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Review by jabetcha See Profile

  • Location: Lake Mary, Seminole, FL, USA
  • Cost: $9 per month
Cheap, easy setup, lots of features
Occasional call issues
Excellent Value
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I switched from another provider because of the constantly changing terms of service. I only use about 200 minutes per month, mostly in-state, and found that the pay-per-use provided national calling for about 40% less than I had been paying for an unlimited in-state plan. I was not porting a number, so the dirt-cheap-did product provided a local number and E911.

I set up my free IPKall number to forward to the SIP URI and it is automatically directed to the free fax receive service. CallCentric also allows direct, URI dialing, and peering with other VOIP providers.

I've been using them for about 2 months now. I have an occasional problem making a call, but overall, the quality is excellent. The only annoying item is the that dialing a "1" at the beginning of all numbers takes a little getting used to.

member for 21.1 years, 1109 visits, last login: 6.1 years ago
lodged 14.7 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

1 edit

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

CallCentric Rocks!

With a CallCentric dial plan like this (for Linksys/Sipura devices) you could make calls with or without a "1".

(EDIT: See correction in subsequent post)

This plan does not do 7-digit dialing, but 7-digit dialing is vanishing across the USA anyway.
PX Eliezer704

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: CallCentric Rocks!

And also note that with CC you can set up 100 speed dials.
jabetcha
join:2003-02-13
Lake Worth, FL

jabetcha to PX Eliezer704

Member

to PX Eliezer704
Thanks for the info, but I've got a Cisco ATA. The dial plans are very different. There appears to be a way to prepend a string of digits, but I've not been able to make it work.

The Cisco dial plans are located here: »www.cisco.com/en/US/docs ··· p1046274
LB2064
join:2009-04-11
Newtown, PA

LB2064 to PX Eliezer704

Member

to PX Eliezer704
I tried this on my SPA3102 and it didn't work
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

1 edit

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: CallCentric Rocks!

said by LB2064:

I tried this on my SPA3102 and it didn't work
Aargh!

This website truncated my posting. I forgot that code blocks have to be used. Sorry!

Try this:

([49]11S0|*123S0|*xx.|*xxx|*75xx|**275*x.|<:1>[2-9]xxxxxxxxxS0|1[2-9]xxxxxxxxxS0|011[2-9]x.)
 

Note that S0 is the letter S and the number zero (0).

Review by lousteinberg See Profile

  • Location: Valhalla, Westchester, NY, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
outbound calls drop less frequently
no phone support, different account per DID
updated: looks like we figured out the issue w/ inbound calls
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

Using grandstream sip phones in a small business. Tried converting a couple over from Vonage due to calls being dropped.

Call stability is better (still not great, but better). Unfortunately, phones are found in the "not registered state" frequently (requiring reboot) and LNP of our Vonage DIDs has started very badly- more than half of the inbound calls get a "call did not go through" error.

Callcentric isn't exactly business friendly. No live phone support, can't group our phones into a single account (we have 10), etc. Call quality is acceptable, when it works, which isn't often enough.

quick update: things are much better now. Looks like the problem was a combination of the grandstreams not really picking random source IP ports (when told to do so) and the Zywall firewall (NAT) timing out UDP sessions too aggressively. Result was that inbound SIP traffic was port-forwarded to multiple/conflicting phones. STUN from the phones would have fixed it, but for now we've increased the keepalive frequency on the grandstreams to be every 10 seconds. Much better since then.

Callcentric support is much improved since we started. Still think that for businesses that live/phone support is appropriate to minimize downtime., but we'll stay with Callcentric unless other issues arise.

member for 18.3 years, 31 visits, last login: 10.6 years ago
updated 14.7 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

1 edit

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Could it be network problems?

Sorry to hear of the problems.

Their customer support is very responsive, in my experience, and gives quick access to US tech people who know their stuff. But if you do prefer live phone agents, then of course CC may not be for you.

If there are problems with the inbound porting, this may well be something on Vonage's end as well, especially if you are talking about other Vonage callers trying to call your new CC lines.

One major point I'd make: If you had problems with your Vonage service, and now ALSO have problems with CallCentric, then I wonder if this could be due to issues with your internet connection speed, jitter, and packet loss. Or are there possibly issues with your routers and other hardware....

How do you come out on tests such as:

»www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/

»testyourvoip.com/

»myvoipspeed.visualware.com/

Considering that you have had issues with both Vonage and CallCentric, and that so few people ever have problems with CC, I think that it would be good to consider other possible problems. Otherwise you may switch to a 3rd Voip company and still have the same issues.

Hope things improve for you.

-------------------------------

Added in edit: I have multiple DID's on one account with no problem. I think that it's perhaps an issue only if you need different outgoing lines to display different caller ID's.
lousteinberg
join:2005-11-26
New Fairfield, CT

lousteinberg

Member

Re: Could it be network problems?

