30 minuite cutoff - reply from Dan

[az2008]

You can be rude all you like by telling me you know how I feel and think,

Sorry. Wasn't trying to be rude. (Rude is calling Holman at 2am.). Just pointing out that you have been unable to say "it's a good deal, but...". (And, speculating why.).

A lot of people are capable of expressing exasperation with MJ (even if it's just *empathy* for others who've been affected), and say "but, it's still a good deal."

I don't see that kind of balance with you. It's more like a profession of faith. Sales at Rat Shack. A million flies can't be wrong.

Mark

[ret27m]

You want me to go against my belief and go negitive when I've had no negitive experiance. I WILL NOT do that. I stand by my belief, if some feel its been a negitive experiance thats there opinion and I respect that. I totally respect your opinion even tho I feel you dont respect mine.

[strndedinalska]

People are going to buy as long as the service stays cheap,

We'll see. I think you're wrong and you know it. There's some level of disruption that an increasing number of people won't put up with. Is it having 4 years sold to them as 5? Is it being "experimented on?"

I know people who wouldn't buy it even without those recent bunglings.

Mark

I received the same response after airing the same concerns on the experimental issue. My letter stated that there are many, thousands, millions if the MagicJack numbers are correct as to the number of subscribers, who resent finding out about "enhancements" by accident. Even more important, we also resent being told a different story each time we ask the same question, "What did you "fix" this time?" I love my MagicJack, but I refuse to be told how to use my monthly allotment of minutes be it 30 minute increments or whatever. Give us a set number and then we'll figure out how we need to space out our use. I personally use less than 500 minutes a month so I shouldn't have any issues whatsoever. Those who use a little more might have to do a little more calculating to spread their allotment around.

[az2008]

I totally respect your opinion even tho I feel you dont respect mine.

I don't know if it's a matter of respect. It just doesn't seem to be reasonable to say nothing negative is happening as long as it didn't happen to me. Or, that any egregious business behavior, however self-destructive (to MJ's reputation) isn't serious.

Most people who've been unhappy with various MJ shortcomings still say "but, it's a great deal." I don't see that kind of moderate viewpoint from you. It's all about how MJ is wildly popular; flying off the shelves; nobody you know has had a problem. That seems like head-in-the-sand behavior. As imbalanced as the telemarketer who filed a rip-off report, unable to admit that even after being terminated for "excessive use" she still got a good deal, and would have gotten a good deal by purchasing 5-10 MJ units to spread the usage across (although she might have been out of business for a day or two when Dan chose to "experiment" on his customers. <wink>).

Mark

[RDHeinz]

OOOOOHHHHHH I'm being Experimented on

[ret27m]

ar2008

You arent going to brow beat me into to agreeing with you, myself and the folks I call have not had any thing happen to us, we have all had a great experiance from MJ, I'll not bad mouth it until I see problems. You do enought negitive reporting for both of us. I dont share your opinion and if I change my mind you will be the first person I contact.

[az2008]

I just now completed an outbound call test on magicJack, which resulted in the call being forcibly terminated at 30 minutes.

It was reported by someone else in another thread that restarting MJ may be required to pickup the alleged change (rollback of the 30-minute "experiment").

If it were me, I would power everything down for at least 15 minutes. I've read stories of how MJ's servers store a copy of a user's profile. They will delete it after 15 minutes of inactivity. Then pick up a fresh copy upon new activity.

There has been one report that there may still be a limit. "Tloe" reported being cutoff after one hour. http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/post27220.html#27220

Mark

[az2008]

You arent going to brow beat me into to agreeing with you, myself and the folks I call have not had any thing happen to us,

That's fine. You can have the distinguished honor of defending:

1. Unannounced service terminations, without even warning tech. support of the policy change (thereby wasting the customer's time for 3-4 days as tech. support told terminated customers they hadn't been terminated).

2. Selling four years of service as five.

3. "Experimenting" in the Production environment, on live customers, on a *broad* level, without any announcement. And, without even informing tech. support, resulting in wasting customers' time as they contacted tech. support and were told there was *definitely* no 30-minute limit.

I just think your inability to criticize anything diminishes the praise you sing for MJ. If I were considering using MJ, I would take it with a grain of salt. It doesn't seem balanced.

But, you are a good soldier.

Mark

[ret27m]

You can try and diminish me as much as you like, let your rudeness and ignorance flow, I'll stick to my opinion and I have had NO problems to date.

I doubt you even know what a soldier does so leave that sarcasim to yourself.

[noodler2]

I've read stories of how MJ's servers store a copy of a user's profile. They will delete it after 15 minutes of inactivity. Then pick up a fresh copy upon new activity.

You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

[az2008]

I've read stories of how MJ's servers store a copy of a user's profile. They will delete it after 15 minutes of inactivity. Then pick up a fresh copy upon new activity.

You shouldn't believe everything you read on the internet.

I read it on this forum. I don't remember who it was originally from, but it struck me that they knew something about it. There used to be some people who participated who seemed to have some inside knowledge, like Stewart.

If I were facing the prospect of 3 hours with chat support, I would shut everything down for 15 minutes just to see if it made a difference.

Mark

[lcompton]

Good afternoon and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I just now completed another outbound call test with magicJack. I was absolutely thrilled that I made it past 30 minutes until the 60-minute mark rolled around and my call was forcibly terminated. Bummer.

I did reboot my magicJack dedicated telephony servers (I have two magicJacks), but I did not wait 15 minutes, which doesn't make sense to me without factual technical justification.

During the test, I received an incoming call from a girlfriend, which I ran concurrent with the test, the test call was placed on hold and still streaming while I was on the telephone with my girlfriend. After I hung up the incoming call, I was able to flash back to the original outbound call test, which was still running seamlessly. (By-the-way, I really like the music-on-hold feature.)

