Last Night Had 0, Tonight Have 1300?

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 21, 2005 Posts: 9

dconner, thanks. Your viewpoint is clearer now.

You believe their web pages showed a disclaimer that shares had not been allocated. The ones affected say it didn't have a disclaimer, and the website expressly stated:

Your Allocation: 0 Shares at $17
You Owe : $0

They are either lying about what the website said or your assumption about the disclaimer is wrong. I hope the truth comes out sooner or later because I haven't seen anyone admit that after the allocation they still had the giant disclaimer.

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 13

dconnor wrote:

So I am having a hard time understanding that the only thing it took to see your allocations (as reported by everyone that reported on this issue) was to logout-login is not/was not a cache issue. Again, this is over a period of several hour, not just "likely pure timing."

Well that's an understatement.

To cache "0 shares", it had to show "0 shares" at some point. That's the problem. You're doing nothing but confusing the issue.

Please stop saying it was a caching problem. It is isn't a matter of opinion. There is no room for debate. It is fundamentally impossible for it to be a browser caching issue. As surely as F = MA and A = piRR, this is not a caching issue.

Period.

I'll now comply with your request to stop. Please do so with mine.

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 11

Ouch. I read this email string and thought to myself. Uh Oh. My original allocation (requested 700 received 0). I had talked to my sister that day and she was so excited that she received 300 and so sad that I had recieved 0. Sure enough, I logged in today and I have 200 share allocated. WHAT THE HECK???? I will call Smith Barney on Tuesday...

Posts: 25 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 25

hbmorty wrote:

Ouch. I read this email string and thought to myself. Uh Oh. My original allocation (requested 700 received 0). I had talked to my sister that day and she was so excited that she received 300 and so sad that I had recieved 0. Sure enough, I logged in today and I have 200 share allocated. WHAT THE HECK???? I will call Smith Barney on Tuesday...

what a bunch of bull&*@!!!
this is incredible, and NO ONE has been contacted about the snafu!!!
THIS IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE!!!
so thats three days of trading, that you had no idea you were sitting on 3400 dollars worth of Vonage stock (your cost)-
three days that you could have flipped it for something else
WOW
if all of these people that this happened to got together, thats a chunk of change!!!
and what about those people who didnt check back, and just left for the three-day weekend??? they are going to come back to a hefty bill they didnt realize they had...
HOLY TOLEDO!

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 11

I totally agree. If I didn't read this site religiously (mostly the new feature board), I would NEVER have re-checked www.vonageipo.com.
For the folks that do not check this site, and initially rec'd "0" allocated shares, they might be responsible for a debt they didn't think they had.
I'm glad for this site, because I now know and I can try to get this situation resolved.

Posts: 25 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 25

hbmorty wrote:

I totally agree. If I didn't read this site religiously (mostly the new feature board), I would NEVER have re-checked www.vonageipo.com.
For the folks that do not check this site, and initially rec'd "0" allocated shares, they might be responsible for a debt they didn't think they had.
I'm glad for this site, because I now know and I can try to get this situation resolved.

Vonage NEEDS TO DO SOMETHING!!!
they were falling all over themselves to sell their stock to us(voice, email, snail-mail) and now, total ignorance of the situation, or God forbide, denial of any responsibility...that would be unforgiveable...

Posts: 13 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 13

hbmorty wrote:

My original allocation (requested 700 received 0). I had talked to my sister that day and she was so excited that she received 300 and so sad that I had recieved 0. Sure enough, I logged in today and I have 200 share allocated. WHAT THE HECK???? I will call Smith Barney on Tuesday...

To you, and others who got had... How were you watching the site? I was at my desk hitting refresh over and over again, seeing "allocation pending" or similar until 4:53PM, at which I got the "0 shares at $17" message twice.

Here's the theory: the database was likely all set-up prior to the allocation with 0's in the shares_allocated column. However, there was a flag somewhere telling the web app not to check the DB, instead throwing the pending message. The idea being, that flag would be changed after the allocation was done. Well, that flag got thrown early, either before the allocations had finished writing to the table, or before they started at all. In either case, the web app was allowed to retrieve an invalid number from the DB, and at least briefly, returned the now infamous, and incorrect "0 shares" to some users.

If that's the case, vonageipo.com weblogs will plainly show who was using the system during that 10 second? 1 minute? 5 minute? window where bad info was being sent.

So I'd like to know the timeframe other victims saw the 0 shares msg so we can narrow that window down. Please respond if you're one of the lucky few.