Thanks for the reply. Our network connection has been rock solid (cablevision). We get about 30Mb down and 1-2Mb up with zero loss. The Optimim voice line that came with our broadband has similarly been perfect, so I doubt it's the network (I did upgrade the switch handling the grandstream phones to 1gig just to try that, and the grandstream network is on a dedicated router port with no other traffic, priority given to that network segment, etc).

The vonage issue was quite different from the callcentric issue in terms of behavior, but cant say for sure if they are related or not (e.g. the phones?).

I'm starting to wonder if the callcentric inbound problems are related to the fact that the phones keep deregistering (though I'd expect to roll to voicemail if a phone wasn't registered). Could the deregistering be due to the fact that callcentric doesn't support STUN? With multiple phones behind the firewall, we can't port forward to just 1 of them or the others won't work. I have NAT traversal enabled on the phones, but maybe the lack of STUN support means that callcentric can't handle multiple NAT'd phones? I don't want to give each phone a public IP (burns addresses and makes the phones more exposed to the net)

Thx,
/lou
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

3 edits

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: Could it be network problems?

I would think that it was not a STUN issue as few providers are using STUN these days. It has been replaced by more modern methods. In addition, if this had been an issue, I think that there would be lots more customers (from various providers) having such problems. Of course, every situation is different.

What has their support said about this?

I wonder if you have tried reducing the registration interval (registration expiration) on your Grandstream devices??

Maybe bring it way down to 2 minutes or 120 seconds, see if that helps, and work back up from there?

Good luck.

CallC
@verizon.net

CallC to lousteinberg

Anon

to lousteinberg
reply to "lousteinberg".

Hello,

1) Answers to these and many other questions one may get within minutes by opening a trouble-ticket with Callcentric support.

2) It's not that Callcentric doesn't support STUN - it's not something requiring support. STUN had been developed as a protocol helping not NAT-aware service providers [those who do not have session border controllers] to find out about a real IP address of a client who is behind NAT'ed network. As Callcentric had been from the ground up built on a licensed Session Border Controller systems [multiple, distributed network of] - it simply has NO need to use STUN at all. This also greatly simplified configuration for many not tech-savvy users allowing them avoid complicated questions like "what is your STUN address?"...

3) You may literally have 1000s or even millions of SIP devices behind your NAT and/or firewall - we do NOT care - our technology penetrates [so far] almost ANY firewall/NAT combination (with extremely rare exceptions, so far only a handful counted when very specific "application" firewall was configured to physically intercept SIP packets - in countries like UAE where VoIP is forbidden; even then by setting so called "bypass" SBCs we, in many cases, solved that issue).

4) There is NO need to set or enable packet forwarding - in most cases it will, at least, make things worse. As has been said above, Callcentric does NOT require ANY packet forwarding nor setting SIP devices in DMZ. This thing is also clearly explained in our Support/FAQ sections which are very simple to search by keywords. Again - do NOT configure ANY packet forwarding. Do NOT set SIP devices in DMZ.

5) There are some "broken" routers and switches, for example, many older versions of Dlink firmware had SIP related problems.

6) There is NO need to set any re-registration intervals - our system negotiates an appropriate registration interval with the device. Grandstream is one of very good vendors who DOES support such negotiation mechanism.

7) Yes, Callcentric may and does handle multiple phones behind NAT without problems. There is virtually no setup today which would not be based on NAT. Callcentric's great success is largely based on its NAT penetrating technology.

8) In general - please, just open a trouble-ticket with Callcentric and your problem will be solved.

As a matter of fact - I do not understand how somebody, who do not clearly understand how the service provider works, without first trying its features, could initiate a port of their phone numbers to that provider - Callcentric has a very explicit and bold statement asking everybody initiating the port - check our network first.

I [personally] do not understand someone sitting here on these boards for 3.5 years and having only 22 visits (3 during last two days) while leaving their first and absolutely negative (also a first negative review for Callcentric in general - what, there was not even a small wish to read some past reviews or just read some Callcentric related threads?) review to Callcentric (I'd expect at least one review for Vonage... during this long time).

Thank you very much for trying our service.
lousteinberg
join:2005-11-26
New Fairfield, CT

lousteinberg

Member

Re: Could it be network problems?

Thanks for the reply. We've had tickets open well before I posted. Am still hopeful that this gets resolved, but it seems less and less likely...certainly not "within minutes". Suggesting that we open a ticket was a great idea. Unfortunately, our first set of tickets were open on 12 May. It's now 30 June.

I'm afraid I don't understand your point number 8 at all. The fact that I haven't posted many (any) negative reviews after 3+ years as a BBR member should suggest that I'm not a chronic complainer (I've had many more visits than that...just don't usually log in, but thanks for checking up on me). I certainly did read past reviews before coming over, and had hoped to have a positive experience. We did test a single extension before porting. It worked fine. The problem came post porting with a second extension. We've frozen the migration of the rest of our numbers pending resolution of this issue.

As far as understanding how service providers work (still your point 8), you couldn't be more wrong there. I've built and run some of the largest IP networks in the world, have contributed to a number of the RFCs, chaired an IETF working group, etc.