The forced call terminations are disappointing to me. I'm hoping that this is only a temporary restriction while magicJack works out their network capacity issues (or runaway phantom call issues or whatever it is that precipitated this restriction) so I can go back to enjoying my magicJacks.

Forced call terminations in a telephone service are no good to me at any price. Two scenarios that make this a deal breaker for me are when I'm on a business conference call and when I'm on the telephone with some customer service center (often times when I can end up in a hold queue for 20 minutes or more.)

I'm not expecting magicJack to communicate this call restriction in their marketing literature or terms of service (even though they have a fiduciary obligation to do so.) But, at some point I'm going to need to replace this telephone service with something else if the outbound call restriction proves to be permanent.

Thank you.

Lisa

P.S. Now, I'm going back to playing with my Christmas present, which is a totally awesome guitar (see below)!

[az2008]

Two scenarios that make this a deal breaker for me are when I'm on a business conference call and when I'm on the telephone with some customer service center (often times when I can end up in a hold queue for 20 minutes or more.)

My business conference calls use a toll-free bridge. I suspect most customer service centers are toll-free. As a workaround you could use skype or vbuzzer.com. $10 to fund a pay-as-you-go account. And they let you call toll-free numbers for free. (I know Skype does. I'd have to perform a test with vbuzzer just to make sure. It's been awhile since I used it with a 800 number.).

But, I agree, this is really becoming an unprofessional service. I doubt the "phantom" traffic excuse. If they can't identify who's using their network, they have bigger problems than a lot of alienated customers (who had been MJ's biggest fans). They should have been able to force calls offline that they couldn't identify. Impacting *all* your customers is crazy (if that was really the reason).

Even if Dan lifts this limit (which appears to be an historic first for the industry), the service's value has sunk a great deal. No one will ever know what goofy change Dan may introduce next.

Of course, it's always possible Dan's excuse isn't really the issue. It could be oversold capacity. Just a temporary limit to guard against heavy Christmas usage (especially if recent purchases were for gifts). I could understand that as a legitimate business practice. But, it would have been more professional and respectful to announce it, and the reasons for it. It would have been a net positive to say "Due to overwhelming demand... Rest assured we are working to increase capacity and provide the excellent service you expect."

I guess that's what bugs me. Dan acts like his customers don't expect anything. I don't see how that can be a successful business practice. It pits him against his own low prices, because it's the low prices that outweigh his practices.

Mark

[lcompton]

Good afternoon, Mark. (Actually, it might still be good morning where you are.)

My business conference calls use a toll-free bridge. I suspect most customer service centers are toll-free. As a workaround you could use skype or vbuzzer.com. $10 to fund a pay-as-you-go account. And they let you call toll-free numbers for free. (I know Skype does. I'd have to perform a test with vbuzzer just to make sure. It's been awhile since I used it with a 800 number.).

Thank you for the Skype information. I've been thinking that Skype may be a good replacement for magicJack. So, I'll begin looking into it more closely this weekend. It is true that the customer service center calls that I make are typically toll-free, but there are exceptions. My business calls to conference call bridges are typically toll-free as well. But, sometimes, I do make business calls to non-toll-free numbers, which would be affected by this outbound call restriction problem.

The worst of it is that I am actively looking for a good job. Imagine the scenario where I call a prospective employer for a telephone interview only to have my call forcibly terminated at 30, 60 or whatever number of minutes. That's a stressor I can live without. The forced call terminations won't do for me no matter what magicJack costs. It's just not workable in my lifestyle. I'd rather pay more for my annual licensing fee than deal with the forced call terminations.

But, I agree, this is really becoming an unprofessional service. I doubt the "phantom" traffic excuse. If they can't identify who's using their network, they have bigger problems than a lot of alienated customers (who had been MJ's biggest fans). They should have been able to force calls offline that they couldn't identify. Impacting *all* your customers is crazy (if that was really the reason).

I'll refrain from lambasting magicJack for their marketing and business practices. I've been around long enough to have been burned by a number of Fortune 500 companies who don't give a hoot about me or the impact of their decisions on my life. So, as far as I'm concerned, anything magicJack does that's not nice just puts them in good company with the big boys.

Right now, my focus is on what's next for me. Skype looks like a good option. I'm resigned to not going back to my old Verizon setup because it just wasn't a good value. It took magicJack to push me far enough to think about alternatives. So, I don't regret abandoning Verizon. That was a good move.

The other factor is liquidation of assets. I'm pretty confident that I can recoup my investment on my Thin Client and inexpensive laptop that I picked up off of Craig's List. But, what about the magicJacks themselves? Can they be re-initialized to pre-registration status and sold on eBay? Or, do they get discarded when the service runs out? Thankfully, I never did get around to purchasing the five year extension on my second magicJack. Gosh, I wish I knew about the call restriction plans before I purchased that first five year extension a month ago. Oh well...

Thank you.

Lisa

[az2008]

Thank you for the Skype information. I've been thinking that Skype may be a good replacement for magicJack.

I can't say anything about Skype as a replacement. I was just mentioning it as an inexpensive way to call toll-free numbers. I believe vbuzzer.com also allows free calls to toll-free numbers (after paying $10 to fund the account).

If I were considering replacing MJ (which increasingly looks like I may), vbuzzer.com looks good to me. They sell US phone numbers for about $20 a year. That's pretty inexpensive compared to other services. $0.015 per minute calls (or monthly plans). If someone doesn't make a lot of calls, and/or if they primarily call toll-free numbers for business conference calls (and, if I'm correct about vbuzzer not charging for that), a person could get by with about $20 - $30 a year. (For me, that would be the case. I don't make many calls.).

But, vbuzzer doesn't have a lot of US area codes.

voipvoip.com looked good to me. They have an ATA service. But, it seemed like their US phone number was expensive. ($7 per month?).

