Jeff Tangen’s Wordpress

7:30am I get a phone call from TW.   I looked at the caller ID and thought, WTF?   I talked to the TW person and said that I had my phone number.   Well… I had to test it for myself and lo and behold, I had my old phone number.

Granted, now, I no longer have a $15 phone bill…. and Vonage has lost a customer for life….

I was thinking about pursuing Vonage some more, but why?   My perception is that Vonage messed up.   Period.   No sense in opening up a can of worms.

Give TW a call to find out what is going on.   The first thing that I hear is that I have an appointment for tomorrow where a technician will be over between 8am and 7pm.   Nice… thanks…

So.. I finally get to talk to an actual humanoid.   I find out the reason why I didn’t get my phone number the night before was that “there was an error in the system.”   Hmm….  wonder if I can use that catch phrase in my line of business….

Anyway, the humanoid tells me that they will make the phone number transfer tomorrow.

So, guess what….

No phone number yet.  No sense in calling TW in the evening.

Talked to someone at TW who seemed to have a clue and basically assured me that as of tomorrow evening, I will have the correct phone number.   Of course, I am not holding my breath.

Well… I figured out why I didn’t like phone companies.

Got the TW phone installed, but I didn’t get the number that I was promised.   Nice….

Called them up and basically got told that they don’t have the number.   I hung up on them and will call them tomorrow when maybe I can get someone who has a clue.

I received an automated call from Time Warner to verify the scheduled time and date.   The automated call said between 3pm and 5pm.   Now I am beginning to remember why I didn’t like Time Warner either….

Talked to the same person at Time Warner.   I have an install scheduled for Monday the 7th between 5pm and 8pm.

I received a phone call from Time Warner and I will be able to get my phone number back.   I told the person that I would like to then go back to Time Warner as a phone customer and not worry about Vonage any longer.   I will be receiving a phone call from them on the 4th.

The support case number for my phone number being “slammed” is *****095 (same one as before).   The technical support person decided that I should get a month free of Vonage phone for my inconvenience.

I was connected over to a sales person who was going to set up new service, but needed a debit card or credit card to set up the account.   The card was needed for taxes and other items for the account.  I told him that I canceled my card and didn’t have debit or credit card.   He then insisted on me asking someone around me to “borrow” their card to make this “sale”.   My perception is that this sales person really really really really wanted a sale even if it was free.  I politely told him that I would wait for the resolution of my support tickets and thanked him for his time and hung up.   If I am going to get something that is “free”, it is free.   Not nickel and dime you.

I called the Sprint Wireline Fraud Management Department and of course, left a voice mail on their answering machine.   I am sure that I will get a call back.

I called the FCC Slamming (http://www.fcc.gov/slamming/) phone number.   But, the number would not go through.   Maybe my cell phone?   Maybe the number has been disconnected?

Sprint called me back and told me that even though it is on the Sprint network, the number belongs to Time Warner.

Called Time Warner and they are looking into how they were able to get the phone number.   The person that I talked to said that they shouldn’t have had access to the phone number until today.

The Time Warner person called me back and basically they requested the phone number from Vonage (because Time Warner had a new customer) and Vonage did approve (or did not deny) the number transfer.   What they should have done was deny the transfer because the number was already in service.

Finally recieved an email from Vonage:

From:    portout@vonage.com
Sent:    Tuesday, March 01, 2011 3:26 PM
To:    {my email address}
Subject:    [vonage.com #*****095] Regarding the recent transfer of 414-***-****

Dear Jeff Tangen,

In regards to the telephone number 414-***-****, our investigation found that we did receive a valid
request to transfer the number to another phone company. We honored the request because we are
obligated to do so.

If you have additional questions or if you wish to transfer your phone number back to Vonage and would
like assistance, please let us know and we will be happy to assist you.

Sincerely,
David
Vonage Port Out Department

Well, that is interesting.   They honored the phone number transfer request because they were obligated to do so.

Another flurry of phone calls to Sprint and Vonage.   Anything taken care of?

Well… with Vonage, I am suppose to receive an email from the phone number transfer department about my phone number being “slammed”.