Thanks for the VONGO review, I too have some of the same complaints… Only, I can’t figure out how to cancel my membership! Realplayer has a similar frustrating feature. Do you remember what menu you went to to cancel?
thanks, Ben

To cancel Vongo there is no menu to do it from. You have to call the number for their customer support 877-866-4621 (877 VONGO 21). It is basically a third-party call center that will turn off your account for you. That is the only way. The Vongo website makes it pretty difficult for you to find out how to cancel your account.

I can’t believe how long it’s taking to get aholda these idiots. Been sitting here waiting for about 35 minutes listening to “your call is important to us” …. bullshit its not important or I wouldnt be sitting here for this long just to cancel a $10 service.

The service is very slow on my computer (and I’ve got a 3 GHZ machine that I custom built with 1 gigs of ram, and a 200 gig hard drive) and there are very limited movies.

Josh

yeah this vongo sucks i got it and disliked it and to cancel this stupid service. thier costomer service suck ass i have never seen such bad service… at this rate i don’t think that they will last.

Vongo is a service that offers OLD movies on a subscription basis and at low quality resolution and without any real portability. It is so riddled with holes you gotta wonder why they even launched the service. Except to use their Starz content and try to trick people into believing it is a full online video service. They have over 1000 movies…that are decades old…and would not be worth watching even on regular cable. Just a bunch of marketing hype trying to get unsuspecting consumers to pay for what they do not truly understand…and dangling a few newer titles to make it appear like a real video service. Stay with Netflix and BitTorrent….

Vongo is a horrible service. It has taken 3 days to try to attempt to cancel my service. Been on hold for over 30 min each time. The movies take about 2 hours to download and the selection sucks. I am also a Stars customer, won’t be after today though.

Vongo has a lot of promise, though. Like you said, if they offer the selection off an internet website instead of the stupid slow software, then it would be almost worth something. They do have to spiff up the content. I’d personally like to see cable TV channels.

I’ll be cancelling my subscription in the next few days.

WTF? They bury the cancel to the 800 number. I figured it was on the site or software. So I called up the number and their service is basically closed over the weekend. Great! I’m going to go over my trial period and I can’t cancel this service! Note to self: NEVER subscribe to Stars …

I am also on the phone trying to cancel my membership because the selection of movies is ridiculously bad. I have been listening to “your call if very important to us…” but no answer. It is Saturday and I just read the comment above that they are closed on the weekend, but they don’t say that on the stuipid recording. I’m reporting them to the better business bureau.

I complained to the Better Business Bureau. My comment to them below
**************************************************************
On May 29, 2006 I subscribed to the Vongo Video Download serrvice, once I entered my credit card information and began to browse the movie selection I realized that the selection was not worth my time or money. The application has a toll free number to call for cancelling memberships(877-866-4621), but no one ever answers. I also submitted an email via the application and after clicking “submit” you are shown a message that says someone will contact you within 24 hours, but I’ve heard nothing. I went through these same steps on June 3, 2006 with the same disappointing results. I would just like to cancel my membership before I’m billed. I have not downloaded a single movie and feel I should be charged nothing.

Just do a charge back on your Visa card if they charge you again. Write your bank a letter telling them you tried to cancel multiple times and that you called the Better Business Bureau.

VONGO SUCKS DONT WASTE YOUR TIME DOWNLOADING AND TRYING IT. NUFF SAID

AHHH! I am trying to cancel this crap crap crap awful crap of a service and cannot get through. They are horrible, their movies stink, it is just crap!

Help please! I want to cancel my service but I can get a hold of anybody. I file a complaint with the FBI but all I want is to cancel my service. Starz Company should be held accountable for this.

My credit card dispute center gave me a daytime number, 720-852-7700. The recording offers a mailing address as well.

1) Call that number and tell them you want to cancel. If they put you on hold for too long, hang up.

2) Send them a certified letter cancelling your account. Don’t clutter it with complaints. Make it clear.

3) If you continue to be billed, dispute the charges with your credit card company. Be ready to send them a list of your calls, and a copy of the letter you sent.

This is my advice as a consumer who got trapped by Vongo. I have no special knowledge of consumer law etc. but I do know that generally your credit card company is a good ally against this kind of crap.

Vongo has a 24/7 number lol simply located under the CONTACT TAB located in the Application. But it is not available on the website. The wait is really long but eventually someone answers, they added a 14 day free trail and they had underestimated how many people would subscribe and are way understaffed and overwhelmed with requests.

Yes Content doesnt range to a lot of interesting titles… seems to be old movies but if you like that then the service is great.

If you have a crap PC and expect the best then take off your padded helmet and run your head back into the wall.

My downloads average around an hour each, application runs a lil slow on my system.

All the movies are protected by Microsofts DRM (Digital Rights Management) Look it up maybe youll learn something and realize your stupid complaints. or try reading the User Agreement before you sign up so you what what you are getting lol

The service has only been around for 6 months Just updated to Gold Just got outta the beta phase. Giving them the bennifit of the doubt the service is Good if you like older movies, have a decent PC that meets the min Requirments for the Vongo Application .. yes they have min req. lol read em. Also requires 300MB Bandwith for you internet connection to sign up for the membership.

Vongo only runs on the Vongo Player.. but did you know the Vongo Player runs off of your Windows Media Player (theres where the DRM is enforced)

movies are added every friday seems to be a lot of them.

Dont know what else to say. Think that sums up the complaints. lol I like the service but i have a taste for older movies from my generation I guess.

I don’t believe that addresses all the complaints I and others have about Vongo. The service sucks and is not worth the money. I believe my money is better spent at Netflix even though you have to wait for movies to arrive in the mail.

A note to “Just So You Know.”

First, your attitude is horrible!

One very important issue you forgot to outline, Vongo does NOT advertise itself as an “older movie” deal. They use movie clips from movies such as “Kill Bill, Hitch, and White Castle” to advertise their service. There is no way to know they mostly only offer older movies until you have become a member. It is then that it is realized they offer mostly cruddy movies. This, of course, is after reading through the entire agreement line for line.

