Billing Inquiries and Disputes - Communications API products

For Video API see Billing Inquiries and Disputes - Video API.

Introduction

We make every effort to invoice you correctly, but in the event of any potential issues, we endeavour to resolve these as quickly as possible. This may involve the issuance of a credit note to offset any erroneous charges.

Credit notes are legal documents that enable you to cancel out an existing invoice, either in full or in part.

Why you might submit a Billing Inquiry or Dispute 

• Pricing Error
• Fraud 
• Service Issues 
• Inaccurate volume 
• Other 

How to Submit

Customer Dispute Form (Managed Customers Only) 

If you are a managed customer (you have a dedicated account manager), the most efficient way to submit a dispute or an investigation into a potential credit note is to use this Billing Dispute form. 

Please provide the following information to submit a dispute:

• Your email address
• A description of the issue you are disputing, with as much detail as possible
• Your account manager’s name (if applicable)
• Your company’s legal name
• Your API Key 
• Your billing status (pre or post paid)
• The value you are requesting and the currency 
• The time period this issue occurred in
• The reason for this request 

You can also submit a request through your account manager (please note this may take slightly longer to reach the relevant team). 

Via API Support - Unmanaged Customers

You can contact API Support (for disputes) by submitting a support request here. 

Billing Dispute - Fraudulent Activity

Vonage customers are responsible for all traffic sent from their platform when using Vonage services when actions they have taken, or failed to take, results in fraudulent use. While Vonage will endeavor to support any particular dispute, there are some extra required fields that must be completed in order to submit this specific type of Billing Dispute request. 

• Fraud Type and Evidence: Please provide evidence from your investigation as to what Fraud has occurred (the type - AIT, ATO, etc), any background summarizing the fraud and any associated documentation.
• Confirmation about the fraud protections that you have in place
• Police Report: Please attach a police report, this is required in order to substantiate the claim that the traffic was fraudulent. Without this Vonage is not able to pursue the suppliers on your behalf.
  • A police report can be filed with your local police department, please ensure that the following is included:
    • A clear description of the fraud
    • The time period of the fraud
    • The impacted destination(s)
    • Total volume/minutes and Sender IDs used
  • If the Police Report is not in English, please send us its translated version along.

Please note that this information must be provided to Vonage within 20 calendar days of the fraud event.

Once Vonage receives this information, Vonage will file a dispute with the carrier that will demand payment for the disputed traffic; however, that carrier may reject the dispute based on the same reasons noted above (your actions or failures to act). If the carrier rejects the dispute, we cannot reverse charges for the traffic and you will be required to pay Vonage since ultimately Vonage will be required to pay the carrier.
 

How to read your credit memo 

Credit notes for Communications API products are not shown in the invoice, but are issued in a separate document called credit memo.

Key Parts of the Credit Memo

• Credit Memo Number - This is your unique credit memo ID.
• Application (This Credit Memo is applied to invoice) - If a credit memo is applied to an individual bill, it will populate with the specific invoice number. If a credit memo is applied to several invoices, it will be shown as blank.
• Product name - This is the name of the service you are being credited for
• Service Period - These are the dates you are being credited for. This can be in advance or in arrears, depending on the type of product on the invoice.
• Subtotal - This is the credit amount, prior to the addition of any valid tax.
• Tax - This represents any tax that is also included in the credit. If you are not assessed tax, this field will be shown as zero.
   
• Total - This is the total credited amount, including tax.
• Credits Applied: this is the amount of credit that has been applied to invoices, relating to this credit note.
• Credits Remaining: this is the amount of unapplied credits remaining for this credit note.