Complete Nightmare - I sure hope Voipo does better porting OTHER people's number

[GracieAllen]

On about 9/1 I agreed to have Voipo provide voip service from my Centurylink landline. At that time I was told "the port will be automatic"... At no time was I informed Voipo would need any paperwork from me. On 9/3 Voipo paid themselves and I receive an email stating such - the RECIEVED AN EMAIL IS IMPORTANT... On 9/5 the little box arrived and I hooked it up. In the box was a statement that I'd be receiving a "welcome email". After receiving nothing, I called a few days later inquiring, and the csr sent me "another" copy of the welcome email, WHICH I RECEIVED IN THE EMAIL ACCOUNT LISTED FOR VOIPO (just like the WE PAID OURSELVES EMAIL). I ALSO inquired about the number port, and was told "It's in process and should take 7 to 10 days." NOTHING ELSE. NO INDICATION THAT THEY WERE WAITING ON AUTHORIZATION OR THAT THE MOON HAD TO BE IN ASCENSION OR WHATEVER.

Called AGAIN several days later (while on the road) to ask about the porting. THIS TIME I was told they needed an authorization form that had been emailed to me... No form of any kind from Voipo in the email. Asked the CSR to RESEND IT and ALSO TO SEND IT TO AN ALTERNATE ADDRESS THAT ONLY EXISTS ON MY CELL PHONE. He COULDN'T... I kid you not, I had to TAKE A PICTURE OF MY DRIVER'S LICENSE AND SEND IT TO HIM SO HE WOULD SEND THE INFORMATION FOR THE AUTHORIZATION TO MY CELL..... But, I did so, and he ASSURED me the email had been sent AGAIN..... No email on the computer. NO EMAIL ON THE CELL PHONE. Next day... STILL no email on ANY DEVICE telling me how to fill out the authorization to port the number...

On 9/16 CenturyLink disconnected the old number, as it SHOULD have been ported to Voipo...... No phone. Inactive. Can't get calls from anyone on that line. This some 15 days AFTER signing up and WELL AFTER the 7-10 days I was told it would take.

Finally, called AGAIN from the road since I hadn't gotten any emails. Got a CSR who just kept repeating "I'll resend it to the email." when I kept says IT'S NOT GETTING TO THE EMAIL. During this period, I DID continue to receive spam from Voipo encouraging me to switch to their voip service, so clearly the email worked... Eventually, I got to a supervisor who resent the email with the link to the authorization to both the email AND my cell, and MIRACLE OF MIRACLES it popped up in seconds on the cell phone, and a few minutes later in the email......

Did a lot of stupid gymnastics to get the form printed, signed and scanned (not the easiest task when in a campground in the middle of nowhere) so I could send it back, and did so. And requested in the email that as this had now been going on for some EIGHTEEN DAYS that they expedite things and get it ported as quickly as possible.

On 9/21 got the "it sucks to be you" email of "request reminder were sent to the email address you used when you sign up. Please confirm if nnnnnnn is active because we can only port a number that is active. "

Great... Since Centurylink did their job and kept the number active til long after it SHOULD have been ported, I'm STILL screwed 'cause Voipo won't port it since it's inactive.......

Called Voipo yet again, got a CSR, asked for a supervisor and got one that disconnected about 45 seconds into the call (and no, I hadn't been screaming OR swearing)...

Called BACK. Got a different supervisor that appeared to be sufficiently interested to TRY and get things working. I was informed that I WOULD HAVE TO CHASE DOWN CENTURYLINK AND GET THE NUMBER MADE ACTIVE 'cause there's nothing Voipo can do.

Shortly after hanging up with that supervisor the ORIGINAL supervisor that had disconnected called me on the non-functional phone line (it apparently has some hidden voipo phone number) and confirmed - yup, nothing we can do. It's not active, we can't port it. Don't care what the problem is. Not our problem. Totally disinterested, please go away.

Called Centurylink. Got a CSR who SUPPOSEDLY went and got a supervisor who CHANGED THE NUMBER TO A STATUS WHEREIN IT COULD BE PORTED.

Called Voipo BACK. Got the supervisor that had tried to help and indicated that Centurylink has now made the number port-able.

Got an email yesterday afternoon that the port request had been dispatched.

Got an email TODAY that the request was REJECTED AGAIN BECAUSE THE NUMBER ISN'T ACTIVE.

Called Voipo again, got the supervisor and was told - yup, can't do anything, number's inactive. Don't know. Call Centurylink. Get the supervisor that made it port-able and contact info for us.