Of course, this still relies on anyone at SB or Vonage caring, or a lawsuit being brought up.

Rather than risk damage to credit ratings and further monetary losses, I sent in my check and dumped the shares yesterday. I do plan on trying to recoup the losses from missing 1.5 days of trading, but I couldn't risk further loss. (Especially given how SB was basically denying everything yesterday. Seemed to be in CYA mode.)

Posts: 25 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: May 25, 2006 Posts: 25

twinspop wrote:

hbmorty wrote:

My original allocation (requested 700 received 0). I had talked to my sister that day and she was so excited that she received 300 and so sad that I had recieved 0. Sure enough, I logged in today and I have 200 share allocated. WHAT THE HECK???? I will call Smith Barney on Tuesday...

To you, and others who got had... How were you watching the site? I was at my desk hitting refresh over and over again, seeing "allocation pending" or similar until 4:53PM, at which I got the "0 shares at $17" message twice.

Here's the theory: the database was likely all set-up prior to the allocation with 0's in the shares_allocated column. However, there was a flag somewhere telling the web app not to check the DB, instead throwing the pending message. The idea being, that flag
would be changed after the allocation was done. Well, that flag got thrown early, either before the allocations had finished writing to the table, or before they started at all. In either case, the web app was allowed to retrieve an invalid number from the DB, and at least briefly, returned the now infamous, and incorrect "0 shares" to some users.

If that's the case, vonageipo.com weblogs will plainly show who was using the system during that 10 second? 1 minute? 5 minute? window where bad info was being sent.

So I'd like to know the timeframe other victims saw the 0 shares msg so we can narrow that window down. Please respond if you're one of the lucky few.

Of course, this still relies on anyone at SB or Vonage caring, or a lawsuit being brought up.

Rather than risk damage to credit ratings and further monetary losses, I sent in my check and dumped the shares yesterday. I do plan on trying to recoup the losses from missing 1.5 days of trading, but I couldn't risk further loss. (Especially given how SB was basically denying everything yesterday. Seemed to be in CYA mode.)

My associates at work did it both ways, while I chose to log off and login, they just hit the refresh button on their webbrowser taskbar.
When I started reading other peoples strings, I notified my fellow workers to try logging off, and logging back on, JUST IN CASE IT WAS A "cache" / "cookie"/ "browser"/ issue.
BTW we run a T3 line at work, so changes are almost immediate.
I think your decision to pay for, then flip the stock was a wise one, but had you known earlier, i.e. the day it went public, you could have traded when the stock was at or close to what it was at opening bell, rather than the $13.00 + or - that it is currently.
In turn, I do find it curious that this hasnt gotten media attention.
am I wrong?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 11

I too, was refreshing my screen. The screen went from Allocation Pending to 0 shares allocated at $17. I estimate this happened shortly after I rec'd the email saying the shares were allocated (4:57pm). I called my sister at 5:01pm to let her know that my allocation was "0". I hope that timing is helpful.

Posts: 57 · Full Forum Member Joined: Sep 03, 2005 Posts: 57

I know I am just going to get pounded on this, but I feel I need to say this. I have always believed people should take responsibility for their actions. Always blaming on others has become the American norm.

Blaming the cigaret company for getting cancer, blaming MacDonald's for getting too fat, blaming hot coffee for getting yourself burned and lately blaming Vonage for buying Vonage stocks. The fact is you chose to smoke, eating fatty burgers and buying VG stocks.

There are so many people here do not a thing about investing. I wonder how many people actually took the time to study VG's competitive environment, financials, etc before they decided to buy in. Actually, there is a whole lot simpler way - a LOT of people have done the research for you, all you got to do is to study it.

Let me tell you another thing, 99.99% chance you are liable for purchasing the stock. If you don't pay for them, the brokerage firm will liquidate them for you and will try to collect the rest of the money from you.

Vonage stock next week prediction - down again. Why, the AOL incompatibility news alone will send this stock lower. What's the big deal about not working with AOL, you say? I can get into lengthy discussions, but simply the negative news posted on the news wire is enough to do some damage. Welcome to the life of a public traded company.

One last thought, I can't help but wonder what would all of you say had VG stock sky rocked rather than tanked about looking at 0 allocation one night and got shares allocated the next morning.

Terrible things happen to people on the stock market. Admitted it, you made a bad investment decision and move on. If you do a fair amount of investing, you know this won't be the last bad decision you will be making. I had my own fair share of bad decision making. A lot of people did when the market tanked a few years ago. That's life. You can talk here all you want, it has great therapeutic benefit, but it won't get your money back.