Verizon caused a phone system glitch that made it impossible to call many customers' banks and other businesses.
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Customers, including me, began to contact companies complaining that their customer service numbers would not work. They claimed that they could not return calls as it was either a busy signal or a dialed message. According to Google search activity and social media reports, the outage seems to have affected Capital One and TD Bank, Wells Fargo and Jet Blue, as well as unnumbered other companies.
Gizmodo tried to contact each company's customer service number but was unsuccessful. It is not clear what caused customer service calls to be blocked. A representative from Capital Ones' customer service department tweeted that they were experiencing technical problems with their call centers. He recommended calling back within 2-4 hours.
A spokesperson for TD Bank confirmed the outage in an email and stated that it was due to issues with toll-free numbers.
The spokesperson stated that phone service at U.S. customer support centers was temporarily affected by issues with a vendor's toll-free number. This issue is being investigated as soon as possible.
We have reached out to other companies for comments and additional information. We will keep you updated when we get back from them.
Users also reported Verizon outages. A spokesperson for the company confirmed that its systems were experiencing issues with toll-free numbers in a statement shortly after publication.
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An issue occurred earlier this evening that affected certain toll-free numbers. The spokesperson stated in an email that technicians had identified the problem and services were restored. We are sorry for any inconvenience.
According to DownDetector user reports, the problem started on Wednesday at 7:30 PM ET. Customers who are in urgent need of assistance or to report fraud can find it extremely frustrating.
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This week has been, at least, a lesson in the fragility and vulnerability of our systems. Facebook's entire network crashed on Monday, taking with it Instagram and WhatsApp. It returned six hours later, much to internet's dismay.
You can wait and pray that this is resolved quicker than the Facebook outage.
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Update at 11:25 ET: The problem seems to be resolved, with calls to Capital One and TD Bank now being processed.
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Update at 11:57 ET: Verizon has added a statement.
Update at 12:25 ET on Oct. 7, 2012: According to representatives from Verizon and TD Bank, the issue has been resolved
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Lucas Ropek provides additional reporting
