[asterisk-biz] VoicePulse engaged in very dubious business practices

[Moshe Maeir]

David,
I read your whole letter and I really don't understand your  gripe. You 
did not delete all your DIDs.  You had an active DID by them, so they 
charged you. Are they to blame if you forgot to delete it.
To me it seems that you took unfair advantage of the fact that 
chargebacks cost merchants money, and pressured them to credit you. We 
have customers who do that and even though we know they are wrong - it 
just doesn't pay to pursue  a debt of 30-40 dollars which will involve a 
chargeback - but does that make them right?

David Pollak wrote:

> Folks,
>
> I've been using various VoIP services for over 2 years.  I've used 
> just about every one.
>
> I had been using VoicePulse Connect which worked fine with IAX.  I 
> switched over to using SIP for various reasons.  VoicePulse's support 
> for SIP was very, very weak.  On a daily basis, I had to call 
> VoicePulse's technical support to get them to reboot the SIP server so 
> that my Asterisk instance would stay registered with VP's servers.
>
> Ultimately, I gave up on using VoicePulse.  I turned off auto-renew.  
> I deleted all the DIDs (or so I thought) that I had with VoicePulse.
>
> Yesterday, I got my credit card statement and VoicePulse charged me 
> $41.03.  I called and asked why they charged me.  "Your account 
> dropped below the minimum amount, so we charged your card."  "But I 
> disabled auto-renew."  "It doesn't matter, our terms of service allow 
> us to charge your card."  (this is a new feature of the new terms of 
> service and not the terms of service that I agreed to when I 
> originally signed up with VoicePulse.)  This went on for about 30 
> minutes.  At a certain point, I started asking for a supervisor.  
> After spending (I kid you not) 5 minutes screaming "Are you f**king 
> deaf, connect me with your supervisor," the rep finally connected me 
> with a supervisor.
>
> Turns out that I hadn't canceled one of the DIDs on one of my 
> VoicePulse accounts.  Even though I hadn't accessed VoicePulse in more 
> than 6 months (for termination or origination) and despite that I had 
> turned off auto-renew, VoicePulse charged my account.  Here's the 
> rub.  The credit card associated with the account that had the DID is 
> an old card and the number is no longer valid, so VoicePulse looked at 
> my other accounts until they found a card that was valid and charged 
> that card.
>
> After a 15 minute discussion with the supervisor, I made the point 
> clear that either VoicePulse could refund my money or I'd dispute the 
> charge (disputes cost merchants a lot of money.)  Finally, the 
> supervisor refunded $41.
>
> I would strongly recommend against giving VoicePulse your credit card 
> number.  They charge credit cards without authorization.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>
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