[realmusicians] Re: beware of nettalk

  • From: Chris Belle <cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:03:11 -0500

Well, now that the exodus has gone to cell phones, the major copper carriers are anxious to cut good deals to keep people happy, so it's a good time to have traditional ld service.


Plus I thought it was really generous of them to lower my existing dsl price along with giving me unlimited ld, all the bells and whistles like third party calling, call waiting, voicemail, etc for less than I was just paying for call waiting.
and in line service.

Nettalk wouldn't even pay me the courtesy of a phone call, I only got a curt email after days of bugging them, and I got hung up on by their public relations guy Bill Douglas, imagine that?

It's important to have good phone service to me so I can beter serve my valuable customers who are also my friends, people like your good self.

When you've got a project pending, you don't need to be stopped in mid flight, because some bozo thinks you've used too many minutes.

Tell me up front what I'm getting and let me decide what I want to pay for it or not, don't shine me on.

Be sure to forward this to anyone who might benefit from our sorry experiences, and to not make the same mistake.

Warmest regards.



At 06:37 AM 4/21/2011, you wrote:
I used AT&T at my old studio location, and we use them at home. Can't go wrong with them.
----- Original Message -----
From: <mailto:cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>Chris Belle
To: <mailto:realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>realmusicians@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2011 7:21 AM
Subject: [realmusicians] beware of nettalk

I really don't think it's in good taste to publically badmouth
companies, but I don't like to see people taken advantage of or be mislead.

My wife and I subscribed to the nettalk voip service wanting a flat
rate, unlimited service for long distance.

We heard about it through blind cool tech

The tech we originally talked to to get our service set up was
helpful and polite, and answered all our questions and there was no
mention of limited service, and yes, we asked.

But buried deep in the service agreement is a clause which mentions a
limit of 5000 minutes a month, which ends up being less than 3 hours
a day, and indeed, our service did get cut off gsoon after we subscribed.

Seems after exceeding 5000 minutes in a month, they want you to pay
by the minute in reality, they call this their business plan.

they mention on the front page that their plan is good enough to fire
your phone company and they suggest their service as a perfect
solution for home office.

I have written and called customer service, to no avail, and made
repeated attempts to contact them and get a satisfactory resolution,
including their public relations person, Bill Douglas, who hung up on
me because i wasn't an authorized dealer.

I got shuffled around from one rep to another, they were polite, but
we more or less got the run-around.

So we are $69  out, and no phone service unless we want to pay by the
minute because they deemed we used too much time,

5 thousand minutes a months ends up being roughly 2.7 hours a day,
hardly  what I consider excessive use.

They claim most folks use less than 300 minutes a month.

To me, abusive usage would be staying on conference lines for 8 plus
hours a day, and doing telemarketing, etc.

there was no warning, or anything, just all of a sudden in the middle
of teaching, my phone wouldn't work anymore for outgoing calls.

My friend over at vonage, which also seems to have hidn restrictions,
got a polite call from the company, but at least they were warned.

Just thought I'd let you guys looking for good phone  services to
note our experiences, and make a wise decision accordingly.

YOu would think in these hard times, a company especially a small one
like nettalk would want to have happy customers, and repeated business.

But we won't be recommending nettalk anymore if this is the way they
treat their customers.

Furthermore, our regular dsl and phone provider at&t gave us a great
deal, and lowered our price to come back, with full features, and
even a reduction in dsl price, and it is truly unlimited, only
restriction is to not use it as a data line, and that was told to us
up front, and they give warnings if they deem something is out of line.

So once again, I guess you do get what you pay for, and let the buyer beware.


Don't make my mistake and get taken up the garden path as it were.

I'm still trying to negotiate some sort of meeting halfway with
nettalk, to at-least get limited service through out the year I
bought from them, so far to no avail.

Furthermore, from talking to other people, and my own previous
experiences with magic jaqck, I suspect voip companies use tactics to
discourage long calls such as being dropped in mid conversation, the
inability to call the party your are talking to back immediately,
also there are issues reaching certain areas, and considering; you
are using your own bandwidth this just seems like not such a good
deal after all.

These guys just need to be up front and tell you, you get so many
minutes a month and here you go.

Thank you for reading this, now go do the right thing.





For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at

<http://www.affordablestudioservices.com>www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
<mailto:cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
<mailto:stephieb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>stephieb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design

For all your audio production needs and technology training, visit us at

www.affordablestudioservices.com
or contact
Chris Belle
cb1963@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
or
Stephie Belle
stephieb1961@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
for customized web design


Other related posts: