magicJack and MagicJack Plus Support, Reviews, FAQs and Hacks

brentsells · MagicJack Newbie Joined: 29 Sep 2008 Posts: 1

Well I've had and used my MagicJack for about 4 months now. It didn't install at all on the first computer (3GHZ Clock speed, 2GHZ Memory, PC), keep getting the "Plug into USB warning". On my laptop it did install first try. BTW same firewall and MCAfee setting on both machines. I'm a tech Smile

Anyway, the month or so all went well. Great sound quality except for an occasional echo.

Then it went to hell. Where do I start? MJ software rebooting in the middle of conversations, no one on the other end of the phone, no dialtone intermittantly, no contact PHONE number, the worst customer service chat system I've ever seen etc.etc. etc.

I my opinion been on the bleeding edge product design and technical sales business for over 30 years, these guys while well meaning and having a great concept, miserably executed it. They oversold the product to a point where infrastructure couldn't possibly support it. If they had been properly funded up front, most of these problems could have been dealt with by experienced engineers. This technology IS NOT NEW and is not brain surgery. It's really a marketing program with a unique/ cool form factor.

Do I think that their continued advertising is unconsionable until they fix their service issues? YES

Do I think the counter on their site that states the number of people that "came for a free trial today" is false advertising? YES. Looking at the code, the number has no bearing on the real current number, it's about the same at all times of day each day. Acording to COMPETE.com they did receive 1,012,353 visitor in August.
Roughly divided by a 50% closure rate it may have been accurate-ish in August but in May the same counter was active with the same average 20,000 number. This would be an almost impossible closure rate.

The last major one is no contact information to a human being. If this company was subject to the CA PUC rules, this would not be possible.
We placed magic jack on a business line, advertised the number based on their advertisements and had to spend thousands to pull the number from all the ads.

Our review.... If you're using this device in a mission critical situation, pull it. If it's simply a way to suplement a cell at home OK.

Let the product mature. If they don't shoot themselves in the foot, it has a chance to be a significant force in VOIP.

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crackerjack · Dan Should Pay Me Joined: 16 Nov 2007 Posts: 726

and your point is?????

30 years in the tech biz and still using McAwful???

Deployed advertising campaign based on a Ymax phone number???

Who are you kidding.. Methinks you are the one employing false advertising

Go back under your rock
_________________
Good Luck

CrackerJack

MagicJack Customer #73
MagicJack user since May 2007
MagicJack abuser since June 2007
"I gots mo' numbers than a Lotto machine!!!"

Buttafuoco · magicJack Apprentice Joined: 09 Sep 2008 Posts: 24

grrr · Posted: Wed Oct 01, 2008 2:54 pm Post subject:

If you're a "tech", whatever that's supposed to mean, then format your machine and update your drivers, 'then' plug in your magicJack and a good chance that everything will work just fine.

I've done a lot of reading on the magicJack forums here and at DSLReports.com and it seems that anyone who has a fresh, clean installation of XP or higher with all O/S updates and that it's well maintained, a reliable, steady high speed internet connection, then everything should work fine. Being technically minded, having good computer skills and being able to trouble shoot issues will make things run a lot more smoothly.

I have 2 notebooks with fairly fresh installs of XP and recently updated to SP3 and it's been fairly smooth sailing. Glitches were usually caused by high CPU and/or memory usage by an intense program. "hint" I don't use the phone while I'm decoding, burning or downloading using bit torrent. I'll switch the magicJack to the notebook that isn't doing heavy CPU and/or heavy bandwidth use tasks. Also, these forums have a wealth of information and you'll find things that you didn't even know were broken. Installing some un-related software can also cause issues yet not everyone has the same issues. As in most things, YMMV. Smile

People are quick to blame magicJack and its inventor. I'm not defending him, but it seems that many of the issues are caused by the user themselves and their machine's lack of or proper maintenance. It can take a lot of trouble shooting from top to bottom to iron out issues. Although I've never used it, it sounds like the support system is severely flawed. Otherwise, I'm quite happy with my magicJack and highly recommend it to all my friends, but I *always* mention the caveats and that it's far from flawless, but a very cheap long distance service when it does work.