Help needed - VOIPO Support

[Tumultus]

I just wrote VoipoTim a PM but if my previous experience on here is any indication, I can't expect a reply. So, I am going to repost my PM here with private information removed:

Tim,

I am really sorry to bother you here but I have a problem that I can't get resolved. Since I have to give you some customer information, I can't post this public in the forums.

On August 01, 2013, I contacted support and asked about termination of my service in November. I had a 2-year prepaid residential plan and just didn't want to renew anymore since I barely used it. My VOIPO number was (000) 000-0000.

I got a reply from Mykel (ID #LAD-000000) in which I was told to go to a website and do the cancelation from there.

The first problem was that my account had been terminated immediately. Not only has my number been deactivated instantly but I also have no longer access to my account and support. This information became available to me only after I submitted the cancelation request.

The bigger problem is this:
I got an automated email, telling me to ship back my phone adapter to VOIPO and that I would be charged $45.00 otherwise. The problem is that my housemate is still using it with his own VOIPO account, so, I actually can't return it without canceling his account too. He sure doesn't want to cancel but if you want your adapter back ... !

I wrote VOIPO support about this yesterday and Bonnie replied to me that I would be charged for the adapter and that I also wouldn't see a refund for my remaining months with VOIPO unless the adapter is returned.

It seems like the support stuff doesn't even bother anymore to read customer emails. It isn't the first time that there is a complete lack of understanding the problem and acting accordingly.

As of now, I not only lost my phone number 4 months early, I also will have to ask my housemate to get his number transferred to another phone service provider in order to be able to return your adapter. If you can explain to me how I am supposed to do all that within 30 days and without access to my account and support history, I will try ... otherwise, please ask the support team to use their brain every now and then.

You can see on my message that I am quite upset about this. Additionally, I am currently working at night, meaning: your business hours are my sleeping hours, so, I can't even call the hotline.

Your advice is needed!

Regards

... ......

[jsiepka]

Let me see if I understand this correctly.

You cancelled the account in the control panel on August 1st instead of waiting till November. When you cancel your account there is nothing anyone can do.

You still want to use the adapter that is included with the service you cancelled. You have the option of sending back Voipo’s equipment or purchasing it at $45 which is not a bad price. But you also state your housemate needs it for his/her account. Where is your housemate’s adapter that came with their account?

You want to port/keep the number of the cancelled account. It doesn’t matter what phone company you are dealing with, once you cancel the account the number is gone. This is why you have to port the number before canceling the account.

Tim along with the rest of the VoIPo team has provided me with outstanding support over the years. I wish you all the luck and please let us know what the outcome is.

[Tumultus]

Let me see if I understand this correctly.
You didn't!


You cancelled the account in the control panel on August 1st instead of waiting till November. When you cancel your account there is nothing anyone can do.
I didn't want to cancel immediately. In my ticket, I stated clearly that I simply don't want to renew my account in November. I asked if there was anything that I would have to do, so, it would not automatically renew. The reply was simple: I was instructed to go to the cancelation website and fill out the form.


You still want to use the adapter that is included with the service you cancelled. You have the option of sending back Voipo’s equipment or purchasing it at $45 which is not a bad price. But you also state your housemate needs it for his/her account. Where is your housemate’s adapter that came with their account?
You are wrong here! I don't want to use the adapter anymore. My housemate, who has his own account with VOIPO - (Get that? Own VOIPO number, own login, own account management and payment) - uses the same adapter. My housemate never got one, I suppose. All I know, is that his account had been added to my adapter back in time. But then, this isn't the issue anyway since I am not responsible for my housemate's adapter.


You want to port/keep the number of the cancelled account. It doesn’t matter what phone company you are dealing with, once you cancel the account the number is gone. This is why you have to port the number before canceling the account.
Again wrong! I never said I wanted to keep my number!

[QUOTE=jsiepka;33491Tim along with the rest of the VoIPo team has provided me with outstanding support over the years. I wish you all the luck and please let us know what the outcome is.[/QUOTE]
Then you were a lucky person! I got a number of people over to VOIPO and in many cases, we had trouble with support since they never really took the time to understand the issue (read: read a support ticket).

[jsiepka]

I apologize for not fully understanding the problem.

VoIPo should have ignored a cancelation order for 3 months.

VoIPo should not have asked you to send their equipment back to them before charging you $45. Instead VoIPo should let you give their equipment away to a 3rd party which you have no rights or responsibilities for said 3rd party’s service.

It was absolutely wrong for me to assume when one states they lost something it indicates the intent of keeping something.

