Calls placed from empty house and phantom caller-id

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 8

Hello!

Well, after emailing and phoning Vonage support I was unsuccessful in receiving any response of value. I am hoping someone here could perhaps help with these two issues.

1) My account shows places calls that I didn't make.

My activity logs on vonage.com show placed calls that I didn't make to numbers I do not recognize. To top it off some of these calls are placed at a time of the day when no one is home!

Vonage support response: There must be someone at the house placing these calls.

2) I get 2 or 3 phone calls a week from people who say they are returning my call. Their caller-id display shows my number and they return the call. Some people get a bit upset when I deny that I called them.

I checked my activity logs at vonage.com and searched my placed calls list for a few of the numbers that called claiming to be returning my calls. According to the activity records I never-ever placed a call to those people. Many callers INSIST that my number is displayed on their caller-id screen and that they hit the 'call-back' function on their phone so they did not make a dialing error.

Vonage support: No response for a month. Still an open ticket.

Is anyone else experiencing such issues?

Many thanks,
Nick

Posts: 143 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Dec 22, 2005 Posts: 143

This may sound like a weird suggestions,

but have you tried unplugging the phone for a day and see if it still occurs?

Have you also tried switching out the phone?

Posts: 34 · Vonage Forum Junior Joined: Sep 07, 2005 Posts: 34

Just a shot in the dark, but is it possible that someone else is accessing your Vonage connection, possibly through a poorly-secured wireless connection? That wouldn't explain why the calls aren't being listed on the dashboard, but ... hey, it's a thought.

Posts: 143 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Dec 22, 2005 Posts: 143

No all the phone coversations are encrypted. Through the web, the only one that can make the call is the device that's connected to the phone.

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 8

I'll try that! Smile

That way, whoever is coming into my house to make these calls will have to plug it back in, then I'll know they were there! Wink

Nick

Trinijoy wrote:

This may sound like a weird suggestions,

but have you tried unplugging the phone for a day and see if it still occurs?

Have you also tried switching out the phone?

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 8

Yeah, the only way I could see someone using my service without my knowledge would be if they somehow got their wireless handheld to become associated with my basestation.

I don't know how easy/difficult it is to break into a Panasonic 5.8 ghz phone though. (this one http://www2.panasonic.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/vModelDetail?storeId=15001&catalogId=13401&itemId=98294&catGroupId=25039&modelNo=KX-TG6700B&surfModel=KX-TG6700B&cacheProgram=11002&cachePartner=7000000000000005702)

This is the only device plugged into the Vonage Linksys PAP.

Nick

Trinijoy wrote:

No all the phone coversations are encrypted. Through the web, the only one that can make the call is the device that's connected to the phone.

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

sorry, duplicate submission was an accident.

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

If they had made the calls from your Vonage service (and they were answered at the other end, by voicemail or anything) then they would show up on the call logs on the Activity tab of the Vonage web site.

Did you port your number? Could your old service still be active somewhere for outgoing calls?

Or could someone simply be spoofing your callerID when calling these people?

/john

Posts: 8 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 8

Trinijoy wrote:

No all the phone coversations are encrypted. Through the web, the only one that can make the call is the device that's connected to the phone.

The most annoying thing to me about this incident was that Vonage Technical Support's final answer on this was that someone must be at my house making these calls despite that I insisted the house was empty at the time the calls were made. They said it is impossible for placed calls to be appearing on my account otherwise (this was from someone at the 3rd tier of support). So, someone was able to break in, get past the dogs, make a 3 minute call to Chicago and get out without leaving any evidence. Yeah, right.

So, last Friday I disconnected the Linksys PAP and took it to work with me. I kept an eye on the little box sitting on my desk all day (disconnected, no power) to ensure no coworker took it and made a phone call. Sure enough, at 4:35PM that day a 3 minute call was placed from my account while the Linksys PAP sat powered off on my desk! So much for Vonage Technical Support's "final" answer.

I spent an hour and 20 minutes on the phone with Vonage that night... got to their highest level of support and he was able to confirm that calls were being made originating from not-my-ip address (I have a static IP). He said he had a solution and was going to get an engineer to implement it.

There have been 11 calls made from my account that are not-mine since then. The most recent was yesterday so no solution is in place yet.

Nick

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Feb 10, 2007 Posts: 9

I have posted here before that my Vonage line was making dozens of outgoing calls a day from the time I first signed up for the service. This is even before I had received the Vonage box/router/VTA and had a chance to hook it up. As soon as I connected the box, I immediately started receiving calls from dozens of people ripping me for calling them and hanging up.

After a few hours of this nonsense and after finally logging into my online dashboard and seeing a huge list of these phantom calls, I called Vonage. No one at Vonage could explain what was going on. Their solution was to assign me a new phone number. They waived the fee for this due to me being within my thirty day trial still. Otherwise, they said, it would have cost me $14.99 (Can.). Wow, so kind of them. Rolling Eyes

I have since cancelled Vonage service, well within my thirty day trial period. I have shipped back their box, but they have refused to accept it from the courier for almost a week now (tomorrow will be a week). I am now convinced that they are doing so because they want my 14 days for the return to lapse, so that I won't be eligible for the disconnect fee refund.

As far as I'm concerned, Vonage are a bunch of lying crooks and scammers. Sure, if your service works and you have no issues, then you will have nothing but good to say about them. But if you ever have to have a problem solved without incurring any fees, or if you plain want to cancel, then look out! Read some reviews from people who have tried to cancel. It's less painful to pull out your own fingernails with pliers.

Vonage is not a regulated company.
Vonage is not a member of the Better Business Bureau.