Question about VOIP - Another Vanity

[Jamestown1630]

I have a question for other users of VOIP.

Over the last couple of years, we've encountered several businesses/services that will not approve us or accept our orders because we use VOIP for our phone system. We've used it for ten years, but this problem has only shown up in the last 2 years.

(We don't do any business at all on our cell phones; in our situation, they are mainly for emergencies. But some places don't accept those numbers either, because they are TracFones, and not some major telecom provider.)

Has anyone else encountered this? Our phones work fine for our uses and we are certainly not going to change what works to be 'accepted' by some company; but this issue has been troublesome.

Thanks in advance for any responses.

[sasquatch]

Thanks

[plain talk]

VoIP has fraud and identity verification issues. For account verification they usually want a mobile or something that is more connected with a geographic area.

https://bestreviews.net/sorry-voip-phone-number-is-not-allowed/

[Jamestown1630]

Well, I’ll remember your advice.

But this has worked for me for ten years; and I’m not leaving it just because a couple of companies don’t want to deal with it because they can’t verify the phone number unless I call them up and argue with them about it.

I’ll just find companies that will - which has been most of the many companies we deal with.

Thanks again.

[cableguymn]

our business lines from ooma office allow us to accept TXT messages. We do in house financing and when people are late it is easier to get them to reply to a txt than a phone call.

We also use txt at the salvage yard to send photos of parts so they know the exact condition.

Could we live without it? sure, but its nice to have and keeps my personal cell personal :)

[cableguymn]

I’m dating myself a bit, but I use to install T1s and cisco IP phone systems for Telesphere before they were bought out by vonage for business... Large (I’m talking 500-1500 phones with multiple T1 or larger feeds) offices used them. VOIP is much cheaper than POTS lines.

[cableguymn]

my voip phone has a dial tone when it’s not even plugged in to the network switch.

as a matter of fact, it doesn’t even need to make a dial tone. it just does that because phones have done that since forever and people are use to it. it could just as easily say “please dial the number you wish to reach” when I pick it up.

The call does eventually leave the SIP (internet phone) network if it’s routed to a POTS number (plain old telephone system) though a local pop (sip to pots hand off) IF the call is going to a POTS customer. SIP to SIP never leaves the internet.

Copper is dying tech, that is why the giverment is dumping billions on LECs (local exchange carriers like Frontier and Centurylink) to provide “broadband” when they can’t even provide a dial tone to most of their areas now. They are simply trying to keep them (and their unions/donations) around.

(abbreviations explained for everyone as I am fairly sure you know what they mean already)

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[Jamestown1630]

Thanks for sending that.

I’ve found that the problem can be solved by actually talking to them and explaining.

But I still don’t like the trouble involved; and again, if many major companies can deal with it easily, why do others make it such a problem?

Maybe the ‘others’ need to get into gear.

[catnipman]

“I’m thinking the poster doesn’t have all the information or understand what the issue is.”

ditto ... namely because almost ALL phones are VOIP these days ... copper land lines are deader than Dodo birds ...

[srmanuel]

We worked on similar projects, the largest site I worked on was 8000 phones, over VG 224s to handle analog devices, the site was a 20 building campus, we didn’t convert it in one weekend, we had 2-3 conversions a month of small chunks,

[MD Expat in PA]

Is everyone who uses a VIOP number a scammer? No.

But does just about every scammer use a VOIP number? Yes.

For instance, A VOIP number that spoofs a US or other area code but is coming from Nigeria is a favorite tool of so called “romance scammers”. And these scammers are getting good at using AI to impersonate American accents and even using photos stolen off social media with AI to make it look like that person is talking to the victim over a video chat.

Scammers Can Be At Any Place They Want! #shorts
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/aZpA3H327Yo

Scammers and VoIP: What you need to know about illegal phone scams
https://www.voipreview.org/blog/scammers-and-voip-what-you-need-know-about-illegal-phone-scams

But VOIP numbers are also used to scam businesses into accepting orders and deliveries with 30-day net terms from a fake company that is spoofing the real company’s email address and using a VOIP number that spoofs the real company’s phone number.