I'm sure your service works just fine for the folks who posted positive reviews. I suspect that many of them don't run more than 1 phone. Some probably do, which is why I'm still trying to resolve this with you. I don't need 1000s, but so far you've struggled with 2 phones. Sure doesn't seem like a lot to me.

Blaming the router (your point 5) would seem to be an easy response, but we've tried 3 different brands of routers at this point. It's very unlikely to be the routers- I have the wireshark traces to prove it.. I don't know where the actual issue is, but I've patiently tried to help debug it. Not sure your reply does anything but indicate a degree of defensiveness. It certainly doesn't instill confidence that the issue is being seriously worked on. Not helped by the fact that the support cycles are very long since you don't offer phone support (seems odd for a phone company), and we can go days without a response to an update we made to the ticket.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

2 edits

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Regarding your July 12 2009 update---

The reviewer said:

"....quick update: things are much better now. Looks like the problem was a combination of the grandstreams not really picking random source IP ports (when told to do so) and the Zywall firewall (NAT) timing out UDP sessions too aggressively. Result was that inbound SIP traffic was port-forwarded to multiple/conflicting phones. STUN from the phones would have fixed it, but for now we've increased the keepalive frequency on the grandstreams to be every 10 seconds. Much better since then...."

Glad you found out that the problem was in your own setup.

This is consistent with what was first suggested: If there were problems with Vonage (as you said in your original comments that's why you were switching) and then with CallCentric, it was more likely to be a problem on your end, rather than caused by the VoIP provider(s).

I'm glad that one of my earlier suggestions---to shorten the registration interval---was in the same ballpark as your eventual solution.

As far as STUN, looks to me that few providers still use it. There are other ways of NAT Traversal. The use of STUN servers introduces additional reliability problems and also security issues.

One interesting reference:

»ag-projects.com/docs/Pre ··· ices.pdf

------------------------------------

I hope that CallCentric will continue to work well for you.

Review by tdgobux0 See Profile

  • Location: Westerville, Franklin, OH, USA
  • Business customer Business customer
  • Cost: $12 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Cheap, efficient
none
Something useful for inbound
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I've had call centric for about a year. I use the inbound calling to route to a cell phone and an inbound fax. Both work well. They have specific instructions on using their service with 3cx, Trixbox, etc - i've attempted to use it with one of the ip pbx and it worked - i didn't keep it only because the ip pbx software wasn't very good. I would recommend them.

member for 14.7 years, 2 visits, last login: 13.4 years ago
lodged 14.7 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

2 edits

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Puzzled.

From your comments, it sounds like CallCentric has worked quite well for you, with no problems.

So I am quite curious as to the 60 percent scores for both reliability and tech support?

The scores you gave don't seem to match your written commentary, which was favorable to callCentric.






Review by regloss See Profile

  • Location: Orlando, Orange, FL, USA
  • Cost: $27 per month
Support for many ATA's, Fast and accurate technical support, Easy set up, ATA's easy to swap, Fully automated ordering
Charges for call forwarding even on unlimited plans but still a great value when you factor in reliability and call quality
One of the best VoIP providers around
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

After being a VoicePulse customer for 4+ years, it was time to switch due to some quality issues at one of their downstream providers (no fault of VoicePulse).

I signed up with CallCentric for the DID Personal Unlimited ($5.95) and Pay Per Call with 911 service ($1.50) and later added North America Unlimited ($19.95) and Voice Mail ($0) after testing the service for a few days. The ordering process was simple and there was only a short wait for a DID number because I wanted a number in a particular city. I used both older Sipura SPA2000 and SPA2002 adapters and the setup for both was simple and they worked on the first try. I really like the fact that CallCentric doesn't take over your adapter or need to go through a long registration process to get your adapter into their system. You just configure it and go. Their dashboard on the webpage gives you plenty of info without searching around. CallCentric support is awesome. I opened a couple of problems to do some fine tuning on the adapter settings and the support response time was measured in minutes and the answers were correct the first time. The call quality is great for both local and long distance calls. All in all, I'm very impressed with CallCentric.

member for 23.2 years, 835 visits, last login: 7.1 years ago
updated 14.7 years ago


Review by (hidden by request)

  • Location: Long Beach, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Tech support , features and price
VOIP does take somebody who is tech savy
My phone bill is now less than $30 vs $150
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

These guys are awesome. I just finished setting up two outgoing lines with
one incoming line that I ported over from Verizon. The porting took about 2
weeks and the phone number was only down for a couple of hours ringing busy.
Getting all of the settings correct on the Linksys PAP2T is not the easiest,
and if their tech support wasn't as good as it is, this could have been a
frustrating experience. Their tech support should be the standard for all
other companies. Their method of submitting a trouble ticket via your
dashboard (web page) is efficient and doesn't waste anyone's time. Yes, I
had to learn how to create a screen shot of my active browser window when I
had the Linksys settings on the screen and then upload the image to tech
support, but they even walked me through this process. They made it about as
easy and painless as the process could be. It did take a little fiddling to
get all of the settings right. But their responses were always timely and
accurate. In fact the last response I got only took about 3 minutes. Only
after I proved to myself that VOIP with CallCentric was going to work did I
port my number over. Now I will consider whether to move my two business
lines over to CallCentric, but this will require additional hardware and
methods that I haven't quite figured out yet.

