Voicestick no longer free - now $3.75/month

[Bossman]

Here is the email I received....

---------------------------------------------------------

Dear Valued VoiceStick Customer,

In order to comply with government regulations and industry trends, it has become necessary that we discontinue our policy of waiving regulatory fees and taxes.

Starting October 1, 2007 ALL VoiceStick customers with a valid telephone number and an active account will be subject to the following fees:

Telephone Number (monthly recurring fee) $1.50
E-911 Regulatory Recovery (monthly recurring fee) $1.00
Universal Service Fund (monthly recurring fee) $1.25


To avoid service interruption all customers must have a valid credit card on file to cover these new charges.

If you would to convert your existing account to an i2Outbound Only calling plan Send a Request to Customer Service. To ensure the quickest possible response to your request please select Plan Conversion from the Department dropdown list.

[DRNewcomb]

Yeah. I got that too. It's forutnate I never put much credit into Voicestick. Now I regret spending the extra money for their USB gizmo. I don't understand what the i2Outbound Only plan is but if it saves the $3.75/mo I guess I'll convert to save my remaining credit.

[Bossman]

Me too...I do not see the i2Outbound Only plan on their website, but if I can still have calls forwarded via their service on this plan and don't incur the $3.75 month fee, I will convert to it. If not, I will drop them!

Originally Posted by DRNewcomb

Yeah. I got that too. It's forutnate I never put much credit into Voicestick. Now I regret spending the extra money for their USB gizmo. I don't understand what the i2Outbound Only plan is but if it saves the $3.75/mo I guess I'll convert to save my remaining credit.

[cali99boy]

I got the email too. What other services do you guys recommend now since Voicestick has these recurring monthly charges now? Voicestick was actually the cheapest thing I could find to call/forward to a Norway cell #

[MATHA531]

What a disgrace......

[Bossman]

At this point I am not aware of any free service that gives a US DID number that can forward internationally . I also have les.net, but it's $1/month. The rates are higher than voicestick's, but it's more reliable and gives more configuration options. Will use up my credit with voicestick and cancel. Hung on to it because it did not cost me anything to do so.

[snaimon]

Msg from Voicestick Tech:

You can convert to an outbound plan and avoid the charges for inbound
service if you like and still make calls anytime.

If you want to convert follow the process below

Converting to Outbound only calling.

The easiest way to do the conversion is as follows:

1. Signup for a new N2N account
2. During the selection click the button for “this account will be used
for Outbound Call Only
3. This will give you a 333-xxx-xxxx number
4. Complete the signup process.
5. Go to http://www.voicestick.com/Support/Contact.aspx and open a new
Trouble Report.
6. Insure you put in new VoiceStick# you get in activation e-mail and in
comments put in Old VoiceStick# along with comments to close your old
number and transfer balance from old account to the new account at no
additional cost.
Please allow at least 24 hours for this process to be completed after TR
is sent to us.

Also if you convert to outbound only features such as I2bridge and
Global call Forwarding will no longer function.

Thank you for using Voicestick

================================

Isn't skypeout FREE? Why would you go with Voicestick?

Stan

[snaimon]

When I tried to sign up for a new account, they wanted to bill my credit cards $10. I aborted the process and have asked them to close my account. They have done so. $3.75 per month for a number I would rarely use is too much for me. The $10 would have been < $1 per month, but I have plenty of other FREE and SUNK COST prepaid minutes.

Your mileage may vary.

My first trouble ticket from last nite was 18352. The ticket number to close the account was 18897. Think they are having some issues with the sudden change?

Stan

[petkow]

I got cancelled in little more than 3 hours. Not too bad! I only just realised that I had a couple of $'s of credit that I forgot to use though.

(headbang)

[Bossman]

How did you go about it. Called them or just opened a ticket via the web. Also, how did you know you got cancelled? They sent a verification or the # just no longer works?

I don't know why they always wait till the last minute to make theri announcements...if at all. They are actually giving less than a week notice.

Originally Posted by petkow

I got cancelled in little more than 3 hours. Not too bad! I only just realised that I had a couple of $'s of credit that I forgot to use though.

(headbang)