Electronics

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Vonage: Unlimited International Calls?

Telephone and cell companies have popularized “unlimited” calling plans, and customers love them. There is no watching the clock, and checking the number of minutes used.

One company that advertised unlimited calling is Vonage — the leading voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) company. Part of a commercial they ran in the past said:

The fine print is inconsequential for purposes of this story, but refers in part to the fact the only certain countries were included, and maybe not to cell phones in all countries.

Vonage’s website confirms that calling is unlimited to 60 countries:

Lo and behold, the company sent this letter to one customer claiming that he used too many minutes on his unlimited plan.

Dear XXXXX XXXXXXXX,,

We appreciate your business and thank you for using Vonage for your phone service.

In order to provide the best value to all our customers, we track usage of Vonage residential calling plans. At the time of signup, you agreed to the Vonage Terms of Service (TOS), which includes usage guidelines for normal residential use. If you would like to review the usage guidelines, please see sections 5 and 10 of the TOS.

We have observed usage on your account, 1234567890 , which is not consistent with normal residential use. Specifically, your account shows irregular patterns of use and/or international-minute usage that is more than twice that of our heaviest users.

At this time, you can remain on your current plan, but your usage will need to be changed to fall within normal residential use guidelines; this usage would generally not exceed 3,000 international minutes per month. [emphasis added] As another option, you can switch to a different calling plan, or you can disconnect your service without penalty.

For additional information about your options please respond to this email and one of our associates will be glad to assist you.

Regards,
Vonage Customer Service
101

When at Vonage’s terms of service, one learns

*MOUSE PRINT*

5.4 Inconsistent with Normal Use.
If you use the service, any feature or the device in a way that is inconsistent with the normal use for your service, feature or plan, you will be required, at Vonage’s sole discretion, to pay the rates for the service, feature or plan that would apply to the way you used the service, feature or device, or terminate the plan. For example, if you subscribe to one of our residential service plans, and your usage is inconsistent with normal residential use, you may thereafter be required to pay our applicable, higher rates for commercial service for all periods in which your use of our service or the device was inconsistent with normal residential use. Unlimited voice services are provided primarily for continuous live dialog between two individuals. Lack of continuous dialog activity, unusual call patterns, excessive conferencing or call forwarding, excessive numbers and/or consistent excessive usage (which may also apply to features such as Directory Assistance) will be considered indicators that use may be inconsistent with normal use, or that impermissible use may be occurring and may trigger an account review or further action by us. We may determine inconsistent use based on material deviations from the usage patterns and levels of most of our customers using the same and/or similar service plans, features or devices

In summary, they say if your use is inconsistent with normal residential use, they can charge you commercial rates, put you in a higher priced plan, or terminate your service. Nowhere do they establish a specific cap of 3000 international minutes.

If you think about it, 3000 minutes a month is only 100 minutes a day — just over an hour and a half of calling. I could easily imagine someone with loved ones overseas talking that amount of time.

This is yet another example of companies that like to advertise “unlimited” services of one kind or another, but in fact they do have limits that are not clearly stated upfront.

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Major Appliance Beauty May Only be Skin Deep

Have you shopped for a major appliance lately? If you haven’t, it is a scary world out there. It is not just that prices have gone crazy for front loading washing machines and french door refrigerators. The products themselves, despite the premium prices, may turn out to be a hunk of junk.

In your research, if you only read what the manufacturer tells you about a product, or listen to what the store salesperson says, you are only getting part of the picture. The trick in appliance buying is to find out the inside scoop about the device itself. How do you find out the quirks and quality of the product before you buy it? The fine print is in the product reviews written by people who already bought the appliance. If you are not digging up customer reviews of major appliances before you buy, you could be making an expensive mistake.

Here are edited excerpts of reviews written by (un)happy customers.

Appliance 1: Whirlpool 29.7 cu ft Side by Side Refrigerator, GSS30C7EYY, $1889 (reduced from $2099)

*MOUSE PRINT:

Review 1:

The interior space is immense. The freezer is huge too. The LED lighting is cool and the separate paddles for water and ice means no single point of failure. What is not to like, right? The first fridge delivered … after a week the door open light began to come on intermittently. At first an open/shut reset of both doors (as the manual directs) cleared it. After a few more days just pressing on the freezer door stopped the alarm.

Fridge two was delivered at two weeks of ownership. The seals on this doors were not installed in a stellar fashion — not straight and the freezer door seal rubs the fridge door when opening (even after trying to adjust the doors to prevent this) This made me wonder if they would seal properly over the life of the appliance. We will never know as about 45 minutes into ownership of the second fridge, the door alarm was going off again, the water dispenser would not work and the ice maker was not going to make ice. The service technician has a look [and wants to order new doors and switches for delivery in 6-8 week.] I don’t think so.

We call Lowe’s, fridge three will be dilivered in a week when they get one in stock. Fridge three arrives with a defective freezer seal (it’s ripped off the door) and the switches are scratching the inside of the door (looks like this door is installed too high). I tell them take it back, we will call Lowe’s again (the driver mentions it’s the 3rd one he has seen like this). Obviously, Whirlpool is having quality control issues. The design is really nce, but the execution rather poor.

Review 2:

Don’t buy this or any other piece of junk by whirlpool. I have replaced the ice maker, front electronic panel, and have replaced the ice dispenser motor 2 times since I have owned this thing.

