VOIP Tech Chat → Misrouted calls

Over the last month or so, I've had a bunch of misrouted calls to my toll-free (1-866) number. It all started on August 20, when we received a large number of calls from area codes in the NYC metro area and Texas. The callers all spoke Spanish, we could only hear one side of the conversation and the callers could not hear us. I don't speak Spanish, but according to my girlfriend the callers were discussing everyday things - going dancing, for instance.

I put in a trouble ticket with voip.ms and they offered to do an internal port to another carrier. I'm not sure if that actually made any difference, but since then the calls have slowed to a trickle, one every few days.

Just a little while ago, I received a call from 979-647 (a Windstream number in Sweeny, Texas). This call was a little different in that the audio was in English and it kept cutting between different people. I heard the fragments "Hi Joe, I'm making this call 'cause of the audio separation", "You have reached the Canadian University in Havana" and "Your call has been disconnected due to a misdialed number."

Does anyone have any theories what could cause this and what to do about it? Due to the area codes involved and the Spanish language, my guess is that a phone card company aimed at the Spanish-speaking market is somehow misrouting calls.

And here's the audio from one of the first calls I received (recorded when the voicemail picked up).

As in Cuba? AFAIK the official language of Cuba is Spanish - so if it is a carrier in Cuba causing the mixup, that might explain..

Similar occurrences previously documented.

»[VoIP.ms] VERY weird behaviour tonight

I would assume Cuba, yes. Googling for "Canadian University Havana" doesn't turn up anything interesting, though. It's possible I misheard, but I don't think so.

The "I'm making this call because of the audio separation" piqued my interest. It sounded like an engineer leaving a voicemail for another engineer to discuss audio problems. Possibly "audio separation" could mean that someone is losing one leg of their calls and it gets routed to me.

Interesting. That seems to be more about outbound calls than inbound though - otherwise its an almost identical phenomenon.

I wonder if the OP is on the receiving end of callers experiencing that problem with their outbound calls.

Are you being charged for these calls?

Yes, I am being charged. I expect no legitimate calls from Texas, so I guess I could blacklist those area codes but I'd rather not do that with NYC.

Is there a reliable way of checking the RespOrg for a toll-free number, especially considering the number was recently ported?

Yes. Visit http://www.800forall.com/ and enter the number into the search box in the upper right hand corner of the page above where it says "Who owns this number." It will tell you the resporg.

Thank you! My number is apparently with Navigata Communications. Hmm, hadn't heard of them before. Also, I believe this is not the same carrier that Mango was having trouble with.

are you sure they didn't say Arcadia University in Havana ? The do have a student residence there close to The University of Havana »studyabroad.arcadia.edu/ ··· in-cuba/

Oh, that would make sense! Thank you. I wonder how a call to them found its way to me. I've asked voip.ms to look into this with the carrier, so we'll see what happens.

They had a major ownership change this year, which was interesting for 2 reasons.

First, it involved the company called "Teliphone" whereas in my opinion there should be harsh punishment for making "cute" company names that are common words purposely spelled wrong.

Second, they said that it was easier to sell Navigata operations than to audit its books.

»globenewswire.com/news-r ··· ion.html