Bob Xxs

No sufficient support info for a new customer

Dear Henrik Thomé; When one gets as a novice to the site, one cen get immediately a kind chat person that points you to some basics of how to sign. However, after you sign, the details one should know as the BASICS are missing. It is all about somelinks to something ‘better or improved‘, but one does not know yet how the BASIC system works. A series of videos or a PDF user guide would solve lots of frustrations. It would be great if this service is provided without usual sales pitch and in simple terms that everyone can understanmd. Why do I have feel lost these days with so many various opportunities to get properly informed?
View full review
Reason of review:
no user manuals or videos

Preferred solution: EXPLAIN IN DETAIL

Hall Voo

This review is from a real person who provided valid contact information and hasn't been caught misusing, spamming or abusing our website. Check our FAQ

Verified Reviewer

The service is a scam

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I was able to use the service until I prepaid for it. The account was immediately locked and they requested way more personal information than you would normally require from any other service like ringcentral (which I was trying to switch away from). I supplied a drivers license as they asked. But they were requesting a image of my credit card and utility bill. I've used two other services like this and Ive never been asked for this level of documentation. It's clear that they have other motives for collecting this data about you. This is clearly a scam. I strongly recommend that no one use or subscribe to this service. It is too good to be true.
View full review
Loss:
$30
Pros:
  • Phone number choice
Reason of review:
Business scam

Preferred solution: Full refund

1 comment
Guest

This same thing happened to me! They are indeed a scam.#sonetelscam

Khalid Dpr

Possible Scam

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So I've been a customer with Sonetel since some time. They do offer cheap rates and that's what got me to work with them and purchase a toll-free number for my brand. I first faced some problems with the customer support but it then was resolved successfully and everything flowed smoothly. I deposited around $30 in the account and just left them there. Over the past 3 months I mentored the calls I'm receiving and I came up with the following conclusions: Every few days I receive calls from United States, they usually expect that I don't answer but I quickly pick up, when I do so they say wrong number and close. It happened once at first, I said okay it's a coincidence and it happens, but then every few days I notice that this happens and everytime there's some weird lady or guy saying quickly wrong number then closing the call. I truly believe that these are people from Sonetel who do this so the balance would be wiped up to then deposit again and again. Not once I got a call from someone explaining who they were calling or apologizing, it's all wrong number and hang up. This whole situation is fishy and I'm really considering switching from this possible scam.
View full review
Loss:
$30
Pros:
  • Website and way to help me get up going
  • Promise of their services
Cons:
  • Delivery of their servicesso bad on many levels
Reason of review:
Bad quality

Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution

The B Cej

Wrong Use Of sonetel virtual number used by previous customer and harrasment been faced to me when i bought the number assigned to me used by the other customer of sonetel.

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Hello Sir/ Madam,

I have received a text from a person named aman ali in whats app business that the number which i purchased from you is a fake number and it was in the name of american hotel based out of chicago. The number which i bought from you is +131******** and its been taken recently and within one day i started getting complaints ,when i i registered the same number with the whats app business after that which i received such complaint from the unknown user named aman ali. I am disappointed that how can you assign such numbers to the other customer when it is been already been used by other customer earlier and who use to do all illicit and unwanted illegal activities.

I have the chat of the unknown person and as well as i shall drop you a mail with the screen shot of the chat who has raised a compalint to me reagrding the usage of this number by previous customer. After that i have bought again a new number +164******** and then i see that this number is also been used by some other customer when i installed this number as whats app business i saw already some one has used this number as whats app business and was able to see various chats . i deleted all of them and again i moved on with the new profile set up of whats app. Please i dont want to waste my money on the fake numbers or the numbers which were mishandled and misused by some body i need refund for this number .+131******** . please delete this number and please refund the paid amount for this number as i am getting many complaints against this number. And also i need to know who is the person who use to use this number?? Kindly revert back to the earliest. my registered mail is subratharay0007@***.com. I have also attached you the screenshot of the whats app business i received against the number +131********.

With Regards

Subratha Ray

View full review
Reason of review:
Wrong Use of the number by the previous customer before assigning the number to me.