(review was emailed from domain LBRE.com)
lodged 14.7 years ago


Review by Darkev See Profile

  • Location: Gatineau, QC, Canada
  • Cost: $27 per month (month by month)
Good customer service/care, Nice website with many features, Unlimited calling plans, CNAM
Call Quality not the best, Bill in US $ only
It's not the best VoIP company, but may have a promising future
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

I joined the North America Unlimited calling plan which cost me around $27 Canadian per month. So it was not a cheap VoIP service. I was with them from August 2008 until just before they brought in CNAM this year (2009). So I never had CNAM when with them. I found the call quality poor on two issues. One, they would disconnect my call after a certain time period. Two, there was a lot of warble and glassy type of sound which often has to do with high compression. I set my gateway to use G711U which is supposed to be high quality. Yet when I placed a SIP DEBUG dump on my gateway I noticed that CallCentric was always negotiating G726, and sometimes G729. I believe this had a lot to do with the audio problems I was having. They told me that they suspected it was because their main Canadian carrier was causing the issues and they said they could temporarily move me to a more expensive carrier to see if it helps. (More expensive to CallCentric, not more expensive for me.) The quality was better, but they did not leave me on the more expensive route. They switched me back to the cheaper carrier and my problems started up again. I've noticed that they are rated high when it comes to quality, but maybe that's only true in the US. I found in Canada the audio quality was worse than a horrible cell phone connection.

On a positive note, they assigned me a number immediately and I was able to provision my gateway immediately. They have one of the better systems for automatically assigning numbers. Their technical support staff were very helpful, and they got back to me within an hour usually of submitting a ticket.

I think this company is promising as they seem to be evolving. If they get their audio quality problems fixed, and increase the amount of time before disconnecting calls, that will fix them up. My main priority for any phone service is voice quality. That comes before all else. It's not good for the people I was calling either because they would complain about choppy and jittery sound. The best way to advertise voip is to ensure audio quality is as high as possible. If it is consistently high, it will surely help sell voip to the general public. When people are exposed to poor quality they get the impression that voip is inferior. Since call quality is of utmost importance to me, I unfortunately I had to leave them.

member for 15.2 years, 142 visits, last login: 1.2 years ago
lodged 14.8 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

3 edits

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

CallCentric

Thanks for interesting and detailed review.

As you said, maybe they have more problems in Canada than in their primary US market.

I have one question. You said they disconnected your calls after a certain amount of time. How long was it? They do have a stated policy of disconnecting at 2 hours.

Because I am a pay-as-you-go customer, I am actually glad that they disconnect at 2 hours, in case a call does not actually disconnect after I hang up.

It's amusing to me that you seem to view them as some kind of new company. They are actually one of the oldest providers.

Who do you view as best overall, in the Canadian market?
Darkev
join:2008-12-17
Kanata, ON

Darkev

Member

Re: CallCentric

Hi there,

I never said they were a new company, but they were evolving when I joined them, and after I left they introduced CNAM. I heard of them long before I signed up, and because they were around for a while I decided to try them.

Personally, there are NO perfect VoIP companies in Canada. Each one seems to come with a variety of features that are not completely consistent from one to the other. Which, of course, makes it more difficult to compare the companies because they all offer different flavors. For me, call quality is the most important. CallCentric did not have the call quality that I was expecting.

I left them in January/February. I rarely spoke on the phone for longer than a few minutes, but a close friend of mine was going through a terrible time and she called me and talked for an extended period 2 nights in a row. We were cut off both times. I called CallCentric about it and they informed me that their system does time out. I thought it was only one hour though. It may have been 2 hours. I don't remember now because my disconnects happened in 2008. I've used other voip systems and never had this happen before. Primus, Voip.ms, and Vonage did not disconnect my calls.

I cannot say which company is the best because I haven't found one yet that is my idea of a great voip provider. I think Future-Nine is the closest I've found thus far. Voip.ms has got some really cool features and they are VERY reliable. If they had unlimited calling plans I would likely switch to them completely. Future-Nine has been somewhat reliable, but as recently as this evening they were down. I tried calling someone and got a reorder tone. I checked my gateway and it wasn't registered with Future-Nine, but it was registered with voip.ms. I rebooted the gateway, same thing. It registered with voip.ms but not Future-Nine. I tried accessing their website and could not access the Future-Nine website either. About 20 minutes ago all started working again, including their website. Perhaps they had a huge power failure? I don't know.

