Magic Jack is a fraud

[magicjackross]

Here's my situation:

I ordered a magic jack back in February and paid with paypal. The following day I received an order fulfillment email from magicjack. I waited 3 weeks, but nothing arrived, so I did a tech chat. They apologized and promised to send out a replacement unit. Later that same day I received a second order fulfillment email. Now almost three weeks later, I still haven't received a magic jack.

I finally gave up and opened a dispute with paypal. I said in the dispute that I had paid and never received anything. I gave my order numbers and a description of my situation. Magicjack refunded my money with no questions asked. But I have a question. If they had shipped (supposedly) two separate units to me, you'd think they'd wait a little longer to close the dispute. They had 20 days to respond. If they genuinely believed that it was just the USPS causing delays, they would have said so. I take this to mean that they knew full well that they had never shipped me a thing. They were clearly lying when they said the first order was shipped and they were obviously lying when they said the second order was shipped. I'm pissed because I really did want to try using magic jack.

I feel fortunate to have received a full refund, but they've wasted a great deal of my time and energy. (Time with tech chat, time on paypal, time calling the mail room, time checking with the post office) I plan on filing a report with the better business bureau as well as contacting PC Magazine and Laptop Magazine.

Magic jack is a fraud and should be avoided. It's simply not worth the hassle for a non-existent product.

[gooney]

Well, theres two sides of the story, cant judge on what you have said till i hear from the otherside... when you go to the bbb and file, please put up the dispute link here so i can see what MJ has to say.

[magicjackross]

I still really want a magic jack, so I ordered one from amazon. It says that it has shipped, but I'm no longer believing shipping emails. Hopefully amazon will come through for me though. I'm going to go ahead and change my advice: If you want a magic jack, either pay for tracking or buy it from another retailer.

[LikeMagic]

Magic jack is a fraud and should be avoided. It's simply not worth the hassle for a non-existent product.

So you're not listening to your own advice

[dukeomaha]

Someone here mentioned this retailer:

http://neverpayphonebills.com/Products.html

I don't know if you can trust this retailer either as I didn't buy my mj from them. Perhaps someone who bought from them can share their experiences on this board.

[tec32211]

MagicJackross Hi am sorry to hear about the problems you've been having with MJ company.I'd like to tell you I really don't know what happen with your order but I ordered my MJ and paid with Paypal and I had no problems with the shipping or with the MJ itself.I really think It Is a good product and like I said no problems for the weeks that I've had It.I just cut off my VOIP with Vonage...Have a great one...

[msiam]

I have had no problems with MJ shipping.. I bought myself one.. Liked it very much, bought my brother one, my sister one , my son one, myself another one, and now another for another sister.. all these were ordered at different times since SunRocket nose dove with my money aboard, most recent was my second one 3 months ago and my sister 1 month ago.. None of these orders were late. They were all delivered sooner than the delivery date . So.. I dont know what the problem could have been, but, Hey.. Im talkin to the whole famn damily on MJs all in different states. Me WI, Bro TN, son MD, Sis TN, sis FL and My second MJ with FL number in WI.. Life is good with MJ!!

[magicjackross]

So you're not listening to your own advice

It's true. All these other people like their MJs so much, that I have to try again. I still stand by my advice not to buy directly from MJ though.

[msiam]

Wellll.. We've delt with "Nay Sayers" Before.. But when you try the little MJ, you will most likley mold into "the fold" Welcome to "The Force", Luke.. and this will be you=

[jkb246]

It was fast as can be. And it actually fit in the Tiny Apt Mailbox. That was with standard shipping. DSL reports forum said to not order express shipping and just wait for it to arrive.

[sparkbox]

Sorry about your problem with mJ - my experience was that I ordered on a Friday and received the item the following Monday (from FL to OH). I couldn't believe how fast it was shipped. I am also surprised paypal is offering no assistance - but since you payed via paypal you have record of your purchase I would make mJ send another unit at their cost.

