For over 25 years Big Blue Sightseer, the whale watching boat located at 4500 Park Blvd, has had the phone number 1-800-2GO-WHALEWATCHING. Somehow Verizon messed up in 2017 and accidentally gave their number to a new business. Now the Big Blue Sightseer is fighting back.
Charles Schumann or just simply Captain Schumann, filed a suit on November 14th and is seeking damages for the loss of revenue and the cost of promotion materials such as newspaper advertisements, flyers and coupons.
What had happened was that Schumann called version at the end of the 2016 summer season to have the number placed on hold. This is a common thing down at the shore as many businesses are closed from the end of October until April.
When Schumann got the number turned back on he was unaware that he didn’t get his number back. It wasn’t until patrons starting coming to his business complaining of a “straight-to-voicemail” on their number did Schumann investigate.
Verizon claims that they are unable to just give Schumann his number back.