Check yourself before you take a whole lot of people that have suffered problems with this service and make fun of them or assume that they are too unintelligent to avoid being taken by a scam, little Miss LOL.

You won’t care about my comments; I expect that. You will probably become very hot-headed and send an unintelligent comment; bring it on. That is what happens when you are wrong and someone calls you on it.

Hoping for a better future,

The More Intellegent Species!

- “Kill Bill, Hitch, and White Castle”

Truely that’s all that Vongo has to offer.

Vongo is the worst! I’ve also been trying to cancel my service for several days, just to be put on hold and after 30 minutes each time I hung up. I decided to try again at 11 PM and waited maybe 10 minutes and finally got through to a pushy salesperson asking me to verify EVERY detail about my account. The salesperson will try to talk you into staying with the service because they update movies every Friday. YEE HA!!! My advice is to make sure you have ALL of your account info available so that when you FINALLY get through to cancel your service, you can quickly go over everything. Also, call late at night or very early morning. They definately make it difficult for one to cancel. All the more reason why their service sucks!!! I only wish I would have found these reviews BEFORE I signed up with this scam. Netflix is the best when it comes to movies. At least now I see where they got their name … because every-vongoes because THEY SUCK!!!

Hi all,
thanks for all your posts here! I just saw the commercial on tv and was all eager to find out more about it. The idea is so very good, but without decent customer service, tech flaws and a poor selection, I will patitently wait for someone to learn from their mistakes and come out with a user friendly concept.

Thanks!

I did had chance to get Vongo service, I think in my opinion Vongo customer service learned lesson at this point. I had my subscription started Jun 15; my platform on computer is Media center edition that will not support Vongo player. So I couldn’t see any movies that I have downloaded. I called them today Jun 16. it only took me 3 min hold and lady told me media center is not supported thru Vongo player yet. And she cancels my membership in just minute. I know Vongo have not very good selection but until someone else doesn’t come with better I think this is best till then.

I also was put on hold for 4 hours trying to cancel. BIG HINT: When calling Vongo to cancel indicate that you wish to ORDER vongo (and not CANCEL), someone picked up for me in 5 minutes. I suspect VONGO priorties the calls and puts those who wish to CANCEL perpetually at the end of the line. I also complained to the BBB today about Vongo (Starz Entertainment LLC). The LLC mean Limited Liability Co…hence they know they are ripping people off. GOOD LUCK.

Major issues:

NO contact number,
NO live chat
BILLED card but service failed,
FOUR emails via their contact page, which they claim is staffed 24/7 and NO replies.
ALL downloaded movies in library are unable to be played. PLAY NOW is only met with a license acquisition screen prompting to download the software, which I’ve done 6 times, successfully (otherwise how could I see what was in my library!) Even deleted and re-downloaded, rebooted, everything.\
VONGO SUCKS–
We should file a class action!
May Vongo die a slow and tortuous death for ruining my date.

I HATE VONGO!!!

Man forget these fuck asses, they are fraud no matter what direction they try to turn. Look at how limited their customer service shit is mother fuckers never pick up….I wonder how many customers actualy got service. They say vongo is the shit I say bullshit, lets boycott these fucks before they end up rippin america off. As far as i am concerned whoever designed vongo can jack off into his or her mouth, the lousy fucks!

and i met every word i said bitch!!!!!

Email ME BACK IF you are interested in making a huge petition against this company I will need everyones full cooperation (BTW I AM NOT A RUDE PERSON ONLY WHEN I AM PISSED) so please lets take action!

com on guys. $10 subcription and unlimited movies.. that’s too cheap for good quality service. u all know that u can’t expect to get the best of service with $10. get the fuck out of here…lol.. old rule in the book.. u get what u pay for.

Honestly, you get a lot more for your money with NetFlix.

I just wanted to chime in with my complaints about the Vongo “service”

AVOID THEM AT ALL COSTS!!! They don’t answer emails and are next to impossible to reach via telephone.

Their selection sucks, and every film has an annoying Starz watermark that pops up during the movie over and over again.

Thanks for info. I almost subsrcibe to vongo, but now I know it’s not worth it. I tried starz ticket online. it was bad expirience, I spent 55 min on hold to cancel my subscription to statzticket. never again
Jacek

I called the number posted above 720-852-7700 followed the prompts and was put through to a rep pretty quick. He canceled my account for me after just a few quick questions. I tried calling the toll free number and it just rang. Thanks for the number that works! FYI I called 6pm Sat EST, if that matters. Good luck to the rest of ya!

awesome review. I checked vongo out recently and decided not to even sign up. the fact that it is ridiculously slow didnt bother me. when i realized you could not burn them to disc or watch them outside of vongo, that didnt bother me either. what really got to me was their pathetically limited selection, im talking maybe 60-120 movies for each genre alone. and how it was affiliated to Stars which meant you had to get fed all the crap that they produce on a daily basis. anyone who has seen a movie produced by Starz knows exactly what im talkin about. while their pricetag is nice it is by no means a substitute for the trip to blockbuster or netflix.

Just called to cancel my sub and it only took 2 minutes. Read all the comments above and was hoping to hold forever but it was super fast. 877-866-4621 and listen to all the menu options before you press an ext. Rep offered me a PPV coupon but i said no and that was it. Overall I’m Happy!

I read the comments and postings on this page prior to canceling vongo and was all ready for a long wait, a sales pitch to get me to keep the service and so on…

I got neither. I called the number promptly found in the application AND on the website’s help section. I waited about 4-5 minutes and a pleasant woman answered asked me what I needed help with. I told her I wanted to cancel my account, she asked for my username, last 4 digits of the CC I used to purchase with and a brief reason for the cancellation (which I stated was poor movie selection)… After that, I was cancelled, she explained that I was still under the 14 day trial, and that I could still use the player for the PPV movies if I chose, otherwise uninstall the application and vongo would be history. So I had no problems with the customer service.

Now as for the movies…..BAD or rather I should say misleading. The selection hypes newer movies but offers very few. The interface is buggy and slow and the search feature that they hype so much on the commercial is not very good. In fact its down right silly. I searched for movies with say the word Fight in the title and I get back a dozen or so movies that don’t even come close. The quality of the movie cannot even be commented on, due to the fact that none of them played with sound. And no, it wasn’t my pc at fault. I think the cost is relatively reasonable, but only if the selection and experience is vastly increased.

