Porting Delayed- OOMA process is horrific/incomeptent
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 4:47 pm
So I read through the forums and all before I initiated my port (and I made sure I was happy with call quality, which I was). I was pretty sure I understood the port process well, but low and behold, OOMA’s process is beyond a joke.
They don’t even follow their own instructions!
I’ll give a chronology... and maybe someone can explain the insanity of this.
Dec. 29
1) port request submitted to bring my number over from Verizon.
2) Received confirmation email back from email about the port request in progress.
3) got an email update about my port. Note the DSL section, it will be important later. Note that it says OOMA RECOMMENDS separating your DSL prior to porting, but not REQUIRES.
-------------------------
Dear xxxxxx,
Your porting order has been updated with an estimated completion date of 01-19-2011. Note that this date is an estimate. A second notification will be sent when your phone company has confirmed the date of transfer.
Please take this opportunity to review that the following information is correct and exactly matches your most current phone bill:
Phone Number to Port: 6178689346
Carrier: VERIZON
Name on Phone Bill: Arik marks
IMPORTANT: Any information that does not exactly match your most current phone bill will result insignificant delays in the completion of your order. In addition, you will be responsible for change fees of up to $200 that may be levied by our carrier if your order needs to be changed, corrected or rescheduled within five business days of your port completing. PLEASE take a moment now to check and double check all information. If you have any concerns or have any corrections that need to be made, contact an Ooma customer support representative immediately.
IF YOU HAVE DSL: If your Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet connection is associated with the phone number you are trying to port, your DSL service will be cancelled on the day of transfer. Ooma recommends that you do not proceed with transferring your phone number until you have separated your DSL from your phone line (dry-loop DSL). If your port needs to be rescheduled for any reason within five business days of your port completing, you will be responsible for change fees of up to $200 that may be levied by our carrier.
---------------------------
Dec 30) My ooma settings/port status shows progress on the port and a scheduled date of completion to be by 1/19 (which is absurdly long to do this but that is a tangential issue)
Jan 4) I checked my ooma status page and noticed that it had gone from 1/19 as of the night prior to now saying “Porting Status : There was a problem displaying your porting status. One or more fields may be missing. Please contact Ooma support for more information.”
OK, I’ll bite something is wrong.
- Called OOMA, hit 3 on IVR to get to porting problems. Rep thinks about it for a minute and says something about line sharing problem. I don’t know what this means so I ask for an explanation. Rep says she doesn’t know either she’d have to check with the porting department. I ask to speak to them but they don’t speak to customers. WHAT? Let’s let the rep who doesn’t know what this means yet is answering calls about porting issues play the telephone game between me and the port department? ABSURD.
-So, I ask for a supervisor. Put on hold for a few minutes and the phone is answered. When I ask if it’s a supervisor, it isn’t. WHAT? After a few minutes they explain that they had been told what my problem was by original rep and they would look into it for me.
- They inform me it’s the line sharing and that there is DSL on the line I want moved. This is where it gets interesting
I explain that I had cancelled the DSL on my old Verizon line since DSL is my backup system and I use my cable modem as primary internet anyway.
She then asks what I put on my LOA page. I say, well I think Cable, probably not DSL, why? She hems and haws, and I repeat the info again so that she knows I followed all instructions properly and am very confused.
In the meantime I ask why I wasn’t notified about the problem and am told that I was emailed either today ( or perhaps the day prior). Funny thing. No email from OOMA. Nothing in my spam folders – and I never delete ANYTHING, even spam – and I have received all past correspondence from OOMA. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOUR EMAIL SYSTEM?!?!?!?!?
- At this point she puts me on hold to look into it. 20 minutes later.. after hearing only dead air I presume I’ve been hung up on and give up (it turns out that ooma- a telecom provider, can’t even spring for a recording thanking me for being on hold, but prefers dead air as its preferred method of letting you know you are on hold……)
-Now I am steamed and call back asking for a supervisor, who as it turns out is knowledgeable and on the ball. (Though this helps me very little) What I find out astounds me. On the 29th or 30th OOMA had promptly checked with Verizon and discovered I had DSL on my line (I Must have cancelled DSL later that day). As a result, they take 5 days. FIVE!!!. to update an error status on my account and not email me. Why? It turns out that counter to their own TOS and the info in the email quoted above, whenever this happens they contact the customer to make sure that they don’t get pissed when the port happens if they lose DSL. A nice thing for the people that can’t follow instructions perhaps, and had they called me or emailed me on the day they found out I Wouldn’t object, but a 5 day lag? (and no I don’t care that there was a holiday…an email should be auto-generated asking me to call in as soon as any issue might have been noted…)
1) WELL I USE THE CABLE MODEM 2) THEIR LETTER SAYS RECOMMENDED DSL DISCONNECT
Am I the only one that follows instructions?
