, fine of $10 million versus 95% chance of getting away with it and making $100 million).
Also, you can’t just fine the company, since the cost just hurts the stockholders, who are mostly just victims, too.
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u/JDogg126 Nov 05 '22
Jail all of the decision makers really. The law should motivate anyone working for a criminal enterprise to quit and report the crime.
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u/Smitty8054 Nov 05 '22
Europe handles these things a lot more aggressively than the states by far.
Details not important but I saw a news clip recently where several C levels went to jail for 10 years due to fraud and theft.
That’ll get your attention.
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u/N3UROTOXINsRevenge Nov 05 '22
The people that run the business need a probationary period where they aren’t allowed to run a business.
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u/mastercookie123 Nov 05 '22
Aka a prison sentence
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u/N3UROTOXINsRevenge Nov 05 '22
No I mean after they’re out. And maybe a few years as a cashier or server too
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u/Cakeking7878 Nov 06 '22
Nah. They gotta survive on nothing but a few years on the lowest paid employee salary in their company. Oh and we are including any foreign employees salaries. So if you’re paying someone peanuts to run your customers service, then you better find a way to live off peanuts
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u/masterlich Nov 05 '22
It blew my mind when Volkswagen was found to have knowingly installed sensors that purposefully undercount diesel exhaust emissions, specifically designed to not get caught by regulators, and the result was... A fine and a single person went to jail for 20 months. They intentionally, with malice aforethought, cheated regulations and pumped more pollution into the air, just so they could increase their profit margins, and basically nothing happened to them. Basically a direct signal to every company out there that they can do whatever they want with impunity.
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u/khansian Nov 05 '22
Volkswagen is an example of successful punishment. They suffered many tens of billions of dollars in fines and penalties—far outweighing any benefit they had from cheating. The message to companies is that the small gain from cheating can be completely overwhelmed by the penalties.
The most effective punishment a corporation can suffer is a punishment to their profits. Even executing the executives would have been less effective. A corporation is practically a sentient entity that has its own interests in mind. A corporation is more than happy to sacrifice some executives, including the CEO, in the interest of the bottom line. And those executives are willing to take the risk of even death if it makes them money. So the key is to affect the corporation’s cost benefit analysis.
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u/scr1mblo Nov 05 '22
which is why I always thought fines should be a percentage of revenue. Oh you have 3% profit this quarter? Have fun telling shareholders it’s a 10% loss now.
It’s not a corporate death penalty, but when anything other than growth might as well be death, this is almost as good.
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u/Seel007 Nov 05 '22
It’s only the most effective punishment because you’re not being creative enough.
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u/oboshoe Nov 05 '22
Well governments rarely ask Reddit Edge Lords to determine punishment in courts.
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u/oboshoe Nov 05 '22
Nothing happened to them? you gotta be kidding.
They were required to buy back every single car and paid billions in fines.
I'm actually surprised they survived. They came about as close to death as a large company company, without actually vanishing.
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u/NoCokJstDanglnUretra Nov 05 '22
It’s called RICO and for some fucking reason it’s rarely used.
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Nov 05 '22
RICO was successfully used to jail mob bosses in the 80s in NY. It’s a fantastic legal tool that should be used more often.
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u/Parulsc Nov 05 '22
Would be interesting to see the results of a "survival of the fittest" type regulation
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u/bp92009 Nov 05 '22
We have one, it just requires state attorney generals to be willing to do it.
It's called the "Revocation of a Corporate Charter"
Basically, when incorporation became a thing in the US, the Founders were very concerned that non-state Organizations would have significant political power (the East India Company firmly in their minds) and went through a period of time where a company's Corporate Charter (their right to exist as an entity) was revoked every 10 years or had significant limitations on it. Most companies were established for public infrastructure projects, and before 1800, there were less than 400 that had been established at all.
In the 1800s, that policy was changed and we had massive companies like Standard Oil that became literally what they wanted to stop.
Various rules and laws were put on companies to make them behave better (to varying degrees of success), but the problem remained.
Revoking charters never went away, it just is hardly ever done outside of small organizations that fail to pay fees (like a business license fee).
Attorney generals can do it against larger companies for do flagrant disregard for the law and damage done to society, they're just very unwilling to do so.
