Horrible service STAY AWAY FROM VOIPO

[burris]

I have or manage 4 VOIPo accounts. The longest - almost a year, the newest - 2 months. I am very happy with 3; and very unhappy with 1. So unhappy, in fact, that I forwarded my Voipo calls to Google Voice account and connected my adapter to GV. Same router; same adapters, same house - but Voipo calls have absolutely terrible voice quality; and other providers work great. Tier 1 support tried to blame router, ISP, and California heat. Tier 2 support is very knowledgeable; occasionally he tweaks routing for specific dial number, and quality improves for that destination; but obviously, I can't call support for every caller.

Anyway, if I only had this one account, I would be as mad as original poster (my first VSP - BroadVoice - was as bad in 2003; but I expect much more reliable service in 2012). If I had three other accounts - I would be as ecstatic as many other happy Voipo customers. But overall, I think you are taking 25% chance of "miss" in the "hit-and-miss" approach. If it is your business phone - you can afford something more reliable. If it's your home phone, and you have 3 cell phones lying around - you should be fine

I'm sure you have the problems you described, but if this were true across the board with VOIPo, how do you suppose they could have thousands of customers for all these years who are quite pleased.

As was said numerous times by Tim as well as others, on occasion, and for a variety of technical reasons, the service just may not work for you.
If I were having the problems you described and couldn't have them resolved, I would have been long gone, no matter the price.

[ymhee_bcex]

I'm sure you have the problems you described, but if this were true across the board with VOIPo, how do you suppose they could have thousands of customers for all these years who are quite pleased.

I am sure you read my post that you quoted, but if this were the true - how could you respond the way you responded?

For example, where did you see me saying that the problems were across the board? Even if my own small sample, the problem is in 25% of cases (1 out of 4). If I had problems in the beginning, do you think I would sign up for 3 more accounts?! The problems (repeat: on one account of four) started about 2 months ago (after 6 months of very good service; first intermittently); I was doing some troubleshooting for a month; I opened a ticket a month ago, and not being able to resolve it, I now forwarded the calls to Google Voice, and the voice quality is great.

As was said numerous times by Tim as well as others, on occasion, and for a variety of technical reasons, the service just may not work for you.
If I were having the problems you described and couldn't have them resolved, I would have been long gone, no matter the price.

Yes, Tim said that numerous times. We can agree to disagree on this point. When I am buying a service from a provider (cable, Internet, or voice service provider) - I don't expect that it "just may not work for me" on the technical level. And, if that's the attitude of company CEO, I am reluctant to procure services from such company - no matter the price. As I learned long ago, technical problems are more often than not management incompetence masquerading as technical issues

[burris]

Yes, Tim said that numerous times. We can agree to disagree on this point. When I am buying a service from a provider (cable, Internet, or voice service provider) - I don't expect that it "just may not work for me" on the technical level. And, if that's the attitude of company CEO, I am reluctant to procure services from such company - no matter the price. As I learned long ago, technical problems are more often than not management incompetence masquerading as technical issues

Let me make another comment.

I am quite positive that I am many times older than you and therefore although I may not know all the answers, I have more experience.
Doesn't make me any smarter, but does give me more insight.

I suppose you are saying that your cable or internet providers work 24/7 with nary a problem and if they miss, you will leave.
We now live in a world where the technology is moving so fast, we have to run just to stand still.

It's good that you have a forum to post your rants, but I don't see where that helps your situation.

Try to be a bit more reasonable and understand that if all your other customers are working OK, maybe have support take another look at the bad one.

Again, all the customers can't be having unresolvable problems or they wouldn't be here, and I suppose I am representative of those that are working well.

[ymhee_bcex]

I am quite positive that I am many times older than you and therefore although I may not know all the answers, I have more experience.

Interesting assumption. I am quite positive it's wrong (I am 46, so even if "many" equals 2.5, you qualify for Guinness book of records); and more important, irrelevant.

I suppose you are saying that your cable or internet providers work 24/7 with nary a problem and if they miss, you will leave.

For the second time you read in my post something that I didn't write and didn't imply. You may have more experience (more likely, you assume that you may have more experience - but be it as it may); but you certainly don't have sufficient reading comprehension. And that obviously limits your insight.

If you consider my post "rants" then there is no point arguing. This, obviously, goes both ways - therefore I have no choice but ignore you.

UPDATE: Somebody just sent me a private message on DSL Reports (my nick is the same here and there; so it was easy to make a connection). There is a third place where you use a strawman:

... I don't see where that helps your situation

Again, I never said or implied that I posted in order to help my situation. Conversely, I mentioned that I've worked with support for almost a month; and while I am frustrated with lack of results, I don't think it's due to support technician's bad skills.

I dislike screaming posts "STAY AWAY FROM Vendor X"; but I also dislike sycophantic posts "they have thousands of pleased customers; if you are not, then it's something in your environment at best, or more likely it's error code ID10T". Having mixed experience, I think I can offer some insight that others (very happy or very unhappy) can't.

[Aurora]

The problem with this all is that everyone thinks they are instantly turned into a IT/Phone guy with this service. I have several accounts and have been a dealer for almost a year now. The only issue I have every had was the features of the web portal not working correctly and 1 time Voipo had a issue that lasted 2 hours before it was fixed. To say its the phone service is not the right way to go, if it was that bad everyone would have problems and the company would not be in business. There is many factors, the biggests is the service coming into the house or business. A lot of areas dont have Verizon Fios and the DSL is only available. Depending on how far you are away from the DSL terminal you will either have a strong service or a weak service that will be a step above dial up. To those of you that dont know what the terminal is it would be the starting point from which the DSL is hitting the town. Cable company techs are lazy and will sometimes hook up service with a old RG6 drop not a RG6 quad shield drop. Again even though you have service doesn't mean you have strong service. The way the wires are run in the house will affect your service. Since I became a dealer I have come across the following issues:

new patch cords (bad)
new phone cords (bad)
customers existing phones not working correctly
new voip Adaptors (bad)
wires ran to close to electric causing issues
an existing phone jack bad
customers service coming into the house had issues, there was a big drop off between the trans and receive causing data packs to get lost or come in corrupted.
Issues with routers

Unless you know how to trouble shoot the issues you will get no where fast. Voipo tech support is there to trouble shoot their service not know every router ever build, or how to configure someones network. They can only see whats going through their servers etc. If any one is planning on going to provide a cheap phone service to their house or business it is their job at that point to learn how the service works and how to trouble shoot it. Thats the reason why phone companies and cable companies charge so much. its a thing called overhead they need to find a way to pay for the technicians that come out to your house when things go bad. If you want to go cheap remember you are cutting corners and you wont have the option of scheduling a service call. You will need to find someone that installs and services these other types of phone service.