FRANK TRAMA

Ross

A: First things first: What is Vonage anyway? Vonage is a phone service that goes over the Internet instead of over the phone lines. From a user's point of view, Vonage works a lot like your ordinary home phone. You unplug the phone company and plug a Vonage device into your high speed Internet. When your phone rings, you answer it. When you want to call someone, you dial or push numbers.

To sign up for Vonage, you need a phone, a computer and high speed Internet access. To get out, it sounds as if divine intervention might do the trick.

Part of the problem seems to be procedure. If you follow Federal Communications Commission suggestions, you call your new company, tell them you want to port or transfer your phone number from the old company to the new company. The new company acts as your agent, calls your old company, your number is ported. You have a new company.

That part of Mr. Trama's transaction went fine. It's the billing part that didn't work so well. In the fine print in the Vonage contract, there is wording that says if you don't call and tell Vonage you are porting your phone, it will continue to charge you for that number until you do make that phone call.

Because Mr. Trama ported only one of his two Vonage phone lines, he wasn't at all concerned that Vonage continued to bill him. He planned to continue paying for one line, but what he didn't realize for several months was that Vonage was continuing to charge him $24.99 for the second line.

When Mr. Trama called to complain, Vonage knew that the line was being serviced by Comcast and that it was no longer servicing the line.

"They don't control it, they don't even route it," complained Mr. Trama, "but said I have to pay until I called and told them they no longer have my line. They already knew that."

Here's the rub. If you look in the fine print of the contract with Vonage, it says you have to continue to pay for the line until you call and tell Vonage you want the line discontinued. That's even if Vonage has already ported the number.

I have had other customers call and tell me that new companies often tell customers not to call their old companies because that can clog procedure. What's a customer to do?

One problem is that Internet phone services such as Vonage are not regulated by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is in charge of long distance phone service. Vonage isn't regulated by the Public Utility Commission. The PUC watches over local phone service. Vonage is an Internet service, and for the most part, Internet services aren't regulated.

Does that mean these companies can do whatever they want? Of course not.

In this case, the Pennsylvania attorney general's Office of Consumer Protection stepped up and made it clear that it is very interested in Vonage complaints. So if you've had problems, go to www.attorneygeneral.gov and complain.

You can also complain to the Better Business Bureau; it revoked Vonage's membership in March because of "unanswered complaints."

After KDKA ran a story on this problem, Vonage did offer a refund to Mr. Trama, but he doesn't want his money back anymore. He wants the terms of service changed and he wants consumers who are out money because of the contract language to be satisfied.

Mr. Trama says a class action lawsuit against Vonage has been filed in New Jersey on behalf of all customers who have been charged in this way.