I'm in the process of trying a couple of other VoIP companies. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that one of them will be the answer to my quest for a reliable voip provider that offers:

- byod
- consistently delivers excellent audio quality
- reliable connection
- free call forwarding
- Caller ID with CNAM
- Offers good customer service/tech support when/if needed

Review by pfmahoney See Profile

  • Location: Fort Collins, Larimer, CO, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Tech support is very responsive, good reliability, low price
none yet
so far, so good

My wife is European, and I went to university over there, and so we make a lot of international calls. We tried calling cards for a long time, but when home VOIP service appeared on the scene we switched to Vonage in 2002 or 2003. We used Vonage for several years and were generally happy with it. But then our Vonage service had a relatively large number of outages back in roughly 2005 - which may or may not have been our ISP, but I was pretty sure they were Vonage's fault. My wife and I grew frustrated with the phone not working. After Vonage, we tried Lingo, Packet8, Skype, and generally didn't like either the call quality or reliability on any of them. We switched to AT&T CallVantage back in 2005-2006 and stayed with them ever since. But last month, AT&T sent us a letter saying that they are cancelling the AT&T CallVantage service to focus on other things which left us without a phone company again. After some research - particularly the GBU list here at DSLReports - I decided on CallCentric. My ISP is Comcast's cable modem service and is roughly 6Mb down and roughly 1Mb up.

For my telephone adapter, I used a Linksys PAP2-NA box. I followed the instructions on the CallCentric website to set up the PAP2 box for the service, and it worked perfectly right away. It took about a week and a half to port my number but once that came over everything has been very smooth. The service works well so far - although time will tell if the reliability and call quality are consistent. I’ve been using it for a little over 2 weeks.

So far I'm pleased. Calls sound clear, the price is great, customer support has been very efficient, and it just works. There's a slight hiss to calls, but they are clear and there's been no problems like dropped calls or static or dropped voices or anything. Aside from the very slight hiss, call quality is excellent.

I like the whole BYOB concept. If there’s any real downside to CallCentric so far it’s that not a plug-and-play provider like service from a company like Vonage would be. I use the "would I sign my mom up" test for things like this, and there's no way that I'd hand my mother a Linksys PAP2 and aim her at CallCentric's generally-very-good website and expect her to come out of it with a working telephone system. She's unlikely to know what an IP address is and I don't think she knows you can type something that doesn't end in ".com" into a browser. I spent about 30 minutes or so getting everything set up. It required browsing through a lot of options on the PAP2’s web interface to get it set up, but since then, it’s been perfect.

member for 19 years, 8 visits, last login: 14.7 years ago
updated 14.8 years ago

Terabit
join:2008-12-19

Terabit

Member

can't go wrong

You cannot go wrong with these guys. I personally prefer configuring everything up myself, as I am able to configure my equip better than some support team at verizon, vonage and AT&T. The worst of them was sunrocket. The biggest clowns of them all.

You have a good point though. I think callcentric should look at offering some mom and pop style devices. That is, pre-configured and ready to go. There is a huge market for this type of consumer out there. Especially when factoring in their excellent pricing plan, business model and excellent customer service. Most of us here can vouch for that.

As long as they are not outlaying their own money to subsidize the equipment, it may be worth their while looking into it. Or they could even setup some sort of deal with someone else to sell / supply the devices.

Review by javaguy See Profile

  • Location: Burnaby, BC, Canada
  • Cost: $6 per month
Nice interface
automated "security" system that blocks genuine cusotmers
not worth the trouble
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

Although their web interface seems powerful you might run into the same problem like I did, where their magic "automated security system" blocks you from using the system due to "suspicious activity".

The words quoted are not made up, but actual messages the you get from their system.

Let me be clear: I subscribed, PAID, then my account was blocked, all in about 15 min. time, all due to a "suspicious activity". WTF is suspicious about paying for an account??

To be fair as well they refunded my money very fast, but I'll make sure all my customers (I work for an ISP) know NOT to use this system.

There is a very healthy competition out there:)

member for 14.9 years, 4 visits, last login: 14 years ago
lodged 14.9 years ago

PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

1 edit

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

You may want to look into this further....

I don't blame you for being peeved, but as you know, every Voip provider out there, large and small, no exceptions, has had problems with actual or potential fraud issues.

I'm sure you know this if you work for an ISP, and that you can understand the provider's side of the street.

I've been through the signup process for at least six Voip companies, and on all of them my funds were not instantly available. There was always a hold of some sort, either a few hours or a day. This was whether I paid by credit card directly, or through PayPal or GoogleCheckout.

Even signing up for regular POTS phone service these days will entail a credit check in most areas, and payment of a deposit.

It's too bad that things did not seem to go well with CallCentric. I hope that another outfit will work out better for you.

But whatever may have happened with CC may also happen with another provider, so you may want to see if you can get some more details from them. No company wants to turn away customers. It's not in their interest.

kendid
@witopia.net

kendid

Anon

Me too, but it's understandable!

I had my account blocked as well, for the same reason. But they had it cleared up within the hour... Did you contact them to find out why your account was blocked and if they would unblock it?

I've setup a couple of other people overseas, and they had the same problem -- but within an hour or two they were on the phone with no problems...

I've also encountered this with other VOIP providers... The way I look at it is they need to have this in place to keep their costs low -- otherwise there ARE people who take advantage of them, and in the long run US good customers end up footing the bill that these others run up.

CallC
@verizon.net

CallC

Anon

Re: Me too, but it's understandable!

