Approximately three years ago I purchased a Magic Jack phone system for $49.95 on the Internet via one of those late-night infomercials. At the time I had my doubts, seeing the product had been on the market for a little less than a year and the reviews lead toward the negative side.
Now if you are not familiar with Magic Jack by now, this is the little contraption that plugs in a USB port on your computer. The device allows for phone service throughout the United States, Canada and some parts of Mexico as long as you have access to high-speed Internet service. Dial-up service will not work nor will a wireless Internet service.
When I purchased the system, you had the option of obtaining service for a single year or for five years at a time. I ended up opting for the five-year plan due to a special they were running for new contracts. The standard service rate is approximately $19.95 a year, which cannot be beat for phone service, which I thought was great seeing I had been paying $30 a month for a phone through a bundled package provided by my cable company and the “Jack” would save me approximately $320 a year if not more.
Now I purchased this system in August of 2008 and in August of 2009 I received an email that my service would soon end. Well, the only way to contact the company is by means of the Internet, which I did. The problem is that you are passed from operator to operator seeing the majority have no power to remedy any situation presented to them. Finally I got hold of a supervisor and they reset my code and my service was back up and running seeing I had four years left that I had paid for. When it came time for renewal in 2010 there were no problems. However, in August of 2011 Magic Jack came up with a new program called Magic Jack Plus, which is a wireless interface that plugs into any wall outlet and then you plug your phone into that connection.
With the arrival of the “Plus” system I was constantly being bombarded every time I would make a call with the old system. I would get a program update for the new system requiring me to upgrade which is not what I wanted to do seeing it issues you a new phone number and any funds that are left on your account are canceled. As I mentioned this began around August of this year and continued daily for two months. Every day I would have to contact customer support by means of the internet with the same runaround of having to remove the “jack” from my USB port, remove the software from my computer and reload said software. Now this would work for several calls and then back to the same issue. And each time you would have to call customer support to download a repair code. Now this went on for about a month and a half and if any of you are familiar with the “jack” you know how fragile the equipment is. Well after all this time of removing and replacing the “jack” the USB connector loosened and finally broke off.
To fix this, I contacted customer support where they told me I could get a replace for $10 plus p&h, which totaled $19.95 and would take approximately two weeks after processing, which means about one month that I would be without service or I could go to my local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack and exchange the device. Seeing I had purchased the piece over the Internet, neither Wal-Mart nor Radio Shack would make the exchange. So I decided to see about getting a return on the last two years of service. Now here is where the biggest problem with Magic Jack lies; for you to contact them you have to speak with them through internet chat where you constantly are flipped from one operator to the next seeing the majority of their support staff can’t handle the simplest of problems. However when I googled the problem I came up with two phone numbers which takes you to billing (561-594-2140 and 561-594-9925). Upon calling these numbers, I finally got into the computer loop of holding for the next available operator where I was hung up on several times until I finally got to speak to a human voice.
Now here’s my issue. I asked for a refund of the last two years of service which I was told that seeing I had a five-year contract and had used a portion of said contract that a refund wasn’t available and for me to fix the problem I would need to send a total of $21.95 for replacement and S & H of the product. I’m already out three months into my fourth year and they won’t extend the service to cover. Now if I were to be able to exchange the device at Radio Shack I would be issued a new number and I would lose those two years either way.
Now there’s one thing I can say about Magic Jack and that is as long as your internet is up you have service, but when the internet is down you don’t have phone. Now even with the bundled package through my cable company I had the same issue, however, the only difference was that the “jack” cost me $19.95 a year compared to $25 – $30 a month through the cable company for telephone service. So I guess I’ll go back to using the cable system as a backup seeing the service is easy to obtain if there is a problem and go back to a preset cell plan like I had before which ran about $45 a month for unlimited talk and text. And as far as Magic Jack is concerned, they lost a customer and now receive a negative review for having the worst customer support team of any industry to date and if this kind of service continues more than likely this scam of a product will be gone as quickly as those male enhancement products seen along side of the Jack on late-night TV.