I ordered mine directly from www.magicjacktv.com

[dukeomaha]

Magicjackross,

Magicjack is not really a fraud as you exclaimed - perhaps in frustration, and I understand the frustration. Just like their lousy customer support, their product shipping system is equally lousy. I ordered and received mine is about a week, without any problems, but I have seen quite a few complaints from others who ordered, paid for the product and never received anything. Even more frustrated are those who paid extra for express processing and shipping and ended up not receiving their mj until months later.

Those who ordered it with standard shipping option seem to have a better experience.

Just my observations.

[lenagainster]

Maybe MagicJack should send the device in a plain brown envelope rather than that white plastic one with the big magicJack logo on the return address. Then it would be less likely to disappear enroute. (Not pointing the finger at the USPS; there are many opportunities for mail to be snatched even after it is delivered.)

[Redfeather]

The morrow of the story is dont pay with paypal. I used my debit card and paid to have it sent in 2 days and had no trouble. I am sorry you had trouble, but buyer beware of paypal. I used to sell on ebay and had nothing but trouble with Palpal.

[HolmanGT]

magicjackross,

WOW !!! It is a damn good thing they didn't really cheat you in anyway. I would hate to see how upset you would have gotten under those circumstances.

It is not all that uncommon to have shipments get lost, misplace, stolen or whatever. And whatever happened to yours was most likely not even a goof on MJ's portion of this misadventure. The fact that they were so willing to immediately correct the problem strikes me as a plus for MJ not that they new you had been stiffed. The MJ unit is probably worth about $10 dollars tops. They did the smart thing business wise and just refunded your money rather than spend $50 dollars in man hours trying to figure out what went wrong.

I think there willingness to immediately refund your money is a complement to MJ & Staffs efforts to keep their customers from suffering any monetary loss. They could have put a tracer out on the package and you wouldn't have seen your refund for weeks.

[magicjackross]

Wow, this thread is getting a lot of responses. I'll try to address some points and clarify a little.

Ok, I admit that I was upset when I made this post. Maybe fraud was a bad word choice. "Magic jack is kind of shady" may have been more accurate.

Yes, I paid with paypal, but paypal and MJ were both quick in refunding my money. There were no real issues there.

I can't believe that it was a USPS issue though. I could see if one order was lost, then sure, blame it on the post office. But two separate orders disappear? I used my office as the shipping address and it has a full time mail room. I've never had any issues receiving mail there.

My main beef with magic jack is that they're not up front and honest with their issues. If they're out of stock, they should stop taking orders. Taking peoples' money and sitting on it is not cool. And if they're not able to fill orders, but they still insist on taking them, don't send out order fulfillment emails if they know full well that nothing has shipped.

[HolmanGT]

magicjackross,

Well I missed that fact that it was to separate orders - that is peculiar.

Also I had form the opinion from watching other post that they (MJ) do have a habit of accepting order when there stock is apparently depleted. And I totally agree with you that that is not a good business practice.

And now that we have all the cards on the table I would probably been just as upset as you were over the whole thing. See how two faced people can be.

Plus I was ridding on a situation that about two months ago UPS had lost a Cell Phone I purchased, but AT&T did almost the same thing MJ did for you accept in my case they did generate a tracer first but when I bitched about the long lead time they sent me a new one while they investigated the lost unit.

Then two days ago I purchased some flash Ram for my Thin Client, received all the emails - your purchased has been OKed, your purchase has been sent to the warehouse and then last night received an email stating that they were out of stock and would have some more "SOON" (sound familiar). The note also said that my card had not been charged and if I wanted to cancel just let them know. Well this site is even worse than MJ's site. No Telephone number, No Support Chat, no email address that works and when I sent an email to their sales group that had sent me the out of stock notice it came back with one of the cryptic email messages saying essentially "No such address".

But I did use Pay-Pal and I have found Pay Pal to be a pretty stand up bunch of folks when it comes to someone trying to scalp you (and I don't know that to be the case yet, knock on wood). So if the bill shows up on my card I am counting on Pay-Pal and I being able to work it out in my favor (I hope).

But on the bright side once you get your MJ I think you will be as pleased as you expected to the first and second go-around.