Thank you PX, thank you kendid.

Yes, in order to be able to provide a real time payment and billing ability and allow consuming our services almost instantly after payment is done - we must protect ourselves from fraud which would take otherwise over 80% of total "income" (we have a complete statistics for over 4 years of our operation). In order to achieve the above goal - we invented many of our own as well as we use industry standard methods. I must admit that false positives probability, for someone legitimate, within USA and Canada, it's way below 0.01% (and our automated system corrects such a mistake if/when happens within less than a few minutes without even involving user's interaction).

Most notable are the cases when account is created from within USA (US based IP address), with with US billing (credit card or Pay Pal) address and even with E911 service registered in USA... and then boom - within next moment the user begins using our service from China... or Morocco... or some other place definitely beyond 5 minutes of run even at a very high speed )

Obviously - the lost/stolen credit cards and /or Pay Pal accounts - are very hot goods which must be consumed within very short time after purchasing them, no such thing as "wrapping to go"... ) therefore most fraudsters attempt all possible efforts to "invest" their goods into something which is also consumable immediately, better - not requiring shipping - we and most other BYOD service providers are the best target for such "investment".

Well, again, it's beyond scope of this article to explain how we do our job... but basically - if someone "looks like a fraud, walks like a fraud, smells like a fraud... etc." - causes our system to trigger a security alert and generate a number of specially crafted questions, which we already know the answers to - just need to get a confirmation from a user to understand whether the user is genuine or not. In a case when/if the user doesn't want to provide the answers - we simply leave the account open for free services while the paid portion is blocked, if the user cooperates and we get the verifiable answers - the account is allowed to go full service. Sometimes we may ask additional questions, sometimes - ask for verifiable [documentary] proofs. Most people [who already understand that they live in a most progressive 21st technological and digital century ] cooperates, especially because we ask nothing weird nor embarrassing... just something which allows us clear security triggering events. Some people go searching some other service... I must admit - we're selling our services internationally and have people from over 100 countries working with us without even knowing that we have any security measures implemented...

Should the user disagree to cooperate (or just never replies to our security questions) - we promptly refund any amounts we could have already received from previous transactions made by the user in question (in order to avoid bank/credit card charge-backs which exceed $20, per occurrence, for just ONE dollar of fraudulent or disputed transaction).

Well, on top of the above - the person in question (OP who registered to BBRs and posted this review at the same day) charged back their Pay Pal transaction at the same very moment when he received security questions from us claiming that we're scammers and that he never received goods he paid for. We, of course immediately refunded the money (that he admitted ) while attempted to explain our position (not a first time - the user is a "returning" pain). This user had already been blocked a year ago, on another account, and he refused to provide the information we asked to. We answered that he's more than welcome to keep using our free services, but unfortunately we can't provide paid service at that time. He said us "good bye, there are plenty of healthy competition around" (no doubt). We answered that if/when he may decide to come back - he'll still be required to provide the information asked... he sent us far away )

Well, here it comes again - the same person subscribed again and, of course, was immediately detected by our credit transaction system again and the same questions were sent again and the story repeated... this time with immediate Pay Pal dispute and lots of non PG/PG13 language used... We again provided several lengthy explanations - finally the review "landed" here... What amazes me - is why the guy rated our support at 20% - we performed multiple back and forth replies all within minutes of opening the issue in question... The service quality the guy couldn't even try, but he still rated it )

Ok, ok... if the reader is still not bored enough - here is our VP Operations reply to the user (we've got no replies back):
==
Hello,
To summarize the situation here:

1. You opened account: 1777xxxxxxx with us at: Aug 20, 2007 10:32:27 GMT/UTC.

You used this account until Mar 25, 2008.

2. On Mar 25, 2008 14:37:41 GMT/UTC account number 1777xxxxxxx was blocked due to a high risk transaction on that account; and you opened TT# MMMMMM-NN asking:
"I tried to add some funds from my paypal account and I got a message saying that the transaction was suspicious and it cannot go through...."

We responded to you at: Mar 25, 2008 18:51:40 GMT/UTC stating we need verification information from you.

On Mar 26, 2008 07:07:26 GMT/UTC you responded that:
"Well your automatic blocking of valid customers would cost you their business...as I cannot provide with all that info that has nothing to do with my account here.
The whole point of Paypal is NOT to share any of the private details of the account with anyone outside Paypal..so you are asking exactly this: completely absurd!
I am traveling in Europe now(in Romania) at the moment and I planed to use your service while abroad...from a few countries I go through.
At the end of the day you don't unlock my account, there are TONS of other VOIP providers that would be happy to have my genuine business."

We responded at Mar 26, 2008 18:24:04 GMT/UTC:
"Hello,
The information we have requested is already available to us through Paypal, we are simply asking you to verify this information before we can clear your account. While it is true that our fraud prevention system is aggressive, when certain flags are raised we must do this to protect not only our customers but our ourselves.

Of course you do not have to answer the questions, however this account and any other you may open will be blocked and remain blocked until you do. Thank you."