-But wait, it gets worse! Once I have clarified all of this (and proven that my email address works just fins as I have received a bunch of other ooma emails) I am told that they will resubmit my port request and it should be done in 3-4 weeks. It hit’s the process juts as if I had never made the request in the first place….there is no way to expedite it! WHAT?
You would think that when the error is entirely on OOMA’s part that they would put my request in queue ahead of all new requests, but no! SO now I am subject to even more delay. And we all know that it doesn’t take 3-4 weeks to port a number. Verizon told me they answer all requests in like 3 days max.. and clearly they responded within a DAY to OOMA’s initial request. What is the story with the operational backlog? This is ridiculous.
So lastly I say I want service credit. The super says he cant do that unless it takes more than the 30-4 weeks (from today, not the initial request for port). WHAT? They make the errors (plural), I follow the instructions to the letter on my end, they don’t follow their own emails, they don’t actually send their emails to me etc…. yet I am not compensated for the loss of over 70 minutes of my time in dealing with them, plus whatever extra I pay Verizon in waiting on the port?
Time is money…. And money is the ONLY reason anyone is switching to a VOIP service. All things being cost equal we would use a landline POTS situation because it’s fidelity and reliability cannot be beat.
Can someone from OOMA please explain how their process can be so horribly, fatally flawed? I’ve run into some silly stuff dealing with call centers and telecom companies, but this is the dumbest set of circumstances I’ve seen yet….
Not off to a good start OOMA….
EDIT. After writing this up, i rechecked the my ooma/status of port page and it says I am now scheduled to be done by 1/25.
Step Completed Comments
Order received Received order on Dec 29, 2010
Information verified Your porting info was verified on Dec 29, 2010
Port initiated Number port is estimated to complete on Jan 25, 2011
I lost a week due to this BS?
They don’t even follow their own instructions!
I’ll give a chronology... and maybe someone can explain the insanity of this.
Dec. 29
1) port request submitted to bring my number over from Verizon.
2) Received confirmation email back from email about the port request in progress.
3) got an email update about my port. Note the DSL section, it will be important later. Note that it says OOMA RECOMMENDS separating your DSL prior to porting, but not REQUIRES.
-------------------------
Dear xxxxxx,
Your porting order has been updated with an estimated completion date of 01-19-2011. Note that this date is an estimate. A second notification will be sent when your phone company has confirmed the date of transfer.
Please take this opportunity to review that the following information is correct and exactly matches your most current phone bill:
Phone Number to Port: 6178689346
Carrier: VERIZON
Name on Phone Bill: Arik marks
IMPORTANT: Any information that does not exactly match your most current phone bill will result insignificant delays in the completion of your order. In addition, you will be responsible for change fees of up to $200 that may be levied by our carrier if your order needs to be changed, corrected or rescheduled within five business days of your port completing. PLEASE take a moment now to check and double check all information. If you have any concerns or have any corrections that need to be made, contact an Ooma customer support representative immediately.
IF YOU HAVE DSL: If your Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) Internet connection is associated with the phone number you are trying to port, your DSL service will be cancelled on the day of transfer. Ooma recommends that you do not proceed with transferring your phone number until you have separated your DSL from your phone line (dry-loop DSL). If your port needs to be rescheduled for any reason within five business days of your port completing, you will be responsible for change fees of up to $200 that may be levied by our carrier.
---------------------------
Dec 30) My ooma settings/port status shows progress on the port and a scheduled date of completion to be by 1/19 (which is absurdly long to do this but that is a tangential issue)
Jan 4) I checked my ooma status page and noticed that it had gone from 1/19 as of the night prior to now saying “Porting Status : There was a problem displaying your porting status. One or more fields may be missing. Please contact Ooma support for more information.”
OK, I’ll bite something is wrong.