So for now, I’ll stick with netflix and cable.

Vongo def. sucks for all the reasons mentioned above. I still have a week left on my trial period but decided to start the cancellation process early after reading all of these horror stories.

I guess I got lucky – only took 5 minutes. I called this number 877-866-4621 (877 VONGO 21) on a Fri around 2:30 EST. They asked for my username, email, last 4 of my credit card – and that was it. Happy cancelling!

Please beware of this user’s experience. I subscribed to Vongo under their 14-day “trial” period but was apparently immediately charged $9.99 to my card. I contacted technical service via e-mail (using their form) to question this, and no one responded until OVER TWO WEEKS LATER, long after the trial period ended.

I then tried to download a PMC-ready video to my Gigabeat S Portable Media Center and the download consistently failed, giving instead a vague error message. I contacted customer service via e-mail, and no one responded.

After several days of waiting for responses to either question, I again attempted to e-mail customer service again, and still no one responded.

Almost 2 weeks later, I was apparently charged a SECOND $9.99 fee even though I hadn’t even reached the end of my trial period and hadn’t even watched a single movie. They don’t allow you to cancel via e-mail, so I called their customer service, which is supposedly 7-days/week, 24-hrs/day. AFTER WAITING 62 MINUTES ON HOLD QUEUE, I finally hung up.

I once again (that same day) sent an e-mail trying to complain and cancel my service, and to this day no one has responded.

FINALLY, 2 1/2 weeks after I sent the first e-mail, I received a response to my FIRST e-mail explaining that one of the charges was merely a credit card authorization. HOWEVER, I would still be charged $9.99 for the supposedly “free” service I attempted in good faith to cancel.

I immediately called again, and this time a human actually answered. She agreed to cancel my service but refused to refund my $9.99. I explained the situation and ask to appeal or complain about this, so she spoke with a manager. The manager said it was too bad and that I’d have to pay the $9.99.

I am now going to have to fight this through my bank by disputing the charges.

I can’t say that others have experienced what I have, and, in fact, I shudder to think that there are other victims.

PLEASE beware of my experience before choosing to “try” Vongo out with a “free trial” period. You may end up paying a lot more than you bargained for.

Caveat emptor.

Thanks for the info. I very nearly tried it. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble.

After reading this string, I went to the contact section of the vongo website and told them how glad I was when I searched for “vongo scam” with google. Saved me some trouble. I told them to stop scamming the public and GO AWAY! I suggest more of us do that. Let me attract google some more for the next person:

vongo ripoff vongo scam vongo theives vongo steals vongo sucks vongo crooks vongo stinks vongo lies vongo cheats vongo flaming is fun do not buy vongo!

So there.

argh. i’m on hold right now trying to cancel. been about 45 min. wish i would’ve read all of this before i entered their “free trial”. oh well, live and learn. as to “So You Know”, are you serious? lol? you should just stop now, go to your local wallymart and buy these crappy movies out of the dollar bin. it’ll cost you less. : P

did a search on google for “vongo sucks” and got this….
why didn’t I do this before entering my code for one free month of this crap?
I can’t get thru to customer service at this point…I believe the 720 number said their office hours were 7:30 to 5:00 p.m. central time mon thru friday

Good luck to others.

Since VONGO refuses to answer customer service e-mails, here are some additional e-mail addresses culled from official Vongo press releases you might want to contact. I’m sure they would be interested to hear your VONGO experiences since they are the ones pushing VONGO:

eric.becker@starz.com
jwellcome@webershandwick.com
jkeller@webershandwick.com
eric.becker@starz.com
tom.southwick@starz.com
dcoates@brodeur.com
bolender@brodeur.com
jennifer_glass@sonyusa.com

Here again are the non-responsive customer service e-mail addresses; you may to to CC them on your feedback:

nucomm@mailnj.custhelp.com
reply@vongo.com

Hope this helps. Makes the $9.99 they unethically charged me worth it.

The worst customer service indeed!
I had a nice woman answer but It took a month to get through to these people!
All I want to do Is cancel my service and they make It so hard to do this.
I’ve now been billed for 2 months of a service I didn’t even want.
For 2 months I’ve been calling and calling to get rid of this crap.
Last night I was on hold for 60mins! before I finely hung up then today I was billed for another month. I got through today after being on hold for an additional 30 minutes, And was told that they would be unable to issue any credit! I will have this service for another monther and should cancel automatically.. Unbelievable!

Don’t sign up with them they trap you!

Finally after 50 mins on hold, I was able to cancel my membership. Do not sign up for the “free” trial!

I nearly made the mistake of signing up for Vongo… I’m now curious about a similar netflix offering that may be coming…

I’m glad I found these comments before signing up. Saved me some headaches. Perhaps the people from vongo are using the same customer service as AOL, sounds similar in the way they resolve issues.

Vongo doesn’t work, I’ve also been on the hold for 30 mins now trying to get a representative to cancel my account. Now I work for a Visa/Mastercard processor and all of us paid by credit card. For those that don’t know this you have a 18 month grace period from Visa/MC. If for any reason you are not satisfied with product/or service from any business that you use your credit card all you need to do is contact your customer service # on the back of the credit card and tell your bank you want to do a *chargeback* request because you didnot get service from Vongo as promised. They will debit the money back from Vongo and return it to your account along with a chargeback fee of aproximately $50.oo against Vongo. Maybe if alot of us would do this, they would answer the phone when we call in.