At Mar 26, 2008 20:58:55 GMT/UTC you responded:
"sure..good bye:)"

3. So at that point you had decided you did not want to provide us with the information we requested, and that you no longer wanted to use our service. As quoted above we stated:
"... however this account and any other you may open will be blocked and remain blocked until you do"

So now over 1 year later you decided to open a new account with us. Your account was blocked by our automated fraud detection system the moment it discovered the "relationship" between the account that was blocked over 1 year ago: 1777xxxxxxx and THIS account; as you were told would happen.

4. If you felt so "wronged" by us the first time your account was disabled 1 year ago why would you come back to us? If there is so much competition in this industry (which there is) why "bother" trying to use us if you already are so un-satisfied with how we work?

Our business (and the VoIP industry in general) has TONS of fraud hitting us. When we started this business almost 5 years ago, over 80% of transactions were fraudulent - hence, in order to protect our business we implemented and continue to improve upon both automated and manual fraud detection mechanisms to protect ourselves and our customers from fraud.

The methods we use for fraud detection are both industry standard, as well as proprietary. Most online merchants would "flag" transactions that show risk factors the same or similarly to the way we do it.

We do not compromise on our fraud detection mechanisms which have reduced our fraud rates from 80% to less than 1% and have allowed us to stay in business. Of course SOME people who certainly are NOT fraudulent will get caught in these methods no matter how good they are; this is why we ask for further information to do manual checks; and after we've verified the information we make changes to the account to prevent blocking in the future.

5. Your comment that we are a "scam" is really absurd both based on the definition of "scam":
»www.merriam-webster.com/ ··· ary/scam
»dictionary.cambridge.org ··· 142&dict...

and by the very fact that you ALREADY used us in the past, clearly saw we have a legitimate business (as much as you may not like our policies), and the fact that even AFTER you already were unhappy with us you still came back and tried to open another account.

It seems pretty unreasonable that if you were so unhappy with us and thought we didn't do a good job that you would come back and try us again even after you were warned that future accounts would be blocked.

I don't know what else we can say on this. You've gotten your money back by opening a PayPal dispute - which wasn't necessary, you would have gotten your money refunded within 1 day in any case.

If you wish to post negative comments about us on the Internet that is certainly your right; however you might want to consider showing both sides of the story by clearly stating this is the 2nd account you've opened with us, even after we told you more than 1 year ago any future accounts you opened with us would be blocked - because you didn't want to provide us with the verification information we requested. Again, it is your right to also not provide us the information we requested and not use our service, the same as it is our right to protect our business.

It's very clear that you don't like our company; now for the second time, so we hope you will find another provider you like better.
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan

Premium Member

Re: Me too, but it's understandable!

I agree that fraud is a huge problem with VoIP and you have every right to combat it. The way we do it is we manually (not automated - manually) verify each and every new user. This results in a slight delay of first payment - but this is actually a good thing because it keeps away the "we want it here and now" fraud-crowd.

What I don't understand though- you said the user started in August, but was blocked in March over half a year later. Why would you block a user after such a long time? wouldn't their usage history and payment history indicate they're a legit customer after so long?

I of course don't know the actual details. Just sounds like something you might want to review.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: Me too, but it's understandable!

Again, we don't know the details, but let's take a hypothetical case:

Consider a hypothetical customer who had paid for several months with PayPal-type transactions from Canada or US.

Then all of a sudden there was one from Moldova.

CallCentric wanted to verify it was the same person, not somebody who had hijacked accounts.

----------------------------------

I've had the same Amex credit card for many years. Yet on a recent trip to Hawaii, they started to hold up my transactions. I had to call them because they wanted to verify that it really was me! And I was GLAD, because they are trying to protect both themselves and ME from fraud!
nitzan
Premium Member
join:2008-02-27

nitzan

Premium Member

Re: Me too, but it's understandable!

said by PX Eliezer704:

Consider a hypothetical customer who had paid for several months with PayPal-type transactions from Canada or US.

Then all of a sudden there was one from Moldova.

CallCentric wanted to verify it was the same person, not somebody who had hijacked accounts.
What are the chances of a thief getting hold of both your CallCentric password and your PayPal password? it doesn't make sense.
I've had the same Amex credit card for many years. Yet on a recent trip to Hawaii, they started to hold up my transactions. I had to call them because they wanted to verify that it really was me! And I was GLAD, because they are trying to protect both themselves and ME from fraud!
I hate it when they do that. I travel a lot and the last thing I need is for the stupid card company to freeze my card while I'm overseas. Some card companies want you to go out of your way to notify them in advance blahblahblah but to me that's just another headache I don't need.

Keep in mind they're not protecting you - they're protecting themselves. You're not going to lose money on a fraudulent transaction - they are. There's a fine line between protecting the customer and annoying them.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

Re: Me too, but it's understandable!

Well, you yourself have pointed out on various occasions the massive problems that Voip providers face from stolen credit cards and such. So I know that you know where CC is coming from.

[Sidebar: Yes, the customer is protected with credit card transactions, but it's still a hassle. And the protection is not nearly as strong for debit cards.]

