Number porting nightmare. Vonage makes excuses. 5 months

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 05, 2006 Posts: 3

My letter to Vonage says it all:

To Whom It May Concern:

You are receiving this message because an e-mail was sent to me from this address at some point since August 9th, 2005.

Since that date, I have spent hours speaking with perhaps two dozen Vonage representatives in a futile attempt to become a Vonage customer while keeping my company’s established telephone number. During this time, I have incurred unnecessary expenses of over $3200 from my former carrier while your company failed in one attempt after the other to port my number. I have been lied to, ignored, and otherwise dismissed by Vonage and its representatives during this ridiculous process. I have received e-mail falsely claiming that I cancelled the transfer, e-mails erroneously claiming that my prior service had been disconnected, etc.. etc..

It has come to my attention that such behavior is common practice at Vonage to avoid the responsibility of accommodating the porting requests of certain customers. Through some mix-up, I have received e-mailed complaints from hundreds of Vonage customers who have been given the same absurd excuses for Vonage’s inability to port numbers.

At this point, my main business telephone number will not accept calls. I have received e-mails from vendors and customers who have not been able to reach us by phone and have assumed we are no longer in business.

My previous carrier, CBeyond Communications, has been responsive and understanding during this process. I cannot say the same for Vonage.

I have been more than patient, but this patience has been exhausted. If my number has not been ported by end of business today (Thursday, January 5th, 2006), I will begin contacting the other Vonage customers whose complaints I have received via e-mail. I will be my intent to recruit those fellow damaged parties to participate in a class action civil lawsuit against Vonage. I will also encourage each of them to file complaints with the F.C.C.

It should never be this difficult to become a customer.

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 05, 2006 Posts: 2

My experience is very similar. From sept 3rd until now (jan. 5th) Vonage has not been able to transfer my phone number from Verizon. ON dec 14th though Vonage disconnected my service with Verizon: order # D8k6V64823. Then on Dec. 30th Vonage connected the number on their side with order #: 215N9V64416. This, according to Verizon, is proof that Vonage has taken control of the number. Vonage though claims they never aquired the number. I am stuck in the middle with a dead business line. I also have many customers that are wondering why they can not reach me. I have filed a complaint with the FCC on 12/4/2006. I have been told many reasons for the transfer problems but the most ridiculous one is that my line is disconnected. Vonage DISCONNECTED IT! And the proof is in their order number. I am told to reactivate my Verizon line, but I cant reactivate a line with Verizon that resides with Vonage. I would love to hear from people with similar situations. Thanks.

Posts: 476 · Posted: Fri Jan 06, 2006 2:14 pm Post subject:

That blows. I don't understand why some LNPs can go so smoothly and others are complete nightmares. About the FCC thing - can they even do anything? I thought Vonage was unregulated. Heck, they've even defied the FCC order to not add any more customers until they can provide 100% E911 service.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 05, 2006 Posts: 3

During my five month (and counting) ordeal with Vonage, I have had countless conversations via phone and e-mail with more Vonage reps than I could count. My appeals to expedite the porting of my number were generally all dismissed as a problem unique to my carrier, my area, my account...etc...

Well, somehow (perhaps through the doings of a secretly sympathetic Vonage agent), I have been sent hundreds of complaints from other Vonage customers, each with very similar (if not identical) tales of frustration in getting their numbers ported to Vonage. Of particular interest: almost all unsuccessful porting attempts result in an e-mail from Vonage to the customer blaming the problem on an inaction or incorrect action on the part of the customer. Hmmmmm

Now...what SHALL I do with all these complaints???

Posts: 14 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Dec 30, 2005 Posts: 14

I really feel for you 100% It is very hard to understand why exactly it is taking so long for Vonage and all of the parties involved to port your number to Vonage's carrier.

I know that certain telephone companies are protected by certain laws stating that they do not have to port out certain telephone numbers if they are the only major company in the area. This is especially true with smaller telephone companies. They can slow, delay, or flat out cancel the port.

Vonage is in the situation of where all they can do is put in a request through the carrier and long story short, wait. There is no escelation on there end or their carriers end, partially because they are not regulated and do not have the FCC on their side. With other phone companies themselves, if you had this problem, you could put in a complaint in with the FCC and the FCC would step in and force the parties to complete the port. However since Vonage is (in their eyes) a data company, they do not follow these rules. I can attest however that Vonage does send out the information to their carriers to port the telephone number but what happens up to that is strictly between the carrier and your current telephone company.

A lot of LNP complaints are not Vonage's fault in the long run. All they do is pass the request to the current carrier. Carriers behind the scenes are very shady and purposly will stall the process as long as they can. They use the fact that Vonage is not regulated to their advantage. The fact that no representative has apologized or taken ownership of the issue is disheartining.

