It is not fraud. I just dealt with Vonage on this issue. A bug in Vonage's CallerID system (with phone numbers that had been ported to Vonage from another carrier, especially AT&T) can randomly display 240-865-7013 or 646-556-6196 (or perhaps other numbers) in place of the Vonage user's CallerID info. Attempts to call these bogus numbers will likely result in a message along the lines of "We're sorry, your call did not go thru. Please try again." or "All circuits are busy." or just a repeated tone which indicates an invalid number, etc, etc.
Vonage notes that a support ticket typically resolves this issue. Customer Service Reps can activate a monitoring tool, then have you unplug/replug the Vonage adapter, and then make 3 test calls. This activates the monitoring tool and allows their *engineers* to see the incorrect CallerID info that is being displayed to the receiving party. (I say engineers here, b/c the Customer Service Reps themselves don't have access to the data generated from this tool)
If you are a Vonage customer, and your number was ported from another carrier, and you would like to see if you are affected, here are some steps you can follow:
1) Call a phone number which attempts to recite your number back to you (such as PayPal's Customer Service number: 866-837-1851 - which says "We see you are calling from.....")
2) If it recites the correct number to you, then call any other number (such as AT&T's 877-325-0445, or Comcast's 800-266-2278), then hangup and call that same number in #1 again.
3) Repeat #2 until you hear an incorrect number recited.
Those steps above, including those same phone numbers in the steps, were enough to reproduce this issue for Vonage.
Here are related threads:
- http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-240-865-7013
- http://800notes.com/Phone.aspx/1-646-556-6196
I received a voice mail from Card Services tonight,they wanted to verify the number I was calling from and listed this number 240-865-7013, which of course is not my number. I called my bank and found out someone had stolen my credit card number and was using it to buy purchases that were suspect to my account, so they had put a flag on my account. I believe this fraud and the phone number are linked somehow. do not call this number to be on the safe side.
THE EXACT SAME THING happened to me on 2/8/09 with the stolen credit card number and my bank saying they had me calling from 240-865-7013. It isn't my number or the number I called from. I think it is linked to the fraud as well.