In February 2016, we decided to switch to Voipo from our previous
voice-over-ip company of 5 years for VOIPO's competitive price. We didn't
think much of it since we treated that number as a backup landline phone and
rarely used it anyways.
Our first trouble was that after a few days of waiting, we found out that the
number porting was disapproved and further action was required. What??? The
reason, according to Voipo, was that our previous company would not release
it. ( But really?? I should have noticed at that time Voipo had a tendency to
blame others for wrongdoing.) Then next few days, a few back and forth
message exchanges and more documentation ( with zero help of a real human at
Voipo by the way, more a DIY style navigation), finally the number was
ported, much longer than I ever thought. This lengthy process should have
been a warning sign for me to stay away from Voipo. Keep in mind this porting
drama happened AFTER I paid for a two year contract, and all of a sudden not
sure whether the porting would eventually get through or we would lose the
number of many years. Before that, I had always assumed number porting was a
breeze in the process of switching providers. When the time came we finally
plugged in the Voipo adapter, we noticed something odd, that was, one phone
jack on Voipo adapter was dead, and the remaining working one had a high
static background noise, At that time, I told my wife Voipo must have blocked
one of them and allowed only one to work. I didn't assume that could be a
detective equipment mainly because that had never happen with other companies
we were with. Since this was a backup number we only used occasionally, we
simply tolerated the background statics of that working line. That's our
second mistake. Little did we know later on Voipo would blame us for that
first adapter, while it was a defective unit upon its arrival. Thinking back,
we were tired from chasing down the number porting process and just wanted
some peace. Fast forward another two months, one day in April 2016, my wife
decided to use that now VOIPO number to make a call, and the statics was so
incredible, that makes a conversation impossible. I contacted Voipo. After a
few days of message exchanges and self troubleshooting attempts based on
their instructions, they finally agreed to send us a new unit. The new unit
worked well, with clear signals on both phone jacks. But again, we should
have noticed that it took quite a bit of convincing for Voipo to take any
action to help their customers out, correcting a mistake that's most likely
their own fault. They blame all on the customers, as if we were criminals who
just loved to cheat.
Rather, we were just happy that finally we had our usable phone back! A
simple joy we assumed and always had with our previous two priders. Well, not
so fast! Fast-forward another 4 months, in August 2016, we accidentally
noticed ( again, we rarely used that phone) that there was zero signal from
that phone line. When did that first happen ? We weren't really sure. It's
not our day-to-day phone. So as an experienced DIYer by this point, I started
the troubleshoot, from the network setting, to power outlet. This took me
precious multiple hours of attempts to rule out every possible causes that's
not adapter related. When I had my prime suspect of the problem, the adapter
again. I realized that I could not fix on my own, I contacted Voipo. Of
course, another long journey of convincing and agony which showcased how
little Voipo thought of customers. In their mind, we were all merely criminal
who would like to scam their company! Each question asked was repeated a
dozen times by different rep and support tech, who didn't bother spend time
reading the written notes and my typed answers. Imagine each time I typed the
same lengthy answers to address the inquiries of a tech or network engineer,
before it was handed out to the next, who asked the same question without
reading what's been asked and done, all clearly typed in the ticket trail? It
ended up a long digital paper trail with repeated questions and answers. So 5
hours later, problem was still unsolved. They sent a ticket suggesting that
I initiated an online help session, in which they navigated my home computer
and network environment remotely. I agreed. Another 3 hours passed, they
finally came to the conclusion that VOIPO adapter was the culprit, something
I had been telling them all along. Guess what, at this point, Voipo put in
words that basically said we were the one who messed up the system - you
damaged it, you paid for it. All yours. They took zero blame. Really? In the
almost past 10 years of time we never had such experience with any other
service providers. How low the ethics bar can a company has? It was the low
cost and the shear numbers of features Voipo offered lured us to switch. We
were speechless to hear Voipo would finger point on us that we broke the 2
units. We have a rather new house with surge protection wired, temperature
and humidity control all year round and even a designated area for the
adapter where no one is nearby. Not to mention our good records in the past
with companies. If any blame has to be placed, I would think it's likely the
quality of Voipo equipment, the adapter they sent us. Stop sending us junk!
Hope this experience of our account will help you with more well rounded
assessment. Don't simply go for the price and features alone! We certainly
regretted our decision and the precious time and efforts that cost us. Now,
by switching it out to another service provider again and abandoning a two
year prepaid contract, we also lost on the money side too. A lesson learned.
Hope you are all careful with your decisions. Buyers be aware.