Preferred solution: Full refund

Anonymous

Never could get it to work

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I have had multiple email conversations with the folks at Sonetel. I have even had 2 conversations with the support staff at Sonetel. All nice people, but I believe that they really understand that users get a phone to be able to call out and receive calls. This service worked for me less than 15% of the time that I attempted to use it. I had a softphone and programmed that exactly how they asked me to and reconfigured my modem and still could hardly make a call and only received one call on the phone number that was provided to me by Sonetel. The person calling me was calling someone else do I believe that the numbers are cycled pretty frequently as well. I am not a pissed consumer just disappointed that it did not work as advertised. I spent $15 dollars to learn this lesson and bought the premium service and a number and only used it for about 5 days before I could not use it any longer.
View full review
Loss:
$12
Pros:
  • Website and way to help me get up going
Reason of review:
Bad quality

Preferred solution: I just wanted my service to work and for them to help me make it work.

Anonymous
map-marker Hyderabad, Telangana

Lollipop for Prashant

Great service deserves great review. I want to personally thank and I might someday. Till the time, make do. Awesome! Awesome! Awesome! {{Redacted}}
View full review
Gavino Yve

We receive calls for every company except our own!!

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We have nrs in Hong Kong and Singapore and we continuously receive calls for big corporates instead of receiving calls for our own company. When checked, we found the number people were calling; this was a completely different nr and somehow this was re-directed to us, picking up the calls. Then if and when we call our own nrs at 50% of the times, the call doesn't connect or the line is dead, or we are told to leave a message which will be sent by text to us.... NOT! Now, again they say they're trying to solve our issues. Changing operator and phone nrs is agony, but it is becoming a serious option.
View full review
Loss:
$5000
Pros:
  • Promise of their services
Cons:
  • Delivery of their servicesso bad on many levels
Reason of review:
Bad quality

Preferred solution: Deliver product or service ordered

2 comments
Sonetel

Hi Andrew,

I am really sorry to hear about your problems.

I have personally been in contact with our head of customer service to get a better understanding of what caused the issues you faced.

Since I started this company 10 years ago I have never earlier heard of a customer that gets calls destined for some other phone number than the one they have.

It is not caused by anything in our system for sure, but we are in tight contact with our supplier (a worldwide leader within wholesale of phone numbers) to see if they can find the cause.

They feel that these calls (cross connections) are probably being mis-routed even before they reach their network. We have also forwarded the call samples you shared with us, with our provider, to facilitate their investigations.

The head of Customer service also reported: "- The customer had also reported connectivity problems causing calls not the be connected at all. We tested this out by making calls, and the calls worked.

- When we got in touch with them today, the customer also reported delay in audio. - We have now routed their calls via another provider.. - We have sent an email to the customer about this and are waiting for a confirmation if this has resolved the audio issues on both these numbers." I do hope that these issues are resolved by now.

Let me or the team know otherwise. Best regards, Henrik Thom CEO & Founder Sonetel

Gavino Yve
reply icon Replying to comment of Sonetel

Hi Henrik,

Thank you for responding. Alas, the issues still haven't been fixed.

Again today I sent a detailed list of misdirected incoming calls with timestamps as well as time-stamps of poor quality calls.

We use the numbers for incoming sales calls, so you can appreciate how important these calls are for us.

Your website and corporate presentation looks fresh and crisp and gives the impression that IT and customer service are key for you.

This has been dragging on for over a month now and it is hurtful to our business, frustrating for my sales people constantly taking calls for other companies and when finally we do receive a genuine call for us, the quality of the sound is so poor that we need to call back using a different connection.

This is hurtful for us and killing for your company.

With kind regards, Andy Troostwijk WehaveAnyspace Hong Kong +852 **** **** | M +31 (0)6 40* ***35 E andy@***.com | W www.wehaveanyspace.com

View more comments (1)
Resolved
Jathan Asn

Resolved: Smells like a scam

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Sonetel - Smells like a scam
Sonetel - Smells like a scam - Image 2
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Sonetel - Smells like a scam - Image 4
Updated by user Jan 04, 2017

Check your rates charged for your calls to mobile numbers!