Hi all, thought I would put my two cents in on the Vongo mess. I also signed up for the free 14 day trial, as the commercial and website looked like it offered some good movies at a reasonable price. I didn’t even mind that most of the good movies were Pay-per-view, and would have paid the fee for the pay movies if I could get the damn thing to download ANYTHING. I have tried for 8 days to get the vongo application to download a stupid movie. My computer just starts popping up error messages that overwhelm my computer and freeze it up. I finally called Vongo today and atleast got through to someone fairly quickly. The man I spoke with was very pleasant and seemed to genuinely want to help….but after advising me to try several things (which I had already tried on my own) his only advise was for me to contact the manufacturer of my wireless router (it apparently makes it easier on Vongo if the problem isn’t theirs, but someone elses). I did learn something intersting though during the time I was dealing with their technical support dept…..all of their customer service calls are apparently handled out of Canada…..Ontario is where this gentleman was at. This may be why it is so difficult to get through? Anyway, I guess I will attempt to cancel my membership tomorrow using one of the numbers you guys listed above. Oh and I also got charged the $9.99 to my credit card the day that I signed up for the trial (funny, I thought a free trial meant that it was free – I thought I read in the sign up section that the credit card would not be charged until the trial membership was over with). Guess thats $9.99 I’ll never see again. I guess you live and you learn….It’s sad that their scamming folks this way though!

I wish I had read all of these comments before I joined Vongo! I am on my 4th day of trying to get a refund, they deducted money in a flash, money that I thought would not leave my account before the trial period was over – for a lineup of some of the crappiest movies I have ever layed eyes on. Every time I call it is something different, today their computers were down and they couldn’t do anything…yesterday it was that they were doing daily backup. The money wasn’t that important until it became apparent that they didn’t want to deal with me about it or refund it…Now it is monumental. Now I have to call them everyday. I hope anyone considering Vongo will do the research, like I should have, BEFORE, signing up.

I’ve been reading the multitude of negative reviews from unhappy VONGO members and I felt I needed to put my 2 cents in.

First of all, I had been waiting for a service like this for years. This is the future, ladies and gentleman. Movie rentals are going out, Movie Mailings are too slow for most, this is the only option left. Instant gratification.

I will admit that VONGO is poorly executed, with a choppy interface and a poor movie collection, but please, people, give it some time. This is a brand new service, and there has to be a million challenges with bringing a service like this to life. The biggest of all is copyright issues. They can only deliver movies they can get rights to, and this is both difficult and expensive, hence the poor selection. With time, VONGO will establish itself (or be taken over by a better and more powerful equivalent service) and gain more and more movies and TV shows.

I personally signed up for the 14 day trial, and had some issues installing the program. Once I figured that out, actually getting movies is a breeze and they do download within an hour. However, I was not pleased with the service, and I wanted to instead cancel and wait for the service to grow. I called the customer contact number (877-866-4621) which is actually listed on the website, in an obscure place in the FAQ (the technical issues question). I went through the prompts to cancel my service. I was in contact with a customer support rep almost immediatly, and I proceded to cancel my service. She was not pushy, and only kindly asked why i was cancelling. I told her the truth and she said she understood. She got my info and cancelled my account. She then asked me to check back at a later date, because they were new and their movie line up would expand. After I got off the phone, I immediatly recieved an email confirming the cancellation. That was it.

Over-all, It has potential, but I’d hold off until its ready.

I NEED TO KNOW HOW TO GET THIS STUPID FILE OUT OF MY PC HELP!!!!!!!

Seriously take in what I am typing. My target audience is all the people who complains it doesnt work well and has had errors.

Yes Vongo could have done a better job of posting a note if you are not in possession of a system with these requirments, or you will have problems running media center edtion… that would have been bad marketing. So naturally all the wonderful people who have created vongo are being screwed by people who make things look and sound pretty for consumers who just want things to work the way they are glorified.

My opinion has always been dont get a high end tool and blame the crappy product you make or poor results you get on that tool. The reall problem is the absense of training, lack of knowledge, or plain ignorance using the high end tool. Read between the lines all of you who dont know your pcs realistic specs.

As for contacting them, well if you sign up and go to the section my account you will find a tab called contact us, or even under the faq; either way you are given a form to fill out and a number. Just look dont bitch.

finally I am an engineer, and technologist that is using this on vista, and I download fine (faster than any mail program like netflix, and faster than illegal downloading programs, or bit torrents) and finding a way to use drm with the media player 11 once that is done I am set. All it takes is patience and research.

Please take the time to learn what your computer can do, make sure it is always clean and tuned properly, so you dont have complaints about vongo slowing your pc, when it is most likely your fault for not cleaning up your start menu and run hive in your registry.

Excuse me..

If my computer runs C&C Generals and Half Life 2 fine I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t run Vongo fine too.

Finally, I am a software programmer and I know a piece of shit software when I see one.

Vongo is just a bloated hog.

Yes Vongo is faster than downloading torrents, but only because Vongo’s movie quality is so poor compared to the quality of the torrents.

I signed up tonight downloaded one movie while waiting for the movie to download (37min) I saw the selection was all old crap. I called to cancel and like most of the obove victims it took 43min to get the rep on the line to cancel.

Starz I will never subscibe to you again!!!!! WOW this thing sucks!!!

NETFLIX FOREVER!!!!! 5 at a time for 29.99!

I can’t get the file off my pc either. Every time I try to uninstall it, it starts running itself so that it can’t be uninstalled. Any of you “software experts” know how to circumvent this?

Ha! The idea is great! but the service is extremely poor..I tried to cancel my service by calling these guys 3 times…they put me on hold for more then 30 mins on each call and nobody attended the phone…I called them again and instead of choosing the CANCEL SERVICE OPTION, I went to the ORDER option and guess what?? A salesperson immediately picked the line and I finally cancelled this AWFUL service…They ask you everything to cancel but be advised that questions to cancel will be: WHAT IS YOUR USER ID?, THE LAST FOUR DIGITS OF YOUR CREDIT CARD, YOUR FIRST AND LAST NAME? WHY DO YOU WANT TO CANCEL? ARE YOU COMPLETELY SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL? They will offer you even another free month and something else for you to stay…DON’T complaint about anything, just go to the point and tell them YOU ARE COMPLETELY SURE YOU WANT TO CANCEL…They will try to do everything to retain your service!

