Thursday, January 7, 2010

Volume 4, Number 8: Dodgy Dealings in the World of VOIP

(Note: I originally posted this entry on my Yahoo! blog in July 2009.)

I thought I'd go on http://www.voipreview.org/ (a web site dedicated to informing consumers about the various voice over Internet Protocol, or VOIP, providers out there) to find out what Zingo Telecom was up to. ZingoTel was the VOIP provider that I had from October 2006 through October 2007; they were great in the beginning, but then they moved their technical support and customer service to India in January 2007 and the quality of their service went down the toilet after that.

When I left them in 2007, I told them they should move those departments back to North America if they wanted any chance of sustaining their business. Below is an excerpt from one of my last e-mails to ZingoTel:
"Maybe you weren't getting as many subscribers as you had expected, and needed to cut costs, but all I have to say is, you get what you pay for."
Obviously, that plea went in one ear and bounced back out the same ear.

Instead, they not only kept the technical support and customer service in India, but they proceeded to go out of business with no notice whatsoever, then give their customers' e-mail addresses to a newly-formed company.

According to what I've read on this forum, Miracle Telecom was formed on April 27, 2009. Miracle Telecom, like ZingoTel, has corporate offices in the US but has its technical support and customer service in India. It also uses the same verbiage in its user agreements as ZingoTel did. Around May 20, ZingoTel went out of business and its customers received e-mails from MiracleTel inviting them to "switch to MiracleTel" when, for all intents and purposes, they're really the same company.

Really shady stuff going on here. If you're looking for a VOIP provider, avoid Miracle Telecom.

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