Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In the terms and conditions for the ooma phone, it clearly states that you are limited to 3,000 minutes per month (which would be easy to go over with multiple family members using the same phone line): "In addition you agree that any usage of more than 3,000 minutes per month will be deemed dispositive proof of Prohibited Use. In the event you engage in Prohibited Use, ooma reserves the right to terminate service without notice or, at ooma's sole discretion, to charge you at a rate specified on our Web site for calls that exceed the 3,000-minute per month limitation. This rate may be modified on our Web site from time to time." See: [...] However, everywhere else on the website says you get "unlimited" calls (without even an asterisk refering you to the terms and conditoins). To me this seems completely dishonest and misleading, to say nothing of false advertising. Even in the ooma knowledge base where they explain "ooma Pricing Information" there is no mention of the 3,000 minute limit. "In order to make the ooma system affordable to as many customers as possible, we're now offering the ooma Hub for the one-time price of $249. This gets you unlimited US calling and bundled features with no monthly fees!" "Unlimited" is repeated everywhere on the website. Also, I cannot find anywhere on the website where they specifiy the fee you will be charged for going over 3,000 minutes. That's not really reassuring either. ooma seems like an intriguing product. But it seems crazy to use a service, where you implicitly agree to pay a fee, even though you're told you get unlimited use, and then you don't even know what the fee is that you have been misled into agreeing to. Shame on ooma. [Update, Oct 5, 2009: I'm revisiting this review because it's been a while since I wrote it and Ooma has changed their tactics for misleading customers. They no longer claim you get "unlimited" minutes. What they say is you can call "anywhere in the U.S. with no monthly fees." This statement is clearly intended to get people to think that they get unlimited calling. But if you look in the FAQ there is still a 3000 minute limit. Ooma no longer says that there's a fee if you go over, but they do say they will enforce the limit on a "case by case basis." I find the "anywhere in the U.S." claim especially ridiculous, in an era where national cell phone calling plans and VOIP plans are the norm. Again, it's real intent appears to be to get customers to believe that they're getting unlimited minutes, without saying that explicitly, so Ooma can split hairs and pretend that they're technically not being dishonest. Ooma also makes the false claim that the limits on their calling system are no different than other phone plans. They say in the FAQ: "Like all other 'unlimited services' such as cell phone data plans and other VoIP services, we do have a limit of 3000 minutes per month (for outbound calling)." This statement is an out and out lie. First, unlimited cell phone plans really are truly unlimited. Second, VOIP plans that do have limits, do not "all" have 3000 minute limits, as if that's some sort of industry standard (they're usually at least 5000 minutes, which is almost twice as much). Third, Ooma misleadingly compares a cell phone "data" plan to Ooma's voice calling plan (voice services use vastly less bandwidth than surfing the web, steaming music, video, etc.). Ooma is not offering a data plan, they're offering a voice calling plan. Cell phone voice calling plans that say they're unlimited are unlimited. In fact, Ooma is exploiting the truly unlimited nature of your internet data plan to offer their service, pigging backing on someone elses genuinely unlimited plan. So it is completely false to say, as Ooma does, that "all other" plans work the way Ooma does. And it is the height of irony that the very thing that Ooma says does not exist, a truly "unlimited service," is in fact necessary for their service to work in the first place. Fourth, Ooma tries to mislead customers by putting "unlimited services" in quotes as if "unlimited" never really means unlimited, therefore Ooma's would have people believe that everybody else lies the way they do, so what's wrong with that? So after almost a year Ooma has not changed. They have only refined their tactics for being dishonest.]