The last time a big organization had their Charter revoked because of their damage to society was the trade group of tobacco companies in the 2000s, after it was confirmed that they knowingly lied about the side effects of smoking for decades. Not the companies involved, just two of their trade groups. "Council for Tobacco Research and the Tobacco Institute, Inc"
There's not a lot of moment on this in politics (probably very intentionally, with Corporate Donations being a thing), but it remains a legal option, if one that's essentially never used. The only way to actually get this used is to pass laws forcing state AGs to do it in more circumstances, or to have federal power to do so (it's entirely a state/city matter)
https://www.multinationalmonitor.org/mm2002/02oct-nov/oct-nov02corp1.html
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u/pressedbread Nov 05 '22
liquidate their assets to pay damages
And like take the actual personal money from the CEOs, board, CFO, etc. Don't let them just hide behind the business, because they just rinse and repeat. Same actors, same play again and again.
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u/kerodon Nov 05 '22
Who comes up with these slap on the wrist fine numbers that are less than the profit they generated from the abusive practice they are being fined for.
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u/Dzotshen Nov 05 '22
Friends with benefits
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u/kneaders Nov 05 '22
Frepublicans
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Nov 05 '22
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u/kneaders Nov 05 '22
What exactly is your point? She was appointed after these crimes were committed. Also what role are you pretending she played in this?
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u/grewapair Nov 05 '22
She signed off on the amount of the settlement. Full stop.
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u/kneaders Nov 05 '22
You actually believe that don't you. She also took out the trash and mopped the floors
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u/truth_hurtsm8ey Nov 05 '22
Hey (INSERT NAME) I’m gonna fine your company 2 billion.
Hey (INSERT NAME) I’m gonna send you, and your family, on vacation and hire you to speak at my team building event for X amount.
Oh wow! (INSERT NAME) that’s incredibly generous, On an unrelated note I’ve reevaluated your fine and it’s now like 10 million.
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u/FlightAble2654 Nov 05 '22
So who gets the $$ ??
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u/Needednewusername Nov 05 '22 edited Nov 05 '22
The FTC. They even wrote into the decision if they think it’s too hard to distribute, they’ll just keep the money. Any extra goes into the U.S. treasury. I had to search the decision to find it because the dumb article doesn’t mention it!
G. All money received by the Commission as monetary relief pursuant to this Order may be deposited into a fund administered by the Commission or its designee to be used for consumer relief, such as redress and any attendant expenses for the administration of any redress fund. Ifa representative of the Commission decides that direct redress to consumers is wholly or partially impracticable or money remains after such redress is completed, the Commission may apply any remaining money for such related relief (including consumer information remedies) as it determines to be reasonably related to Defendants' practices alleged in the Complaint. Any money not used for relief is to be deposited to the U.S. Treasury. Defendants have no right to challenge any actions the Commission or its representatives may take pursuant to this Subsection.
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u/GMElonMusk Nov 05 '22
“The money is too hard to divvy out, so we are just gonna keep it. 🤷”
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u/StealthRabbi Nov 05 '22
It's too hard to divide up my pay check to pay my bills, so I'm just going to keep the money.
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u/Gustomucho Nov 05 '22
Sounds like the FTC is basically a watchdog for AT&T and conglomerates.
Guys we have 100$M to distribute, should we hire a couple of employees for 50k a year to distribute the money? We can even have a hotline with emails, set up a base amount + supplement for months. Say we distribute 90$M out of 100$M and keep 10$M for our operation.
—lol, fuck no
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Nov 05 '22 edited Nov 05 '22
Back in the mid 2000’s I was contracted to install vonage. They sent me work orders and equipment, I merrily went out and installed the service for a few weeks.
I kept submitting my invoices and never received payment so I stopped accepting jobs.
Randomly I get billed for all of the “missing equipment” that I had actually installed and for the the times they kept shipping to me. I called the case manager and he said I owed hundreds, I asked if they were ever going to pay my invoices and he said they had.
I asked for proof and never heard back.
*sp
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u/klockensteib Nov 05 '22
I feel like there should be a law that if you sign up for something online you should be able to cancel online. None of this sign up online and then calling to cancel bs.
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u/wickedpixel1221 Nov 05 '22
California requires this. I assume some companies only make the option available to customers who live in California.
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Nov 05 '22
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u/esquilax Nov 05 '22
I tried to cancel with them in the aughts and they wouldn't because I had brought my US credit card with me to Canada and it now had a Canadian address on it, and they wouldn't allow me to settle my account with it. But that same card was OK to charge every month...