My advise to all is not to mess with Vongo. They put a hold on the $9.95 plus tax in addition to a $1. They have no supervisiors or fax machines. How can a company run without these 2 things????? From reading the reviews after trying out the service I became very weiry. I had to search the reviews to find a customer service #, many have not had any response to email which I have submitted 3 or more with no replies. When I told customer service that I couldn’t find their # I had to search response was “let me walk you through it”. I am very computer savvy and it should not be that hard to find. This is the # I had found and I had better luck with than the 800 #, 720-852-7700. I first spoke with Sheena, then called back 2 days later and spoke with Nancy. My account was cancelled and they did say a credit was approved. I did have the account over the 14 days, I expressed how very unhappy I was with it. Sheena’s excuse was that it was a new and had glitches. I don’t think it should have been released if there is still glitches. Take my advice and save yourself a big headache. STAY AWAY FROM VONGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nathan: I completely agree, i Do freelance programing myself. Nothing big, but enough to know bad software when i see it.

Stars should be EMBARASSED to have put out software with so many flaws and CRIMINALIZED for spending their time covering them up instead of FIXING them.

Where is it mentioned that there is a Media Center issue? I searched all over Vongos site before downloading and read NOTHING on the subject. I will be starting the long road to cancelation like so many of you tomorrow.

/All of you who want us to cut them a break should understand that any company that expects money for software this poorly written should be bankrupted. Period.

Does anyone know to uninstall that crappy program from your computer after you’ve cancelled that crummy service? When I go into Add/Remove Programs to uninstall it, I keep getting an error message from InstallShield Wizard, which reads as follows:

Vongo requires Macromedia Flash Player version 8.0 or later. Please visit http://www.macromedia.com using Internet Explorer web browser and install Flash player, then retry the installation.

Well, I followed these instructions to the letter, and I still get the above error message. Any information on how to get this thing off my computer would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

If you get an error message try looking at the task bar the program might still be running there. That is what happened to me. Then all you have to do is got to do is uninstall.

I tried a number of remedies to keep Vongo from reinstalling itself on my new laptop whenever I rebooted, including chatting with HP, who recommended reinstalling the application from “Application Recovery” then uninstalling it again (which didn’t work). I scrubbed my disk with Norton Systemworks Cleansweep and used Windoctor to clean up the registry (which also didn’t work). I then deleted any remaining files on the C:\ drive that had the name “Vongo” associated with it (I was ready to throw in the towel).

In the end, I discovered that the problem was with the InstallShield Update Manager application, also preloaded on my new HP laptop. My Update Manager showed “Sonic” as its sole application to update, yet when I pressed the “update” button, the Vongo configuration window popped up. Touche!

I then proceeded to uninstall the Update Manager, which doesn’t show up in the Windows Add/Delete Programs listing. I found the uninstall program on this webpage:

http://consumer.installshield.com/kb.asp?id=Q111006

I downloaded the Update Manager Uninstaller program (scroll down to find it) and ran it per the instructions on the download site. Then (IMPORTANT), I rebooted. That annoying popup window went away!

For the record, I also uninstalled the Macromedia Flash Player 8.0 preinstalled on the laptop, prior to uninstalling Update Manager. I’m not sure if this is necessary, since doing so itself did not remove the popup window. But, it may not hurt to try it, since this application (now Adobe Flash Player) can be installed again afterwards from the following website:

http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=
ShockwaveFlash&promoid=BIOW

Good luck!

I had tech problems with vongo and the tech help told me it was due to high folume periods. In other words, they are not equipped to handle their customer base. Downloading at 5 am everymorning it felt like being the 17th caller at a popular radio station contest.

Here is the catch though. They will not refund the 9.99 they charged me for the free 14 day trial after i cancelled 6 days into it.

Shaka

Thanks for all the available information. It surely helps when making a decision on weather to subscribe or not to…..it is rather obvious that I will hold off on subscribing.

The net/entertainment industry will surely create a site that actually comes through with the promises that Vongo has made. It is only a matter of time. I will be patiently waiting.

It is impossible to find the phone number to cancel. does anyone know the 800 number?

Check out http://www.reeltimetv.net This IS the future of watching movies online. Their site opens up Sept 12 and if you go their to watch their demos you’ll see why.

Torrents are still the best.

whine wine whine I have had the service for about 2 weeks and I Love it .. I have had a couple of issues and all of them are due MicroShita bloated and jacked up drm .. as far as the movies sure some are older which I dont mind I dont use the ppv its not my gig. I wonder if some of you who complain about being charged for the service even use credit cards.. most companies put a hold on your cc when you submit to a trial period .. also you might want to contact your ISP or get off dial up if it takes more than 2 hours to download movies ..

thanks for the reviews, i was thinking of getting the service tonight!!!! Not anymore

I really hat Vongo. I have downloaded Vondo stupid software and have tried to uninstall. There is no unstiall package. Once I deleted all programs, it popped “Window Installation…” box and I really bothered me.
Here is steps what I did.
1. Deleted all files. some files may be READ ONLY protected. Changed it by clicking Property.
2. Download “Windows Installer Clean Up” from Microsoft Website.
3. Run and clieck Vongo.
…

Never again to install Vongo. It was really reaaly big mistake.

Hey Jae,

Thanks for the info on uninstalling Vongo. I did not realize that the Windows Installer Cleanup utility was available on the Microsoft website. Your information helped me with my problem of removing the Vongo software from my machine.

Thanks again.

I’ve been using
Vongo for 1 month now and have about 50 movies on my laptop and 75 on my home computer and I have not ran into any problems with the service yet. Sure the movies are outdated, but there are good movies and some fairly recent movies. For $20 or $30 a month I would say it would’nt be worth it, but for $10 a month I would give it a thumbs up.

I agree, vongo is crap. I am much happier with Starz on Real. Yes some of the movies are older but you get newer movies each week, the quality is DVD and it’s really easy if you want to cancel. It’s a little more then vongo but it’s a much better service.
http://starz.real.com

super fast downloads and you can have up to 7 movies in a que to download and you can schedule downloads. pretty nice..

Well, I cancelled.

Had it since about the very beginning. Came home, all movies deleted, account cancelled itself AFTER billing me… I did not initially cancel.

Vongo’s client says it billed me. Bank says so too.

