VoIP | Online Savings Blog

Credit Card Activation Fails Over VoIP
04.24.08 | Money Management, VoIP | 0 Comments | by junger

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Debbie and I just got our new credit cards yesterday (the old ones are expiring in May) and, like with all new cards, they needed to be activated.

So I called up the 866 number on the front of the card, listened to the automated voice, put in the card number and found out I couldn't activate my card.

The prompt told me it couldn't verify my location — even though I was on my home phone. And then it hung up.

I tried the international number on the card, but even the real people couldn't help me — they kept on forwarding me around with no success.

Turns out, it's my use of Vonage for my home phone that prevented me from activating my card. Since Vonage is a VoIP service (it runs over the Internet), you're not locked down to one location like with a plain old telephone service (think of it like your cell phone).

Automated systems can't determine your location, and for some reason the credit card company needs to know where you are to activate the card. Pain in the ass, right?

Long story short, I had to call up our credit union (which issue the card) and, thankfully, they've run into the situation before. They were able to activate it with no problem.

free website hit counter