RingCentral

They get you with a nice introductory offer and then hang you out to dry with terrible customer support and a phone system that goes offline about 10 times a day – and now I can’t even login to the admin app!

Once you’re through the introductory offer they double the price and lock you into an auto-renew contract for years. We can’t even move our numbers anymore and they won’t accept the phones back.

We’ve been with these guys for 4 years. Phone, Audio conferencing, Video Conferencing. We’ve always had minor problems, many I could explain away as user issues. There were problems, but never enough to make me change providers. Increasingly over the last few years, they’ve went from marginally reliable to mostly unreliable. Video Conferences clicked via email won’t start with an Invalid ID error for the host, destroy and remake the meeting? Works fine. Audio conferences were fine until recently, now people can’t connect seemingly at random but have no problem using other services. Support is very friendly but they really don’t have any ability to assist you with anything that’s not a client configuration problem. If you’re experiencing a system bug or connection issue on their end, there’s no support, no logs to look through. Uninstall and reinstall your client and hope it all goes away, thanks for calling.

The feature set is great, the VoIP features are awesome, it’s just sub-par reliability and support for a premium price.

I’ve been with RingCentral for several years and the quality of my calls and the service they provide are top notch. They are a 5-star in my book. RingCentral Meetings and the RingCentral Portal are very user friendly and good for small to large companies. The customer service experience is amazing!

Do not use this company. I sent a fax, the status in App was success, but recipient never got it! Scamers.

If you still want to give them a try: use fake credit card or that card which you can easily block to do not let them amount what ever they want.

They say they give you 15 days – free trial – don’t believe! they can give you only 7. Check everything before click the button “Submit”

I got in to a contract with three users when under impression of being able to add or remove my current and future employees as users. When you talk to them, their sales people try to just SALE.
I was pretty clear that it is important to me be flexible but I was okay to keep my lines active for at least two years so I signed up a contract.

I called back after two months, when an employee left my office and tried to cancel a user, that’s when I learned that is not an option. So not the lines under the contract, it is the users. Too little too late!

Now I am stock with these guys for the next 2 years! It will not kill me but as soon as my two years are over I am moving back to Grasshopper or something similar. All the nice features you get excited for, you can get from google GSuite, which is more reliable, easier to use and transparent.
I will I had read these comments beforehand!

IF YOU ARE WISE, YOU WILL CONSIDER THESE COMMENTS HERE BEFORE MAKING YOUR DECISION.

BEFORE SIGNING UP WITH RINGCENTRAL, PLEASE READ MY EXPERIENCE.

COST: I signed on with RingCentral in August of 2017 with a 2-year contract for 8 lines for $220 which was a little higher than the local VOIP company we were using, but we felt it was worth it with all of the amazing features and capabilities. As you can imagine, I was QUITE SURPRISED when I received my first (and subsequent) bill(s) totaling $340! In other words, I agreed to $220 plus taxes and fees for 8 lines but BE ADVISED that taxes and fees will be at least 50% more than the agreed upon price which is WAY MORE than any other “taxes and fees” I have EVER experienced. BUYER BEWARE especially if you are trying to stay within a particular budget!!!!!!!

EXPERIENCE with setup: The easy setup promised (at least for building a multi-level IVR) is not the case. I attempted to set up my own because supposedly doing so is very simple if you watch all of the videos and read the articles on RingCentral University. If you have a background in computer science or coding, perhaps you might be able to pull it off. I am very tech savvy and could not figure it out. You will spend HOURS (in my case at least 6 hours total) on the phone trying to set up and make sure everything goes to the right place especially since the support you get is across the globe and although they speak English, communication does not always go great. All I can say is that when you are setting up, be sure to have a cell phone handy to make test calls and test every single option because there will be something wrong and the new person you get will have a different idea on mapping and cause you to spend a LOT more time trying to figure it out.