You are also totally correct that I am a lucky person. I’ve been in more bars in more places than AT&T has.

For everyone else that may come across this post please learn from Tumultus’s experience.

Whether with VoIPo or dealing with any other recurring services if you do not want to renew your service and insure that your credit/debit card is not automatically charged, short of cancelling your debit/credit card, you can remove your credit card information from the account, and enter the cancellation before the end of the term.

We all need to take time to understand.

[Tumultus]

I apologize for not fully understanding the problem.

VoIPo should have ignored a cancelation order for 3 months.

VoIPo should not have asked you to send their equipment back to them before charging you $45. Instead VoIPo should let you give their equipment away to a 3rd party which you have no rights or responsibilities for said 3rd party’s service.

It was absolutely wrong for me to assume when one states they lost something it indicates the intent of keeping something.

You are also totally correct that I am a lucky person. I’ve been in more bars in more places than AT&T has.

For everyone else that may come across this post please learn from Tumultus’s experience.

Whether with VoIPo or dealing with any other recurring services if you do not want to renew your service and insure that your credit/debit card is not automatically charged, short of cancelling your debit/credit card, you can remove your credit card information from the account, and enter the cancellation before the end of the term.

We all need to take time to understand.

You guy seem to have some issues! How about you keep to your own business and live happily ever after? I absolutely don't care how many bars you got in how many places; it simply doesn't qualify you to place judgement on other people and their VOIPO setup.

And as for your misconsumption that I gave away my VOIPO adapter to a 3rd party: It was VOIPO themselves who added my housemates account to BOTH PORTS of my adapter. My number has been a call-forward for quite some time.

Clearly, you can't assist me in my case and you also don't work for VOIPO, so, please, go away! I don't have to explain my situation and VOIPO setup to you, that's between me and them.

[jsiepka]

You asked for help in a customer forum where we, the customers, try to help each other and make the community and services better.

The bottom line is you created your own problems and you’re are not happy with the answer you received. If you don’t want people in your business don’t put your business out there and ask for help.

[Tumultus]

You asked for help in a customer forum where we, the customers, try to help each other and make the community and services better.

The bottom line is you created your own problems and you’re are not happy with the answer you received. If you don’t want people in your business don’t put your business out there and ask for help.

Let me break it to you: YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO ANSWER MY PROBLEM! And I most certainly didn't ask you (personally) for help either! To most people, it is quite clear that my initial post had been addressed to VOIPO SUPPORT. Yet, here you are with your smartass comments and assumptions. Go, figure!

Let's see, maybe it will sink into your brain since you accusing me of creating my own problems: I didn't create my own problems. My adapter has been a shared adapter, if you like that fact or not. And with the cancelation: I have been adviced by the support staff to do so. There was no indication that it would terminate my account instantly either.

And now, for a last time: Since you're not qualified to help, why don't you just go and open your own thread? You have contributed nothing but shown an attitude here anyway.

[JacobsLive]

And as for your misconsumption that I gave away my VOIPO adapter to a 3rd party: It was VOIPO themselves who added my housemates account to BOTH PORTS of my adapter. My number has been a call-forward for quite some time.


First of all I can't blame jsiepka for misunderstanding your whole story, I was thinking the same way as jsiepka did in the beginning.

Ok, here is what the situation with your adapter. Your housemate's account was added to the adapter provided to YOU by voipo. In this case your housemate is a BYOD customer to voipo. Since your account is cancelled and voipo is asking for the adapter back, there are two things can be done here. 1. your housemate should contact voipo and they will send him/her a separate adapter (at no charge I believe). 2. call voipo to transfer the adapter into your housemates name.

I believe it is also possible to retrieve your account, if you want for the remaining period of time of your contract. Call them and they will definitely help you. Their customer service is outstanding. Remember, as with any another company/person, give respect and take respect, if you ask them politely I am sure they will help you out. I have dealt with Tim and Brandon and they are always there to help to make the service better and get it right.

[Tumultus]

First of all I can't blame jsiepka for misunderstanding your whole story, I was thinking the same way as jsiepka did in the beginning.
Well, you can blame this on 2 things: First of all, you don't have access to my support ticket and, secondly, English isn't my birth language.


Ok, here is what the situation with your adapter. Your housemate's account was added to the adapter provided to YOU by voipo. In this case your housemate is a BYOD customer to voipo. Since your account is cancelled and voipo is asking for the adapter back, there are two things can be done here. 1. your housemate should contact voipo and they will send him/her a separate adapter (at no charge I believe). 2. call voipo to transfer the adapter into your housemates name.

