Packet8 Imposes $1.50 Regulatory Recovery Fee - Chance to Cancel

For those of you that have tried Packet8's VoIP service and are less than thrilled with it, but don't want to pay a cancellation fee, you may find this thread at BroadbandReports.com quite interesting:

As user "Minglewood" posted: "Does P8's Price Increase Avoid the Cancel Fee? I think it does, as long as cancelation occurs before using the phone on May 1. Anyone try this yet? This result is implied in P8's new TOS. In addtion, it follows naturally from P8 changing the TOS unilaterally. The customer can't be held to its promise (one year of service) if P8 doesn't hold to its promises ($19.99 per month). There is no doubt this fee is a price increase. Thoughts?"

Now I doubt that "Minglewood" is a lawyer, and I know I'm not, but what he's saying does seem to make sense.

I wouldn't normally mention this but it seems to me that Packet8 does a lot of things that might cause people not to like them, apparently including trying to force high-usage residential customers off an "Unlimited" plan and onto a Business service plan (until they complain in a very public forum, anyway). My belief is that if you advertise unlimited service, that's what you have to provide, and if you don't you aren't going to be listed on the Resources for Michigan Telephone Users web site, and that plus the fact that they utilize network marketing companies (a.k.a. Multi-Level Marketing) to market their service is enough against them for me to not list them. This bogus Regulatory Recovery Fee is just another reason for me to not like them.

Anyway, I don't expect that everyone will jump ship solely because of this, but if anyone has been wanting a way to get out from under their service without paying the cancellation fee, this just may be an out. And, though I doubt they had any idea that Packet8 would do this, a few days ago VoicePulse introduced a competitive upgrade offer for those switching from another provider, where current and former customers of competing VoIP services are eligible to receive a $50 cash reward (details at

) so for those wanting to quit Packet8 but not VoIP, there is an option for you.

I truly believe that companies should not be permitted to tack on these fees, because they are not mandated by the government (Packet8''s new Terms of Service even state that "This fee is not a tax or charge required or assessed by any government"), so in effect what they are doing is advertising one price but charging a higher one. I have no idea why consumer protection agencies and regulators are willing to look the other way when VoIP companies do this, but they shouldn't.

Just a warning, I am seriously considering pulling the listing of all companies that charge this bogus fee off the web site. Why should I help send any business their way, when there are other companies that don't do this? The only thing that has stopped me so far is the fact that some of them offer some unique international plans that may be beneficial to some customers even with the fee, and on the site I do mention this added fee when I know about it, so people are warned. But I still think it's a very, very sleazy practice and I have no respect for the companies that add such fees.

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