Once they ship the order, often to a 3rd party recipient, that person re-ships the product overseas, often to some country in Africa, and the company never receives payment.

I suspect this can be why some companies don’t want to accept orders from an unverifiable VOIP number.

Fighting Back Against Business Impersonators!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxTBa97u1d8

At a previous company a scammer impersonating one of our large and important vendors sent an email to our AP department informing us that they had changed banks and provided new ACH payment instructions. That email also had a fake number that was a VOIP number spoofing the actual company’s number. To the AP manager, the email looked legit and calling the number provided in the email, everything seemed to check out. But the company got scammed for over $50k before it was discovered.

After I started my new job in corporate Payroll at the end of last year, it only took a week before I started getting emails from several of our “executives” asking about changing their direct deposit account. Scams and spoofed emails - every one of them.

I was also getting emails allegedly from one of our employees that said something like “I am in a very important meeting out of town right now but urgently need your assistance and some information for this meeting, please call me on my cell phone at xxx-xxx-xxxx ASAP!” (likely a VOIP number). I reported it to IT and sent it to the spam folder. But the scammer was persistent, and I kept getting these emails about once a week for months.

The thing was this employee, while he shared the last name of the company’s original founder (and that family no longer owns or has anything to do with the current company), he was in no way related and was certainly not someone who would be at out-of-town meeting on company business and needing what I presume was payroll or some other financial information.

The guy was an hourly production worker, he worked in the packaging department boxing cookies and other confectionary products.

“if many major companies can deal with it easily, why do others make it such a problem?”

Because the scammers are often impersonating nationally well-known companies but like to target smaller companies who may not have the resources and tech savvy to check out the legitimacy of the phone number. And if they’ve been burned before by a scammer using a VOIP number, they may be more resistant to taking orders from a company they’ve not worked with before especially if that company has a VOIP number.

Similarly, many companies will also not or make it difficult to open a line of credit or accept shipments with 30-day net terms from a company with a gmail, yahoo, AOL or similar email accounts.

You think these companies are just being a PITA to you personally, but you may want to look at it from their perspective.

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t know where you live, but land lines are still all over the country, especially in more exurban areas.

[Jamestown1630]

I still don’t understand why most companies we deal with have no problem with it, and a few do. And the few are still very big, well-known companies.

[Jamestown1630]

I don’t have phone service through the usual kind of provider. I have an Ooma system, and that’s the only reason I can think this is happening. If I were with one of the bigger, well-known companies, this probably wouldn’t happen.

[Mariner]

I checked into Ooma, it should work.

Configuration issue?

What is the specific complaint your customers have?

Also, have you talked with your Internet/Gateway provider?

[Jamestown1630]

They don’t like my phone number. They call it a ‘verification’ issue. I had to call them up and explain, yes, this is my phone number; it has been for over ten years, and it’s the only one I use for business; and yes, it’s the number attached to my bank account.

(I haven’t talked to Internet provider because if that were a problem, it wouldn’t be happening with only two companies and not with any of the others. I can only assume they don’t like my phone number because they can’t automatically verify it, as they can apparently do with other, bigger telecom companies.)

[Mariner]

There’s an Ooma gateway in your region that interfaces their VoIP service onto the traditional telephone network. That gateway is responsible for signalling your caller ID into the network too.

Your customers are likely looking for “XYZ Company” caller ID for their own internal routing and call handling.

Contact Ooma tech support and let them know what the issue is.

[Jamestown1630]

Well, they aren’t my customers; they’re companies of which I am a customer myself.

If it happens again, I’ll talk to Ooma.

Thanks.

[catnipman]

“I don’t know where you live, but land lines are still all over the country, especially in more exurban areas.”

centurylink is essentially abandoning copper lines in my area ... no new lines, no upgrades, and when copper pairs go bad, they switch you to pairs that are less bad ... fortunately, for those who want copper pairs, so many have completely abandoned using them, instead going all-cellular, that more of the better copper pairs are available ...

[Jamestown1630]

I prefer the old landlines. The sound quality on cell phones is comparatively dismal - and if power goes out for an extended period, people without landlines are helpless in terms of communication.

I don’t think this transition was well thought-out.