Let me get all the keywords in right from the get-go: Vonage Softphone, X-Pro-Vonage software, Mac OS X crashing. Hopefully someone out there Googling these things like I did (sadly, too late) will learn from my mistake.

Having said that, I’m getting business cards at work - I requested a box after realizing I have significant networking opportunities both in school and in normal everyday life, and I don’t have any cards to hand out. For three years now, my work number has been my home phone number. Very few people have it, so it hasn’t been an issue. With business cards though, I don’t want to just randomly hand out my home phone number…even if it’s disguised as a work number. Just having my cell phone number on the card makes me look like a consultant…or I don’t have a real office.

Anyway, I thought to myself…why don’t I pick up a Softphone line from Vonage? I’ll drop my “unlimited” program on our main line since we rarely use more than 500 minutes, then the extra cost of the Softphone line will balance us out to about what we were paying before - and I’ll have that second line with voice mail and all the other bells and whistles. Plus, it will be on my laptop, so maybe I can actually start traveling with CU once in awhile - since that was supposedly one of the benefits of being a mobile worker.

As a responsible Mac user, I know not everything on God’s green earth is compatible with my chosen OS, so I checked the technical requirements - turns out, all I need is Mac OS X version 10.2 or newer. Fantastic! I’m running 10.4.10! I sign up for my new Softphone (for which I am charged a $9.99 “activation fee” for their database trigger to update a few tables but…bygones), download my software and am ready to go! Sweet!

But…because I am me, I have to test it out. I call CU and ask him to call me on the Softphone. He does…my laptop rings…and I answer the call. Success! We chat for a minute, then I hang up. The application crashes. Hmm. I restart it and have to go through the login process again. Odd. I call CU this time to check outbound calls…we chat, then I hang up. The application crashes. Okay…well…maybe my account just isn’t fully set up yet. I ask CU to call back again, this time to check the voice mail. He calls and I sit here listening to my laptop ring. After the fourth ring his call is kicked over to voice mail and…yes my friends…the application crashes.

Okay then, it’s time to call Vonage customer service. I do this begrudgingly, as my experience with Vonage customer service has been iffy to say the least. Fortunately, I haven’t had to call them in a couple of years because my service has been on par with what I’ve been paying them…so no harm, no foul. I get on the phone with 1st-level technical support and, if I have one piece of advice for their training team I would say this: try to train your on-the-phone folks to not sound so robotic when speaking from a script. I’m just saying. After going through three levels of identification (what is this, my credit card company?), Mr. 1st Level tells me it is likely “an issue with changing my DNS servers to a static state within my account.” Uh, shouldn’t this software just be download ‘n go?

He doesn’t have authorization to change my DNS servers I guess, and transfers me to Ms. 2nd Level who “unfortunately” has to tell me that “1st level didn’t send any of my information over with the transfer,” so I go through the three levels of account identification again, and also get to recap all of my crash woes…again. After nine painful minutes of explaining what I am experiencing (every time she said “softphone” it sound like “cell phone” so I was trying to ensure she didn’t think I had successfully downloaded this software onto my iPhone), she decides to clue in and pop a couple of keywords into her knowledgebase - hey, son of a gun…turns out the software does crash on Intel-chipped MacBook Pro laptops, and this is a known issue. Not only is it a known issue, but there is no estimate on when it will be fixed. “Fantastic,” I say, “Why doesn’t your web page say anything about how this software doesn’t work on Intel-chipped MacBook Pros?” “I don’t know, ma’am.” Urgh.

Ms. 2nd Level wants to know if there’s anything else she can do to help me, and I ask her to send me back to someone who can cancel my Softphone order since it obviously won’t work with my hardware. She puts me on hold, after saying she might be able to cancel the order for me. She comes back, saying she needs to send me to the Account Management department - “because they’re the ones who manage the accounts.” Really?

Now, this is where it gets good. I get to the Accounts Management rep and explain what happened. Software doesn’t work on my Mac, nothing to indicate this on their website, want a full refund including the activation fee, since I only had the service for an hour and spent that hour making unsuccessful test calls on behalf of their app dev group. Okay, I didn’t really say that last part. She takes this opportunity to try to upsell me on yet another product that won’t work on my OS, then actually says to me that because I am a long-time customer, I am considered a VIP! Super! Because of my valued VIP status, as a courtesy they’re going to allow me a one-time service activation credit for my Softphone order cancellation. Um, I say, “Why should this be a one-time thing? It’s a known issue within Vonage that your software doesn’t work on my specific laptop. You haven’t communicated that anywhere on your website so really, you shouldn’t be crediting me the $9.99 as a courtesy, you should be doing it because your software doesn’t work.”

“Actually ma’am,” she says, “Our website does clearly state that our software does not work with all computers.” “Where?” I ask, because I want to know where it says that. She condescendingly takes me through the website and we wind up on this page…where, I read an hour prior, there was no issue with my specific computer. “That doesn’t say it won’t work on Intel-chipped MacBook Pros,” I tell her, “It just gives the minimum operating system requirements, which I meet.”

“Look,” I continue, “As long as I get my credit I really don’t care. But, if other unsuspecting Mac users come to this page and think they can use the Softphone, then order a number and download the software only to experience the same crashing problems I did - it’s really unreasonable to expect them to suck up the activation fee.” With this, she goes back up to the top of the script and starts over from the beginning, complete with the rhetoric about how because I’m a valued Vonage customer, they will waive the activation fee just this one time (and yes, she said it just like it was italicized). I told her to screw off (no, I didn’t) and then called CU to vent for twenty minutes about shitty customer service and how it was time to unload our Vonage service.

CU had a heck of a time reaching me last night, too. Apparently the phone would ring several times and then he’d get an “all circuits are busy” message. Now, I was next door at our new neighbor’s house (more on that later) - but you have to wonder if someone didn’t flip a switch, at least temporarily.

Boo, Vonage…and shame on you!