Ooma vs Magic Jack

[ctinct]

Looking to save some money on my phone bill. Basically I use the phone to call my dd at school daily. Has anyone switched from one to the other because of issues with their chosen device? Any pitfalls I should know about? Do you love it/hate it and why?

eta: especially interested in reviews of Magic jack Plus, as I don't want to keep my computer on all the time.

 

[Mrs D]

My Mom tried magic jack last year. It was horrible! Calls didn't go through, terrible quality, and forget customer service. It is obbligato chat based and they are located in another country with a minimal mastery of English. It was entirely infuriating to attempt to resolve her issues. Despite a 30 day money back guarantee my Mom ended up eating the costs and ditching them.

My neighbors have OOMA and it seems ok.

We use VOIPO.com and have been very happy. It's a minimal monthly cost, great quality and excellent customer service. Anytime we've had a problem we've gotten it resolved quickly from US based support.

 

[girli565]

I have magic jack and haven't had a problem with it. It always works... But our computer is always on so that may be one draw back. It was easy to install and sounds great! Remember that sound quality has a lot to do with the quality of phone you buy. Make sure you buy a cordless phone that has enough mHz/gHz to not have interference from walkie talkies and baby monitors in your area.

I believe they now offer a new magic jack that doesn't have to be connected to your computer so maybe look into that. When we renew next year we will probably switch to this one so we don't have to have our computer on all the time.

I always wonder what people expect from customer service when they pay a minimal fee for the service. I can't expect phenomenal customer service for the phone when I pay a little under $2 a month for the service, lol. You get what you pay for. Heck, the pricey phone service from AT&T comes with pretty crappy customer service lol.

 

[gshumaker]

We have had ooma for a while now and love it - everything that the regular phone company charges $50 for a month for around $5/month. Sound quality is great and rated #1 in the latest Consumer Reports reviews.

I have no experiecne with Magic Jack but as someone said above, there is a newer one that you do not have to leave the computer on all the time.

 

[ctinct]

Heck, the pricey phone service from AT&T comes with pretty crappy customer service lol.

Amen to that!!!! I just spent 45 minutes of my life that I will never get back with ATT phone service and then Dish. Oh, boy. The phone issue was minor. After researching Magic Jack and Ooma, i decided that I'm not quite ready to switch yet, because I need really reliable, clear service to talk to my daughter at college. I may switch in a few years when she graduates.

Anyhow, I decided to change my phone service a little bit to save some money. I could not always understand the agent, although she was polite enough. She had a difficult time understanding what I wanted to do. It was really quite simple, but she kept mixing my internet in there, and Uverse, which I neither have nor want.....she finally connected me to someone that said she actually lives in my town, who had no trouble helping me with my problem. Took her less than 5 minutes to fix me up, after talking to the other agent and being on hold for a total of 30 minutes.

Then, she connected me to the Dish dept. My receiver is broken. This agent not only was difficult to understand, he had a bit of an attitude, too. Said there was going to be a $15 charge to ship the new receiver. Ummm....YOUR equipment that I pay a lease fee for monthly broke, and you want ME to pay the shipping? "Well, ma'am , if you had our protection plan..." Uh, no. I protested again, and after putting me on hold, he was able to magically waive that fee. When we were done , he was going to switch me over to the "rate specialist" because I said I want a lower rate, but at that point my frustration level was so high, I told him I'd call back another day. Come to think of it, though, the retention people might be more reasonable and easy to deal wth because they don't want to lose customers. I was just done after the whole ordeal. I did stay polite throughout the call, though. I understand these agents are just doing the best they can, but I wish companies would realize that the cost savings of hiring off-shore phone reps could be negated by the damage done to the company's reputation. Disgruntled customers like me can now go the the internet world and kvetch to thousands of our closest friends.

 

[rock_doctor]

Ooma is the best. The only issues are...you have to buy the equipment which is a couple hundred initial outlay and then the monthly fee is only the government taxes, no money goes to Ooma. You can go to their website and find out what you taxes will be. The second catch is...you have to have descent internet service. The upside...excellent service for less then $4 a month and you can take the Ooma box with you when you travel. We take ours to Disney and just share the internet connection with my laptop. Can make any calls we want and when we do it is like we are calling from home. I do not have MJ but from what i have heard in the past it is a ad based service. So they listen in on your calls and show you ads based on keywords of your conversation. I have also heard if you do not periodically click on an ad your calls stop connecting.... If you have a cell phone with unlimited calling have you considered getting a google voice number or you can port your current phone number to google and then connect your cell to that account. What this does for you...google can do two things. They can just transfer the call to the connected phone - such as somebody calls your google voice number and then it immediately rings to your cell or you can have them take a voice mail and not ring it to your cell. The nice thing is, they then email or text you a text version of the voice mail and the text version is actually not too bad. Personally, i have Ooma and love it. I also have a gvoice number that is local to Kissimmee Florida... So when i have to give my phone number to somebody while at Disney they do not have to call long distance to get ahold of me. It just rings to my cell phone. Plus it is a trip that the last 4 digits of my number is...4WDW...

 

[jackie101]

We have majic jack and have had no problems

 

[kaytieeldr]

If you're not in a hurry, sign up for email alerts from woot.com. They occasionally have refurbished Ooma devices at really good prices, and even if you add on the Square Trade warranty it's still a deal.

 

[gshumaker]

If you're not in a hurry, sign up for email alerts from woot.com. They occasionally have refurbished Ooma devices at really good prices, and even if you add on the Square Trade warranty it's still a deal.

They had one this week for $99.

 

[LovingMickey]

Looking to save some money on my phone bill. Basically I use the phone to call my dd at school daily. Has anyone switched from one to the other because of issues with their chosen device? Any pitfalls I should know about? Do you love it/hate it and why?

eta: especially interested in reviews of Magic jack Plus, as I don't want to keep my computer on all the time.

We have had Magic Jack for the last year. The only problem we had was when my 6 year old daughter would turn the magic jack off on the touch screen computer we had it connected to. We would still get voice mails but until I noticed she turned it off it wouldn't be ringing in. The calls have always been clear, customer service was wonderful, and you get long distance, call waiting, voice mail etc. all included. In June it was time to renew so we decided to switch to the Magic Jack Plus, now we don't have to worry about dd turning it off. It doesn't need the computer connection anymore. I think it was 60 or 70 for the Magic Jack Plus and that includes the first year of service. The only other thing we had to get use to was entering the area code for every call and not using 1 for long distance. We love the service and can't believe how inexpensive it is compared to what we use to pay our phone company. Hope this helps.

Lisa