Review 3:

The water dispenser has stopped working numerous times and it is only 1 week old. The doors appear to be out of alignment. The water filter and door inside the fridge looks like it was installed without any quality inspection and I suspect this is the problem with THE water dispenser.

Review 4:

If you leave it open for more then 5 minutes then your ice maker will stop working. I have had the maker replaced, the mother board replaced, finally the door replaced, and it still did not make ice. After trip 6 from my service guy he was told by Wirlpool that if you leave the door open for more then 5 minutes then you need to unplug and replug in your fridge or flip the breaker. It has been annoying. Other then that I love the fridge.

Review 5:

Beautiful refrigerator, great space – however the “door ajar” alarm went off continuously even though no doors were open. No ice or water will dispense and the lights don’t come on inside when this occurs.
Lowes replaced the first one. Same problem with the second one.

To be fair, five of the eleven reviews gave the unit five stars. But would you take a chance on this $2000 refrigerator based on the experience the above five consumers had?

Product 2: Samsung Side by Side Refrigerator, RSG307AARS, $1889 (reg. $2099)

*MOUSE PRINT:

Review 1

product arrived brand new and did not work at all. samsung technician deemed product un-fixable.

Review 2

Big pricey refrigerator does not make any ice!

Review 3

This is the most annoying fridge I have ever owned or used. It looks great in the store and is very energy efficient, but is not designed well and the quality out the door is at best poor.

The ice dispenser has to be the worst feature. After you get your ice, you need to wait with a glass under the dispenser for about 5-10 seconds for the ice dispenser door to try and swing closed (which at this point more ice falls out, usually all over the floor because you forgot to stand there like an idiot waiting for the fridge to finish what it was doing). [Description of ice problems edited.] Meanwhile, the door alarm is dinging and you’re trying to jiggle and pound on each corner while you’re holding the door from swinging into the wall. What a nightmare! I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had 20-30 pieces of ice dumped out all over my kitchen floor from screwing with this dispenser.

Quality is horrible. Ours arrived with parts taped inside (like the door bins) secured for shipping that were broken in pieces. About 2 weeks after we had been using it, the child lock (which we never used) decided to “lock itself” and wouldn’t unlock. None of the controls in the lower right corner would work. After almost a month waiting for backordered parts…

Design is poor. The shelves appear to be adjustable within reason, but in practical use they don’t adjust to fit most normal-sized products. For example, there is room in the door for 2 gallons of milk, but if you get another one there’s nowhere to put it. None of the shelves are tall enough to put one without removing a shelf entirely. And the same goes for any bottle over 9 inches (two shelves can be maxed out at 9 inches). This means there is no way to put a normal 10 inch tall juice container anywhere but in a door bin (and we had to remove one so there was enough room for both bottles and milk).

To be fair, four of the ten reviews gave this refrigerator five stars. But again, do you really want to spend almost $2000 and have the possibility of having major problems like the people above did?

Reading major appliance product reviews, not just for refrigerators, but for other categories of goods, is eye-opening when you see how many people are complaining of major design or functional defects early in their ownership of the product. It makes you afraid to buy any major appliance today because of these problems.

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OnStar Amends Privacy Policy to Snoop (More) on You

We have all seen the OnStar commercials where a poor soul has had a traffic accident and a reassuring voice comes over the loudspeaker asking the driver if everything is okay or if they need help. That’s the kinder, gentler OnStar.

The more invasive OnStar is the one that is changing its privacy policy and terms and conditions statement, effective December 2011, to do a little extra snooping on its customers, and even on people who discontinue the OnStar service! [Current privacy policy, revised privacy policy.]

*MOUSE PRINT:

In addition to the other reasons they collect data such as diagnostic trouble codes, oil life remaining, tire pressure, fuel economy and odometer readings; information about crashes involving your vehicle, including the direction from which your vehicle was hit, which air bags have deployed, and safety belt usage about your vehicle, they have allowed themselves the ability to collect:

“the location and the approximate speed of your Vehicle based on the Global Positioning System (“GPS”) satellite network” “for any purpose, at any time, provided that following collection of such location and speed information identifiable to your Vehicle, it is shared only on an anonymized basis.”

Some critics suggest that GPS information is never anonymous, because GPS coordinates can pinpoint places such as your home address.

*MOUSE PRINT:

They also disclose for the first time that they keep tracking your car even if you cancel your OnStar service.

“Unless the Data Connection to your Vehicle is deactivated, data about your Vehicle will continue to be collected even if you do not have a Plan. It is important that you convey this to other drivers, occupants, or subsequent owners of your Vehicle. You may deactivate the Data Connection to your Vehicle at any time by contacting an OnStar Advisor.”

On September 27, after much public criticism and a call for an investigation by a New York congressman, OnStar decided to retract this part of their planned changes to their policy.

All the other changes will be implemented including that they now say they can share your data with their own affiliates for “marketing purposes,” and have removed the section about requiring your consent first:

“ONSTAR WILL NOT OTHERWISE DISCLOSE, SELL, OR RENT INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO YOU OR YOUR CAR TO THIRD PARTIES FOR THEIR INDEPENDENT USE WITHOUT YOUR CONSENT.”

OnStar certainly provides great lifesaving services, and while their privacy policy gives you the ability to opt-out, their data collection practices and plans to give or sell your data to law enforcement agencies and marketing companies may nonetheless be disturbing to some. One such person is Jonathan Zdziarski, who discovered these changes and writes persuasively about it.