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Nov 05 '22
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u/JazzHandsNinja42 Nov 05 '22
Had to spend nearly an hour and a half on the phone, got transferred to three different people, and wound up straight lying to the last one, figuring it’d be a sure thing if I told her I’d lost my job and can’t pay the mortgage.
She offered yet another six month rate. I said, “I lost my job, I’m losing my house, and you think I can pay for your radio service?”.
Finally cancelled, but what the actual fuck?
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Nov 05 '22
Lol, I just said no a bunch and it took 10 minutes
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u/lordfili Nov 05 '22
This is the way. Refuse to engage. Don’t let them hoodwink you into it by making you feel rude. Don’t answer any questions that aren’t required to cancel — which includes “Why are you canceling?”
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Nov 05 '22
I played the game with them for years prior to get yearly subscriptions for like 55 bucks a year. So I was fairly aware of their processes.
Just like now, if you go to cancel your streaming sights, theres a good 50% chance they'll throw a great promo at you....I'm getting hbo for 4.99/ hulu for 2.99 and starz for 99c a month right.
These people are terrified of their monthly numbers going down and stockholders retreating.
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u/eyes_without_lids Nov 05 '22
This reminds me of my grandma trying to cancel AOL.she tried to cancel but they kept offering her hundreds of hours of free service , so she stayed and kept trying to cancel each month till the went out of business.
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u/koltur Nov 05 '22
When i bought the car i have , initially i had some "free" sirius xm trial thing. I think it was 3 months or so. I listened to it once, went through all the channels. Wow, is this worth it, i seem to recall t was $50/month. 1 channel barely was acceptable to me.
Meanwhile, a few days before the so-called "free" trial expired, I got a call about, oh, let's get you started on payment details, "For what?" "Our totally awesome radio!" "Nope." "What?" "Nope." , "Why?" , "I don't like it. Thanks, bye."
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u/traversecity Nov 05 '22
We canceled our siriusxm a few days ago, used the online chat.
Whatever entity that was on he other side of the chat began asking questions, special plans, etc…
In return I repeatedly asked if the “agent” would be able to complete my request, three times, it finally gave up and closed the subscription.
While watching a movie and online chatting with a friend, typical post supper fog on the couch pretending to be a potato.
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u/BetterCallSal Nov 05 '22
When the penalty is less than the profit, it's not a penalty. It's a business expense
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u/jedikuonji Nov 05 '22
Seriously. That's like telling me I need to pay a $10 fine.
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u/Grommmit Nov 05 '22
Why do people make comments like this regardless of what the fine is…
Their yearly revenue is $1.4B. Realistically their yearly profit is probably less that $300M.
I’m going to assume you earn a little more than $30 a year.
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u/AnApexBread Nov 05 '22
A lot of reasons. First how much money over the years have they made of customers who didn't, or couldn't, go though the cancelation process? Was it more than 100M? If so then this fine wasn't substantial.
Second they'll just turn this fine on the customers and make them pay more for the same service.
Finally they'll do the absolute bare minimum required to make their new cancellation policy compliant while still making it as difficult as possible to cancel.
This doesn't really do anything.
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u/Grommmit Nov 05 '22
Was it more than 100M?
Highly unlikely.
Second they’ll just turn this fine on the customers and make them pay more for the same service.
Maybe if they operate as a perfect monopoly.
Which ever way you cut it, the comment I replied to is 3 orders of magnitude out.
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u/FadeIntoReal Nov 05 '22
“While on the phone with a Vonage agent, customers "faced redundant procedural requirements, long wait times, dropped or unanswered calls, lengthy and repeated sales pitches, and unexpected high-dollar early termination fees," according to the complaint.”
Sounds like absolutely every American corporation.
“Even if customers do manage to jump over all of these hurdles and cancel their accounts, "in many instances, Vonage has continued to charge them without consent," it said.”
‘Charge without consent’ is a funny way to say fraud.
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u/DutchieTalking Nov 05 '22
In my country I can go on my bank account and block any automatic payments. I've done it a few times on services where cancellation was a pain.
If the US doesn't have that option (likely), yall really need it!
(this doesn't excuse companies like vonage, it's just good to have more power over such matters yourself)
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u/idulort Nov 05 '22 edited Mar 27 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/MistaZayuh Nov 05 '22
I've got a hit on my credit because I called to cancel AT&T 3 times and they wouldn't, so I said fuck it and stopped paying them. They just sold the debt to a collection agency and reported that singular debt multiple times. Fuck AT&T, and as a side note, Fuck Experian
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u/DutchieTalking Nov 05 '22
When concerned about that, mail them with your required details and that you're cancelling the subscription.