Good luck.

BTW: If you're learning to play guitar, http://www [dot] learnandmasterguitar [dot] com/ is really good. You can often find it on sale for $100 off.

Mark

[ret27m]

Icompton

I also will refrain from lambasting at this time as MJ has not hic-up'ed on me since my purchase. Since last night I have had well over 40 people PM me with who is/isnt getting time limits. I certainly didnt expect that much activity, I was going to go in and edit my post on how different area codes are affected but I lost the use of my left arm in Iraq and guess what...lol I'm left handed, so alot of typing is a major hassle. My map board to date shows no rhyme or reason as far as location is concerned but as far as percentage of people who are affected it seems roughly 80% are NOT affected and 20% ARE affected.

That leads me to believe that this is "hopefully" not permanent. If it does become permanent I'll use the service untill it dies, thank goodness to date I am ahead of the game as far as investment, I've saved more than I've lost.

[DonMan]

I think the experiment is "Let's see what cutoff time we can get away with". Darn, customers are complaining too much about 30 minutes. "Let's try 60".

[lcompton]

Good afternoon, ret27m.

Icompton

F.Y.I.... It's L as in Lisa, not I. So, lcompton.

I also will refrain from lambasting at this time as MJ has not hic-up'ed on me since my purchase.

My history with magicJack exceeds eight months now. I wrote a series of extensive reviews about my experiences in the spring and summer. I've been a magicJack fan until this call restriction business. The outbound call restrictions finish magicJack for me. But, I will certainly wait a bit to see how this plays out. No one in this forum appears to have any concrete answers on where this story ends.

Since last night I have had well over 40 people PM me with who is/isnt getting time limits. I certainly didnt expect that much activity, I was going to go in and edit my post on how different area codes are affected but I lost the use of my left arm in Iraq and guess what...lol I'm left handed, so alot of typing is a major hassle. My map board to date shows no rhyme or reason as far as location is concerned but as far as percentage of people who are affected it seems roughly 80% are NOT affected and 20% ARE affected.

Thank you for your service to our country.

I appreciate the demographic data. As I stated previously, I am hoping that this is a temporary move on magicJack's part to manage call traffic until a more sustainable (and customer-appealing) solution is in place. I do wish the magicJack folks were better at communication with the customers though. (Hey, Dan, if you need a professional writer on a part-time basis to write customer communications, I'm available. Virtually everyone well-acquainted with me tells me that I write well.)

That leads me to believe that this is "hopefully" not permanent. If it does become permanent I'll use the service untill it dies, thank goodness to date I am ahead of the game as far as investment, I've saved more than I've lost.

We can only hope that the call restrictions are temporary.

Thank you.

Lisa

[emiliomcol]

Hello yesterday nigth i spoke with one of the supervisors of tech chat of magicjack and they told me that the 30 minutes limist maybe last over the holydays, i was having 30 minutes drops of yesterday but in my calls today i have no limits jejej...

[lcompton]

Good afternoon, Mark.

I can't say anything about Skype as a replacement. I was just mentioning it as an inexpensive way to call toll-free numbers. I believe vbuzzer.com also allows free calls to toll-free numbers (after paying $10 to fund the account).

No worries. I think I found the toy that I want. This thing is awesome because it works with Skype over WiFi, which I already have at home.

I can easily fund the setup of this gadget with the liquidation of my magicJack gear.

If I were considering replacing MJ (which increasingly looks like I may), vbuzzer.com looks good to me. They sell US phone numbers for about $20 a year. That's pretty inexpensive compared to other services. $0.015 per minute calls (or monthly plans). If someone doesn't make a lot of calls, and/or if they primarily call toll-free numbers for business conference calls (and, if I'm correct about vbuzzer not charging for that), a person could get by with about $20 - $30 a year. (For me, that would be the case. I don't make many calls.).

But, vbuzzer doesn't have a lot of US area codes.

voipvoip.com looked good to me. They have an ATA service. But, it seemed like their US phone number was expensive. ($7 per month?).

For me, a pay-as-you-go service is going to be the next best thing to magicJack's pricing model. I want to avoid monthly fees as much as possible since my month-to-month telephony consumption varies.

BTW: If you're learning to play guitar, http://www [dot] learnandmasterguitar [dot] com/ is really good. You can often find it on sale for $100 off.

As you've seen me mention before, I am financially challenged, so paid guitar lessons are pretty much a luxury I cannot afford. I'm going to exploit freely-available on-line resources as much as possible. There's a ton of decent material on YouTube and someone sent me two very good links that I have found useful. They are Chordie and MusicMoose.

Thank you.

Lisa

[lcompton]

Good afternoon, emiliomcol.

Hello yesterday nigth i spoke with one of the supervisors of tech chat of magicjack and they told me that the 30 minutes limist maybe last over the holydays, i was having 30 minutes drops of yesterday but in my calls today i have no limits jejej...

Well, all I can say to that is, "Lucky You!" Pun intended.

Seriously, I did the technical support chat thing the other night also. They didn't seem to have a clue about this call termination business. They did keep telling me not to worry and that it will be fixed. I guess my worrying really shows.

It pretty much is what it is. We'll just have to wait, see how it plays out and adjust accordingly. The nice thing is that we have plenty of warning so those of us wishing to assemble our exit strategy can do so.

Thank you.

Lisa

[AlaninKY]

I love my 4 Jacks. They are a bundle of joy. I have more problems with my cell phone losing a signal than I do with my Jacks.

Also, I don't like my electricity and Internet to go out during a storm, but that's life.

magicJack is Not perfect, but it's still a great service for me.

[emiliomcol]

Good afternoon, emiliomcol.

Hello yesterday nigth i spoke with one of the supervisors of tech chat of magicjack and they told me that the 30 minutes limist maybe last over the holydays, i was having 30 minutes drops of yesterday but in my calls today i have no limits jejej...