Shortly before the Christmas, Sonetel unblocked my account and increased my daily limit without any copy of my photo ID or similar nonsense. They also REFUNDED about 90% of all the money they took from me during...

Original review Dec 01, 2016
I recently bought 2 numbers for overseas. The service was terrible.

About 50% of the time I was getting either one-way connection (the other party was hearing me, but I did not), error 500 or other. I called them and complained frequently. Because I authorized the auto-payment, they have been taking $10 from my bank every 1-3 days. I did not check the charged rates believing in their advertisement.

Finally, yesterday, in the middle of the important conversation, they cut me off and blocked the Internet access to my account - AFTER taking another $10 from my PayPal. They say it is "for my protection" due to a "daily limits", but my account still remains blocked today, and they took my money and prevent me from using it. I suspect that blocking the Internet access to prevent me from checking the status of my account with them. This is a pre-paid account and they had no rights to charge my PP account (for my future calls) when they was cutting their services for me.

Now, to add the insult, they are asking for the photocopy of my passport or photo ID. My answer was "kiss my (_!_)" as I have no intention to take this risk. If they do not refund my money promptly and apologize for the interrupted business conversation, I will be filing the Internet fraud complain with our State Attorney Office, and the Federal IC3 Office (www.ic3.gov).

I am attaching log of my phone calls, showing the "quality" of their service, their unreasonable request for photo ID and fraudulent withdraw of money from my PayPal account. -adam
View full review
Cons:
  • Taking pre-payment money and then blocking the account
Reason of review:
Pricing issue
5 comments
Sonetel

Hi Adam,

No. We are not scammers.

We are actually Sweden's 8:th fastest growing tech company according to Deloitte http://www.fast50.se/ and have a Swedish Government agency among our shareholders.

Most customers actually think we are great https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.sonetel.com

I am really sorry that you got this bad impression of our service.

The daily spending limits are imposed in accordance with the requirements by VISA and Mastercard (so called velocity limitations) to curb the attempt by criminals that use stolen credit cards for making calls to expensive destinations worldwide (at our cost since we stand the risk), where the criminals get kick-back on the calls made (so called international premium rate). We prevent hundreds such attempts per month. The daily spending limit also protects the customer. If you don't want to share a copy of ID, then that is fine.

We inform in our terms and conditions that we may require it. If you do not wish to do so we will naturally refund whatever unused funds you have. We always refund in case the customer requests that. Your case was provided to the Finance team yesterday, so in case you havn't received the refund yet, you should have it on Monday.

Regarding the other issues you brought up: You experienced some issues when connecting a 3rd party VoIP device to our service. We generally advice against connecting 3rd party devices to our service unless you have very strong networking knowledge as there is a plethora of issues that can occur due to Routers, NATs, Firewalls, bad Internet connections etc at the customer premises. http://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/sip/what-sip-phones-can-i-connect-to-sonetel/ One-way-audio issues can however usually be solved by us activating a free media relay: http://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/sip/one-way-audio-problems-with-sip/ for your account. Regarding charging.

You had chosen to activate auto-refill. The system only refills in accordance with your instructions, i.e. with X dollars when your balance goes below X dollars. We never charge accounts manually.

So refilling only happens in accordance with the instructions you have given us.

Let me know if you have any further questions. Feel free to connect to me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/henrikthome Best Regards, Henrik Thome CEO and Founder

Jathan Asn
reply icon Replying to comment of Sonetel

Dear Mr. Thome,

Thank you kindly for your answer, as I do not use LinkedIn account, I must answer you though this form.

Please be aware that I still have problems with your Company billing me the incorrect rate.

My last email about this to Bhoomica, sent last week, remains unanswered. I am hoping for a quick clarification of this matter because, if you would charge me on that day the correct, advertized rate, I would not exceed the daily limit and we would probably avoid all this troubles.

I am very glad to learn that you are a Swedish company. I could not find anything about your company, such as address, management info etc. on your website, therefore I developed a strong suspicion that the true intentions of your "security" department, asking people for photocopies of their passports, or other photo IDs, was to collect such information for some illegitimate reasons.

Therefore, I was slowly getting ready to report everything to IC3.gov.

