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Wall Street

by Carlo Longino

Wed, May 31st 2006 9:11am





Vonage Offers IPO Money-Back Guarantee

from the efficient-use-of-proceeds dept

Vonage's IPO continues to be a mess. With customers raising some questions over the share allocation process, reports today say that Vonage indemnified the offering's underwriters, meaning that if customers refuse to pay for shares they were awarded, it will cover the cost. It's an odd move, but could offer an out to Vonage customers that got in on the IPO, and now regret it. This illustrates one down side to Vonage's attempt to turn customers in to shareholders: since it solicitied the purchases, rather than letting interested parties go out on their own and get them, it essentially has to deal with the fallout as an extension of its customer-service operations. Irritating customers by luring them into buying a stock that's tanked isn't a good way to keep them happy, even if it was the customers' own unrealistic expectations that's causing the problems. Of course, any move that would let some buyers weasel out of their commitments will attract the class-action lawyers, an inevitable outcome, really, to this sorry IPO.

7 Comments | Leave a Comment..


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  1.  
    identicon
    anonymous coward, May 31st, 2006 @ 10:26am

    i'm a vonage customer, but i wasn't touching that unpolished turd.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  2.  

    I used to be a vonage customer. . .

    identicon
    Anonymous Coward, May 31st, 2006 @ 11:24am

    and everything was great for months until something went wrong, then it was a nightmare. I was actually loyal enough to give them two months to fix the problem, and I can't even begin to tell you the extreme level of incompetence and lack of communication that occurred between these people. Hours upon hours upon hours on the phone, holding to be transferred, only to find out that there were no records of the hours of converations and trouble shooting that had already been undertaken. This company will never, ever, ever succeed in it's current form. The telcos are virtually price competitive with traditional landline service, are getting close with the online component, and even offer comparable VoIP offerings. I will truly enjoy watching this company trickle away to nothing until one of the telco's buys them for pennies on the dollar.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  3.  

    Re: I used to be a vonage customer. . .

    identicon
    carl, May 31st, 2006 @ 12:18pm

    I also used to be a Vonage customer and I loved it. The price was right, the customer service was awsome (from my one experience when I had to call them).

    Only reason I'm not currently a Vonage customer is my location..where I now live broadband hasn't progressed yet.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  4.  

    New Name for IPO's Then

    identicon
    Techie, May 31st, 2006 @ 12:42pm

    Even though I don't buy or sell stocks or such...this can be the new term for people who buy the IPO...I'm Pissed Off?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  5.  

    it's now pronounced

    identicon
    eric, Jun 1st, 2006 @ 6:45am

    bone-age

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  6.  

    Short that one.

    identicon
    Rick, Jun 2nd, 2006 @ 12:42pm

    That's definatly a story to buy shorts on. They have way too much compition in the VOIP space.

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]

  7.  

    Class action?

    identicon
    undisclosed, Jun 2nd, 2006 @ 1:59pm

    Where can I join a class action against Vonage IPO?

    [ reply to this | link to this | view in thread ]


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