Well, all I can say to that is, "Lucky You!" Pun intended.

Seriously, I did the technical support chat thing the other night also. They didn't seem to have a clue about this call termination business. They did keep telling me not to worry and that it will be fixed. I guess my worrying really shows.

It pretty much is what it is. We'll just have to wait, see how it plays out and adjust accordingly. The nice thing is that we have plenty of warning so those of us wishing to assemble our exit strategy can do so.

Thank you.

Lisa

They told the same not to worried that should be fixed in a few days, rigth now im making a few calls and the limits are in 60 minutes and im using it dongleless

[strndedinalska]

I can live with the 60 minute cut off. It's not so long as it sends me to the ear surgeon the next morning, but it's also long enough to call home for the holidays, birthdays, etc.

I also have to hand it to Dan and his crew. I mentioned a couple of other issues and they jumped right on trying to find a solution even though I am willing to put up with a little inconvenience for the price I pay. Whether the mass is happy again or not, I have to admit that I am very happy with the consideration given to customers because most telephone companies I've dealt with in the past (I won't mention any names because I wouldn't want AT&T and Sprint to feel singled out) could care less what kind of an experience customers are having on the network.

Now, I'm willing to give credit where credit is due. They're honestly working on the issue and hopefully the whole thing will be resolved soon.

[az2008]

But, what about the magicJacks themselves? Can they be re-initialized to pre-registration status and sold on eBay?

I can't think of any reason they can't be sold. Nothing ties them to you? You could change the email address (and password) in the my.magicjack.com portal. Let the purchaser change the phone number if they desire. At that point, for all intent and purpose it's owned by the new person?

If you haven't already taken advantage of the one-time free change, that would be a positive. Otherwise the $10 charge would have to be factored into their value (along with the amount of unused time).

Last week I would have offered to buy one. I'd like to have a number in another area code. Forward it to my number. But, after this week's events, I'm not as motivated.

I'll refrain from lambasting magicJack for their marketing and business practices. I've been around long enough to have been burned by a number of Fortune 500 companies who don't give a hoot about me or the impact of their decisions on my life. So, as far as I'm concerned, anything magicJack does that's not nice just puts them in good company with the big boys.

What seems different to me is that a lot of Fortune 500 companies don't have a near-cult following of dedicated customers willing to serve as alternative help resources, writing how-to information, providing new-user guidance.

It's uninspiring to those people to see Dan act like he cares less about his business and his customers than that motivated following do. They take it more personally than if they purchased a Black&Decker coffee maker.

And, it has real consequences. I was planning to undertake a significant volunteer effort that would have been useful to MJ users. Now, I'm in a "want and see" mode. I have other things I can do that are worthy of my time. Any positive contribution I might make can't possibly compensate for Dan's incredible shoddy treatment of his customers.

I believe MJ's business practices have real, tangible effects like this. Would you feel inclined to take the time to document how to build a "thin client" right now? I suspect even if the customer curfew is lifted, you'll be a bit hesitant to invest much time in something like that, never knowing what Dan's next incredibly alienating move may be.

So, I see that as a fundamental and tangible difference. An example of how Dan is hurting himself by not only not leveraging his passionate customers who are willing to invest their time (perhaps to be beta testers before upgrades are rolled out). But, by actively showing contempt for them.

How hard would it have been to announce through a softphone ad, that there would be call limits over the holiday. It could be spun positively. And, it's not like everyone wasn't going to find out anyway. And, then the dumb "experiment" justification?

And, how hard would it have been to inform the help desk he *pays* for? Just so they wouldn't spread misinformation for the first 3-4 days?

I can understand business imperatives like offshoring support activities to reduce costs (even if it means negative effects on the customer). I agree "that's just business." But, the stuff we've seen for the past two months is carelessness. Callousness. They were avoidable with basic business practices, not big expenditures.

Mark

[ret27m]

strndedinalska
Where in Alaska are you? I have a friend in Soldotna useing a MJ with a El Paso Tx area code and he is not yet affected by the time limit. So far you and he are the only 2 I know of in Ak so its 50/50 there as far as limit/no limit. In the loewer 48 it's running 75% no time limit 25% time limit from the data I've collected.

[strndedinalska]

strndedinalska
Where in Alaska are you? I have a friend in Soldotna useing a MJ with a El Paso Tx area code and he is not yet affected by the time limit. So far you and he are the only 2 I know of in Ak so its 50/50 there as far as limit/no limit. In the loewer 48 it's running 75% no time limit 25% time limit from the data I've collected.

I'm in Anchorage using MJ with an Oklahoma City (405) number. My limit went from a half hour to a full hour yesterday after speaking with Dan, which I can live with. I also mentioned my call quality was about half and half and he fixed that too. I can live with an hour because my calls back home seldom run over 40-50 minutes a couple times a month, but 30 minutes was too short. That's the only way I noticed the change.

I'm reading that certain area codes are unaffected. There's a list somewhere, but if traffic and endless calls are as much of a problem as they mention, it'll be across the board before it's all said and done.

[ret27m]

So far all reports are that we will be back to no limit in a few days or by the end of the year, I have no proof positive of that but I feel it will, I'm one of the lucky one's with no time limit, my friend in Soldotna didnt get affected either, there seems to be no real rhyme or reason as to who got hit. I did some time at Ft greely some years back...BRRR it was mighty cold...lol, have a good one.

[lcompton]

Good evening, Mark.

I can't think of any reason they can't be sold. Nothing ties them to you? You could change the email address (and password) in the my.magicjack.com portal. Let the purchaser change the phone number if they desire. At that point, for all intent and purpose it's owned by the new person?

If you haven't already taken advantage of the one-time free change, that would be a positive. Otherwise the $10 charge would have to be factored into their value (along with the amount of unused time).