The guys who run CallCentric are smart folks. They surely don't want to chase away good customers. And if they do end up chasing away a good customer, well, then, that's a prospective customer for FutureNine.

I'll tell you this: If a Voip provider told me to go away, I wouldn't have come back a second time. I don't imagine that you'd want that at F9 either.
LB2064
join:2009-04-11
Newtown, PA

LB2064 to nitzan

Member

to nitzan

Yes, it does happen!

said by nitzan:

What are the chances of a thief getting hold of both your CallCentric password and your PayPal password? it doesn't make sense.
This is not impossible if someone breaks into your email account or if a user doesn't log off his/her email account in a public cafe. Just had this happen to a friend a few months back.

Bottom-line for me is that this individual had a run-in with CC a year ago so why did he/she come back?

In this day and age of fraud, we should all be tolerate of cross-checks and take the time to clear up questions from vendors. If we don't like the questions then we can move on. Afterall, the cross-checks are in our best interest.

So far, I have found CC to be very very responsive in assisting customers.

LB
peters4n6
Premium Member
join:2002-10-11
Tucson, AZ

peters4n6 to PX Eliezer704

Premium Member

to PX Eliezer704
said by PX Eliezer704:

Again, we don't know the details, but let's take a hypothetical case:

Consider a hypothetical customer who had paid for several months with PayPal-type transactions from Canada or US.

Then all of a sudden there was one from Moldova.

CallCentric wanted to verify it was the same person, not somebody who had hijacked accounts.

----------------------------------

I've had the same Amex credit card for many years. Yet on a recent trip to Hawaii, they started to hold up my transactions. I had to call them because they wanted to verify that it really was me! And I was GLAD, because they are trying to protect both themselves and ME from fraud!
Wouldn't the $$ amount of the above transaction be the real red-flag? If I travelled to Moldova and went to an internet cafe and added $10 to my CC account, why would that be a red flag? But if my deposits were typically $10 and my Moldovan deposit was $100, I think that would be more worrisome. The obvious next question is what VOIP companies do with deposits that are orders of magnitude greater than normal when done from the same location or even another location in the US/Canada.

By the way, I hate it too when AMEX locks me down. I rarely travel, but when I do...I travel. AZ to Atlanta to Costa Rica, for example, swiping my credit card at the airports along the way...result? My transactions in San Jose, CR are blocked because of too many swipes in too many locations in too little time. Part of this, I'm sure is due to the fact that I travel so infrequently.
Terabit
join:2008-12-19

Terabit

Member

No Brainer

A company protecting themselves against fraud is a no brainer.

Review by LaDude626 See Profile

  • Location: La Puente, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Cost: $4 per month
  • Install: about 1 days
Dirt Cheap DID is a great deal, very reliable, exellent qualtiy, responsive support
Outbound calls are expensive at 1.95c/min (I only use them for inbound)
High quality reliable service
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

When I was shopping for DID number, I was looking for the following:

-Affordable
-E911
-SIP URI forwarding
-Good quality
-Reliable

I think I found all that in Callcentric. I picked Callcentric over Vitelity because they offer free SIP URI forwarding. Other good features:

-Very good and user-friendly website
-Free CNAM
-Free INUM (order as many as you like)
-Call Treatment works well

Their Dirt Cheap DID is a great bargain but their other packages are a little expensive.

Something I wish they had (but weren't deal breakers): being able to pick your own DID number (they assign you one at the call center you pick).

member for 20.2 years, 83 visits, last login: 14.8 years ago
lodged 14.9 years ago


Review by deckrunr See Profile

  • Location: Agoura Hills, Los Angeles, CA, USA
  • Cost: $8 per month
  • Install: about 15 days
byod, payg, excellent origination quality, features and pricing
termination features and pricing
use in combination with other providers
Web-site:
Ease of Installation:
Call Quality:
Reliability:
Tech Support:
Value for money:

My situation: Residential main phone number (LNP to VOIP) in a household with another measured-rate fax line with DSL service, along with two cell lines.

Requirements: quality, reliability, features (caller-id, call waiting, voicemail), price

Callcentric specialty is origination (inbound) service. I started shopping in November 2008. Considered a few competitors but didn't like their T&C, Support, and/or size. Nearly all had some committment/term in the form of LNP fee.

Callcentric has the best documentation, amazing fulfillment, and most importantly the right customer attitude.

I set up a free account in January and tried them out with IPKall and sipbroker. Quality and service has been great. In February I tried PAYG termination which was also great but pricey. In March I initiated LNP which took 15 business days. My "monthly cost" reflects LNP + "Unlimited Personal" startup costs ammortized for one year.

I'm using my old Innomedia ATA with mysipswitch. Termination with Voxalot and Betamax. For most people, I recommend a better device and/or stick with Callcentric's great service for both the incoming and outgoing products.

I don't like that the system appends instructions to callers after your voicemail greeting to press 3 or # after leaving their message.

member for 22 years, 165 visits, last login: 10.2 years ago
updated 15 years ago