Our company, Oregon Professional Microsystems, started an account with you on April 3, 2005.
May 22, 2005 - Letter of authorization sent to you to transfer our Qwest number to Vonage. That number is 503-697-4773
May 22, 2005 - That letter was sent to my carrier, Qwest, from Vonage.
June 21, 2005 - Qwest says they notified you that the number has been transferred to Vonage.
June 23, 2005 - The 697-4773 number was dropped. It is a dead line. Vonage did not pick it up.
The number has been dead since then. This is a business line. It is the number listed in DEX as my business number for which I am billed $165 a month for the DEX listing. Never, never under any circumstances should you drop a business line without authority.
If I call Vonage, they say Qwest never told them the line was ready. If I call Qwest, they say they have sent Vonage the notice. I'm caught in the middle here with clients, business, and everything going out the door. No phone but an unlisted Vonage virtual number that no one has. From my end, I can't determine whose fault it is. Vonage, though, had the authorization to do the transfer and therefore should be help responsible. You can bill Qwest if it is their fault, but you have the responsibility of getting my line back up on this number and paying for lost business because the transfer was not handled properly.
I called Qwest about June 27 and told them to terminate the transfer and restore my line to the old number and forget about Vonage. My contact there is a "Denny" at 1-602-745-4631. Denny plans to have me on a Qwest number by Friday, July 22 but it will NOT be my old 697-4773 number. They say they gave that to Vonage and Vonage has to initiate the transfer back to them. Vonage can't do that because they say they don't have the number from Qwest. The new number at Qwest doesn't help me, as the DEX aren't printed again until December and since no carrier is claiming the 697-4773 number I can't set any forwarding from it to a new number.
I also notified Vonage to terminate the transfer on June 27. All of this is documented on the enclosed Vonage log.
As of today, July 18, the 503-697-4773 line is still NOT restored to my business. It is just a dead line. It also doesn't help the state any (in terms of taxes) if a business can't operate. It bankrupts my business.
While I am waiting to get my business back, here are the steps we are taking:
1. Notifying Vonage
and Qwest and billing Vonage.
2. Sending a package of stuff to the Oregon state Attorney General to start
some action there. If they can't do anything, we will get legal help.
3. Notifying the Federal Trade Commission and Federal attorney general office.
4. I have put the log of this problem on four blogs now on the Internet, and
plan to expand this.
5. Notify the tech muckrakers (John Dvorak of PC Magazine, Robert X Cringley
of Infoword)
6. No payments to DEX, as their advertised number for me doesn't work and isn't
forwarded to any new number. If DEX wants money for their listing, they should
bill you.
For Qwest, additional steps will be taken:
7. Notifying PUC
to insure they don't guarantee any profit to shareholders against expenses such
as bungled phone support.
8. Notifying legislators to insure taxes I pay on my bill go to the governments,
not to the Qwest shareholders of a bungled company.
The enclosed billing assumes the phone number 503-697-4773 is active by July 21. This assumes four weeks of down time. Any down time after July 21 to this number is billed at an additional $1000 a week until the number is restored to my business.
Your action steps for Vonage now:
1. Pay the enclosed bill. Interest accrues monthly at 1 ½% until it is paid. Collect from Qwest if the problem is from their end, but pay now to prevent interest. Failure to pay can results in legal action at a much, much higher cost and related negative publicity.
2. Restore the 503-697-4773 number to my business - either Qwest or Vonage, whichever is faster. Vonage has released the transfer request, as documented on the enclosed log. For some reason, Qwest doesn't know this. My billing for lost business and my time will continue to Vonage in addition to the current bill after July 21 until the number is restored - either by Vonage or Qwest.
3. You should install a system at Vonage with a backup so this doesn't happen again with any other client.