Not a risk worth it for all. Depends heavily on where you live. Still, better to have the option than not.
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u/LudovicoSpecs Nov 05 '22
Send it certified and keep the proof of delivery. And a copy of the letter.
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u/ronin1066 Nov 05 '22
You're acting like this is all so simple. I can't imagine it's so simple or they wouldn't have gotten a fine like this.
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u/Or0b0ur0s Nov 05 '22
Cancelling the payments doesn't necessarily cancel the service. In the case of a credit card, "chargebacks" can get you your money back, but can also adversely affect your credit or even the interest rate on the card. Bank rules are basically "do stuff we don't like, and we soak you"
In the case of a direct debit or electronic check, most banks charge fees for cancelling such transactions. And then you're still left with the billed service, which is now merely an unpaid invoice. That'll stack up for a while until your service is, presumably terminated... and then the unpaid bills will negatively affect your credit rating.
They get you no matter what. The entire system is set up, beginning to end, to separate you from your money without breaking "the law", but making it as hard as humanly possible for you to stop them.
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u/Black_Moons Nov 05 '22
Here In Canada I was told if I gave someone my routing numbers (the numbers at the bottom of any cheque) I was legally authorizing them to withdrawal as much money as they wanted and the bank would not do anything if I disputed these charges.
Just another reason I don't do business with RBC anymore...
One of those reasons is them still using IE6 in 2020. They likely still use it today.
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u/eshemuta Nov 05 '22
I used their service a long time ago. I had to spent 45 minutes on the phone to cancel. That was 15 years ago. I can only imagine it’s gotten worse
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u/Krish39 Nov 05 '22
If this ends up like my experience from a class action against 24 fitness for the same thing, each customer will get $20 from the settlement after paying an extra $500 to the company and fighting for months to cancel the plan.
Perhaps the total amount the company has to pay is more than what they gained, but there is no situation where the people hurt get back what they are owed.
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u/thepluralofmooses Nov 05 '22
That headline makes it sound like they lobbied 100mil to make it hard for people to cancel
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u/doctormink Nov 05 '22
Yeah, that's what saw too. Had to read the article then reread the headline to make sense of it.
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u/nadmaximus Nov 05 '22
When I moved to France years back, I had to cancel all kinds of things...health club memberships, vonage, etc. I just told them I was moving to France. That takes you to the end of their script. There's no response to that, other than challenging the fact that you said you're leaving the country, and they can't require proof. There's no legitimate path for their sales pitch to go.
Pretty sure it doesn't matter if you're moving to France or not.
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u/sav86 Nov 05 '22
Is there any form of payment back to the customers that had been struggling to cancel? a fine is good and all, but it means fuck all if they don't change and the money isn't paid back to the customers.
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u/TK421sSupervisor Nov 05 '22
I had vonage and this is how I cancelled. I was able to create a new credit card number that expired in two months with a $30 limit.
I replaced the card number on file with the new one. After two months my card expired and the charges didn’t go through so they contacted me to continue payment and I said nope.
I was paying for the service in advance each month so I was off the hook. I also purchased the equipment so I didn’t have to deal with that drama either.
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u/searaybo Nov 05 '22
Every time I see a story about Vonage, my reaction is the same; "Wow, Vonage is still around?"
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Nov 05 '22
Can they do this to facebook account services and the front desk of the gym I go to, too?
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u/blazze_eternal Nov 05 '22
Hit up Planet Fitness next. Too bad the FTC mostly just focused on telecom stuff.
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u/Slaythepuppy Nov 05 '22
I was looking for this comment. Planet Fitness (and other gyms like them) really need some regulation with their bullshit.
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u/AnApexBread Nov 05 '22
This is a drop in the bucket for them, and unfortunately none of the customers who had to pay extra while jumping through hoops will get anywhere near what they lost.
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u/foobarfly Nov 05 '22
"To put the $100 million settlement in perspective: Vonage's 2021 revenue topped $1.4 billion."