[Arizona-rick]

I have learn in life that just about anything that can happen will happen to someone at sometime, such as the USPS losing a shipment twice or any number of human errors in the shipping process, which is what it seems has happened to you. The only thing Magic Jack did was to attempt to solve your problem, then promptly refund your money as you said "Magicjack refunded my money with no questions asked", like a responsible company should.

It seems to me because of shipping problems with the highly unreliable USPS, that you're going to call Magic Jack a bad deal? That I say is an unfair assessment. I have yet to find a reliable source that calls Magic Jack a scam. The articles I have read only touted them as having a successful product and a reliable business plan/operating strategy unlike other VOIPs. I had, like the vast majority of new customers, no problem with shipping, you did that is unfortunate, that however does not change the fact that is the most praised product I have ever research before buying. Bottom line is the product and the product is all that it claims to be and more. I admit I can be a bit of a hothead at times when things don’t go right with my dealing, but when I “Zen” myself back to earth I come to see things with an object view again.

My advice is don't miss out on the best thing in phone service to ever come along because of a rare shipping issues, what happened to you is not impossible to have occurred solely because of an error on the part of the USPS and I doubt they have helped you in anyway. Plus you have no proof who's fault is really was, so why blame Magic Jack when they at least did something about it, refunded your money.

I am saving more with out a monthly phone bill than it has cost me to switch from dial-up to the high speed cable internet need to run it. Even the over rated Vonage can't say that. Think about it, it was costing me more to have the cheapest dial-up and a standard no frills phone line without free long distance than it cost me now to have high speed and Magic Jack with free long distance, cheap internal calls and multiple free services that I never had before. Magic Jack is the real deal.


Rick

[dontgetjacked]

Go to dontgetjacked.com I'm getting people together and we will pursue legal actions once we have enough people subscribed against this company.

[msiam]

You counting on a bunch of people to join your little "Gripe Group"? You wont get me.. I happen to be one of the people who understood that MJ is in beta before I decided to keep it. Hey, I don't even know what your problem is, Jacked. Are you new?? I don't recall seeing any requests for help with your name as the writer. If you ask me.. You can take a flyin f*** at a rollin donut. I have no problem with MagicJack I've gotten more than my investment back from it and if you haven't, then it must be because you are some kind of radical ranter and raver that cant be satisfied with MJ even paying you to take their service.. Take a hike Jacked..Hey, I can rant and rave, too..

[Arizona-rick]

[quote="dontgetjacked"]Go to dontgetjacked.com I'm getting people together and we will pursue legal actions once we have enough people subscribed against this company.[/quote]

Don't get HIJACKED away from a truly great product by whining nay sayers like dontgetjacked. For me the device arrived faster than the site projected, the device does work and I have had minimal issues with clarity, once I had to contact them with a technical issue, no problems with technician good customer service, issue was my modem not the device, I reset my modem issue resolved. There are always a percentage of whiners like these people, do your own independent research of reputable sources like PC Magazine, don't just take my word (also see my comments above) or the word of people with an agenda like dontgetjacked, In the big picture I'm sure you will find it overwhelmingly positive.

You have to determine for yourself if it works for you. If you read thought the information provided on the site http://www.magicjack.com/1/faq.aspx and find it's not for you so be it, do not buy the cheapest non-cell phone real phone number and phone access currently available. The biggest draw back I've found is it has to be plugged into a USB port of a computer actively connected to the internet (it says so on the site and on there late night TV infomercial, it's not a secret that they are trying to hide), if that a major problem for you don't buy it, that way you won't have to any reason to whine about it. But if your issue is you can't or don't want to have an always on computer, then one option is you can have your inbound calls forwarded to another number, like your cell phone. This can be either full time or just when you shut down your computer for the night. With the free voice mail forwarded to email it doesn't matter if you have it disconnected and/or not forwarded while you're out.

This past weekend I went out to eat at place with free wifi, so I took my laptop with my microphone headset and the Magic Jack device, I sat at an outside table (no power outlet) then set things up and called my best friend in Ohio and talked till my computer said it was running out of battery power, no problems.