I am also sure that you, being yourself an entrepreneur, understand that interrupting phone service in the middle of the conversation, could be perceived as lack of respect and insensitivity to your client business, even if he unknowingly exceeded his daily quotas. Blocking access to the account information at this very moment, lives people in the dark, making it impossible to correct any problem. Requesting that client must provide photocopy of his photo IDs to have his accounts reopened, additionally compounds the bad impression.

All of this can create an image of your Company as driven by arrogance and potentially with some hidden agenda. The security requirements of MC or Visa, you was kind to mention, also do not apply to my case as you are billing me through the PayPal.

As to the technical issues, I am using several different VoIP providers with all phones on the same internal network and I do not experience those problems with them. I signed for your services simply to save some money, which as I see now was a mistake.

Please consider this unfortunate experience as something that will prompt you to develop more reasonable "security" procedures and the overall ways of treating your clients. Best Regards, Adam Galant Theia Systems, Inc.

Sonetel
reply icon Replying to comment of Jathan Asn

Hi Adam,

Really sorry about the delay in response. I did not get any notification from the site, so I was unaware about your update here.

I have asked the head of customer service for an update.

No emails are unanswered for a week.

We use desk.com for tracking all emails and have very strict monitoring. In most cases when people say they havn't received a reply, the response from us has ended up in their spam box - so please check to see if it isn't there.

In any case, I will provide an update as soon as I know the status from my head of customer service.

Best regards,

Henrik Thome, CE & Founder

Jathan Asn
reply icon Replying to comment of Sonetel

Dear Mr. Thome,

Sorry, but I am done with Sonetel.

There is no reason to do anything on your side, anymore. I now have a different provider and I am very happy with them. Those folks are 10 years in business and the service is much richer and very reliable. They do not ask me for any photo IDs, nor they impose any daily limits and, most importantly, they do not interrupt my phone calls in the middle when my account needs to be recharged.

I noticed that, on your website, you ingeniously fixed the problem with incorrect billing by putting everything now into one line (which used to be only Orange). Now it reads "Poland Mobile P4, Others, T Mobile, Plus, Orange - $0.168". But, as a teaser you left the line "Poland Mobile - $0.083" ... very funny, of course the "Others" for $0.168 will always trump "Poland Mobile" for $0.083.

Are you expecting that your customers are *** or dyslexic? FYI, with my new provider I pay now $2/mo per phone number, $0 for calls to land lines and only $0.025 for calls to any mobile number. This comes to less than 1/7 what Sonetel was charging me! In my complains, I did not ask that you refund me almost everything thay I paid, as you recently did, I asked only for an honest service.

Frankly, I do not know how you can stay in business. So, no more Sonetel for me, this experience was like a bad dream.

Good-bye Sonetel,

Adam Galant

Sonetel
reply icon Replying to comment of Jathan Asn

Hi Adam,

I am glad that you have found a provider that suits your needs.

Thanks for bringing my attention to the price list issue in your comment.

You wrote: "Now it reads "Poland Mobile P4, Others, T Mobile, Plus, Orange - $0.168". But, as a teaser you left the line "Poland Mobile - $0.083" ...

very funny, of course the "Others" for $0.168 will always trump "Poland Mobile" for $0.083. Are you expecting that your customers are *** or dyslexic?"

We were not aware that the word "Others" had entered into the price list as the price list is automatically generated each week based on tens of thousands of price list entries from the carriers we work with.

Apparently one of our suppliers have started having some price list entries labeled "Others" which our Least Cost Routing module interpreted as the name of a new phone company. Our mistake was that we should have found this issue in our quality review - which we didn't.

I see this as very serious and have had a series of internal communications to ensure that we avoid this from happening again. The price list may not have any ambiguity. We are in the process of writing code to resolve this issue permanently, but it will take a few days as the issue is more complicated than it may seem. As an example we have the same issue for Switzerland, and there "Switzerland Mobile" represents the dial codes +4175;+41754;+417540;+417541;+417542;+417543;+4186075;+4186077;+41860777;+41860779;+418607150;+418607427;+418607540;+418607541;+418607542;+418607543;+418607700;+418607701;+418607702;+418607703;+418607704;+418607705 while "Switzerland Mobile Others, Lycamobile, Sunrise, Orange, Swisscom" represents the dial codes +4174;+4176;+4177;+4178;+4179;+41772;+41774;+41775;+41777;+41779;+41790;+41791;+41792;+41793;+41794;+41795;+41796;+41797;+41798;+417698;+417699;+417700;+417701;+417702;+417703;+417704;+417705;+417720;+417721;+417722;+417723;+417724;+417725;+417726;+417727 The longest matching dial code is the one that defines the price of the call.

