unable to receive incoming calls

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

For approximately two weeks, we have been unable to receive incoming calls. We have contacted customer support multiple time and have "ticket" numbers. The first contact we made to customer service was on March 19, we were given a ticket number and told it would be fixed in 24-28 hours. On March 21, I got an email from Vonage telling me that i had to change my phone number ...."The phone Number that was assigned to you by Vonage is a number that was recently ported away from Vonage by a previous customer."
I called Vonage on March 21 and spoke with advanced technical support, telling them that we have had this number for 7 yrs and that we will not change our phone number. I was told our number was slammed and they would get it back for us and he opened a different ticket number. Originally, I was told it would take an additional 24-48 hours to fix. On March 22, i got a voice message from Vonage stating that they needed to talk to me, yet when i called, they could not tell me why they called me. They could see a message was left for me, but not what the reason was. I called and talked to a manager who was of little help. I gave him the ticket number and he again assured me that we would have our number back but it could take up to a week.
On March 29, I emailed Vonage requesting an update on the status of our number. Today, April 1, I got an email response back indicating that our number had been ported out as of March 22. Now what do i do? When i initiate a call, i cannot seem to reach anyone who has any knowledge of the case or what to do. All they want to do is have me test and reset our router.
Can you offer any Help??
Regards
Karen

Posts: 208 · Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 9:24 am Post subject:

Number Slams are something that the carriers do. Think of it as a number transfer without permission from you.Since you said that you had your number for 7 years, I assume you ported your number in to Vonage via their Letter of Authorization. Remember how secure that was? Basically a number slam is when a carrier just takes the number.

I'm pretty sure you only have a limited time to get the number back after a slam, otherwise you can't do a snap-back. Basically, to get your number back, you'd have to open an account with whoever stole your number so you could port it back to Vonage.

In terms of legality, if Vonage doesn't own the number any more, there's really nothing they can do to route the calls inbound to you. Think of it like a phone number - only one number for the entire north american continent.

After previous discussion with Vonage Care, they have a specific department that handles number transfers called Local Number Portability. I talked with a few reps from here in order to basically investigate. Most likely you received an e-mail from one of these transfer agents trying to confirm your situation.

I know that the only defense we have against these number slammings are things called PIC freezes, but I don't know if that works with Vonage or not.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

Update: This morning i called the provider who supposedly ported my number from Vonage and they showed that a work order was issued in early March, but was rescinded on March 12. The gave me the cancellation order and instructed that i call Vonage and give them that order number and everything would be OK. I called Vonage attempting to give them the cancellation order number but they would hear nothing of it as the other provider owned my number. I called the "other provider" informed them of above and they agreed to call Vonage and clarify. Late this afternoon, i got a call from the "other provider" stating that everything had been fixed, that i just need to call Vonage customer service and talk with the department that ports numbers and give my consent and everything was fixed. Get this, I call Vonage and they can find NO RECORD of the issues i have been having for the last two weeks. According to their records, my number was successfully ported from the "other provider" to Vonage in May 2006. How can that be??
I've been in contact with the "other provider" and tomorrow she will do a three way call with her contact at Vonage. I certainly hope this fixes this problem. Two weeks is way too long to go without a phone!!

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

Thanks for your help!

Posts: 1327 · Vonage Forum **MVM** Joined: Nov 08, 2006 Posts: 1327

What a horror story. I never ported my number because I couldn't get a local number.

Keep us updated on the situation, seems the other provider is more helpful than Vonage customer support.

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

Still unable to receive calls to our actual number!

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

Finally got it fixed on April 13

Posts: 172 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Apr 19, 2006 Posts: 172

That's good to hear. So what really did happen? Why it took more than 2weeks?

______________________________________________
*Beauty & Brain? Who said a girl can't have it both?**c".?

Posts: 187 · Vonage Forum Master Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 187

noct wrote:

I know that the only defense we have against these number slammings are things called PIC freezes, but I don't know if that works with Vonage or not.

PIC freezes only relate to the change of default long distance carrier on a line. I think PIC stands for something like Preferred Interexchange Carrier. There are two different ones possible for landlines around here - one for regional (intra-lata) toll call PIC and one for inter-lata toll PIC

You would need a whole new mechanism (similar perhaps) to prevent number slamming.

Mark

Posts: 6 · New Forum Member Joined: Apr 01, 2007 Posts: 6

There were a comedy of errors that contributed to this, but the bottom line was poor communication and customer support from Vonage. It is nearly impossible to talk to the same technician or customer support person each time you call and they did a poor job documenting the issues, so we had to start from scratch with a new technician each time we called. Having been frustrated, not knowing what else to do, I posted on this forum. A member of this forum was able to help resolve this issue with Vonage, hence finally getting our number back!!