Look at what you pay and what you get, I paid a total of $46.90 (tax and shipping included) for the device and a year of service, be realistic. If you want the phone company keep them (or get them) and pay through the nose. How about VOIP through your high speed internet/cable provider? It saves you little if any over the phone company. What about Vonage? Great features included, but cheapest way is by paying for a year up front, that’ll cost you over $300.00 (most taxes included) and that's not including the cost of the device. What about Skype; Skype charges for premium offerings like making and receiving calls to and from landline and mobile phones, voicemail and call forwarding. for $30 per year (plus device cost) you can get SkypeIn phone number that will allow contacts outside the Skype network to call directly into Skype, they also have a reputation for poor connection quality. Magic Jack has a real phone number and what you get with that is all this at no additional cost: local calls, long distant calls (US and Canada), directory assistance, call waiting, voicemail and caller ID. My TOTAL initial cost was $46.90, then renewal at 19.95 per year (international prepaid is available, comparable to Vonage long distance charges) that's it no other charges, and as I said in my earlier message above it's costing me less to get more.. Seems pretty simple to me.

I see “dontgetjacked” as an over reacting self important fool trying to get attention. "Gosh things didn't go perfect for me so I'll just try and rain on everybody else's parade".

[URL=http://www.turboimagehost.com/p/215246/84.png.html][IMG]http://s2d1.turboimagehost.com/t/215246_84.png[/IMG][/URL]

Rick

[curiousgeorge]

great post Arizona-rick,wish I had the patience and the time to explain it the way you did, it is exactly what I was thinking,thanks for your great post hopefully it will help people realize what great potential this product has. peace out!

[magicjackross]

Here's an update:

My second (third?) order arrived, this time by way of amazon. It was a much better experience ordering from amazon, so I'd recommend going that route.

I plugged it into my USB port and it installed and tried to register, but it kept failing to connect to the MJ service. I tried it again the next day and got it set up without problems. I made some test calls and ran into some issues. I read this forum, made some tweaks, made more test calls, and made some more tweaks. At this point it's working, but the quality still isn't very good. People tell me that it sounds like I'm far away, in a cave, or just generally breaking up. But that's an issue to take up in the tech support forum.

So the bottom line is that MJ isn't a fraud, but you might want to order from a trusted third party as opposed to directly from MJ

[msiam]

You may want to tweak you settings in the menu at the top of the soft phone.. that is probably where the strange voice Quality is coming from.. Mine and the 10 ppl I have gotten to try them had some of the same issues that were resolve in the menu.. Good luck..

[lenagainster]

Great post, Arizona-rick; the only point I'd disagree with is:

"How about VOIP through your high speed internet/cable provider? It saves you little if any over the phone company. "

My VoIP provider costs me $15.89 per month for unlimited local calling throughout my state and 200 minutes of LD and every imaginable feature (CID, CW, VM, Do Not Disturb, filters, Call forwarding, speed dialing, email notification, ...). A minimal landline would be in the $30 range and a comparable plan, if offered, would be $80 or more. I feel my VoIP is worth the cost even if MJ was free.

For those who don't like the idea of running a computer 24/7, or are uneasy about the reliability of MJ, the MagicJack service is a great second line, a line to be used for lengthy LD calls, or a backup if the main service ever goes down. IMO, it is well worth the $4/mo (first year) in that respect.

[johnatnro]

Where I live, my only choice for accetable Internet access is Verizon DSL. There is no cable available and no other DSL provider. Since I dropped my land line, Verizon now charges $10.00 more for DSL. Verizon VoiceWing, their voip service and their bare-bones land line both run about $23-$24 per month, BUT if I get the land line, my DSL goes back down. Not so with VoiceWing. On the other hand, the land line associated charges and surcharges take away the $10.00 savings.

After a disasterous experience with voip.com, I currently have ViaTalk and am very happy with it for about $17.00 per month. People had problems with them in the past, but they seem to have cleaned up their act. MJ is my back up if I should need one, but haven't yet. Who knows, maybe someday MJ will allow number porting, and they might become numero uno for me! Maybe S-O-O-N?