I give up. So the quality wasn’t perfect. The client and player need more work. The selection isn’t an entire movie store. Oh well, I though it was cool enough to wait for some bugs to get fixed, quality improved, etc.

Seems like nobody cares. Seems like there have been very little improvements in all the updates.

Through with it. After calling once, I just called back and cancelled.

Read more on this link by “whoever” for the rest of the story…
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20060515/1224229.shtml

Have fun if you do still have ‘em. I’m done for now. If there’s ever another service like it, I’d be willing to give it a shot, but this Vongo is just too “Beta” for me.

Guess it’s back to the local video rental store and buying used dvd’s. At least those two things actually work, don’t accidentally delete themselves from thin air, and the quality is at least NTSC standard resolution with surround sound.

Keep an eye on http://www.reeltimetv.net (will be reeltime.com soon). Same concept, much higher quality. The content should really build over the next couple months. It ‘goes live’ September 12th, but right now you can download the player and watch previews, etc. If you’re unhappy with Vongo but like the concept, again, keep your eyes on Reeltime!!

I’ve been trying to make VONGO work for the last 3 hours resetting this and that and never got it to work!! if you not a computer expert you better pass on this mess,

I called for help and still didn’t get it to work, I then just ended up telling them to cancel, what a mess a how frustrating!! within 3 hours I started and then I canceled the service, do not waste your time with this take it from me and the countless other people above this comment…. what a bad experience that was, it seemed like a great idea YIKES!!!

I am very happy with the uninstall instructions from Jae. I had a hell of a time getting vongo off my system. I have netflix, and wanted to see if vongo would be better for me. I found out my answer! I have had the same problems as everyone else on this forum. Horible download times, poor video quality, poor selection. I look for mostly newer movies, so was very disapointed in vongo… I’ll keep my netflix… At least there i can watch my movies on my tv, on my pc, on my laptop, or even lend them to friends and let them watch them. I am not limited on when or where i can see them. I get three at a time, so when i send one in, i have a new one in 4 days….

anyways, here are the uninstall instructions agian… VERY HELPFUL!!!

————————
Jae Said:

August 20th, 2006 at 8:14 am
I really hat Vongo. I have downloaded Vondo stupid software and have tried to uninstall. There is no unstiall package. Once I deleted all programs, it popped “Window Installation…” box and I really bothered me.
Here is steps what I did.
1. Deleted all files. some files may be READ ONLY protected. Changed it by clicking Property.
2. Download “Windows Installer Clean Up” from Microsoft Website.
3. Run and clieck Vongo.

i am trying to remove vongo it is using 99% of my cpu usage every time i remove it it screws up my compter it came installed on my new laptop HELP!!!!!!!

The internet is a wonderful thing.
I was thinking of subscribing to Vongo, but I couldn’t find a listing of the movies they offer.
Well, you’ve all answered why. Their selection apparently sucks.
They mislead you into beleiving that they offer the same selection as Blockbuster and Netflix by use of a comparison chart. This chart shows why Vongo is so much more convenient than the other two services. To bad it’s an apples to oranges comparison since Vongo doesn’t offer newer movies like Blockbuster and Netflix.
This is as bad as it get’s folks.

You’ve all saved me the time and money that I could have wasted on this ’service’.

Thank you.

If you are running windows xp media edition (or maybe other microsoft platforms) and getting the LICENCE ACQUISTION error, then try the instructions list below. Vongo is compatable with XP Media Edition!!!!!!!!

Please close Vongo and open a browser and go to

http://go.microsoft.com/FWLink?LinkID=34506

There will be an update button.

Please click this update button.

Once successful, please try the following link to test if you are able to play the sample video.

http://www.vongo.com/player_check/Sample.wmv

Username : VongoTest
Password : password

** This should open in your Windows Media Player, it may prompt you to update and request a user name and password. Please enter the Username and Password following the link.

The sample fix will give an error saying unable to obtain license, accept the error and push play in Windows Media Player the file will still play. Close Windows Media Player and you will be prompted to back up licenses, Select Yes.

Once this is done open Vongo and try to play a movie.

Thank you for contacting Vongo Customer Support.

David
reply@vongo.com
1-877-VONGO21

I had thought of subscribing to Vongo. It seemed like a good idea. Now I’m glad I didn’t. Thanks, everyone!

ok, I got to this site because I was looking for info on rebuilding and extracting the wmv files from vongo after the download is complete….

you talk about hacking… well man get on the stick HACK something

There are a lot of things that I have read on this site that require very simple answers as well as reasons.

SELECTION:-The selection Vongo offers may be limited to some people but it is constantly expanding. At the rate of 35 titles a week in a year thats 1,820 movies by december.With the removal of unwanted titles that leaves about 1,500 a year. Always adding new movies, just like any other movie rental place anywhere. If you rent 3 movies in a month period you would spend more on those three movie than downloading 150 movies on vongo (legally). The selection is based on the preferences of those who actually stay with the service. (You can set your preferences in My Account)

CHARGED EARLY:-I’ve read the above people saying that they were charged within their free trail. These are credit card authorizations. A standard credit card billing practice that a company uses to weed out fake credit cards and false holders of credit cards. These people that claimed they were charged saw a refund of that amount into their credit within the week. Its a temporary hold on an amount to verify authenticity of the card.

CUSTOMER SERVICE:-From my own personal experience, the wait time for a agent has never been more than 5 minutes. With an average call lasting 4.5 minutes one agent can take 13 calls an hour. With at least 5 people working the phone thats 65 calls an hour. So unless about 250 people decide to call all at once there will not be a hour wait for a agent to assist you. I also know from personal experiance that these agents are very helpful and can probably fix most of the technical problems listed above.

Stay tuned for more updates regarding complaints about Vongo.

I’ve been using Vongo for 5 days now. Some observations:

1. As everyone has stated, the selection is simply not there yet. I’d have to guess that it’s significantly better than when this service first came out — I count a couple dozen movies I want to see right now — but it isn’t even CLOSE to netflix or blockbuster.

