Has my phone been hacked? Fake 911 calls!

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Aug 03, 2006 Posts: 6

chinka01 wrote:

The first thing you need to do is calm down. I understand that your mom was scared out of her wits but bringing lawyers and such into it will only draw the entire scenario out for months if not longer....Just cancel your moms service and demand a refund of THAT months and any other months fee that this has happened. I can garauntee you that Vonage won't refund your moms FULL subscription amount if this issue has happened, but once or twice from seeing your other post as well as this one...The BEST you can hope for is a partial refund...I'd take it and be happy that your mom won't have to go thru this type of scare anymore...what means more to you? Your mom's happiness and piece of mind or getting your money back because of an Obvious mistake that can easily be remedied...And I mean no disrespect to you or your mom, just trying to help you figure out your choices..... Smile

I'm quite calm thanks, and you're right, making sure this doesn't happen again is my highest priority. However, as it was mentioned before, simply cancelling my account won't make a difference here. I'm not looking for monetary gain. But Vonage needs to hurt if they are going to be forced to respond to this situation and correct it. If it means losing one customer, then no one will care to resolve the problem and it'll happen again to my mother or to someone else. If Vonage is required to make a multi thousand dollar donation to my local police department, for creating fraudulant 911 calls, then someone upstairs is going to make DAMN sure it doesn't happen again.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Sep 22, 2006 Posts: 6

I would call my local news station. I bet Vonage would fix it ASAP if it became an issue on national TV....It's an interesting story that I think would be appropriate for TV and other Voip consumers.

There's also the possibility of caller ID spoofing...which would cause the same thing to happen...there's actually websites which you can sign up for to spoof your caller ID. What type of security are they taking against this possibility?

Posts: 1 · New Forum Member Joined: Dec 09, 2006 Posts: 1

I just had this happen....only in my case I am out of town and thought I was being pranked. My service is verizon...same case?

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Jan 10, 2007 Posts: 2

Alot of conspiracy theorists with the idea of hacking, very original but more than likely untrue

Remember when you signed up for Vonage, you gace them your 911 information right. Have you logged onto your account and changed this info yourself? It is easy to put any address in those fields.....dial 911 and abbra cadabra, a police officer shows up at the Address you provided !! Perhasp someone is playing a prank, friend or foe, or someone is using your address for whatever reason. Either way the police should and will tell you the number that displayed on the their screens. You can confirm that is a Vonage caller with Vonage....

Express DT (dial Tone ) is also a service responisble for these types of issues, it may be your number that displays at the police with your address but the call is orginating from your traditional provider. They have been mandated by the fcc to keep a dial tone at your home in the event of an emergency 911 will always work....guess what happens when a wire is frayed or dampened,,,,,

more likely it is one of these issue rather than you being "hacked"

Posts: 153 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Jan 11, 2007 Posts: 153

Tattohead wrote "There's also the possibility of caller ID spoofing"

Not with 911. 911 is not based on callerID. It uses non-spoofable billing number information, aka ANI.

/john