I believe it is also possible to retrieve your account, if you want for the remaining period of time of your contract. Call them and they will definitely help you. Their customer service is outstanding. Remember, as with any another company/person, give respect and take respect, if you ask them politely I am sure they will help you out. I have dealt with Tim and Brandon and they are always there to help to make the service better and get it right.
Cody from customer support finally responded to me. I worked with him in the past and he was always helpful. Since it is weekend, I doubt I can expect a resolution before beginning of next week.

My initial point of frustration was that I clearly stated in my ticket that I would like to keep my service until the day it was paid for and that I simply didn't want to renew. I asked if I still would have to do something to prevent auto-renew. I received a 1-liner, telling me "Yes, please go to (link-to-cancellation-page) and fill out the form. Once I followed that link, there was no indication that my account would be terminated immediately. In fact, I believed it would just flag my account for termination at renewal date. It was only after I submitted the form, that the system told me that the service has been terminated, so, I lost not only my service 4 months early but also access to my account history and support tickets.

The adapter is a different story. I didn't elaborate on this earlier because jsiepka's posts were nothing but pointing fingers at me and telling me how stubid I was to do what I did, yet, he never knew the whole story in first place. I only opened this thread, so, that VOIPO support may notice in case Tim doesn't read his PM. After all, I couldn't access my support tickets anymore, so, this was the only way for me.

But let's get back to the adapter:
My housemate indeed received his own adapter but it has never been used. From day 1, he was set up with my adapter on port 2. A month ago, I opened a ticket, asking VOIPO to add his number to both ports of the adapter and removing my number completely (which they did).

Now, after this (not-yet-intended) cancellation, VOIPO wants this exact same adapter returned to them. I wrote them that my housemate is still set up on that adapter which, in return got me another standard-copy-and-paste "Return the adapter with MAC address XXXXXXXXXX otherwise we charge you!" reply.

I have no problem returning their adapter, however, I can't do so without getting my housemate set up on another adapter first or, which would be easier: return his adapter instead.

That is my problem! Just a whole lot of miscommunication. And the fact that I am working currently at night doesn't make it easier.

If I am lucky, Cody will take care of things but as far as I know the system, somebody else will reply and he will not even bother reading the entire ticket down.

[VOIPoTim]

Sorry to hear about the confusion here.

I think the root issue is that this is a special situation where we'd made an exception outside of normal processes with the adapter. Sometimes when we make exceptions and do things outside of the norm (like mixing the adapters from 2 separate accounts), our systems don't account for that. Our processes are only designed for the way things normally are and when we make exceptions, the system (or our reps) are going to assume things were setup the normal way.

In terms of your cancellation, the form cancels service immediately. I'm sorry if there was some confusion about it, but it does say on the form that the account is subject to immediate cancelation once submitted. We don't have the ability to post-date cancellations...once the form is submitted, they are processed. If you need the account reactivated (with the same number), we can do that pretty easily. That's an easy fix.

In terms of the adapters, both accounts should have been issued an adapter. As long as you return one of them, it'll be fine and you won't be charged. Just include a note with it explaining that it is for the phone number and the situation.

[JacobsLive]

But let's get back to the adapter:
My housemate indeed received his own adapter but it has never been used. From day 1, he was set up with my adapter on port 2. A month ago, I opened a ticket, asking VOIPO to add his number to both ports of the adapter and removing my number completely (which they did).


Oh I see whats going on now. Well, anyways Tim made it clear that you can return your housemate's adapter with a note explaining the situation. I would also suggest write down the Support Ticket number you opened with this issue so that they can easily find out whats going on.

If you still bit skeptical about the situation, ask your mate to contact voipo with the mac address and serial# of his/her adapter so that they can provision his/her account with that adapter. Then your adapter will be released form his account and you can return your original adapter avoiding all hassles.

Secondly, he also made it clear as I mentioned earlier, they can re-activate your account for the remaining period of time.

Hope you hare happy with the outcome. Btw, English is my third language :)

Good night!

[Tumultus]

Yeah, I am pretty sure it will all work out in the end. It's just the ammount of frustration until you get there that's bothering me. But I do understand that support staff has to follow procedure rather than using common sense. I've worked for and with many corporations and their procedures often complicated the matter rather than just save time and resolve it intelligently. Fortunately, VOIPO isn't a corporation (yet) and, if you catch the right guy, your problems go away quickly. :)

@Tim:
Thanks for your reply. I'll try to work this out with support.