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VoIP Provider Vonage Crashes on Privacy Policy
Editorial Director,
Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine
I’ve been a fairly happy Vonage ( News - Alert) customer since I switched about a year ago. I use my home phone very little, which is why I was pleased to sign up for Vonage’s low usage plan, which costs me about $18 per month, including tax, as opposed to the $30 I was paying to AT&T ( News - Alert) CallVantage, or the $40 I was paying to SBC  previous to that.
My very first major hiccup with Vonage happened today. Let me share the joy.
Privacy statements from companies are not uncommon. Few of us even pay attention to them. I do, probably because I deeply understand how rampant the sharing of personal and customer information is nowadays. I always call the numbers my credit card company or car loan company provide me and “opt out” of allowing them to share my personal information with third parties.
So today, I was not surprised when I received an e-mail from Vonage telling me they’d like to update me regarding their privacy policies. After the usual dry legalese assuring me they’d never, ever consider sharing my information, the e-mail proceeds to inform me that there are certain circumstances in which they do share information, to “enhance my customer experience.”
Yeah.
The instructions to opt out of such caring and sharing included a toll-free number. I imagined that, as I’ve done before, the number would be a special Vonage opt-out IVR into which I put my phone number and some identifier…the last four digits of my social security number or my address, for example. No such luck.
The number provided was the main Vonage toll-free number. All the menu tree options—“Press 1 for Vonage service, press 2 to find the status of your number transfer”—seemed to have little to do with opting out. I finally chose “5” for customer service. Two layers beyond that, with still no indication I was going to be correctly directed to where I needed to go, I got frustrated and hit the magic double-zero for an agent.
He was super friendly. I am super busy.
After we determined who I was, we got chatty. “Hi…may I call you Tracey? And how are you today?”
“Look,” I said. “I just want to opt out of the personal information sharing thing.”
Unfortunately, Mr. Friendly had no idea what I was talking about.
“I got an e-mail…it said to call the main number to opt out of having my customer information shared?”
He put me on hold for about five minutes. When Mr. Friendly came back, he dictated to me the URL of the main Federal do-not-call Web site.
I interrupted him. “Look…that's the main Federal do-not-call opt-out site. I don’t need that. What I'm trying to opt out of is Vonage’s internal personal information sharing among its partner companies. As in, ‘Vonage will use PII (1) to market products and services to Customers and Visitors that Vonage believes may be of interest to them, (2) to provide services and products requested by Customers and Visitors and (3) to enable its vendors and contractors to provide and assist Vonage in the marketing and provision of such services and products to Vonage, Customers or Visitors.’ It’s in the e-mail that was sent to me just now. Do you have any knowledge of this?”
Silence. Mr. Friendly was trying very hard to remain friendly.
Ms. Tracey was trying very hard not to become disappointed that a company with a previously decent track record on customer service had so seriously crashed and burned. Is Vonage hoping that no one will call? Assuming no one will actually open the link and follow their advice? Or, as I type this, are Mr. Friendly and his co-workers being utterly bombarded with questions from people like me that they have not been told how to answer properly?
I'm not a vindictive person, but part of my hopes the latter is true. A valuable lesson learned. Interactive Voice Response (IVR) | X | | A hardware- or software-based computer system that enables incoming callers to interact with voice prompts or verbal commands....more |
Session Border Controller (SBC) | X | | According to one end user, "The primary function of the SBC is to serve, basically, as a SIP aware NATing Firewall." Session Controllers or SBC are access devices operating at Layer 5 - Session Layer...more |
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