TELECOM Digest OnLine - Sorted: Phone Outage Costs Fort Wayne Store to Lose Business

Phone Outage Costs Fort Wayne Store to Lose Business

Lisa Minter (lisa_minter2001@yahoo.com)
Fri, 27 May 2005 00:00:13 -0500

Phone outage costs Toenges

A Fort Wayne orthopedic shoestore lost telephone service for 2 1/2
days this week, costing the store thousands of dollars in sales,
according to a member of the family that owns the business.

Fred Toenges Shoes & Pedorthics, 2415 Hobson Road, at the corner of
State Boulevard, had its main phone line mistakenly disconnected
Monday, Ross Toenges said. The phone line started working again
Wednesday afternoon.

The problem started after the business asked Vonage to disconnect one
of its secondary phone numbers, Toenges said. That number was
disconnected last week, but the main number also was taken out of
service Monday.

The store's main number is a Verizon telephone line. Verizon
spokeswoman Jane Howard said the company received a request to
disconnect the store's main number on April 23 from U.S. Exchange,
another telephone company.

Spokesmen for Vonage and Choice One Communications, which owns
U.S. Exchange, could not explain how the problem happened Wednesday.

Vonage is temporarily providing the store service on its main
telephone line, but the rest of the store's seven phone lines aren't
working, Toenges said.

Federal regulations protecting consumers who switch telephone
companies prevent Verizon from taking back the phone number
immediately, Howard said.

As a result of the confusion, the store sold 50 fewer pairs of shoes
Monday and Tuesday than it did on the same days a year earlier,
Toenges said. A pair of shoes from the store costs about $85 on
average, he said.

Copyright 2005 Fort Fayne Journal Gazette and wire service sources.
http://www.fortwayne.com

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[TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: The gentleman who passed this item
along to Lisa and the Digest said, in effect, "here is another
example of Vonage screwing up." I dunno, it seems more like Verizon
screwing up to me. Vonage said to Verizon, or (rather to Choice One
Communications, which owns U.S. Exchange) to disconnect _ONE_ line.
The end result was Verizon disconnected _ALL_ lines. Then, Verizon
says "as a consumer protection we are not allowed to restore service
on those lines for X period of time", which may normally be correct,
but Verizon certainly would be excused in this instance if they did
not wait X period of time as required by law _under normal conditions_.
But someone has to be blamed, why not Vonage? PAT]

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