The different dial codes comes from a wide range of competing high quality carriers - from whom we pick the cheapest - for each destination worldwide. As we want to ensure that customers get the best possible price, while avoiding ambiguity, and while not knowing if a dial code represents the majority of all mobiles in a country - or just a handful - this becomes a bit tricky. Our only intent is to deliver a great service with great prices.

I truly apologize for the issues we have had in our price list. Best regards, Henrik Thomé CEO & Founder

View more comments (4)
Cecile Aee

Their service is the worst!!

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Calls and messages never get through. Customer service is responsive but couldn't really do anything about why I wasn't getting my 'text-to-emails'.

The calls are severely delayed, that's even if it actually connects. MOST IMPORTANTLY... Indian scammers have bee calling my Sonetel US line with this number +163138**** saying that I have severe issues with IRS and trying to scam me. I never shared my Sonetel US number with anyone, so sonetel has to explain why these guys have my number.

Fair customer service, Worst general experience. PS.: I upgraded to premium and also loaded my account all in vain!

View full review
Loss:
$20
Pros:
  • Customer service
Cons:
  • Delivery of their servicesso bad on many levels
  • Bad service
  • Quality
Reason of review:
Bad quality
1 comment
Sonetel

Hi "Dawah Deals/Sammynazty",

Really sorry to hear that you are unhappy with our service. I asked our head of Customer service to identify your account and look into your account history - to give me a better understanding.

This is what I got reported back:

"Customer reported that he sent an SMS from his mobile number but he didn’t receive it.

He also mentioned that he wanted to receive SMS from Stripe (third party payments website).

We informed that Sonetel numbers cannot be used for verification purposes. We also requested him to send a test SMS from a different mobile and send the details.

Customer also complained about getting spam calls from a particular number (IRS scam), however the phone number he reported was incomplete, was missing a digit somewhere. So we asked him if he could confirm that this was the actual number, so that we could help by blocking calls from that number to his Sonetel number. One of our senior team members contacted him yesterday but we haven’t received a response from him yet." Please let me know if there is anything you disagree with.

Almost all phone numbers that you buy from any phone number providers worldwide, have been in use with other customers earlier. In our case we have the phone numbers in a quarantine for a while to let them "cool off" before offering them to other customers. Having this "quarantine" for numbers costs us tens of thousands of dollars per year - as we have to pay for the numbers when they are not used by customers, but we feel it is important to minimize the risk of a new customer getting calls aimed at an earlier owner of the number. In the unusual event that there is a problem anyway, the customer can always contact us to get a free replacement of the number.

If you paid Premium and changed your mind due to issues, you can always contact us for a refund. Since we connect calls from any country to any country - there can in some rare situations be delays in calls. If this happens, please contact us, so that we can try rerouting the calls for you.

There is usually a solution if you talk to us! Best regards, Henrik Thomé CEO and Founder

Anonymous

Sonetel and similar services displaying "local" numbers on caller ID

FYI, For any businessperson(s) using this service, please consider the following. As a consumer and recipient of many robocalls from companies that use Sonetel's service, as well as services similar to Sonetel's worldwide, I have quickly figured out that the "local" phone numbers that appear on my caller ID are blatant and shameless false advertising.

I no longer pick up these calls; instead, I call back the number, which usually results in a message saying the call cannot be completed, or that I have reached a Sonetel number "not associated with an account." If I do get an actual person at the other end, I tell her/him to remove my name from their call list. In any case, I then block the number. It seems that businesses who use these services for the purpose of displaying "local numbers" are immune to the US government's "Do Not Call" list rules, for which there are significant penalties for violators. I will be contacting the attorney general's office in my state, to ask if this is a loophole that needs to be addressed.