Last week I would have offered to buy one. I'd like to have a number in another area code. Forward it to my number. But, after this week's events, I'm not as motivated.

Selling a magicJack with the prior owner's telephone number still active is asking for trouble. This is not an option. The only way I would sell mine is if they could be re-initialized to a pre-registration state. A preliminary examination of this option doesn't look good. So, if I end up abandoning magicJack, the magicJacks themselves may have to be destroyed and discarded.

What seems different to me is that a lot of Fortune 500 companies don't have a near-cult following of dedicated customers willing to serve as alternative help resources, writing how-to information, providing new-user guidance.

I don't know that this is true or not. My motivation for writing about my experiences with magicJack was largely because I had seen a lot of bologna about the product both on YouTube and in these forums. There is entirely too much emotion and insufficient retelling of factual experiences in the magicJack on-line forums in my opinion. The emotional stuff doesn't help anyone. Telling of actual experiences and backing it up with supportive evidence provides the information folks need to make informed decisions.

It's uninspiring to those people to see Dan act like he cares less about his business and his customers than that motivated following do. They take it more personally than if they purchased a Black&Decker coffee maker.

I just don't see any reason to get worked up about what dear old Dan does with his company. That's your choice if you want to, but I honestly don't care. I want inexpensive telephone service that meets my needs. Dan is going to do what is best for magicJack not what is best for Lisa (or Mark or anyone else in these forums.) If I were in Dan's shoes, I'd be doing what's best for magicJack also. If magicJack makes a business strategy decision that no longer meets my needs, so be it. I'll move on to something else. All's right in the world. It's absolutely not worth getting worked up about as far as I'm concerned. Furthermore, it looks to me as though most people posting don't care about the call restrictions. So, Dan would seem to be in good shape if he decides to make these permanent.

And, it has real consequences. I was planning to undertake a significant volunteer effort that would have been useful to MJ users. Now, I'm in a "want and see" mode. I have other things I can do that are worthy of my time. Any positive contribution I might make can't possibly compensate for Dan's incredible shoddy treatment of his customers.

I believe MJ's business practices have real, tangible effects like this. Would you feel inclined to take the time to document how to build a "thin client" right now? I suspect even if the customer curfew is lifted, you'll be a bit hesitant to invest much time in something like that, never knowing what Dan's next incredibly alienating move may be.

I lost my interest in producing a how-to video on Thin Clients last summer when folks started going into business for themselves and driving up the prices of the Thin Clients on eBay combined with the disastrous June update, which broke Thin Client compatibility for a period.

I purchased a fully-functioning Dell Latitude C800 laptop on Craig's List for USD100.00 last September. It's a dedicated magicJack server for my second telephone line. That laptop is from year 2000. It runs magicJack flawlessly.

So, I see that as a fundamental and tangible difference. An example of how Dan is hurting himself by not only not leveraging his passionate customers who are willing to invest their time (perhaps to be beta testers before upgrades are rolled out). But, by actively showing contempt for them.

Again, I don't see it as personal. It's business as far as I'm concerned. I don't care what Dan does. It's logical to expect that he's doing what is best for magicJack. It doesn't matter what you or I or anyone else thinks. The only decision we have to make is whether to stick with the product or move on.

I guess folks can get stuck into a rut of perpetual complaining about magicJack if they want to. I'm not interested. I need inexpensive telephone service that meets my needs. The rest I don't care about at all.

You've previously mentioned that you're reticent to recommend magicJack to friends/family because of all of the drama associated with the company's business practices. I've turned several people on to magicJack over the past several months. Some of them even read these forums (hi guys!), but choose not to participate. I'm not the least bit apologetic for turning anyone on to magicJack. I never guaranteed anything to anyone. I shared my experiences, which have been mostly positive.

Anyway, I've spent too much time on this post already. I need to stay focused on the call restriction issue and see where it leads.

Thank you.

Lisa

[az2008]

Selling a magicJack with the prior owner's telephone number still active is asking for trouble. This is not an option. The only way I would sell mine is if they could be re-initialized to a pre-registration state.

Why not obtain from the purchaser:

1) The new email address (could be a throwaway if the purchaser is concerned with their privacy).
2) The desired area code and prefix.

Perform the changes in the my.magicjack.com account portal?

Edit: One thing I'm not sure of is if it removes your number from the list of available numbers when you change it.

Again, I don't see it as personal. It's business as far as I'm concerned. I don't care what Dan does. It's logical to expect that he's doing what is

I don't know. It seems to be more than just business when people spend time volunteering to fill the gaps of the business. Most have expressed an interest that MJ succeed (instead of just "it's business, no problem, I'll move on."). The passions or interest in MJ's future seem to be stronger than, say customers of Black&Decker coffee makers.

Whether it's warranted is another matter. But, I wouldn't dismiss that it exists.

Mark

[lcompton]

Good evening.

I just now completed an outbound call test to my T-Mobile wireless telephone. The call was forcibly terminated at 60 minutes.

So, it would appear that 60 minutes is the magic number (pun not intended, but appropriate) in my case.

Do keep posting and letting others know of your experiences. This kind of information will help newcomers make informed choices.

Thank you.

Lisa

[broker1k]

i am from area code 706

[lcompton]

Mark:

Why not obtain from the purchaser:

1) The new email address (could be a throwaway if the purchaser is concerned with their privacy).
2) The desired area code and prefix.

Perform the changes in the my.magicjack.com account portal?

I guess I'm the paranoid type.

Edit: One thing I'm not sure of is if it removes your number from the list of available numbers when you change it.

Well, this and all of the other things that we don't know.

I don't know. It seems to be more than just business when people spend time volunteering to fill the gaps of the business. Most have expressed an interest that MJ succeed (instead of just "it's business, no problem, I'll move on."). The passions or interest in MJ's future seem to be stronger than, say customers of Black&Decker coffee makers.

