Businessman: messed up Qwest-Vonage number transfer cost me $8,604.57

That's only one in a series of letters just posted by a Web site design and Search Engine Optimization company called Oregon Professional Microsystems LLC, describing a running account of what company owner Carl Townsend terms a loss of $8,604.57 in potential revenue due to a slow process involved in Vonage picking up his phone number from Qwest.

"For almost two months we were without any business phone," he writes in "Vonage & FCC Have Problems? - You Be the Judge!, an article he's posted to his site. "If you called us, you got only a dead line."

Townsend adds that during that interval his copany was paying regional Yellow Pages publisher DEX "$163 a month for advertising on a line that didn't exist. I had about 375 web pages out there with a phone number that didn't work. We were losing about $1000 in business each week."

Here's Townsend's timeline of the delayed number transfer between Qwest and Vonage:

4/3/2005 - We opened a new Vonage account with a temporary phone number assigned by them.

• 5/22/2005 - We sent a letter of authorization to Vonage to transfer our existing business number from Qwest to our Vonage account.
• 5/22/2005 - The letter was sent from Vonage to Qwest.
• 6/21/2005 - Qwest (according to them) notified Vonage that the number was transferred to Vonage. This is a normal delay. The number remains active during this time.
• 6/23/2005 - Qwest drops the number, as Vonage should have picked it up by now.
• On 6/23/2005 the line went dead.
• 8/11/2005 - After numerous requests, Vonage picks up the number and service is restored.

In September, Townsend filed a complaint with the FCC. The FCC contacted Vonage and Qwest, and ask that his phone number was restored to Qwest. Vonage has granted this request (which a wag would call a re-Qwest request) but as you can see in the letter at the tip of this post, said in essence that Qwest did not handle the initial number transfer application efficiently - and that Vonage should not be held liable for any business losses incurred by Townsend during the time his transfer request was being processed.

Oh,and Qwest? For their part, they appear to be saying that although the process might have gone smoother, and this particular case could be a learning experience for them, they consider the dispute closed.

Here's a screen shot of the letter Qwest sent to the FCC (eyestrain alert: letter is blurry).

And Townsend? Not a happy camper to say the least. Townsend writes on his site that action items for him include continuing "to press for Vonage and the FCC for them to pay up with interest and fix their problem so it doesn't happen again."