I am wondering if Class Action lawsuits are likely to follow, especially since part of Sonetel's marketing strategy openly extols the benefits of "tricking" customers into thinking that a business has a local presence, based on the appearance of a "local" telephone number. For any business thinking of employing this strategy, consider that this will backfire once your customers learn of the false "local" phone number.

I would not do business with any company utilizing this service, because it would give me great pause, causing me to wonder what other lies the business may be telling...NOT a trustworthy approach. Thank you.

View full review
Reason of review:
Poor customer service
1 comment
Sonetel

Hi Anonymous,

How do you know that the calls you are receiving comes from us?

I would appreciate if you could share examples so that we can take action.

We strictly prohibit "robocalls" using our service.

This is what our Terms & Conditions say:

"You acknowledge that each outbound call originating from your Sonetel account must be initiated manually by a human. Calls initiated by a predictive dialer or any other form of automation are not permitted."

Neither do we allow any use that breaks the law in the country of the number: "You agree to comply with any applicable laws and regulations with regard to the usage of geographical numbers as applicable in the territory to which the numbers belong" We regularly block accounts that try to misuse our service and have zero tolerance. Our mission is to make it easier for small business owners worldwide to get closer to their potential customers and increase sales. It is not with the purpose of having a "fake" identity, but only for the purpose of making it easy for international customers to reach them.

It is just a matter och being friendly. Most of our business is about inbound communication - meaning that the ultimate customer reaches our customer via an international number. Other companies may be more focussed on the outbound service (making calls) than we are - and most of our customers actually show their own mobile number when calling via our service.

So if you have any single event where you know that our service has been misused, please let me know and we will take immediate actions. Best regards, Henrik Thome CEO & Founder

Anonymous

Worst service

Tried their service in 3 different countries and no kind of internet access is good enough for their voip service, while 2 other companies i tried worked fine except one case when i really had bad connection. Their ios app which use call back method (supposed to work better) didn't work at all! They claim to provide service but i wonder if customer needs to lay their own fiber to sonetel datacenter to be able to get it. Finally ditched them in favor of another company and realized how terrible experience it was. Just look for another company that is more professional and does its job more seriously.
View full review
Reason of review:
Bad quality
1 comment
Sonetel

Hi there!

I am sorry to hear that you had a bad experience. We are not a VoIP provider and do not recommend that our customers connect to us via VoIP due to the many potential quality issues it can bring.

If the call back in the IOS didn't work this was probably due to a configuration issue in your phone.

Maybe you entered your Sonetel number instead of your mobile number in the settings?

This can be easily resolved.

Did you contact Customer service for help? Most configuration issues can be resolved within minutes: https://sonetel.com/en/contact/

I asked our head of customer service to look into your case history, but it wasn't possible since we don't know who you are.

I'd love to follow up and understand what really caused your problems, so if you can share your name or account ID or email address, that would be highly appreciated. Best regards, Henrik Thom CEO & Founder

Alexiana Izw

Not pissed

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I have to disagree with these pissed consumers. I had Sonetel service for about a year and i loved it.

There are so many things you can do with their service. I had no idea even how to use most of the things available on their website. SIP VOIP ??? But the services i did understand were tons of fun.

You can forward your calls to voicemail in another language and thats only the beginning. I was looking at my credit card statement one day and noticed that they were charging me some strange charges which I didnt understand so I emailed their customer service and they were 100% user friendly. Responded quickly and did exactly as i asked of them. Im not upset about the charges because it very well could have been my fault for a few different reasons.

Just know what your buying and watch your CC statements and you can do amazing things with these guys. I say Two Thumbs Up!

5 Stars !! Excellent company !!

View full review
Pros:
  • Customer service
Reason of review:
Good customer service
1 comment
Guest

Climb out of their ***!

Anonymous

Short Review on April&nbs-04:00;17,&nbs-04:00;2017

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Awful service. Nothing works. Shoddy support. Not for businesses.
View full review
Reason of review:
Bad quality
Saketh Hdo

WORSE provider and system

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Updated by user Dec 03, 2016

Update... Finally an answer...