- Called OOMA, hit 3 on IVR to get to porting problems. Rep thinks about it for a minute and says something about line sharing problem. I don’t know what this means so I ask for an explanation. Rep says she doesn’t know either she’d have to check with the porting department. I ask to speak to them but they don’t speak to customers. WHAT? Let’s let the rep who doesn’t know what this means yet is answering calls about porting issues play the telephone game between me and the port department? ABSURD.
-So, I ask for a supervisor. Put on hold for a few minutes and the phone is answered. When I ask if it’s a supervisor, it isn’t. WHAT? After a few minutes they explain that they had been told what my problem was by original rep and they would look into it for me.
- They inform me it’s the line sharing and that there is DSL on the line I want moved. This is where it gets interesting
I explain that I had cancelled the DSL on my old Verizon line since DSL is my backup system and I use my cable modem as primary internet anyway.
She then asks what I put on my LOA page. I say, well I think Cable, probably not DSL, why? She hems and haws, and I repeat the info again so that she knows I followed all instructions properly and am very confused.
In the meantime I ask why I wasn’t notified about the problem and am told that I was emailed either today ( or perhaps the day prior). Funny thing. No email from OOMA. Nothing in my spam folders – and I never delete ANYTHING, even spam – and I have received all past correspondence from OOMA. SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH YOUR EMAIL SYSTEM?!?!?!?!?
- At this point she puts me on hold to look into it. 20 minutes later.. after hearing only dead air I presume I’ve been hung up on and give up (it turns out that ooma- a telecom provider, can’t even spring for a recording thanking me for being on hold, but prefers dead air as its preferred method of letting you know you are on hold……)
-Now I am steamed and call back asking for a supervisor, who as it turns out is knowledgeable and on the ball. (Though this helps me very little) What I find out astounds me. On the 29th or 30th OOMA had promptly checked with Verizon and discovered I had DSL on my line (I Must have cancelled DSL later that day). As a result, they take 5 days. FIVE!!!. to update an error status on my account and not email me. Why? It turns out that counter to their own TOS and the info in the email quoted above, whenever this happens they contact the customer to make sure that they don’t get pissed when the port happens if they lose DSL. A nice thing for the people that can’t follow instructions perhaps, and had they called me or emailed me on the day they found out I Wouldn’t object, but a 5 day lag? (and no I don’t care that there was a holiday…an email should be auto-generated asking me to call in as soon as any issue might have been noted…)
1) WELL I USE THE CABLE MODEM 2) THEIR LETTER SAYS RECOMMENDED DSL DISCONNECT
Am I the only one that follows instructions?
-But wait, it gets worse! Once I have clarified all of this (and proven that my email address works just fins as I have received a bunch of other ooma emails) I am told that they will resubmit my port request and it should be done in 3-4 weeks. It hit’s the process juts as if I had never made the request in the first place….there is no way to expedite it! WHAT?
You would think that when the error is entirely on OOMA’s part that they would put my request in queue ahead of all new requests, but no! SO now I am subject to even more delay. And we all know that it doesn’t take 3-4 weeks to port a number. Verizon told me they answer all requests in like 3 days max.. and clearly they responded within a DAY to OOMA’s initial request. What is the story with the operational backlog? This is ridiculous.
So lastly I say I want service credit. The super says he cant do that unless it takes more than the 30-4 weeks (from today, not the initial request for port). WHAT? They make the errors (plural), I follow the instructions to the letter on my end, they don’t follow their own emails, they don’t actually send their emails to me etc…. yet I am not compensated for the loss of over 70 minutes of my time in dealing with them, plus whatever extra I pay Verizon in waiting on the port?
Time is money…. And money is the ONLY reason anyone is switching to a VOIP service. All things being cost equal we would use a landline POTS situation because it’s fidelity and reliability cannot be beat.
Can someone from OOMA please explain how their process can be so horribly, fatally flawed? I’ve run into some silly stuff dealing with call centers and telecom companies, but this is the dumbest set of circumstances I’ve seen yet….
Not off to a good start OOMA….
EDIT. After writing this up, i rechecked the my ooma/status of port page and it says I am now scheduled to be done by 1/25.
Step Completed Comments
Order received Received order on Dec 29, 2010
Information verified Your porting info was verified on Dec 29, 2010
Port initiated Number port is estimated to complete on Jan 25, 2011
I lost a week due to this BS?