Practicing the Black Art (09/05)
Magic Jack- To Buy Or Not
by Vinny La Bash, vlabash@comcast.net
Member of the Sarasota Personal Computer Users Group, Inc.
If you have thought about abandoning your traditional land line because your phone bills are too
high, you might be attracted to magicJack. It’s a small device designed
as a plug-and-play USB telephony tool. The product offers unlimited
calling within the United States and Canada. International capability
has been promised by the end of 2009.
It’s very easy to use. Plug it in to your USB port
and shortly thereafter the bundled software automatically installs
itself. After you register, the company issues your own personal
MagicJack phone number. You can’t port your existing number into the
service, but the company says that capability will be available by the
end of 2009. Plug a standard phone into MagicJack’s phone jack and
you’re ready to make calls.
Voice quality is good. It has voice mail, caller ID,
call waiting, and call forwarding. Plus there is a 30 day free trial.
What’s not to like? Nothing if you accept the company’s advertising and
promotional literature at face value. However, if you read the End User
License Agreement (EULA) which most of us don’t, you may be in for a few
unpleasant surprises. First, the company doesn’t make the EULA easily
accessible. I had to do some serious searching to find it. You can read
it yourself at http://www.magicjack.com/tos/. I urge you to do so before
buying this or any software product.
The EULA has several introductory paragraphs before
the legal stuff begins. The heavy reading is divided into 24 sections.
Keep in mind that End User License Agreements are meant to protect the
company, not you.
Let’s start with section 1, Description of How the
magicJack Device and Software Works: It’s really not as easy as
simply plugging in the device as the ads say. If you have a home
security system the device may not work. You may also be out of luck if
you have medical monitoring equipment, a fax machine or a satellite TV
system. The device may not work even with some modems.
Section 2, Ownership and Risk of Loss of magicJack
Device: If you decide you want a refund, you have to wait 45 days,
plus you will pay all shipping and handling costs. I’ve also heard
reports that the company charges your credit card in 15 days, but I
haven’t been able to verify this conclusively.
Section 5, Emergency Calls: Since the services
offered by magicJack are not traditional telephone services, the company
is under no obligation to offer traditional 911 emergency services, and
it doesn’t. They offer something called Voluntary 911 Service. If you
need to call 911 you will be speaking to an internet operator who may
ask you for location or other information before rerouting the call to
an actual 911 operator. This could result in fatal delays, so you need
to have access to 911 through a traditional landline.
Section 6, Proper Use: The issue of free
unlimited use gets fuzzy here. The company states very explicitly that
if it thinks you are using the device too often it has the right to
terminate your account without notice and without giving any refunds.
Section 10, Privacy Policy: Here is where you
find out that your personal information may be transmitted to a third
party without your knowledge. You gave permission when you accepted the
terms of the EULA.
Section 11, Advertisements: You will receive
advertisements through magicJack, and you can’t opt out. The process is
completely automated so you may get an ad at an inconvenient time and
there’s nothing you can do about it. Remember, you agreed to this when
you accepted the EULA. This is partly your own fault.
Sections 13 and 14, Modification and Termination:
If the company decides to call it quits, it can terminate the service
either temporarily or permanently without notice, and of course no
refunds. You can end the relationship at any time too, but don’t expect
any money back.
Section 16, No Warranties: This is the only
section printed entirely in upper case. I suppose that means the company
thinks it’s important. The company makes it very clear that it
guarantees ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. 911 calls are made at your own risk and
the company does not guarantee that the call will be completed.
Section 17, Limitation of Liability: All the
company will admit to is that under some special undefined
circumstances, they might, just might refund the money you paid for the
device plus one year of service. Don’t count on it.
We could go on, but I think you get the idea. This
column was not written to pick on MagicJack specifically, but the
ubiquity of its ads made it a compelling subject. I mainly wish to point
out that whenever you install software of any kind, please READ THE
END USER LICENSE AGREEMENT first. You may be glad you did.
Any and all communications with the company will be
either by email or internet chat. The company does not provide a phone
number for customer contact.:
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Copyright 2009. This article is from the May 2009 issue of the
Sarasota PC Monitor, the official monthly publication of the Sarasota
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