We have to pay 13 euro to port our number to a new provider... Who is going to pay us for the days we were not reachable and the time and money wasting on reconfiguring our systems???

THINK TWICE before doing "business" which these guys...

Original review Dec 03, 2016
After getting a low balance (NOT negative) our number got blocked.. After receiving this message we tried to update our balance...

But... due to the fact that our account is blocked, we could´t update the balance!!! Waiting hours for a reply they unblocked our number. Due to this we had to reset our password...

SO we did, but we forgot one phone to update with the password, so blocked again!!! Still waiting for an answer and not able to use our phone or worser.. not able to receive calls!!! Asked for the possibility to take the number with us to another provider..

NOT possible!!

Don´t mention the bad connections we lately had with their services.. Please be warned for them!!
View full review
Loss:
$10
Cons:
  • Taking pre-payment money and then blocking the account
  • Late responses and not answering our questions
Reason of review:
Bad quality

Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution

1 comment
Sonetel

Hi Richard,

It seems as if most of your problems came from having one of your phones log in repeatedly with the wrong password, which blocks the user (and not the account nor the number). This blocking is done to prevent brute force attempts to *** your account.

You can always reset the password yourself and sign in right away if this happens.

We send out a link by email whenever users get blocked due to too many password attempts - with a link to the "reset password" function.

Let me know if you didn't receive the email or if it was unclear in any way.

I understand that you at one instance received an error message (about system not being able to send email) when requesting a password reset. While this is unusual, I have asked the COO to follow up whether this particular function doesn't have the backup mechanism for email sending as other functions in the customer Portal . If it lacks it, we will make sure to add it, to avoid the risk of any error message in the future.

Regarding the "bad connections", most of our customers are very happy with the call quality.

Those experiencing quality issues are almost always using some 3rd party VoIP device and connecting to us via their local Internet connection. While we advice against this (http://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/sip/what-sip-phones-can-i-connect-to-sonetel/ ) we will naturally try to help out in case you have issues - but we cannot fix local network problems for our customers. As I understand, we requested more info about the quality problems you experienced, but never received any response. This unfortunately makes it difficult for us to help.

Finally, we never reject any request to port out numbers. In a few countries, where we are charged for port-outs, we forward that fee to the customer, but in most countries it is free. Customer service reports that "They contacted us to port number out, we offered assistance and guided them how to port out the number with a service fee". Given this I am not able to I understand your statement "NOT possible".

Could you please clarify? In any case, I do understand that it was a frustrating experience for you - having one of your phones block your user account by repeatedly entering the wrong password. We have plans to change the behavior of the system to make the whole thing a bit smoother in cases when customers make such mistakes - so we are on it.

Let me know if you have any further suggestions for how we should improve our service - or if there is anything of the above that you disagree with. Best Regards, Henrik Thome CEO & Founder

Anonymous

Sonetel - great concept, terrible service

I have been a Sonetel customer for over 2 years. In brief, when it works (maybe 50% of the time) it's OK (not good, just OK - often the call quality is extremely poor and delayed).

However, when it doesn't work, despite polite emails from customer service, days and days go by before the matter is fixed meaning that if you rely on it for business, as I do, you are pretty much screwed. In my current situation, it's been an entire work week and it seems like they have just forgotten about my file.

I am currently looking for another provider because I cannot handle the unreliability. I thought Skype was bad, but Sonetel is sadly worse.

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Reason of review:
Bad quality
1 comment
Sonetel

Hi there Anonymous!

As you havn't provided any name I cannot validate if you really are a customer and if this review is real.

What you report sounds strange. Our system has an up-time or around 99.99% - or 99.982% in December to be precise (trending upwards).

If you are connecting to our service using VoIP however, please note that there is a wide range or problems that can occur due to your local Internet connection, your routers, firewalls etc - which are largely out of our hand - as we describe at our web site: http://sonetel.com/en/help/help-topics/sip/what-sip-phones-can-i-connect-to-sonetel/

We can unfortunately not solve problems if they are caused by your equipment or local connections.

If this isn't the type of problem you have experienced, please share your name or account number to allow me to investigate the matter personally. Best Regards, Henrik Thomé CEO & Founder