Did Voce die overnight, without warning?

We don't yet know for sure what's up, but we're hearing that customers of Voce, the luxury MVNO based on AT&T's network, woke up on February 1st to zero service, dead customer service lines, and even some crazier claims like being double-billed for the final month of service. We gave their sales lines -- usually the very last thing to go down -- a ring, and got no reply. It's possible this could be some kind of huge misunderstanding and outage on Voce's part, which we do hope it is, because if they did shut down they certainly did so in about the most abrupt, impudent way imaginable. Either way, looks like guys are going to be out for the count -- we wouldn't exactly expect a mobile phone provider to go completely dark, ignore its customers for days, and expect to retain any business.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 11:54AM]

you cant sue a corporation if it goes bankrupt.

so it may just be that voce customers are plain out of luck.

[kingofwale Posted Feb 2nd 2008 11:57AM]

>you cant sue a corporation if it goes bankrupt.

Enron's CEOs are outraged that they didn't know that.

[Prokanda2oh Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:02PM]

what could possibly be expected?

helio sucks (F the ocean... had it at launch.. the only thing worse than the ocean is helio's cust. service.. took 6 MONTHS to get my money back and even then, it wasn't all there)

amp'd, disney, and espn all went under.. when will these guys learn... MVNO's DON'T last... not to mention that ATT has shoddy wireless service in most areas (for me anyway). and why have a luxo provider when there are snotty, dumbed-down, expensive handsets like the iphone... and awesome expensive handsets like the n95 to be had on those networks already anyway?

ugh.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:05PM]

Their basic plan was $118/month for 2000 anytime minutes, and 5mb of data. So, if you wanted the Prada or E61i, you would have to bump your plan up to unlimited data...for an extra $282/month.

I thought $45/month for unlimited data was bad...

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:14PM]

It could very well be related to this.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/01/31/dubai.outage/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

VOCE could be a massively outsourced and VOIP company heavily affected by this outage.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:19PM]

Not as bad as when Amp'd went under and raped the customers...
At least they are bilking the Rich, who won't even know the chump change is gone...
It is not right in any way, but I bet if you ask any of the clients what the price of Gasoline was, they would not have any idea...

I hope that the credit card company will block these last charges at least...

[fragmit Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:28PM]

Well, I talked to all of Voce's customers. Neither Bill, Donald, or Gonzo have service. Sucks for them.

[Mushroooshi Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:43PM]

I have NEVER heard of Voce before.

[Jamar Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:50PM]

@Prokanda- So what do you call Virgin Mobile? They certainly lasted. I have a feeling that Helio will last too- they've screwed up a little (how about getting with the times? One of my Korean classmates has the original SK Telecom version of the Hero- said he had it for 5 years; says it all right there) but they can bounce back (if they stop relying on Samsung for phones they will).

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 12:55PM]

Much to your surprise, Voce wasn't used by JUST THE RICH. I know of 'regular Joes' who purchased the service because they spent an ASTOUNDING amount of time on their phones for work purposes, often using up their minutes on most cell phone packages from the 'usual networks' half way through the month. That being said, yes, Voce was focusing on the elite, but even the elite shouldn't be ripped off! If you were a Voce Victim..I've found a site that can congregate us, and hopefully find us some answers. www.voceclassaction.com

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 1:34PM]

Prokanda - I'm guessing you live in the US. MVNO's definitely do work here in Europe, and in many countries they've really shaken-up the market, forcing operators to cut prices. In some countries they're so successful they've almost put the operators out of business.

[Xoy Posted Feb 2nd 2008 5:42PM]

MVNO's just don work in the US, the only ones that have worked have been prepaid Virgin, & Tracfone except Helio which is postpaid

[Cameage Posted Feb 2nd 2008 2:49PM]

Is that the same asshat from those Diesel cologne ads? I wish I could smack him in the head.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 3:25PM]

Forget Voce, let's talk about how much turd DJ Peter Parker & his crappy soundbeast(dawt)net sucks...

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 4:33PM]

They've removed the contact details from the website (just replaced them with dashs).