2. The video playback was initially jittery. I contacted customer service by email at 11:31am on Monday to see if they could help with the problem. I received a response at 11:59am (an amazing 28 minute turn-around!) with a very detailed response that DID solve my problem (has to do with my firewall as well as a DRM issue). Either I’m very lucky or email customer service has improved greatly. I haven’t tried the phone number (because I don’t intend to cancel yet) but here’s hoping the phone support has improved as well.

3. As for the interface, I have had zero problems with installation, downloading or viewing (other than the fixable problem I just mentioned, which had nothing to do with the interface). Seems like the bugs in the interface have been worked out.

4. Downloads are very fast. I have a 6Mbps DSL line that gets 5.2Mbps in real-world usage. Vongo taps all the bandwidth, with download speeds stated to be 640kBps (or 5.12Mbps, just a hair under my max). People who complain about download times have to realize that movie files are large and they only go as fast as your internet pipe will allow. If you’re getting downloads significantly slower than your stated bandwidth, you probably need to contact your ISP or Vongo for a solution.

While it appears that the service and usability have improved a lot (especially compared to the initial offering back in January), the simple fact is that the catalog isn’t good enough to warrant signing up for Vongo as your only movie source (unless you REALLY like old movies). For me, unlimited downloads at $9.99/mo is good enough for me to stick with it until I’ve watched all I’m interested in watching.

Thanks for the heads up guys. I was definitely contemplating subscribing to this service. Glad I did some research first.

Thanks folks for the phone number. I’ve finally cancelled my subscription after 6 months .. during which I never got it to work… err DRM issues. Anyhoo I wanted to let you know that you’re complaints musta been heard in Vongo’s upper echleons. Customer Service picked up my call 1 min after I called in And chose the Cancel service option. They also refunded part of the money and are looking into refunding the whole amt since I never used their service. I had a polite and helpful agent help through it really quick. The entire call took about 5 mins. She did verify my address and login info.

this service really does have some problems. the player did not work at all, saying that i needed an upgrade on my current player. i was lead to believe that they used their own player and that i would not need any secondary software to play the movie. i did the update that was required, apparently you use windows media? anyway i got the drm thing and never was able to view the ppv movie.

luckily i did not subscribe. i wanted to see how the whole thing worked on my new tv with pc capabilities. this is a great idea, but as noted above the movies are not worth watching for the most part. also they need to work on the player issues and the drm problem as well. to be fair windows media 11 is a beta and will not play this type of streaming video, so i did a roll back to meida 10. still the player did not work. strange.

I’ve been using the service since May, but have decided to cancel because I actually got real cable service for once on my tv.

When I called to cancel, they picked up within 5 minutes. It turns out my account was already quasi-cancelled because I neglected to update my billing address when I moved within the last month. So I’m now on a pay per view account. Which is nice because I can browse their selection. I may sign up again if I get tired of the tv, or if they step up their selection a bit.

I had a 10mbit internet connection at my last house, and have a 6mbit connection now. Never had issues with watching the movies, and a few seconds after hitting download I could start watching the show.

The movies aren’t dvd quality, but I found them to be adequate for watching on my computer. The ability to pre-download and watch the movies offline was a bonus, and they never took up too much space on the drive.

A friend pointed me to this site. Not sure why I’m writing this up since the last post was in Sept, but I found the number of complaints and problems to be odd for a service that I never had trouble with, and still kinda like, just don’t have a use for any more…

I just signed up and initially I had problems watching a movie. Turned out to be 2 issues. First I had the Beta for WMP 11 which doesn’t seem to work well with Vongo right now. I reverted to the previosu version of WMP and then when I tried to play a movie it told me that I had to acquire a licence from vongo and start the movie from the Vongo player.
I called their tech support and someone answered straight away. He knew about the problem and pointed me to a download site to fix the issue. I just watched my first movie I found the quality on a regualr TV to be very acceptable.

In case you get the same pop up when trying to watch a movie here’s what to do:

Close Vongo completely.
Go this URL:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=49282
Click the download or update button.

If you get an error about the server not being available (I did) then try this.

http://www.vongo.com/player_check/Sample.wmv (NOTE: the capitol S in Sample is required).
This should launch WMP and you will be asked for a username and password.

Username: vongotest
Password: password

Hit the play button in WMP and the sample video should now play.

Run Vongo and try your downloaded movie. It should now work.

Anyway, it appears that they have improved their customer service and it also seems they have fairly recent movie choices now.

I for one am willing to give them a try.

I signed up but cancelled pretty much immediately because, like others said, the movie selection isn’t good – no new movies. And the site works really slowly, which was annoying. I cancelled on their site, but then got nervous because of so many of the comments here. Then I called the number, and the customer service person verified that the cancellation did take place and I was not charged. Just wanted to let you all know that the on-site cancellation works. Good luck!

I keep getting error messages when tring to instal/repair or deletel vongo Error 2753/ install
Delete error 1721. There is a problem with this windows installer package. A program required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact support personnel or package vendor. Action: DWUS_Unregister. C3A146FS_4B48_11D5_1819_00…

For those idiots who want to give Vongo a good review, you’re an idiot. Can’t wait till you’re done with the service and you want to uninstall. I never subscribed to Vongo. It comes with new HP laptops. Try to uninstall it and you will have a useless laptop and might be forced to reformat the hard drive. Then HP will try to charge you for removing it. They’ve known about this for a year now and still new laptops in JUNe 2007 cannot remove it without shutting down completely. I hate HP and I hate Vongo. Don’t bother with it. Trust me or you’ll be sorry. Vongo sucks! http://neorant.blogspot.com/

thank you for your infromation you saved me a lot of trouble

I signed up for the 14 day “FREE TRIAL” for vongo. My debit card was charged within a min for the “FREE TRIAL” This sent my account into a negative standing, and becuase vongo not only charged the 9.99 charge, they also charged another $1.00. That cause me to have two over draft charges for a total of $75. I cancelled my “FREE TRIAL” right away and was told by my bank that Vongo had to refund the over draft charges. I have called them 8 times and my bank has called them 4 times and faxed the paperwork for the refund on my behalf. Vongo has promised to have “ABDUL” call me back with in an hour each time I call. It has been almost a month and I have not recived a phone call or anything type of communication from Vongo. When I call, I am just told that they will fill out a report and “Abdul” will contact me. I for one believe that a FREE TRIAL means you get to try the service before you are charged. This service is a rip off. There customer service is a joke. I for one am tired of having to speak to someone in another country every time I call a guest service line. EVERY time I ask to speak with a supervisor or someone that can help me with my refund, they tell me that there is nobody I can talk to. Its a shame that a service that could be great is run so poor.