Called Centurylink AGAIN (this has now been going on for 19 days, number has been off for 7 days, port still hasn't been done, going to take at LEAST 7 MORE days) and got a person that MADE THE NUMBER "ACTIVE" YET AGAIN... (Don't know why or how it had stopped being active since yesterday, if in fact it had, but...)

Called VOIPO again, gave the supervisor the Centurylink information and SOMETIME tomorrow the number will become active and Voipo can once AGAIN try to port it........


Why wasn't I told at the time of signing up that an authorization was needed? And provided with the link at THAT time to get said authorization?
Why am I able to receive notification that Voipo has PAID ITSELF, AND THEIR DAILY SPAM, but NOT the email with the link to the form to authorize the port - UNTIL it was finally, actually sent by a supervisor?
Why, when I called in and explained I WAS NOT getting any email was I not GIVEN the URL to the form so it COULD have been handled before leaving town, BEFORE Centurylink disconnected the line at the end of the billing cycle?
And on and on.

I don't know what everyone else's experience has been, but based on THIS experience I'm totally unimpressed with how Voipo handles something that should have been TRIVIAL AND AUTOMATIC. In the totality of wasting HOURS of time on the phone with both Voipo and Centurylink I found exactly ONE person at Voipo with sufficient interest to TRY to get this resolved, and even then it primarily involved telling me to make repeated called to Centurylink to provide information to Voipo. I understand that customer service in recent years has declined to the point where it's effectively dead, but this is astonishing even to me.

[VOIPoTim]

Hello,

Sorry to hear about your bad porting experience.

We verified in our system that the e-mails with the porting form were delivered successfully to your e-mail in our logs, but they may have gotten caught in your SPAM filter so we apologize for that.

I'm going to pass this on to our Operations Manager and he'll reach out to you to make sure it's handled. He will get in touch with you shortly.


Best Regards,

Timothy Dick
Founder/CEO
VOIPO.com

[rb101]

I agree with you GracieAllen. I just had a number ported today and it was a mess. The port was on/off several times and at one point I was receiving calls for another number. What you call the hidden number is actually a temporary number they assign you. They kept saying that I was receiving calls for the temporary number. I know what the temporary number was and it definitely was NOT the temporary number that I was receiving calls for. At some point during the porting process they assigned the wrong number.

Then later when I placed an outbound call my number was displaying as a number in a different state that is 15 hours away. Later I called support and asked if the port was completed and the guy said yes. In the process he wiped out my SMS. When I called back they stated SMS is not available in my area, even though it was there previously. I know this is wrong for three reasons. 1) The SMS was working fine on this account until I called support. 2) I have another number, in the same exchange, that was ported out from Verizon to VOIPo and it has had SMS on it for several years. 3) A coworker in my town has VOIPo and also has SMS on a number ported from Verizon to VOIPo. The coworker's number is in the same exchange as my number.

What burns me up is that customer service looks at their computer and comes to a conclusion that they are right based on what a computer tells them. It reminds me of the time when the US Postal service argued with me that a package was delivered to my house because their computer said so. I kept telling them I never received the package. They would not listen to me or believe me because their wonderful computer said it was delivered. The next day, an honest neighbor brings me the package. The post office INCORRECTLY delivered it to his house.

I told the customer service rep why he was wrong. He finally agreed to look into the problem and promised a call back within 15 minutes. The call never came. It seems that they do not really care. Several years ago, I had another problem with my caller ID outbound not displaying properly on another number I ported to VOIPo. At that time I received a call from a company called Bandwidth who said that they were the troubleshooters for VOIPo. I kept all their contact information. I decided to give them a call. Well, unfortunately, they are unable to work directly with a customer because there is no trouble ticket. But they did give me a little info. They stated that when a number is ported, there are two areas--one for voice and one for data. Data being the SMS (text messaging). According to them, the voice was set to port from Verizon to VOIPo, but the data fields were left blank. Supposedly they do it this way, because it is possible to have one provider for the voice on your number and another provider for the SMS on your number. In my case, since the data was left blank or deleted or whatever they did, I have no SMS now.

So since their troubleshooters do not work directly with customers, it seems I am going to have to call VOIPo again tomorrow and hopefully find a rep who understands this or cares enough to do something to fix this mess.

[GracieAllen]

The good news is that apparently Timothy Dick, CEO of Voipo stops in here periodically. I got an email from one of their managers, who at least made the effort to get things moving... In theory, they'll porting the number sometime tomorrow, so though it took a month, and an incredibly number of hours and phone calls, and a huge amount of frustration that I believe could have been avoided, it MAY get done so I have a land line again.