vonage users beware

[joeyl]

Been using Vonage for a few years now with no issues. This morning at 4:30 the phone rings, I pick up and it disconnects, caller ID says unknown, and it rings again. It did that 5-6 times. I went to my online Vonage account to check the phone list, and noticed that all these calls were being forwarded to international calls to Africa!! I checked my call forwarding settings and found a number that I never put there. Called Vonage and they suspended my account immediately. During that 30 minutes of me being on the phone with them, my account was charged 243 dollars worth of international calls!

Vonage is reversing the charges, and said that my web account was compromised, and that somebody went in there and set up the call forwarding he/she also disabled the "block anonymous caller" option. with Vonage multiple incoming calls can be forwarded, hence the 243 dollars in less than 30 minutes!
So make sure your password is very hard to crack, mine had letters and numbers and did not contain any common words. I will now include special characters as well.

[JacoLesFlea]

thanks for the heads up.

[James Hart]

Hmmm... not had any reports of this make it to my department (I don't deal with individual customer issues, I handle system / network wide stuff).

PM me your vonage number and I'll do some investigation on it. We have a very knowledgeable fraud team that is on top of this stuff... I'll make sure the guys I know in that department get the heads up if they aren't aware already.

FYI: this kind of hack has been in play WAY before VoIP and internet phones... people have been hacking business PBX systems to do call forwarding for decades.

[joeyl]

hey did not know you worked for them, I'll pm you my number. Interestingly they were able to rack 11 hours worth of talking from all the forwarding!

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by joeyl

hey did not know you worked for them, I'll pm you my number. Interestingly they were able to rack 11 hours worth of talking from all the forwarding!

Yeah, been there for 3.5 years now. Really cool outfit to work for. Best / most interesting job I've had.

I got your PM... I generally work Fri - Mon but will be off tomorrow. I'll look into it on Sat when I get in. Let me know if you have any issues getting stuff resolved. Like I said, I don't deal with individual account stuff... but I know people who can do the stuff that I can't myself.

[joeyl]

hey thanks. I was talking to Freddie who is probably in fraud department. The only thing that worries me is that my account still shows the charge for the $243. I will give it a couple of days and see if it gets taken care of.
Must be pretty exciting to work for a voip company, I'm a network administrator also and I used to deal with the network guys at Mitel, and they had some pretty bad ass Network Designers especially on MPLS applications!

[MJ5150]

Originally Posted by joeyl

.....I used to deal with the network guys at Mitel......

I spent a year and a half installing Mitel and Inter-Tel phone systems. Bummer how Inter-Tel merged with Mitel though.

-Mike

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by joeyl

Must be pretty exciting to work for a voip company, I'm a network administrator also and I used to deal with the network guys at Mitel, and they had some pretty bad ass Network Designers especially on MPLS applications!

Originally Posted by MJ5150

I spent a year and a half installing Mitel and Inter-Tel phone systems. Bummer how Inter-Tel merged with Mitel though.

I've never played with 'little' stuff like that

Our infrastructure still blows my mind in it's vastness. Most Business class admins can't get their head around what we've built and maintain while growing, improving and expanding. Almost everything we have is home grown software wise... LOTS of Solaris and Linux... MySQL and Oracle... Juniper and Cisco... etc etc. Just my management network alone severely trumps the entire networks my previous Telecom employers ran.

We've had trainers come in from the hardware venders whose equipment we implement that couldn't even picture the scope of what we've built... and it's their gear that it rides on

Keep in mind, We've got around 2,450,000 people using our service at any given time and as of a month or so ago... we are offering free calling to over 60 countries and the ability to use the unlimited data of an iPhone or Blackberry to make calls
(sorry if that last bit is a little spammy)

[MakiSupaStar]

Originally Posted by James Hart

.... we are offering free calling to over 60 countries and the ability to use the unlimited data of an iPhone or Blackberry to make calls
(sorry if that last bit is a little spammy)

You uh.. what now?


Please do tell. PM me if you wish.

