Amazing Porting Problem - Is ooma this inflexible?

[dferrey]

I signed up for ooma last week. I received my new phone number (ends with 6). Since Premier is free for the first 60 days, I sign up for a second number (ends with 7). I did this to validate ooma can do what I want with my home office line and home line.

It works great. So now I want to port my existing home number to ooma. I follow the online process but notice the form says my ooma phone number is the one that ends with 6. Thinking the porting of my existing number would replace the number ending with 6, which I don't want, I call support. Then the fun begins...

The guy keeps telling me I will need to pay 39.99. I keep telling him I just purchased premier so my port if free. He tells me this is my third port so it's 39.99. Huh? third port? Yeah, my first port was the number that ended with 6? WTF?

Finally I think we figured it out. The ooma form was telling me the number ending with 6 was simply how I'm known in ooma (it's my primary number) and that number will stay but the number ending with 7 will be replaced by my ported number. That's exactly what I want so I thank him for his patience and help and go back to the form.

Now the form is saying what billing it should use to pay the 39.99 so I call back and get the same guy and we start the dance again. It's my third port so I have to pay. Then he puts me on hold and now is telling me since I'm still on trial (60 days) I can't port a number, sigh...

I've asked him numerous times to please get someone else to help me because he and I are unable to communicate.

I currently have two ooma numbers (ending wth 6 & 7). The 6 number is on my hub and the 7 number is on my scout. I want to port my existing AT&T number to replace the 7 number on my scout. Am I asking to much?

[Groundhound]

The inclusion of porting with premier is for the annual subscription, not the free trial period. You can subscribe for a year and the term will be appended to your free trial period.

[bw1]

I think he says that he's subscribed to Premier. Did you get an annual subscription for $99.99?

If you did that and you are still in your 60 day premier trial than I believe you can get one port included with the premier subscription. You may have to pay for it and then have it refunded. I know there were some others that went through that process.

I would confirm with support. Hopefully, you can get it escalated or get someone from support who knows the process.

It's best to select the option to subscribe to premier for a year and get the port included when you pay online.

You can definitely start a port while you're in your free 60 day premier trial.

[dferrey]

Thanks for the replies

I did subscribe to Premium for a year. I finally got off the phone and hope things will move forward but at this point I'm a little concerned.

There was no indication on the porting indicating which of my existing ooma numbers would stay and which would be replaced by my ported number.

The 39.99 charge should not happen, but hopefully it can be corrected if it does. It would be nice if the online system would have noticed I paid for the Premier subscription and indicated on the billing page that there would be no charge. My Premier subscription was noted in my Account/Services page.

My pickiness on which ooma number stays or goes is based on the fact that my original number (one ending in 6) cannot be moved off the shared device which is in my home office. I had created a home office device which was the hub and a home line device which was for the scout. I could move the second line (one ending in 7) to the home line (scout), but I couldn't move the one ending in 6 to the home office (hub) device.

[bw1]

In your porting request that you email to loa@ooma.com, you can specify which number you'd like to keep as your secondary number. Your ported number will of course, become your primary number and the number that you use to log in to the lounge.

I wouldn't worry about losing the number, they'll keep the number in a nonassignable pool for about 60 days. On the day that the port completes, if it's not setup the way you wanted, send an email back to loa@ooma.com and they'll take care of it.

I was in a similar situation, where I wanted to keep the primary assigned number as my second number after my port completed. When the port completed and it wasn't that way, I sent an email and within an hour it was corrected.

[scottlindner]

The 39.99 charge should not happen, but hopefully it can be corrected if it does. It would be nice if the online system would have noticed I paid for the Premier subscription and indicated on the billing page that there would be no charge. My Premier subscription was noted in my Account/Services page.

I purchased Premier first, and then opted to port. I had the same concern you did. The online system has no smarts so it even asks you for payment information again when you schedule the port. I was never charged for porting so let's hope you will not be either.

Scott