Unreachable 1-800 numbers

Posts: 92 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Aug 01, 2006 Posts: 92

Vonage is in the process of building an outbound toll free gateway in Canada.

Currently all toll free calls are routed through the U.S. with the only outbound toll free gateway.

This is a technical issue that has no apparent fix besides having a gateway that connects to the PSTN in Canada. There is no simple / plausible way to fix this by tricking the PSTN into thinking the call originates in Canada (even though it does).

- Kukk

Posts: 15 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Feb 16, 2006 Posts: 15

dbarkeep wrote:

Vonage is in the process of building an outbound toll free gateway in Canada.

Do you have a source for this information? Any idea when it will be done?

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

Time to rev up the complaint engine... I've been soo happy with Vonage, until my wife went on maternity leave recently and we had to fax/phone almost daily canadian based toll free numbers (insurance, EI, csst, etc) It was a total headache. Instead of merely faxing the document sitting in front of us we had to spend hours finding work arounds. Totally unacceptable, and this should have been declared up front by Vonage.. not something that the client should stumble upon on their own. Other then that, I'm quite happy.. now on to ranting to vonage.. I'm thinking of setting up a script that will email them the same complaint every week until it's fixed Smile

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

chuma wrote:

dbarkeep wrote:

Vonage is in the process of building an outbound toll free gateway in Canada.

Do you have a source for this information? Any idea when it will be done?

I have a feeling this is pure rumour and speculation. I emailed Vonage a complaint about the toll free boondoggle and got their standard template response. I replied that their 2 year old template response wasn't acceptable and that I expected further details on when we can expect this to be resolved. I have not heard back.

So, I wouldn't expect this issue to be resolved any time soon, so don't hold your breath.

Posts: 508 · Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2006 6:17 pm Post subject:

[quote=vonagehelpsite]Unable to dial certain toll free numbers

The toll free number that you are trying to dial may be a regional toll free number and not a national number. Companies who are using regional toll free numbers are paying the toll charges for this call. Since calls are routed via the Internet with the Vonage service the number that you are dialing from may be recognized as a long distance number and the call may not be completed.

[/quote]

As annoying as this is, Vonage has always had this listed on their web sit...:

they are not being secret about this.. altho, it should maybe be listed a bit more upfront, it is listed, a little research beforehand would solve alot of ppl's 'issues'..

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

I agree, however that template response implies that national toll free numbers will work, when that is not the case. I don't really care about regional toll free numbers, as they are few and far between.

To expand, that template response should clarify that national (meaning, toll free numbers restricted to canada only) will also not work. It's a play on words that creates ambiguity for the client.

It is an accurate statement if Vonage considers Canada to simply be a 'region' of the USA. Since it's a US company, the ignorance wouldn't surprise me.

That being said, I'm a very satisfied Vonage client. The toll free issue being my *only* issue with Vonage thus far. Their customer service has been awesome, along with their tech support. Much better then I ever received from ma bell Smile

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

Just as a follow up I thought I would post the response I received from Vonage Canada today:

-----
Dear Eric,

Hi again!

Thank you for contacting Customer Care. I apologize for the delay in
responding.

In response to your email, we expect to have this issue resolved in
the earlier 2007. Again I do apologize for this problem.
-----

Let's see what happens and let's hold them to their word Smile

Posts: 2 · New Forum Member Joined: Nov 01, 2006 Posts: 2

I dont know when the service went up, but I was trying to reach Bell Expressvu, and theres a 800 number that you can navigate through that eventually gets to expressvu, i lost the call, so i decied, what the hell, i dialed the regular 800 number for expressvu, voila it worked, it worked like never before. I decided to try other 800 numbers that never worked, especially federal ones, working. Bravo, it only took how many years for canada numbers to work?

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

hrm... interesting. I'm going to test a bunch now and see how it goes.

I'll keep y'all posted Smile

Posts: 120 · Member of the Week Joined: Aug 30, 2006 Posts: 120

booh.. first one I tried failed. TireTrends in BC, national (canada only) toll free number:

1-877-920-8473

Doesn't work for me. Maybe it's a slow roll-out Sad