Vongo is a horrible service. I tried to cancel after 5 days and the customer serivce idiots wouldnt do it. They charged me for a month of service even after i was finally able to cancel after trying for 5 days. It took 6 hours to download one movie, and i have broadband.. Its a scam!!

I thought i would add to the growing list of complaints about Vongo. The advertising for Vongo is about the only thing that is good about this company. They make it look like something special. I got it free for a month and quickly cancelled it after a week. I didn’t even want it when it was free. It was way too much of a hassel. It took 45 minutes to download a movie on high speed. I never even watched a movie. The selection is a joke. There were only a handful that i would watch and they weren’t even ones that i had been waiting to see. They have a cancel subscription button tab under billing summary that looks easy. I tried clicking on it and it doesn’t take you anywhere. I couldn’t find a number on their site or even on the flier that i originally got. Luckily i found the number on this site and called it to get a customer service rep that couldn’t even read her prompter correctly. She was very pushy too and i had to be rude to get no through to her. I can only hope that they dont bother me again.

When I purchased my laptop I recieved an add for vongo (30 day trial). I decided to give it a try, but when I subscribed I realized that their movie selection was really bad…and the one movie that I was interested in I had to pay $3.99. I canceled my service today. I called the customer support number 877-866-4621. The only problem I had was that the representative was trying to convence me to keep my service, but I eventually canceled it. I don’t recommend vongo. Honestly, it’s a waste of time.

I want to delite my account ,I don’t use it and I don’t want it

I hate getting screwed !
I purchased a Toshiba laptop with a Toshiba 30 day Vongo FREE TRIAL and it was converted by Vongo to a 14 Day Free trial combined with a not so FREE pay per View subscription !
I could not care less about what they have to offer,
I FEAR FOR MY CREDIT CARD !… and after this experience
I will never trust either
Toshiba or Vongo .

To those of you that said to give Vongo “time.”

It’s 2008 (your comments were posted mostly in 2006) and it still sucks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

They obviously don’t give a shit about all the complaints they’re getting, and they obviously haven’t gotten ANY rights to ANY good movies like some of you were talking about.

I’m aware that my computer has a lot to do with it, but the movies took forever to download (4 hours on average, as long as I wasn’t running anything else, not that I was able to) and they played very choppy. This goes for the, maybe, 3 movies I downloaded, ones which I’d never heard of and turned out to suck. Other than that I had no interest in any of the movies except some of the pay-per-view. PAY-PER-VIEW?! I’m already paying-per-month. Fuck that!

I was pleased with the fact that one of the numbers you guys listed above worked right away after 3 minutes of recordings. The lady informed me that my account had become inactive many months ago. I asked my mom (It was on her credit card, lol. I’m not 18 yet) and she said we did in fact stop getting charged. I’m thinking that they probably picked up so fast because it’s two years later, and thanks to people like you guys they are not exactly overwhelmed with customers. And they probably stopped billing me when they should of because of people battling it out with them.

So thanks to all who helped get the message out there about this God awful piece-of-shit called vongo, and those who gave it to them right in the ass by demanding refunds and cancellations, and bringing their credit card company into it.

So…in conclusion, this should sum up all of our experiences with vongo.

“Vongo: WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!”

i tried the “trial membership” that vongo had to offer .. believe me .. i f i had know that they were goingto take the money out of my account …TWICE i would have NEVER signed up .. needless to say wheni saw that shit i called them and told them i BETTER not have bounced checks because they decided not to wait until the trial period is over , that if i do they will pay alllll of those charges back !
apparently the word bounced checks and attorney got them in action .. i have a refund approved immediately ! they tried to tell me that was a “pending ” transaction i canceled my acct immediately and demanded a refund !
the 1-877-866-4621 was the # i used and got service right away …
yeah the movie selection sucked!!!! what a joke !
the player drags my computer so slow (and i have windows vista .. this shouldnt b happening !!)
i am in the process right now of taking thier little software off my pc and hope that many ppl realize that there service is NOT “all that “

I just got off the phone with them tuns out they were charging me for 2 subscriptions. Vongo is the worst! DO NOT USE THEM! I only used them because I have a portable player and wanted to download movies onto it but the movies do not last and you can’t even fast forward them plus these are lousy movies! Vongo sucks!

Ok I am here to take up for Vongo. I have used the service for a couple of years. I like it better than paying the cable company $15 a month for the starz channel. You get the same movies that are played on Starz but you can watch them on demand. Do all of you expect to have access to all the new movies for $10 a month? It is a good service if you have a good computer. And about the Vongo player? It uses windows media player. You can watch the movies on any media player you have on your computer as long as you have the proper codex on your system. And if you have vongo installed you will have the proper codex. To play in another player just locate the movie file. You can find it with a simple system search. Right click on the file and choose “open with” select your player and it will be played in it. Thanks

I CANT DELETE VONGO HELP ME!!!!!!!!! THIS SUX THEY CHARGED ME FOR ALL THE PPV AND MY MEMBERSHIP AND THE MOVIES HAVE AN EXPIRATION DATE!

All I have to say is wow…I wish I found this before my husband decided to subscribe to Vongo. We have had it for over 2 months now and have only watched 1 movie on it. After that movie, the hard drive in his laptop got fried. We did not re-download Vongo after we bought a new hard drive. We should have known that Vongo was not worth it since it didn’t even allow me to do ANYTHING on the site since I have a Mac laptop. I just went to the Vongo website to cancel, but apparently they are not allowing new subscribers and have no link for the people who are currently members. Thank you for the numbers, hopefully they still work…even though it sort of looks like Vongo is dead. Once we bought a tv, we ended up getting Netflix which is way better, even though we have to wait a day or two for new movies.