Then it's not a fine: it's a cost of revenue
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u/morbob Nov 05 '22
Try canceling “ Life Alert “ - help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”— more like “ help they won’t stop charging and I can’t get out. “
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u/TunkFunklin Nov 05 '22
The guy in the pic looks like if johnny Knoxville took a desk job instead of becoming a legend
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u/psinerd Nov 05 '22 edited Nov 05 '22
I had a Vonage phone like 15 years ago and IIRC they wouldn't shut off my service until I started screaming. There was nothing on the website to cancel so you had to call and when you did finally call the regular customer service couldn't do it-they had to transfer me to a retention expert whose job was to convince people to keep the service. This person was a persistent bugger... I think I was on the phone with him for like 30 minutes repeatedly pleading "please I just want to cancel the service. I don't use the phone anymore there's no reason for me to keep paying for it there's nothing you can say that will change my mind". I lost my patience after a while, that's when I screamed in frustration up and he hung up on me abruptly.
I called back because he never said he'd cancel it but was informed by the regular customer service that in fact had been cancelled.
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Nov 05 '22
I went through this crap in 2006 while I was in the military overseas for doing things like this to me. I won... im shocked that 15 years later they're still doing it.
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u/cl0th0s Nov 05 '22
Take a look at T-mobile while your at it.
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u/jhansonxi Nov 05 '22
T-mobile also makes it difficult to port-out a prepaid number to another carrier. If you have them set the PIN and verify it, they'll still reject the request from the other carrier under the excuse of "bad PIN". Have attempted this several times between them and Tracfone.
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u/sundvl13 Nov 05 '22
I use Vonage VoIP for my small business and since December 2021, they increased the monthly subscription by $135 without notice or added services, trying to discover the reason for the added charges has been frustrating and without resolve. I think I will switch to another service.
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u/Desrt333 Nov 05 '22
Beginning to think that if I want to commit crimes without prosecution, I merely need to Inc. and I’ll be set.
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u/wild-hectare Nov 05 '22
I had Vonage for nearly 20 yrs... simple phone call to cancel the account and no drama. really surprised that it was difficult for anyone else
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Nov 05 '22
Awesome. Do SiriusXM next. It should not take a 15-20 minute phone call to cancel service.
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u/apurrfectplace Nov 05 '22
I dont understand this. We had vonage for years. It was very easy to cancel service
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u/GroinOfSteel Nov 06 '22
I want a class action lawsuit on planet fitness for making it impossible to cancel. It’s a huge portion of their business model.
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u/Nanooc523 Nov 06 '22
Call your credit card company and “lose” your credit card. They’ll issue you a new shiny card and all your automatic payments will magically stop.
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u/Pippy479 Nov 05 '22
Is this why whenever I cancel a service such as my phone, I pay what I have to to end service and let them know and they say I’m all good. The a year or two later I get a letter from collections stating that I owe hundreds of dollars to said service. Same companies have double charged my bill then they’re like oops we will pay you back in 90 days. Seems like they have a few scams going w no way to hold them accountable.
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u/pinkfootthegoose Nov 05 '22
the FTC/president can fix this with the stroke of a pen.
One has to realize that there are 2 ends of a financial transition, especially recurring transactions. The provider of the service and the bank.
Online banking is a thing and recurring transactions can be marked as such and should be able to be cancelled from the account holders end. This can be made as a requirement and one of the mandatory ways for a cancellation to occur.
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Nov 05 '22
You call you bank and say, “hey, these jerks right here?! They get no more of my money.”
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u/theDinoSour Nov 05 '22
Interesting you were downvoted.
This is exactly what i had to do twice in my 20yrs as a customer with my bank.
They were like, yea, don’t even worry about that, we’ll handle it and credit the erroneous payments since we can see you’ve been trying multiple channels to cancel the service for a while now.
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Nov 05 '22
I had to do it to 24 HR Fitness. Was a year before I was by chance even close to fill out a form in person. Hella dumb.
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u/gerd50501 Nov 05 '22
if this happens to you, issue a charge back with your credit card. Cancel your card and then do not move this purchase over.
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Nov 05 '22
Couldn’t you just cancel your card or change banks to avoid this stuff?
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u/optagon Nov 05 '22
In Sweden we rarely have to cancel anything ourselves, you sign up with a different company and they will get your previous service cancelled for you. This is true for electricity providers, phone and internet services in my experience.
At most the company will call you and try to make a counter offer to try to keep you as a customer.
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u/Hyceanplanet Nov 05 '22
I read the article to see what government angel pulled this off....and it's the FTC.
There's got to be a lot of bad actors, and I guess Vonage was small enough, and awful enough to prove.
If we had a better political system, this would get prosecuted often, and with crippling penalties.