It seems the way Vonage presents their 800 number traffic makes local resident calls to 800 numbers look like their out of market.
Since the receiving party pays, faux-pas like this are bound to happen.
The radio station uses the ANI (Automatic Number Identification) as a way to verify the caller’s name and address. It seems to me that Vonage must be masking that ID piece of the VoIP/SIP puzzle the same way blocked caller ID data causes the receiving party to get the locale of the POP that the call is being dumped into the PSTN (or used to.)
So do the math. The caller who won the $1000.00 would have had the money for almost four years of Vonage service if they had gotten through. YIKES!!!
Things are even worse here in Canada…
There is no regulation around toll-free numbers (as opposed as in the US) and, from my experience, most cellphone carriers do not provide the CallerId when you’re calling a TFN.
JA