I'm not at all certain that the coffee maker analogy is valid. Apple computers seem to have a cult following (although, for the life of me, I can't imagine why. *braces for hate mail* LOL)

So, my new Christmas wish is that magicJack goes back to the way it used to be so I don't have to deal with this at all.

Nighty-night.

Thank you.

Lisa

[az2008]

I'm not at all certain that the coffee maker analogy is valid. Apple computers seem to have a cult following

I think that's a good analogy. Many who have gone to Apple have a strong motivation for it to succeed. They want greater choice. They don't want to go back to Windows. They want a greater market share to entice more developers to develop for Mac OS (which in turn makes it easier to gain more market share).

They have a personal, vested interest. Just like the people here whom we've seen say they don't want to go back to incumbent telephone providers.

I just don't think it's accurate to depict either group as operating under the norms of "it's just business." Maybe they *should.* But, the passionate support (testimonials, professions of faith, bearing testimony) and "investment factor" (emotional and financial) which MJ generates among some of its customers seems similar to Apple's users.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with wanting MJ to succeed, and expressing disappointment when it exhibits practices that I could marginalize it among prospective users.

Mark

[neo1]

No worries. I think I found the toy that I want. This thing is awesome because it works with Skype over WiFi, which I already have at home.
Thank you.
Lisa

Hi Lisa

I am a new MJ user. I have several concerns about MJ especially the spyware aspects and now the limitation on "unlimited" calling (which was the ad that I based the MJ purchase on). I feel I am the victim of unfair and misleading advertizing. You might want to go to Amazon and read some of the reviews on other Skype phones. The one you listed has poor reviews.

[az2008]

I am a new MJ user. I have several concerns about MJ especially the spyware aspects and now the limitation on "unlimited" calling (which was the ad that I based the MJ purchase on).

1. Download and run "procmon" with a filter on "magicjackloader.exe" and watch what it does when you start MagicJack. Then change the filter to "magicjack.exe" (the process that constantly runs when you run the softphone) and start MagicJack.

It seems to be doing a lot more than just running the softphone. One person on this forum said he deems the softphone's processing to be a forum of malware, not necessisarily that the softphone is. Just that it shares characteristics in things it does (like registering itself with svchost?).

2. It sounds like the calling limit will be lifted. As a new user it should be troubling that these episodes occur without any warning, or notice when they do occur, and the help desk isn't informed for 3 days afterward.

It's an inexpensive service. Most will say "it's still a great deal." But, it's something to think about if you're considering saving money by turning off a landline. You never know what the next antic will be. That's the problem. "MJ is like a box of chocolates."

3. I haven't seen an advertisement which actually uses the word "unlimited." Check the Terms of Service. Magicjack reserves the right to terminate users for "excessive use" (not defined). And, they did this two months ago. (Without warning. No notice. Not even letting the help desk know until 2-3 days after.).

But, you're right. The ads do lead one to believe they mean "unlimited." But, nothing's really unlimited. Most people know that. It's just too bad that the limits aren't defined. Other VOIP providers publish the limits.

Mark

[lcompton]

I am a new MJ user. I have several concerns about MJ especially the spyware aspects and now the limitation on "unlimited" calling (which was the ad that I based the MJ purchase on). I feel I am the victim of unfair and misleading advertizing. You might want to go to Amazon and read some of the reviews on other Skype phones. The one you listed has poor reviews.

Good afternoon, neo1.

I was reading those reviews this morning during my Skype study. There are 37 reviews with an overall rating of three stars out of a possible five.

The recurring motif I observed in the reviews for that Skype telephone is that the reviews were very polarized (i.e. either one star or five stars). It seems that a few folks were frustrated with the Skype phone and chose to toss out a one star review rather than work through the challenges.

The only way to know for sure is to actually try it. If I purchase it on Amazon.com, I can try it risk free since there are no shipping charges or taxes applied. Further, I can return the product to Amazon.com on their dime. The only cost would be setting up a Skype account, which I am very seriously considering no matter what happens with magicJack and these call caps. One option would be to use a portion of my 2008 income tax refund to fund the capital investment required to start up a Skype account and purchased that NetGear Skype phone.

Something else I discovered about Skype this morning is that they at least define what they consider fair use of their outbound service. Skype's magic number is 10,000 minutes. That's about 20 times more than I need. The annual price for this service with unlimited domestic calling is USD35.40. Skype charges USD60.00/annum for a DID, but they discount that by 50% when purchased along with an outbound calling plan. So, we're talking USD65.40/annum for essentially the same calling plan offered by magicJack.

The down-side, of course, is that no analog telephones can be used, which is a bummer.

I'm curious to try it though. I'll probably sign up for a year to see if it's any good. I genuinely like the idea of having an alternative if magicJack pulls the rug out from under me. USD65.40/annum is an excellent value if the service actually functions.

With regard to magicJack being spyware, I'm not concerned. The terms of service and privacy policy pretty much spell out what magicJack does with customer data. The terms of service also state that magicJack can change the terms of service whenever they want. It helps to keep that in mind since I did actually sign up for that. But, I run magicJack on dedicated telephony servers, which don't actually contain any personal information other than what magicJack already has. So, the only potentially useful information magicJack has are my calling patterns and the content of my telephone calls (i.e. the conversations themselves.) But, Verizon had access to this same information when I was with them. I'm not seeing much difference.

magicJack is definitely free-wheeling. There's no doubt about that. But, they're small and still trying to get their technical infrastructure right. So, I don't mind occasional issues. But, I have to say, the call cap thing really spooked me. There is no way I can live with that.

Thank you for writing.

Lisa

[HolmanGT]

lcompton

I just discovered last night that USRobotics makes an (any) analog phone to USB converter for use with Skype.