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 2nd 2008 4:44PM]

A family memeber had this service dont remember what it was called back during the late beeper days it was a motorola product which was called like a beeper and i believe still worked like a beeper but also had a voice anwsering machine with speaker built onto a big ass beeper and one day his service ended and the customer lines went dead poof so I wouldnt be suprised, there was rumors at the time it had something to do with the mafia who knows

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 3:08PM]

They're gone...

http://voceclassaction.com/

[Prokanda2oh Posted Feb 3rd 2008 4:51AM]

the reply system is broken :( yes.. I was referring to US mvno's... that's why I named amp'd, disney, espn.... helio... are any of those outside of the US? I was just naming the ones that have already failed (besides hellio... which has already failed in a lot of peoples books.. including mine). the mobile ecosystem over in europe is very different than ours.. just like the internet is very different in japan than the uk/us (they have FAR faster speeds... including over wireless)... so I'm sure that different countries have different services that work better for them.. I was commenting on MVNO's in my country. :)

and virgin is different... they're only prepaid, right? they fill a niche that's pretty huge.. people who don't have a few hundred (or 1,000 for verizon) to plunk down just because their credit isn't great.... and all the teens? virgin has commercials.. and a prepaid qwerty phone (that's fugly as sin... but it's there and it's cheap)... so they fill a need. most of the MVNO's are just to play to the hearts of people in a small niche market that many of the larger carriers are now starting to see as important sales they're losing... so they don't last. combined with the usual crap team of thrown-together MVNO customer service (that don't ANYTHING about the devices or the network that they're piggy-backed on) and you have a lose-lose combo. SKtelekom and earthlink are BLEEDING money to keep hellio's head above water... and the others saw that they'd never break even.. so they gave up early. SK + e-link just don't get it yet.... maybe if the ocean wasn't a total pantech piece of crap.. and their customer service didn't take 6 months of repeated hour long calls to fix things... and their phones had the ability to at LEAST have customized text/pic/voicemail ringers (like their big brother counterparts that they're TRYING to overshadow for a niche market) they'd have a chance. but how it's looking? bye-bye hellio.

I'm a 20-something that builds computers... plays videogames... and has plenty of disposable income, and my voyager has all the bells and whistles that the ocean was missing.. or did wrong. Let alone the rebadged crap that amp'd was selling.. and DISNEY?! ESPN?! rubbish.

[jvenning Posted Feb 3rd 2008 11:33AM]

@Sean

TAKE A BREATH DUDE! Use some punctuation and learn how to spell.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 11:52AM]

Voce's service died on the 1st ~ 1PM for me..

I was a Voce customer for about 6 months. I blogged about the day's experience @ http://www.qlvr.com/index.php/2008/02/01/voce-a-not-so-qlvr-service/

Needless to say, I'm an AT&T customer now. I stopped by a store in Manhattan and now have one of their SIMs in my e61i. They WERE able to port my number over since they had Voce listed as a t-Mobile authorized reseller. That was the last bit of irony considering Voce bought minutes from both AT&T and t-Mobile...

Looking back, I suppose I should have seen the writing on the wall when they kept lowering prices. This indicated that they were trying to acquire more customers since that had not done a good job of selling their value proposition. Personally, for me, the value was having two networks available more so than their "ok" virtual concierge service.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 4:40PM]

Had work from the field completely disrupted by Friday's events. Sent rep from our LA office drive to Voce stores in Beverly Hills & Culver City. She reports both locations locked up and empty - as in stripped clean, fast, nothing left but wires.

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 5:18PM]

i am *(was) a voce customer... I was TRIPLE billed, and it is true that no one is answering tech support at all.

BUT WORSE YET... I can't port over my number to a new provider, it is on some sort of frozen 'inactive' list... this has been my number for 12 years... the horror.

I talked to a former sales rep who sold me my phone and he said he'd been let go as of early January, and that a merger was in the works.

I am so pissed!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 3rd 2008 5:16PM]

http://voceclassaction.com is the place to go if you were a Voce user to get the latest on a class action suit and to porting your number over .....

weirdness!

[(Unverified) Posted Feb 4th 2008 12:02PM]

JUST PORTED SUCCESSFULLY over to Verizon!

you should escalate to their level two port center and ask for help!