UPDATE 12-16-2019 BELOW

IF YOU USE A VOIP PHONE SERVICE, PLEASE MAKE SURE TO OCCASIONALLY CHECK YOUR CONTROL PANEL AND VERIFY THAT YOUR E911 INFORMATION IS CORRECTLY SHOWN
I don’t mean to be an alarmist but it only takes a few minutes to verify your information and better to be safe than sorry.

Imagine my surprise and dismay this morning when I logged into my voip control panel and saw that my E911 emergency information had somehow been changed to a name and address in another state.

At some point, although my billing and account information remained correct, the E911 address changed to another person located in an entirely different state. I don’t know how long it has been this way and the rep for my voipo provider said he/they didn’t know.

I was concerned that my account had been accessed but the rep said it had not. When my account was set up nine years ago, I had to set up the E911 info myself – it WAS NOT done automatically.

I have not, at this point, been given a viable explanation as to how this happened. The first excuse was that it probably had something to do with whoever had the phone number previously. This is unlikely as I have had this number through their service for nine years and my information had been correct.

The next reason was issues with “endpoint.” That tells me nothing – it could mean a lot of different things. I was told that it had to be fixed from their end (something about separating accounts is the wording I think they used.) The rep told me if I corrected the address from my control panel it would cause the other person’s E911 information to be incorrect.

For some reason my phone call to customer service does not show up in my call logs, although calls before, since, and a beep during are listed. I do have an email with a ticket number assigned and there is an open support ticket about this in my control panel. Hopefully they are working on this – my E911 information is currently blank. I was told it would be corrected by the end of the day. As I post this it has been almost 24 hours with no further response from them.

Regardless of how this issue occurred, it could have had serious consequences if I had needed to call for emergency assistance. I am concerned that other customers may have had the same thing happen and are unaware. Things like this could cost someone their lilfe.

As a consumer I deserve an explanation.

UPDATE 12-16-2019

I contacted the company Saturday via their Facebook. They claim to respond within a day, “typically replies in 1 day.
If you want to ask something just press the “Talk to human” button.” I did both. It is now 5:30 PM EST Monday and I have had no response from them and the ticket still shows as being open.

Since they removed the other person’s address from MY control panel, I have put my address back in. I am, however, concerned that if they haven’t done whatever they were talking about doing that the other person may now be able to see at least my address in their control panel.

Not only is it dangerous for an E911 address to change as mine did, THIS IS ALSO A PRIVACY ISSUE. If this strangers address showed up inside of my account, where might MY address show up and is it only the E911 address?

#voip #voipsecurity #internetphone