Altafiber phone issues impacting Milford business: ‘If we can’t call people back, we lose a job’

CINCINNATI — Small business owners in Milford are demanding action after they claim an Altafiber update that was supposed to block robocalls, is stopping them from contacting their customers.

The owners of Bacher’s Window Cleaning said their Altafiber phone issues started about a month ago. First, calls to their customers wouldn’t go through and now, they are showing up as spam on caller ID.

After weeks of trying to resolve the issue with Altafiber, the Bachers asked us to get involved, as they said it’s impacting their business.

“If we can’t call people back, we lose a job,” Helga Bacher said. “Legitimate businesses are getting snared up in this, and that’s my problem that I have with this.”

Bacher said she first reached out to Altafiber last month after a customer informed them their business phone line was showing up as “potential spam” on caller ID. Other times, calls weren’t going through at all.

“They can call us, but we can’t get through to them,” Bacher said. “Yeah, I’m upset about that. Because that’s a job lost.”

Bacher said she called Altafiber to report the issue, and they told her they implemented a new robo-blocking system.

She said she has called them almost every day for the last three weeks, and they haven’t fixed the problem.

“I cannot get anyone to answer me,” she said.

Bacher worries they will lose customers.

“If it (caller ID) says spam, and I don’t know that number, I’m not answering it,” she said. “It’s very frustrating because we are a legitimate business, and so when we call somewhere we’d like to show up as that and not spam. Especially because we’re paying for a business line.”

I reached out to Altafiber on Friday to ask what was causing the issue, and what the Bachers could do to fix the problem. On Saturday, Altafiber called Bacher to let her know Bacher’s Window Cleaning had been taken off of the spam call list.

“Why are we still on their spam list?” Bacher said.

On Monday, the Bachers called a customer to test it out and make sure the issue had been resolved. The customer on the other line confirmed Bacher’s Window Cleaning was still showing up as spam on caller ID.

“If they took us off of their spam list, why are we still showing up as spam?” Bacher asked.

I reached back out to Altafiber on Monday afternoon to inform them the Bachers were still showing up as spam and asked what other businesses should do if this happens to them.

A spokesperson with Altafiber provided the following statement:

“Altafiber uses software to reduce the number of spam calls that our landline customers receive. In the event a business finds that its number shows up as spam for Altafiber landline customers, they are asked to contact Altafiber at 513-565-2210 to request their number be “whitelisted.” This will resolve any issues the business may encounter when contacting Altafiber landline customers.

Please note this “whitelisting” only applies when the business calls an Altafiber landline customer. Calls to another provider – for example a wireless provider – may still show up as spam due to that provider’s network configuration.

We are working with this business to ensure their phone calls to Altafiber landline customers do not show up as spam and assisting them with getting their number registered on the industry-wide Free Caller Registry.”

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