Cheap phone calls over the Internet, sounds like a good idea to me?
I thought so too and I signed up to Vonage in March 2008. They sent me an ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) which basically has a phone port to plug your normal phone into, and an ethernet port which you plug into your broadband usually via a broadband router of some kind.

How cheap is cheap?
When I signed up they had three calling plans. The one I signed up to costs GBP7.99 per month for unlimited geographic calls within the UK plus free calls to any of arounf 26 countries which included Europe, USA and Australia etc. You could change plans at any time you fancied and the change occured at the start of your next billing cycle, which I thought was fair enough.

And?
It worked really well and I was a happy customer for a year. Then my circumstances at home changed and I found we as a family weren't making anything like the number of calls per month to get value out of the all-you-can-eat monthly fee. Time to change plans...

OK, so which plan did you change to?
Ah. There begins the sorry tale! When I went to change plans - which remember when I signed up was easy and free to do - I found there was a GBP6.99 admin fee, the total buggers. Still, I thought, there's plenty of other providers out there, so I'll cancel Vonage and use somebody else, probably one with a pay-as-you-go tariff.

Seems fair enough to me, but I've heard Vonage make it hard to leave?
You'd better believe it. Remembering you pay in advance for the month the most efficient way is to cancel just before the next billing cycle starts. So, a few days before my next cycle I checked the website and saw that the department I needed ('Account management') was open Mon-Fri 1000-2200hrs. When I called on the appropriate day, the announcement said 'closed for the holiday'. argh.

Never mind, there is a 'Customer Care by Email' facility on the website that I spotted before, that'll do. Except, after you've selected 'Service Cancellation' for the 'General Topic' pulldown and then 'I would like to cancel my account' for the 'Topic' and hit 'Continue' you get told you can only cancel by phone. Which is closed. Sigh.

So, I fired off a dozen emails to likely addresses, got a fair few undeliverable notices but also a few read receipts. Nice. I disconnected the ATA, removed my card details from the billing system and left it at that.

Oops, but all is well that ends well!
Er, no. A month later I got another attempted charge and a notice that the previous charge was unsuccessful as my card details were invalid - now you can see why I removed them... Anyway I called and naturally was told there was no record of my disconenction and anyway they didn't accept cancellation by email, only by phone.

I definately cancelled that time.

Finally finished in the end?
Um, no. Today I received a letter from a debt recovery agency for the 'outstanding' two months fee PLUS an extra GBP10 'admin' fee which Vonage has added. How delightful. The agent at Vonage who I called apart from confirming that they had indeed added the admin fee would do nothing apart from repeat 'There is nothing more I can do'.

I paid the 'outstanding' amount under protest.

So, Vonage have succeeded in turning a happy customer of over a year into one who is positively fuming. If you get Googling you'll find plenty of similar stories from other unfortunates along similar lines.

By all means go with a VOIP provider, but if you choose Vonage, remember this story and remember that above all else they'll take your money FIRST and give you service SECOND.

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