With that gadget you should have the same advantages with the ability to use any phone as with MagicJack.

Regards,

[lcompton]

I just discovered last night that USRobotics makes an (any) analog phone to USB converter for use with Skype.

With that gadget you should have the same advantages with the ability to use any phone as with MagicJack.

Good afternoon, George.

Good information. I just tracked down the USB adapter using the information you provided. It looks pretty decent.

USRobotics USB to Analog Telephone Adapter (for Skype)

Unfortunately, it's a little bit review-challenged on Amazon.com.

USRobotics USB to Analog Telephone Adapter Reviews on Amazon.com

Thank you.

Lisa

[HolmanGT]

I just discovered last night that USRobotics makes an (any) analog phone to USB converter for use with Skype.

With that gadget you should have the same advantages with the ability to use any phone as with MagicJack.

Good afternoon, George.

Good information. I just tracked down the USB adapter using the information you provided. It looks pretty decent.

USRobotics USB to Analog Telephone Adapter (for Skype)

Unfortunately, it's a little bit review-challenged on Amazon.com.

USRobotics USB to Analog Telephone Adapter Reviews on Amazon.com

Thank you.

Lisa

Ouch !!! after reading those reviews you could get me to touch it with your analog phone...

[BuffaloChuck]

We are in our final week of testing and analyzing software for MJ and I certainly have STRONG DESIRES for it to succeed. But it's certainly clogging up service-usage-levels on any PC that launches it, and seems to open quite a few holes that should make all of us feel as insecure as all-get-out.

MJ's software doesn't have to be bad software to HOST bad software. It looks easy enough for 'phantoms' to access MJ's holes and allow anything to be called 'an update' - including a Keystroke Tracker, something that would copy every keystroke made on a PC, and sends those off via the Internet connection to some other website for any purpose THEY want - TOS or not.

THIS to me is far more than 'spooky'. This is just flat terrible.

We haven't found evidence of this, but we know there are tons of processing cycles that are occurring for either ungood reasons (bad programming, tons of loops) or to cover up bad reasons (hosting spyware type applets). Nothing like that IS occurring now, according to our trackers, but all of my widget-designers say it wouldn't be hard to do.

Anyone want to feed us all their credit-card info, user IDs and passwords? Any volunteers?

I'd hate to think that's what MJ is doing, or ALLOWING. But the whole "phantom" issue and experimenting IS yet another huge red-flag. This IS what malware vendors claim to do, each and every time.

[az2008]

I'd hate to think that's what MJ is doing, or ALLOWING. But the whole "phantom" issue and experimenting IS yet another huge red-flag. This IS what malware vendors claim to do, each and every time.

These are the comments I mentioned earlier, where someone suggested MJ's behavior is malware-like, even though he hadn't detected any actual malware activity.

Behaviors are like malware

• http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/post23638.html#23638

Something about UTSCI.exe

• http://www.phoneservicesupport.com/post24055.html#24055

Mark

[HolmanGT]

We are in our final week of testing and analyzing software for MJ and I certainly have STRONG DESIRES for it to succeed. But it's certainly clogging up service-usage-levels on any PC that launches it, and seems to open quite a few holes that should make all of us feel as insecure as all-get-out.

MJ's software doesn't have to be bad software to HOST bad software. It looks easy enough for 'phantoms' to access MJ's holes and allow anything to be called 'an update' - including a Keystroke Tracker, something that would copy every keystroke made on a PC, and sends those off via the Internet connection to some other website for any purpose THEY want - TOS or not.

THIS to me is far more than 'spooky'. This is just flat terrible.

We haven't found evidence of this, but we know there are tons of processing cycles that are occurring for either ungood reasons (bad programming, tons of loops) or to cover up bad reasons (hosting spyware type applets). Nothing like that IS occurring now, according to our trackers, but all of my widget-designers say it wouldn't be hard to do.

Anyone want to feed us all their credit-card info, user IDs and passwords? Any volunteers?

I'd hate to think that's what MJ is doing, or ALLOWING. But the whole "phantom" issue and experimenting IS yet another huge red-flag. This IS what malware vendors claim to do, each and every time.

BuffaloChuck,

What the hell is this? Who is talking to whom? Have your ever heard of quotation marks and credit marks identifying what is being said by who and how you came by this information.

This post serves no purpose except to create needless worry and and discomfort among MagicJack users. And IMHO is nothing but a very poor trolling job.

If you can't back it up or make sense than don't post it.

PS - If you are a MagicJack employee, no wonder they have such a tough time with customer relations.

[BuffaloChuck]

As I said, we're in our final week of testing. When we get the answers, I'll post 'em.

We've got a huge MagicJack bowl game with tons of advertising coming out, and for the malware vendors, this is like blood in the water. You may not like the 'needless trolling' but maybe you've been heard about the Madoff warnings that were called "needless worry", too.

[lcompton]

As I said, we're in our final week of testing. When we get the answers, I'll post 'em.

We've got a huge MagicJack bowl game with tons of advertising coming out, and for the malware vendors, this is like blood in the water. You may not like the 'needless trolling' but maybe you've been heard about the Madoff warnings that were called "needless worry", too.

Good afternoon, BuffaloChuck.

I find your post needlessly alarmist. While it is true that the general population has a percentage of individuals who feel the need to spread FUD (that's Fear, Uncertainty and Doom), I think many will agree that this practice is unproductive and distracting.

Believe it or not, you and your programmers are not the only ones with programming skills who have looked at magicJack intensely. As it happens, there are a number of skilled programmers using magicJack. In fact, some of them even contribute here -- myself included.

I have seen no evidence of malware attempts by magicJack. I'll conceide your point that as magicJack grows, it increasingly becomes a hacker target. But, all software is a potential hacker target -- especially, if it listens on TCP ports.

