Posted on 02/07/2008 11:14:27 AM PST by granite
A software malfunction some time Tuesday night short circuited voicemail service for about 700,000 Verizon customers in California. Unanswered calls just continue to ring rather than switch over to Verizon’s voicemail system.
Jon Davies, media representative for Verizon, said the problem started some time during the night and the cause of the glitch has not been determined, nor is there an estimated time when service will be restored. Residents and businesses in Ridgecrest reported having voice mail problems.
“We’re working on the problem and hopefully it will not be long before we get to the root cause,” Davies said. “It definitely was not something caused by the weather or an outside source — it’s an internal computer problem.”
Both residential and business landline customers are affected, though Davies did not have a breakdown on how many of each. Wireless service is not affected by the problem.
Davies said Verizon will issue credits for customers who have paid for the voicemail service, based on the length of the outage.
“We’re swamped with calls right now — please be patient. Our customers will know the problem is corrected when they can access their voicemail again,” Davies said.
Don’t know what VM platform they use, but it almost sounds like their call forwarding features in the switch failed. It may be that the VM system refused to accept the calls, or maybe a combination of things. It’s been quite a while since my job duties required me to troubleshoot that kind of stuff, but I know it can be a nightmare. I don’t envy their techs.
I have had the opposite experince with Verizon Wireless.
Always good customer sewrvice via phone,
I have to wonder if all the call-bots from the candidates on Tuesday blew up their server.
if you thnk verizon is bad try Time Warner.
If there are some less than friendly service reps right now it's likely due to the shear volume of calls and customers being nasty themselves to begin with. It always amazes me how bent out of shape people get if something goes the slightest bit wrong with something. They act like the company singled them out personally and broke it just to piss them off. Yeah, it's an inconvenience, but it will eventually get fixed and they will eventually get all the credits worked out. People just tend to freak out way too easy these days.
Maybe I'm just too laid back, but I know that I don't have near the stress levels that some people have in their lives (because lot's of it is self inflicted).
As you said, it's always good to have a backup plan.
Maybe their voice mail server is at the other end of an underground cable ... in India.
Verizon customer service has always been good for us. A few days back though we had problems with them that a second call resolved. However, we’re switching at the end of our contract. It often takes days before we’re notified of receiving voice mail and that’s not acceptable.
How do you refuse voice mail? I don’t need or want it. They tell callers I have not set up my voice mail and block the call.
That idea had crossed my mind also.
My office in Thousand Oaks, CA, has had no voice mail since early yesterday morning because of this.
That's been my experience as well. Cingular was absolutely horrible. I hate how Verizon disables features on their phones and tries to nickel and dime you to death, but I don't have nay complaints about there customer service.
LOL, I'm sure the back rooms at Conspiracy Theory Central have been working overtime trying to tie this into the cable cuts, but there wouldn't be any reason to have the VM system over seas. It's just hardware and most telcos that offer VM service will have it on site. They may have one VM server that serves more than one switch from different areas, but the units themselves don't take up all that much room in a rack of equipment (and I'm sure they're even more compact now than the last time I worked on one which was in late '02/early '03).
Ive got Verizon and this has not effected me.
I've got Verizon AND I live in Ridgecrest. It has affected me.
I heard from a usually reliable source that the same problem has now appeared in Nevada, Florida and now North and South Caroline.
Hacking is suspected.
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