Chicsuntimes

Toll-free call system fails

October 4, 2001

BY MARK SKERTIC STAFF REPORTER

Thousands of people trying to order flowers by phone, make hotel reservations or buy something from a catalog Wednesday got mainly busy signals for nearly four hours. In Illinois and elsewhere around the Midwest, it was impossible to get through to toll-free numbers at the start of the business day.

Ameritech's computer system for handling toll-free calls failed, leaving much of the Midwest unable to reach numbers with an 800, 888, 877 or 866 area code.

"It was a software problem," company spokesman Aaron Schoenherr said. "It had nothing to do with call volume."

The toll-free server system went down about 8:15 a.m. Partial service was restored at 9:30 a.m. By 12:10 a.m., the entire system was operating, Schoenherr said.

There was no evidence that anyone outside the system had sabotaged operations, he said.

The service interruption was worst in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio, states in which Ameritech has about 12 million customers. But toll-free calls elsewhere--even calls from one coast to another--also might have been affected if a company was using the Ameritech database.

The company, owned by SBC Communications of San Antonio, has no way of knowing exactly how many tried to make calls that never went through, Schoenherr said.

The problems didn't affect all toll-free calls coming into the area. Many of those calls were completed.

Operators at some of Bank One's call centers, who normally would have been busy, spent Wednesday morning waiting for people to call and ask for help. Customers who use the automated bank-by-phone system also were unable to get through during much of the morning.

While frustrating, it could have been worse, Bank One spokesman Tom Kelly said. "A Wednesday morning is much better than a Friday payday, when people are calling to see if their check got in,'' he said.

Visa and Mastercard, both of which use phone lines to transmit information about purchases, reported no problems nationally.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Answers

Okay, made my little trip to the store and while checking out, two people ahead of me where using credit cards, they couldn't call them in to verify. When I ask the gal at the checkout what the problem was, she said something about the phone lines or something to that effect and then another gal chimed in and said they could do it at the main customer service desk but not at the checkouts. Didn't make any sense to me.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

That sounds like an in-store computer problem! It happened at our supermarket on Monday. I was chatting with the manager yesterday and he mentioned it, didn't ask him for details but I got the impression it was an in-store thing.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001

Maybe worth keeping an eye on other computer problems we see.

-- Anonymous, October 04, 2001