Open Letter to CallToPBX

Dear CallToPBX people,

I guess, at least now you may notice my problems. I have been using your service for almost six months. For first three months, I didn't have that much problems. Not saying that I NEVER had any problems, but compared to your service in recent months, those problems were nothing.

Now let's start with the list :

1. When I started using your service, I was using iPhone 3GS. After registering for the service through your website, I logged in to your iPhone app. For next 3 days, it was showing me the status as 'Forbidden'. I tried to contact your customer service, but no reply at all. After three days, I got an e-mail from your customer service which only says - "Check now". Even though that solved my problem and the call-screen started showing 'Registered' status, nobody ever gave me any explanation about the error, even after asking. This cycle repeats every time when I update my phone's OS and install calltopbx app. I never get any kind of explanation from your people.

2. In the conditions given above, I also get an error as 'maximum number of stale retries exceeded', which I never understood or never your people gave any explanation about that. Only "Check now".

3. No matter if I'm using wi-fi or 3G service, around 6 out of 10 times, your app fails to connect to the server. Instead of changing the status from 'service unavailable' to 'registered', it ends up in 'request timeout'.



Sometimes your app doesn't even try to connect to the server. It just stays idle on 'service unavailable' screen until I close the app and open it again with a hope to connect.



4. Even if your app connects to the server, showing 'Registered' status, it doesn't mean that now I can successfully make a call. Now from this point, 8 out of 10 times, your app ends up on 'not found' screen as shown in the screenshot.



From these screenshots below, you can see that I have dialed one single number TWENTY-NINE times and it ended with 'not found'. Note : That only successful calls have been highlighted with the red rectangle around them.



some more for the same number...



Here are some more.....



and just for your information, I always dial numbers without '00' or '+' at the beginning.

5. After all these things, IF a call connects, it hardly lasts for 5-7 minutes. Then either that app crashes and call disconnects or first call disconnects leaving the app non-responding.

6. Now, when the topic has come to crashing of your app, let me tell this : If CallToPBX pays me $1 each time this app crashes, by the end of a month I will be at least a billionaire. One of your customer service person once told me that they are aware of this problem and they are working on a new dialer.



But within 20 days, when I asked again about the new dialer, that same person (I think so, same name) replied me that there should not be such problem with the app. Instead he asked me to uninstall that app and install it again, which I had already done number of times and found useless.



7. Your service used to provide good sound quality and voice transfer delay was unheard of. Now sound 'quality' has becoming worse day by day. sometimes I cannot even differentiate between human voice and static disturbance.

8. Your service sets the best example of voice transfer delay. Whenever I'm lucky enough to have my call connected, it takes almost 4-5 seconds to get reply from another side. Just imagine that you are talking on a phone; you say something and then there is only a dead silence for almost 5 seconds before you hear your reply. I don't know about other users, but I definitely don't prefer this kind of service.

9. Why does your app erases contacts from my device? I'm not the only one with this problem. When I googled it, I found out that there are many users affected by this problem. Check the reviews in iTunes.

10. What is your customer care number to contact you? There is no number mentioned on your website. I googled for that and somewhere I found this number - '1888-CALLTOPBX', which directly goes to the voicemail of some stupid system. I tried leaving voicemail on this number, but no callback. Is that really your number or you just do not have any number?

11. And its better if I don't say anything about your web dialer and 'Vippie'. Vippie sucks big time, almost same errors as iPhone app, in fact more. And web dialer is the best example of how many different kinds of errors are possibly available in a javascript's execution.

12. You should really check what people say about your service on other sites too. I'll make that easier for you. Here are the links : 1 | 2 | 3
Read comments below those articles.

I would not have written all these if it was any other company/service. I liked your service, when it was functioning properly. I just did not quit because I thought these could be temporary problem and you will sort them out. But now its been like that for more than three months and your people do not even reply properly.

I have already recharged for this month, so anyhow I'm still gonna wait for at least few days. Then if your service remains like this only, then good-bye CallToPBX. Its better to pay little bit more and get less than paying lesser and getting nothing.

- Vaibhav Gaikwad


iPhone apps at AppStoreHQ