ViaTalk: Fed up. Hope in sight?

I have been continuing to have issues with ViaTalk.

I submitted a ticket attempting to address poor quality of service on August 5th and have not received a response. I attempt to call them from my ViaTalk phone but it doesn't ring. It dials and then is quiet. I try from my cell phone, it works but then I hear that I am caller 54. Fun huh. No way on a weekday I am going to wait through 54 callers on my cell phone.

I receive notice on August 6th that one of my numbers was to be ported on the 9th and one on the 13th. I received notice on the 10th stating that my number was ported successfully. I logged in, there is no sign of my old number that should have been
ported.

I received an email on the 10th, stating the following:

Dear Chris Mancini,
Notice: Your invoice 393875 has been processed by ViaTalk.com.

Status:Manual Payment
Invoice Number:393875
Invoice Amount:$3.95
Date Paid:2007/08/10
Amount Left:$0.00
Trans ID:1520358057

Outstanding Balance: none

You may login to view your invoice(s) online at any time:
https://support.viatalk.com/billing/

Thank you,

Billing Dept.
ViaTalk.com

I went online, curious to know why I was charged $3.95 to my credit card. This is what I saw:

2007/08/10 Manual: Generated Invoice 393875 $3.95 $0.00 $-3.95
2007/08/10 Manual Payment (181074) 393875 $0.00 $3.95 $0.00

This gave me no information on why I was charged $3.95.

While searching through my account options on ViaTalk's website, I found an option labaled priority support. So apparently for $1.95 per month, you can receive "cut in line" priority when calling ViaTalk. Ok so I signed up, tried it, lets just say, nothing was "priority".

So, I started as caller 16 as I began my call as a priority support subscriber, it took 1 hour and 50 minutes to get on the phone with someone. I felt like a VIP, I swear.

So here is a condensed version of my conversation with Collin of ViaTalk.

I asked Collin how they could charge $1.95 a month for priority support if I was still waiting 1 hour and 50 minutes to speak with someone. He apologized on behalf of the company, and informed me under normal circumstances, their priority support subscribers usually experience less than 5 minutes of wait time.

He also informed me that ViaTalk has been on a hiring spree. They have doubled their staff in the last three weeks. There is only one problem, all of those new employees, are just finishing training. Hence the long wait times.

Collin has informed me that ViaTalk has opened its doors to over 20,000 SunRocket refugees. Thats about 10% of SunRockets original subscriber base, thats quite a bit of growth in such a short time.

In regards to the $3.95 charge was because I had transfered 2 numbers from SunRocket. The first number was free, the second was $3.95. Ok I am fine with that, but I informed Collin that it is good business practice, to inform the customer of charges before they occur. Even if they included in the invoice what the $3.95 was for, I would not have become upset over it.

He informed that because the number that had ported already had been my second number, it is setup automatically to forward to my ViaTalk number. It is considered a virtual number, that is why it does not display in my account. Personally I think it should, it is almost as if it doesn't exist. In order to use it, I would need to subscribe to a second line.

I asked him why I couldn't call ViaTalk from my ViaTalk phone. He said that this was not new regarding BYOD customers with SunRocket phones. Apparently, SunRocket may have configured the devices to prevent their users from contacting the competition, honestly I can believe that. So I will research and see if I cannot find a resolution for this, Collin was unable to provide one.

He also gave me some tips in improving my call quality, I will post them in a separate article.

My overall conversation with Collin was pleasant. He was obviously American, no outsourced support with ViaTalk which is good to hear. He was sincere and responsive to my distress. Under the circumstances, I feel that ViaTalk is reputable and that I feel that other subscribers having issues should hang in there. ViaTalk is working hard to meet the needs of their 20,000 new subscribers, which I believe must be a difficult task.