Caller ID name

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 18, 2005 Posts: 13

I'd like to vote for being able to set your name for outgoing caller ID. Something like the interface for setting your address for 911.

Posts: 60 · Posted: Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:05 pm Post subject:

You would think that would be simple enough to do since they can deliver your number to the called party. Some people won't answer a call that shows "Unknown" or "Out of Area" or whatever. I called about a couple of months ago, and they said it was something they were looking into.

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 21, 2006 Posts: 1

Hi, I also want to have my name on outbound caller ID. Simple UI to provide the text would be great.

Many in my family and friends will not answer without a name.

To me this is a big deal. Do services other than Vonage provide this?

Rob

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 22, 2006 Posts: 2

Hi, as most other people here, alot of people I know do not answer phone numbers who say state call, out of area or anything short of the persons name on the caller ID... most people cannot remember the phone numbers of all friends and family and this is definetly a must need option for Vonage users if you ask me. I dont understand why they do not already have this already... If anything I could see certain people not wanting it to show up for security reasons however making an option for Vonage members to turn it on or activate it online in their account settings or via telephone.
well we can all hope for this... hopefully this article helps the progress.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 04, 2006 Posts: 3

Or at least make it a user-controllable options!

K.

Posts: 249 · Posted: Fri Feb 10, 2006 1:36 pm Post subject: Cller ID with Names

Add me to the highly desirable, top of the wish list. Folks around here seem to all screen their calls. Since porting my number to Vonage I'm getting a lot of flack.
Thanks,

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 3

I was just browsing the web looking for any tidbits suggesting that outbound caller ID might be added sometime soon, but have been coming up empty. Does Vonage even regard this as being a problem?

If not, they need to. My wife has run into some problems with people ignoring or immediately disconnecting (pick-up/hang-up) calls because "Unknown" shows up in the caller ID. Telemarketers have created a world hostile to unidentified callers, and Vonage's inability to put something in place makes the service unattractive. Despite some pretty good service from Vonage on other fronts, we may actually scrap Vonage because of this single issue.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 10, 2006 Posts: 3

Here's the email response I received from Vonage about the caller ID. My favorite bit is the tech admitting that she tends not to pick up calls with "Unknown" IDs, either...

She does say that they're working on the anonymous call rejection, but as we have an unpublished number and are signed up with our state's "do not call" list, telemarketers aren't are biggest concern.

So, credit to Vonage for the detailed response, but it seems that proper caller ID for outbound calls isn't coming any time soon.

Quote:

All of the information for what displays on your Caller ID for incoming calls is routed from the local carrier in the area Choice One. Their servers send the information to our Vonage servers and we pass it along to your Caller ID whatever comes from the Choice One server.

For the Caller ID for your outgoing calls to other Caller IDs at present time it will only display the number and/or "Unknown", etc. depending on what carrier completes the routing of the person who you are calling. Currently there is not a permanent fix for this as our system is only set up currently to display the number only. From what I understand the whole issue stems from Vonage not owning any physical phone lines and so far the scripts written to do both the name and number have either failed and/or worked in a few markets only. This gets into the really high tech stuff that our engineering department deals with, but in lay man's terms this is pretty much the issue.

I know this is constantly being worked on via engineering along with other features that we wish to roll out to our customers and our customers want to have. The best thing I can tell you at this point is if you are signed up to receive our Vonage newsletter that is sent out to customer's whenever this is feature is completely completed believe me Vonage will let the customer's know.

I've been here for a year and a half and I think some of the problems with displaying the name run along the same lines we had originally with our routing of 911 and they finally got that solved. Believe me they are persistent around here if nothing else. I understand what you are saying about Caller ID though because I tend not to answer the phone if I see "Unknown" with a number I don't recognize. I do know though that one of the features they hope to roll out is "Anonymous Call Rejection" and once those scripts are perfected again it will help with the Caller ID issue. So don't lose faith they are working on it continually just no time frame yet of when they expect for it to be completed.

Please feel free to check back with us periodically about the progress.

Thanks for being a valued Vonage customer, all the best and please have yourself a great day!

Sincerely,

Sheila R. Vinson
Tier 2 Tech Support & Customer Service Representative
Sheila.Vinson@vonage.com

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 20, 2006 Posts: 1

I agree, it's [U]pathetic [I]that outbound caller ID is not available.

They should have had this solved years ago!! If I had know that my name would not have shown on outgoing call I would not have signed-up. It seems that other Voip have this available.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 04, 2006 Posts: 3

Here's another customer service response on the Caller ID issue. While anyone can make a typo, it's rather ironic that the rep wrote that "just your name" will be sent via Caller ID. It's also a cookie cutter reply to a note that asked a "why question." The second part of the note refers to my question about why, on the Activity page on the web, ID information is available about incoming calls but not outgoing ones. Why not provide the ID capability for both sets of calls?! As I get older, it's harder for me to remember who I called three weeks earlier Smile

From: service@vonage.com
Subject: [vonage.com #3838654] Caller ID
Date: February 14, 2006 2:19:57 PM EST

Thank you for contacting Customer Care.

We apologize for the delay in replying. In response to your call, we
unfortunately can not display your name and number on peoples call ID when you call them, just your name. Also at this time we can not add the information to the call log in your web account. We do apologize.

Thanks again for choosing Vonage. If you have any further questions please feel free to contact us again through one of the methods listed below.

E-mail : customercare@vonage.com
Toll Free Phone: 1-VONAGE-HELP (1-866-243-4357)
24 hours a day, 7 days a week

Sincerely,
Matthew
Tier 2 Technical Support