EXPERIENCE using the service: IF you are running a MEDICAL PRACTICE or any organization where you NEED the caller to get ahold of someone due to life-threatening circumstances or if you work in an industry with HIGH LITIGATION, I do NOT recommend you go with RingCentral. Here’s why: Throughout our time with RingCentral there were SEVERAL times where the phone calls didn’t go where they were supposed to. When I would call to see what was happening, they always claimed we did the changes. I explained that NO ONE on staff besides myself even know how to get to the IVR to make changes and why would I go into the IVR and change anything! Here are some examples of the big problems we experienced (IN ORDER OF SEVERITY):

EXAMPLE 1: We went a period of about 3 MONTHS where patients would tell us they had left messages (and we had ZERO messages from them!!). It happened frequently enough that we knew they were not lying but those messages were nowhere to be found. On one occasion, when we had a glitch and calls were not being routed appropriately, so we called in to see where the problem was. The ring central staff member said we must have changed something (of course we did not touch anything). Anyway, in doing so the RC staff showed me where the problem was and I saw there was a weird extension. I ended up creating a log in for that extension and what do you know….we had 43 voicemails sitting in there!!!! SOME OF THEM URGENT CALLS FROM PATIENTS from weeks ago!!!!

EXAMPLE 2: There was one time were ALL calls came directly to my CELL PHONE (I was on vacation). The strange thing is that I had NEVER input my cell phone number ANYWHERE in the RingCentral system….the only conclusion I can come to is that it picked it up when I called it for help at some point.

EXAMPLE 3: Another time we had patients attempting to reach the medical staff team. Instead of ringing to their group and then transferring to the front reception to be answered, patients heard a recording that said, “No one is available to take your call. Goodbye” prior to being hung up on. In a nutshell, RINGCENTRAL IS VERY BUGGY AND WILL MAKE CHANGES TO YOUR SYSTEM ON ITS OWN and then they will make you feel like you are crazy when you call in to ask where the problem is because no one will acknowledge that the changes happened on their end. As you can imagine, we were CONSTANTLY APOLOGIZING TO PATIENTS and of course they lost all confidence in our phone system.

REGARDLESS WE STUCK IT OUT BECAUSE WE HAD SIGNED A 2-YEAR AGREEMENT.

Experience trying to leave RingCentral for a better service (i.e., problems with glitches and huge taxes and fees): I knew we were close the 2-year mark, but never received a notice when the auto-renewal would renew. All autorenewals I have ever done send notice anywhere from 30-90 days prior to the auto-renewal going into effect. This was not the case with RingCentral. I NEVER received notice whatsoever (not in writing nor even in e-mail) which is VERY UNDERHANDED. I thought it was odd, so I contacted them to see what was going on and the person I spoke with said our 2-year agreement had been fulfilled. That was my green light to move forward with another VOIP solution for our needs. I found another company specifically designed to work with medical offices (offering two-way encrypted HIPAA-compliant messaging). I signed up with them and arranged to have my phone number ported. The new company attempted to port my number 3 times unsuccessfully. Each time they were told there was a pending order and thus the number could not be ported. Prior to the 3rd attempt, I called RC to see what the pending order was and they said there was no pending order and there was no record of an attempt to port the number. After the 3rd attempt with the same results, the new company was able to finally port the number by calling in and reminding them of the legal obligation to release the number. This entire process of back-and-forth took close to 2 months (SO BE ADVISED IF YOU ARE THINKING ABOUT LEAVING RINGCENTRAL AND WANT TO KEEP YOUR PHONE NUMBER).