It would be infinitely more productive if you posted some hard facts on specific hacks and exploits that you have found capable of compromising magicJack security. Quoting my use of the word spooked, while dramatic, is unimpressive.

I absolutely look forward to factual evidence of magicJack running malware or your discovered hacks and exploits showing how you and your programmers compromised magicJack.

Thank you.

Lisa

[Kokkos]

Melly: The AC powered USB hub will help to maintain the call quality to support your phones.
Kokkos: Are you saying that a USB AC powered hub will fix the 4-line Panaosnic phone dialing out problems? Do you have receipt of such success with similar customer complaints?
Melly: Yes. Because that will supply enough power to support your 4-line Panasonic Phone.
Kokkos: OK I have one here I am setting up now
Melly: Okay.
Kokkos: it is applying the upgrade
Melly: Okay.
Kokkos: NO DIFFERENCE
Kokkos: Why is going back to a version that worked a problem?
Melly: NO.
Kokkos: Ok your update has destroyed the ability to use your services.
Melly: We are still doing upgrades Kokkos.
Melly: You may try again after a couple of hours.
Kokkos: I aloso have experienced dropped calls affter 30 minutes
Melly: I see.
Melly: For now, I will be refreshing your connectivity from our end. Please try to make calls after a couple of hours.
Kokkos: Are you restricting outbound calls length?
Melly: No.
Kokkos: You did that earlier today with no resolution. Right now I cannot use my phones because of half hazardly update that forced on customers during the Holidays.
Melly: I dont think that upgrade caused that problem. There might something else, it is just that it was only occurs after the upgrade.
Kokkos: If I disavble the upgrade for a few minutes I can dial using the older software update.
Melly: I see.
Kokkos: How can you say the upgrade has not caused this problem?
Melly: Our upgrade will help your magicjack to support and to work better, not to cause our clients a problem.
Kokkos: I would hope so but check http://www.phoneservicesupport.com and yu will see a much diffrent picture. Do you have no resolution in fixing MagicJack at my house except for wait a few hours?
Melly: No.

Let's see you can only do 2 of these aspects of business and still make money:

Price, Service, Quality

Doing only one is a recipe for bankruptcy (or bailout)

MagicJack might have 2 (price and Quality) but there inept service bleeds over into their quality.

Very frustrating,

Kokkos

[HolmanGT]

lcompton,

Well thank you for stopping me from making a fool out of myself. I was going to respond to BuffaloChuck's second post, but fortunately you beet me to it.

Very eloquent response, allowing me to hold back on any further angry retorts.


Very best regards,
George

PS - "Madoff warnings" That is a bit of a stretch. And How do we know that you are not just a shill for some competitor or just some lonely soul attempting to entertain your self. Rhetorical, please don't bother responding.

[az2008]

I find your post needlessly alarmist. While it is true that the general population has a percentage of individuals who feel the need to spread FUD (that's Fear, Uncertainty and Doom), I think many will agree that this practice is unproductive and distracting.

The last time I ran procmon to watch magicjackloader.exe, I saw some things that made me wonder why it was doing what it was. Like, accessing directories MagicJack had no reason to access.

Unfortunately, this is one of those things where all of MJ's behaviors reflect together. If Dan exhibited care in his treatment of his customers, such that it implied strong ethics, it would be easy to dismiss "odd" program behavior to just sloppy programming.

But, the sleazy web site. The "30-day trial ends today" (every day). The "come on" for expedited order handling at a higher price (when it arrives no faster than than the person who didn't pay for it). Selling four years as five. The way terminations were handled two months ago. The way the 30-minute cap was handled this week.

That's the problem with pushing the envelope in various areas. If it's done enough, it starts to look like a pattern. And then when someone sees strange software behavior, it's just natural to say "well, he's not exactly been concerned for his customers in other ways. Maybe this is another example...?"

IMO, it's hard to accuse others of planting "FUD" when Dan's done a pretty good job of planting it himself.

Mark

[HolmanGT]

Mark,

I agree with most of your statement. But who is this guy, claiming to be an MJ programmer. I guess that is what he is claiming????

His command of the English language leave some room for improvement also, which adds to my doubt that he is the person he claims to be. Besides we all know that Dan would not allow an unrehearsed post like this gentlemen posted!

Dan may not be on top of what his troops as he should be, but if I was this guy I would be seriously concerned about my next paycheck.

[neo1]

I am a new MJ user. I have several concerns about MJ especially the spyware aspects and now the limitation on "unlimited" calling (which was the ad that I based the MJ purchase on).

1. Download and run "procmon" ...

It seems to be doing a lot more than just running the softphone. One person on this forum said he deems the softphone's processing to be a forum of malware, not necessisarily that the softphone is. Just that it shares characteristics in things it does (like registering itself with svchost?).

2....

3. I haven't seen an advertisement which actually uses the word "unlimited." Check the Terms of Service. Magicjack reserves the right to terminate users for "excessive use" (not defined). And, they did this two months ago. (Without warning. No notice. Not even letting the help desk know until 2-3 days after.).

But, you're right. The ads do lead one to believe they mean "unlimited." But, nothing's really unlimited. Most people know that. It's just too bad that the limits aren't defined. Other VOIP providers publish the limits.

Mark

Because of the low cost and association with Google I am still worried that it is acting as spyware. I just don't trust companies much lately. Just because they don't say it is spyware doesn't mean it is not. I am so concerned about this that I am not using the product. All of my phones were wired so I had to spend about $50 for a wireless phone just to get it to work. So now I have close to $100 in.

Their web site says: "Use the magicJack free for 30 days, make all the free calls you please." You are right that their site does not say that this continues after one pays for the service but I think most people would understand that it does.

I think I will follow the posts here for a while before using it much.

Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.