Vonage going IPO

Diashto writes "I just recieved voicemail on my Vonage phone saying that Vonage is going IPO, and that certain customers may be eligible to purchase common stock at IPO pricing. More information is is available on their IPO site."

they need to.

[Churla]

To raise money for the new "SO you want to actually GET THROUGH to customers on our cablemodems" tariff which is upcoming.

I'm pretty certain...

[MrHeartbreak]

That this is a scam. I got the same e-mail a few days ago, and when I checked the site it redirected me to someone who was trying to sell 'www.vonageipo.com' for a little under $1,000.

I received...

[BarC0d3z]

... an email about the voice mail. It's either legit or the 409ers managed to get my email address

• and

phone number. Regardless, I think this is better than most IPOs who only offer to the elite brokerage houses, and better than Google where it was anyone's game. Offer to those who have a history of support.

Re:I'm pretty certain...

[weisen]

The site is registered to the same entity that holds the main Vonage.com registration and it doesn't (currently) say anything about buying the domain. Maybe you hit it right at the start before they shut off domain parking.

Re:Sounds great ... but.

[imadork]

I'm out of mod points, so I'd like to reiterate that I looked into this, and I'm not going to touch it with a 10-foor pole. They spend almost every dollar in revenue they make on marketing, and borrow money to keep their business running. IIRC ( I don't have the prospectus in front of me), but they made $250 mil last year and spent close to $400 mil. When you combine their assets and their debts together, the company is worth less than zero. But this IPO will raise something like $400 mil, and since they're offering about 20% of their outstanding stock they're effectively valuing the company at $2 billion. It's not 1999, folks. It might be possible to buy in at the IPO price, and then flip it for a gain that day. But I like my odds in Vegas better. If you like the long-term prospects, wait a little while and I htink the price will dip below the IPO price....

Re:Reelin' 'Em in I see

[Milican]

If you gave them your username and password there is no reason why they would not be able to pass that info on to vonage and relay the info back. Unlikely, but possible.

JOhn

Re:Legit or not?

[NM156]

I also know the email is most likely legit because it was sent to a very specific email address that only Vonage knows and uses (I create a new email alias for each company I deal with. That way I can delete that email address if it gets abused by that company

I do the same thing, and my IPO email also came to my vonage specific email address, and I also received the message in my Vonage voice mail box. All these people on here calling this a phishing scam need to take off their tin foil hat for a minute and take a deep breath. Unquestionably, it's a good thing to be vigilant against email scams, but some of the messages here on /. are bordering extreme paranoia.

That said, while this IPO offer is legitimate, some of the concerns expressed here about the financial viability are also legitimate. It is very true that Vonage spends disproportionate amounts of money on marketing, even though it is for a very good reason. It's not unlike what amazon.com was doing in their early days... loss-leader sales in order to get their name to be nearly synonymous with online shopping. Today, they're a Fortune 500 company.

There's inherent risk in investing, but the rewards can be well worth it. Do your research and weigh the risks.

Aside from the debt...

[StringBlade]

The Prospectus and Risk Factors have some interesting tidbits:

1. Their CEO (and top officers) have 6 digit salaries with bonuses that are larger than the actual salary

2. In order to succeed (in their words) Vonage will need consumers to move away from traditional phone lines in favor of Vonage. [Without E911, this is be VERY difficult indeed - and the telcos are not likely to willingly give up their business by giving Vonage access to their E911 systems...even if the FCC says they have to.]

3. In order to succeed (in their words) Vonage needs their competitors to *not* come up with products as good as or better than Vonage's own product. [While this seems intuitive, just think how long it will be - if digital phone takes off (#2 above) - before the cable companies offer equivalent or better offerings with guaranteed QoS for their digital phone service]

I also am not going to take this offer for two reasons:

1. I have to buy at least $100 shares which is more than I can afford at the moment, and
2. I think the price will go down after the first day or two.