Vonage - Two Line Adapters

I'm on the phone with Vonage customer service right now. After deciding to stop paying $100/mo to SBC/AT&T for two-line service that I essentially don't use, and seeing that Vonage could transfer my existing phone numbers, I decided to take the VoIP jump.

Hoo boy, the more things change...

I used to work for The Phone Company, or at least its research arm (Bell Laboratories), and my first-day experience with Vonage brought with it a creepy sense of deja vu.

I had studied the network phone adapters available, and was pleased to discover one that could handle both of my phone lines. So, when I finally decided to take the plunge, I knew exactly what plan ($15/mo) and which adapter to get.

Great, one number down, one to go. Basically you set up one number first and add the second later. No sweat, I'll just .. wait a minute, why isn't their web site letting me not get another network phone adapter? I just want to add another line to the adapter they're already going to send me.

So I poked and prodded at the site, and couldn't un-check the radio button. Drat. Well okay, the adapter is $50, but there's a $50 rebate, and maybe I'll find a use for an extra one. Clicking Continue I realized that in my pokings I had accidentally chosen the $25/mo plan for line two.

No sweat, I'll just switch plans.. but oops, changing plans costs $10. There must be something wrong with that. Two emails later it's clear that no, Vonage won't simply switch me back even though I sent the request minutes after getting the wrong selection.

The irony of course is that I was trying to save them money. Sheesh.

Okay, so 45 minutes on the customer service line later, they cancelled the second line so I can start from scratch. Oops, but they can't actually refund my money .. no, they applied a credit to my account that should get used up in, oh, four months.

Well at least I'll only get the one network phone adapter, which was the whole point, and .. oops, what's this second shipping notification and tracking number in my mailbox? Sure enough, Vonage cancelled the second line, and I didn't re-order it, but they're sending me a second adapter anyway.

This is astonishingly messed up. I've been a Vonage customer for a week and I already have a weirdly entangled and still unsettled account with them.

And I have yet to actually make a phone call.