[iamlowsound]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

You uh.. what now?


Please do tell. PM me if you wish.

Agreed, that is crazy. Although I know a few people that managed to set up skype on their iphone/itouches.

lowsound

[hover]

James, maybe you could tell me why I am getting Vonage sign-in pages taking place of my google home page from time to time...asking for signin information....

Then all of a sudden my iGoogle page will pop back up normal when I refresh. Very odd.

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by MakiSupaStar

You uh.. what now?


Please do tell. PM me if you wish.

I don't do individual customer stuff or sales in any way shape or form and don't have a cell phone let alone a smart phone. I have used the basic service for 3.5 years though.

I'm a behind the scenes guy that knows no more about the plans than the web sites below state. If you have questions on SIP gateways and proxies, media relays, load balancing, G.711 / G.726 / G.729 codecs, etc etc etc... I'd be better skilled at answering.

Here is the Vonage Mobile site: http://www.vonagemobile.com/
and the Vonage World site: http://www.vonageworld.com

I should have clarified... the World plan DOES NOT work on top of the Mobile plan. The Mobile plan has it's own international rates.

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by hover

James, maybe you could tell me why I am getting Vonage sign-in pages taking place of my google home page from time to time...asking for signin information....

Then all of a sudden my iGoogle page will pop back up normal when I refresh. Very odd.

it's not us! You might want to check if you've got something funky hijacking your PC.

Our web login site is housed in 2 locations within the USA and balanced across 6 machines at each location. I'm in those boxes all the time... their is no way I know of our legitimate log in page could answer for a call to google's page.

[yem]

That sucks.

Hey James, why does my fax not work with my Vonage line?

[hover]

James, thanks. I've been keeping up on my antivirus and malware, running a scan now. I didn't offer up any login info...

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by yem

Hey James, why does my fax not work with my Vonage line?

Faxing over Vonage DOES work... I do it all the time at the office (all of our fax machines are VoIP in the office). Like I said, I don't do help desk stuff, but we have some real good techs in AOS which is the top of the chain support wise for a customer at Vonage. To try to define the line a little more... If one person cannot fax, it's handled by Tech Support and AOS. If ALL (or a section) of Vonage all the sudden couldn't fax, that would be something my department handles. I don't talk to people

Anyway, from the Vonage site...

Unable to send or receive faxes through the Phone Adapter?

If you are unable to send and or receive faxes try lowering the baud rate on the fax machine to 9600. Also disable the ECM feature on the fax machine if applicable. Still need Help? Please contact our highly trained technical support staff – just Contact Us 24 hours a day seven days a week.

If you want, PM me your vonage number and a time over the weekend you can be home for a tech call. I'll try to get one of my buddies to give you a ring to work it out.

[joeyl]

I would suggest Vonage to offer some kind of computer identification when you log on to your account, like some banks. At least you can track the vulnerable part of the system: the web account.

[Freddels]

I've been using Vonage since 2003. Last month I ported my number to a cell phone and the cell phone company told me that the Vonage account would be closed. Well, last night I get an email from Vonage that they charged my account the monthly fee. So, I'll be on the phone with them this morning to cancel the account and have them refund the erroneous charge. Also, even though my number has been ported to the cell phone and I've been receiving calls on it, my Vonage account is showing that calls were received and forwarded to my other phone (which was the forwarding number in my account) during the past week.

[James Hart]

Originally Posted by Freddels

the cell phone company told me that the Vonage account would be closed.

not really Vonage specific, but a fact of life...

Only the account holder has the power to terminate an account... period. The cell phone company LIED to you. People ALWAYS need to cancel their own stuff, competitors never have authority to cancel services on a customer's behalf.

Your 'ported' number is STILL on the Vonage network until you cancel or tell us otherwise... Until the account holder terminates the account, the numbers are still active in my DB. Any Vonage customer that tried to call you since you 'ported' your number will be ringing to your still active Vonage device.

[NJL]

Originally Posted by James Hart

Only the account holder has the power to terminate an account... period.

Which is the way it should be.