Ooma Home Internet Phone

 

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Ooma Home Internet Phone

We have seen many complaints about Ooma. Ooma sells an internet phone device (VOIP - voice over internet protocol).  It's a square black box that you plug into your router. You then plug. your existing phone (your home phone, not your cell phone) into the Ooma device. If you have a reasonably fast internet, you should get phone service.

Reviews of Ooma

Investigating Ooma finds the following:

.

• The Better Business Bureau has nothing about Ooma.
• When we checked TrustPilot for Ooma, there were about 1,500 reviews with an average score of 2.5, Poor.
• Pissed Consumer gave Ooma a rating of 1.7 from 79 rated reviews.
• Complaints board.com said Ooma Customer Support is Poor, having resolved only 4 out of 42 complaints for a rate of 10% of complaints were resolved
• Customer Service Score Board says the following of Ooma: "Ooma customer service is ranked #161 out of the 1022 companies that have a CustomerServiceScoreboard.com rating with an overall score of 49.76 out of a possible 200 based upon 17 ratings. This score rates Ooma customer service and customer support as Disappointing."
  
  Ooma advertises that this is much less expensive than the traditional landline.

 

How does it work

There are 4 current models sold:

• Telo Base Station - The original Ooma Telo that plugs into your router or modem. (around $99 for Ooma Telo )
• Telo Air 2* - An Ooma Telo that connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi.
• Telo LTE Bundle - An Ooma Telo with LTE wireless connectivity.
• Phone Genie - Ooma phone service available from Walmart.

First you purchase an Ooma device.

Then you go online - or

You can set up your Base Station is with your iPhone or Android smartphone. You go to the app store on your phone and search for the Ooma Setup app.

• iOS
• Android

and you create an Ooma account, providing a credit card.

 

Fees

Ooma says "Telecommunication is a highly regulated industry and subject to laws, guidelines, and taxation at the city, county, state or province and federal levels. Ooma charges applicable taxes and fees so we can operate within and comply with laws and regulations mandated by the government. Taxes and fees are split into the following categories"

• Regulatory Compliance Fee
• 911 Service Fee
• Federal Universal Service Charge (U.S. customers only)
• State or province and local taxes, fees and surcharges 

The fees appear to be in the range of $4 to $7.

 

One consumer's story
 

Terrible ethics. They double-billed me for premium service for months, and refused to remove the charges. Here's what happened.
1. I bought an Ooma, could not get it to work, then moved to a new address, so I thought I would try it there.
2. Phone came with my internet, so I did not set it up.
3. changed internet providers months later, decoided to try the Oom.
4. Even just to test it,Ooma requires that you create an account with a credit card. I did this. Still didn't work.
5. Got a new Ooma and went to try that. Did a chat online with Ooma, they told me I had to create a new account and then they would cancel old one.
6. Got the new account working, and had to go to a help my elderly mother 900 miles away for 3 months.
7. Came back and found out months later the old account was still active, and worse yet, both accounts were premium ($17.13 /month - I certainly did not/would not sign up for that) I ONLY wanted basic.
8. Called today, the essentially said they would refund 4 months of the unused account ($57.51). They cancelled the non/never-working account and downgraded my one account to basic, $6/month/
9. So, because their equipment did not work, and each equipment requires a separate account set up with a credit card, I'm out about $197
[$308 actual - $57 refund - $54 (9 months x $6 basic charges which are supposedly taxes and "fees")]

The bottom line is: they make it unnecessarily complicated, and are deceptive about the fees. You cannot test it without:
1. purchasing an Ooma
2. setting up an account and giving them a credit card
3. getting premium service at $17.13/month - even if you wanted just basic around $6/mo -
4. You must call and work through a lengthy (42 min) process to undo/change anything

The Bottom Line

If you choose Ooma, understand first:

1. You must buy a device first.
2. You must then set up an account
3. If it does not work or you are not satisfied, you must return the device and cancel your account.  You may still be out the first month's fees.

If you get one (around $99) and it works, and you get the basic plan, you should be paying around $6/month, so your first 12 month's total would be

$99 plus tax (at 7%, $7) plus $6x12 months = $178.00 for the first year of service.

If you have fast, reliable internet, our testing should it works pretty well.

What does Ooma say?

Ooma has a page that offers the following advice:

If you believe there is an error on your bill or have a question about your service, please call Ooma customer support.

If you are not satisfied with the response from Ooma, you have the option to submit a complaint to your state’s Public Utilities Commission (PUC) by visiting their website by calling the Consumer Affairs Branch (CAB) of your respective PUC.

To avoid having service turned off while you wait for the outcome of a complaint to the CPUC specifically regarding the accuracy of your bill, please contact CAB for assistance. If your case meets the eligibility criteria, CAB will provide you with instructions on how to proceed.