However, in the long run, all of that doesn't matter. Your business is suffering because you do not have a phone and I feel bad for you. What has happened since you posted this? Has there been any contact with customer service recenetly? Can you check your telephone number's ownership and see who currently has actual ownership of the number.

Go to this website: http://nextelonline.nextel.com/NASApp/wnp/en/Action/PECLanding
- enter your zip and your telephone number
- click on continue
- click on the check box next to your telephone number and click continue again.

The site will show you who currently has ownership of your telephone number. This can help determine where exactly the problem lies. If it still shows your former carrier then we can assume that there is a problem on their end. However if it is showing XO communications or another party then the problem is associated with the carrier Vonage is using. What do you see?

Posts: 216 · Posted: Tue Jan 10, 2006 12:59 pm Post subject:

I waited for a few months for my number to be ported when I first signed up also. I spoke with Vonage many times during this period and they kept insisting that it was BellSouth's fault. So I filed a complaint with the FCC against BellSouth and, sure enough, my number was ported less than a week later.

Posts: 3 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 05, 2006 Posts: 3

I'm the original author of this thread, and I appreciate all the comments and suggestions posted.

My number port completed and was operational around 12 PM e.s.t. on January 12th, 2006. The process started on August 9th, 2005.

While I was patient with Vonage for most of my wait, my understanding evaporated when I vowed as a New Year's resolution to force the issue. And that's exactly what it took.

Out of respect for a few genuinely helpful Vonage employees, I will not publiclly post names and addresses, but I have developed a bit of a playbook to get this done.
Here to help

Posts: 10 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 10

I'm in nearly the same boat -- intermittent land-line service, and nothing but platitudes from Vonage customer service since AUGUST 2005. What's your secret? How can I end this nightmare?

Thanks,
-John Roscoe

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 02, 2006 Posts: 13

I have heard nightmares about the LNP problems associated to Vonage...not sure why the cell phone industry hasn't had much "bad press" in this regard. Probably because of aforementioned regulation and agreements amongst the cell carriers to allow this activity (good preparation to have that in place before promising number portability to potential customers - eh?). I avoided this by just letting Vonage assign me a new number and keep my old number live with Qwest (for now). Outgoing calls via Vonage, incoming still via Qwest (2-line phone system).

Once I'm convinced of the service, I will purchase another Vonage line with LNP option and (if) once that happens, disconnect the original line....

It took those of you who were early adopters (pioneers, if you will) to step in "it" to help the rest of use avoid problems (much thanks!!).

Posts: 37 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Feb 01, 2006 Posts: 37

tryharder wrote:

I'm in nearly the same boat -- intermittent land-line service, and nothing but platitudes from Vonage customer service since AUGUST 2005. What's your secret? How can I end this nightmare?

Try here:
http://consumerinformation.ca/ComplaintCourier/index.cfm?lang=e

It's the Canadian Government's Consumer Complaint system.

As I mentioned in my other reply to you: Vonage has no financial interest in taking legal action against Telus on your behalf. So all they can do is keep asking Telus to relinquish your number on your request. Since Telus have terminated your line, it's obvious that they have received the request to terminate your service with Telus. But Telus does not like loosing customers, and they will do everything they can to make it as hard for people as possible to leave.

Most phone numbers are "scrambled" random numbers, and those are easy to relinquish, but if you have an "easy" number, like one with multiples of the same digit, or several zeros, or some other sequence that is typically used by companies, then Telus is unlikely to relinquish it without a court order to do so.
That is, if your number is something like 769-2765, then you're more likely get your number relinquished immediately, than you are if your number is something like 777-6789. It goes for all phone companies that "easy" numbers are in high demand, and the more of them they can keep for themselves, the better. Companies pay premiums for numbers that are sequences, and thus easy to remember.

For cellphones, it's typical that a number that is very close to that of an existing cellphone customer, is nearly impossible to get. The reason: Group customers (like families, companies, or other multi-phone customers) typically want their multiple cellphones to have similar phone numbers, or the company simply assign them like that on their own. Like my wife's and mine cellphone numbers are almost identical, except for one digit being different.
When I was in Denmark, and the computer came up with 26747500 as my number, the clerk in the store had to double-check that I could get that number without having to pay for it.

It seems a little silly that something like a phone number is such a big deal, but for most companies, having a number people can remember, and preferably one that easily turns into a jingle, is a luxury that can make a huge difference in the amount of customers they attract. And the more of those easy numbers the phone companies can keep in stock, the more likely it is that a company will choose them as provider.