Pros: Cheap! when it works. Seemed to have a lot of features that we would have to pay extra for with a standard telephone company.
Cons: Poor voice quality
Had to reset adapter 2-3 times a week
Long wait times with customer service without any resolution
Drops calls
Service not reliable
Company refuses to refund money
Refuses to take back adapter
Summary: It seems that shipping the broadband adapter is the only thing Lingo is good at. We received the adapter 2 days after we ordered the service. It took about 4 weeks to port our number over. During that time, we had to call customer service multiple times for issues ranging from incorrect time stamps on voice mail (never resolved), frequent adapter lockups, (nothing like going to use the phone and not having a dial tone.. and it wasn't a broadband outage issue, never resolved)multiple dropped calls, calls where the person on the other end couldn't hear us, and other very frustrating issues.
We decided to port our number back to Cox cable because we couldn't have a phone system that wasn't reliable. Cox ported the number back within 1 week and we had a real phone service again, however, Lingo's policy is such that when a main number is ported away from the company, they will assign the customer a temporary number again which allows Lingo to keep billing the customer. (We know from first hand experience) Ironically, Lingo tells customers who are signing up not to contact their phone company when changing to Lingo because if they do, their phone number will be dropped by their current provider and Lingo won’t be able to port it. Lingo states they will handle everything, and when a normal provider has a number ported away, it knows to cancel the service, but when numbers are ported away from Lingo, Lingo assigns a new number so the customer's account is still considered active, thus allowing the monthly bill to continue.
It took another 3 months to get Lingo to stop charging us, and never saw a reimbursement of our money. After the 6th call to customer service, we gave up. We were told every time some nonsense about the person who does refunds only processes them on Wednesday and kept receiving the run around.
Best part of this all is that they won't take back their adapter, so I can see the landfills overflowing with Lingo adapters since they can't be used for anything else.
Our advice, avoid this company at all costs. Lingo only wants your money, provides horrible customer service and their technology is very buggy, making it an awful experience.
Pros: Everything.
-Cheapest and best service around.
-phone forwarding rocks
-unlimited minutes ( sbc sucks,,, especially in illinois)
-no extra fees
-no goverment 'extra' 'line charge' fees
-customer services was quicker than other phone services
-YOU CAN CHECK MESSAGES/CALLER ID ONLINE!
-everything rocks... DO IT!
Cons: Phone service does go down occassionally (house power goes out, internet downtime) but it's never been vonage's fault. SET UP YOUR PHONE FORWARDER: it forwards calls to your cell or to another number when your home phone is down.
Slows down cable modem when on the phone...(but not much at all.)
took me a few hours w/help of tech support to set up the phone right through my network of 3 computers.
Summary: We had a horrible experience w/SBC and decided to switch to Vonage. I will not look back. W/all the features offered, it's awesome.
30 out of 45 people found this review helpful
Summary: My adapter showed up as promised. However the number portability was terrible. I had to fax the form over five times to just get Lingo to put it into their system. I took over two months and fiave days without phone service to get it ported over. Customer service was by far the worst. No customer support person at Lingo ever wanted to help and most just dumped me with no promises to ever get anything done. I had three different support people hang up on me once on a con call with MCI while trying to transfer my number. I never recieved a call back when promised and one cust. service rep even canceled my service without my permission becuase I was pushing to get the support I needed. I finally had the number transported now - I can't dial out from phone lines in my house. Still working on that problem. Go elsewhere do not purchase this service and don't believe reviews of easy number portability.
35 out of 57 people found this review helpful