Once we were finally set up and ready to go with the new company, I attempted to log into RingCentral to erase any messages/faxes prior to canceling service. I was unable to log in so I called in. The problem had been that my log-in user was my ported number, so the RC representative helped me get logged in. I attempted to cancel the account, but there is no way to cancel the account on-line (as required by California law in Bus. & Prof. Code § 17600). Instead I was given a toll-free number to call. I called the toll-free number 3 times, each time the message let me know there was a high call volume and that my call would be answered in the order received. After waiting for approximately 10 minutes each time, the call went to a recording prompting me to leave a message after the beep. I left a message knowing I would not be called back (which I have not yet been called back in response to the message). At this point, I was so frustrated I filed a BBB complaint which got me a callback fairly promptly. The representative (I was assigned case 10084542) informed me could not cancel without paying out the full amount of the auto-renewed 2-year contract in the amount of $3,806.64 plus. At this point I was in shock. I told the representative, that I never received the notice about when the autorenewal was going into effect (as is customary with every other company) and I had spoken to a representative prior to porting my number who had said we had finished our 2-year agreement. I also informed her that according to my state’s law, written notification had to be given at least 30 days prior to an auto-renewal going into effect. The representative said she would get back to me about my concerns. She called me back to let me know that RingCentral is under no obligation to send out an auto-renewal notice according to the state of California (not my state) and that her final offer would be to reduce the early termination amount to $2,283.98. At this point I am seeking legal counsel since I would rather pay thousands of dollars to a lawyer than give any more business to RingCentral!!! So PLEASE, BUYER BEWARE!!! Please do your due diligence in ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE IN HEALTHCARE before signing up with RingCentral!! IF YOU ARE ALREADY WITH RINGCENTRAL and unhappy, PLEASE READ my experience so you can save yourself the pain I have had to go through.

THINK ABOUT IT, IF A COMPANY HAS TO SNEAK THINGS INTO A CONTRACT SUCH AS AUTO-RENEWAL TO BE ABLE TO KEEP YOU AS A CUSTOMER, THERE IS A REASON. Otherwise, customers wouldn’t even think to leave…something to think about!

Set up my free trial. Decided ring central wasn’t a good fit. Tried cancelling the trial on the online chat since they were closed. Told me to call the 800 number. When I called them to cancel they told me I had to wait 63 minutes to speak with someone in the loyalty department to cancel my trial. After waiting 20 minutes the call was disconnected. Total scam!! Every time I call there’s always a wait and no one can help cancel my trial.

We have been trying to move to RingCentral for 3 months and are still not ported over. We have run into issue after issue with getting our current lines ported over. We were told for a month, that 2 of our numbers could not be ported, then I said we would cancel and miraculously they were then able to port them. Next porting case, different issue. I tried working with porting, implementation and our account exec, and each one pointed their finger at the other departments. This left us with no help. Meanwhile, our 30 day trial period ended. Now, we are stuck in a contract and our numbers still aren’t ported over, and we still aren’t receiving any assistance other than call this team, who then says to call another team and so on and so forth. Worst experience ever. Don’t make our mistake, FIND ANOTHER PROVIDER!

I have used RingCentral for many years. It has always been marginal and the service beyond horrendous.

Recently, however, they have rolled out system changes and the system and sound quality has become completely unusable. As in, really not usable. Calls drop when trying to answer on phone. I can only get it to work on my base WiFi. Nowhere else.

On the desktop phone, it went suddenly from people being able to hear me to people can not hear me or only so faintly that they can not make out anything. The latency is horrible. The only thing that has changes is their system. It is truly completely useless.

Don’t get me started on the inability to have a blocking service for robo/scam calls.

I have stayed with them all this time because it is a pain to migrate, and no service is perfect. This is the straw. My business can not operate without a working phone system. I need to be able to answer my phone and have people hear me. This is basic. Do not believe whatever they tell you. They have never ever been truthful. And be warned, the service people are franticly searching your problem in their manual when you contact them. If they can’t search it and read it to you, whatever your problem is will remained unsolved.

Run far away from this company.

Just be sure you read the fine print several times. This is been the worst contract I’ve gotten myself into. If you are a small business, use Twilio, and a script to manage your systems; It’s much more affordable and even more efficient and you won’t get your number spammed. I would rate 0 if I could. Harassing calls and emails about “how was our support”. From day one registering my number, I started receiving 4+ texts daily about loans and other bulls*t offers. The app doesn’t allow you to block numbers. Don’t even get me started on all the other issues.

Just USE SOMETHING ELSE