Ooma Forums

My porting requests were going so smoothly until today:

Prior to starting the Ooma service, I had three phone numbers with Verizon, ending in 94, 64, and 26.

My primary home line ended in 94. I had distinctive ring service on this line for a fax machine ending in 64.

My home office had a dedicated separate line, ending in 26.

After setting up Ooma, I completed a port of the home office number (26) on Oct 8th without any issues.

I then opted to port my fax number (64), which was the distinctive ring service. After that completed, however, Verizon disconnected service for both the distinctive ring number (64) and my home number (94).

I called Verizon and after a few inept folks telling me I could get my number back, but needed to reestablish my account, complete with a credit check, I relented and let Verizon do the credit pull. After 60 seconds after the credit check, I was told I could not have my home number back (94) because it had been ported. Apparently, when the distinctive ring number (64) was ported, Verizon ported both 64 and 94.

Since I ultimately wanted to move 94 to Ooma anyway and had even initiated a port this morning (before I knew what a mess this was), I stopped with Verzion and called Ooma to see if we could just finish the port of 94 over to me. I basically got scripted responses that the port for 94 was just ordered this morning. After more explaining, I was told I should not have cancelled my service prior to the port (Duh! I didn't.) I tried to explain several times that according to Verizon, Ooma already has the 94 number ported to them. Nevertheless, I was instructed to reestablish service with Verizon and do the port again.

Wonderful.

So, now I'm waiting for a call back from the Verizon rep to see if they can unport 94, set up my landline again, and then I can port it (again) to Ooma. I might be fully moved over to Ooma in a few months.

As usual, customer support reps (at Verizon or Ooma) don't seem to be able to work through complicated problems, just the simple things I could have figured out for myself. If you have a slightly complicated problem, too bad.

If Verizon is right and they really screwed up and ported your 94 number to ooma along with your 64 number.....

Then, ooma can still activate the 94 number if today's date is less than 30 days from when 64 completed porting.

If more than 30 days, then 94 port would be cancelled automatically in the national database and Verizon would then have 94 to give back to you to re-establish your Verzion account. In this case, you'd have to re-start the port process for 94 if you want.

I'd email the ooma porting dept directly and bypass the customer service (or call cs and ask for porting dept): loa@ooma.com
Have ooma activate your 94 before 30 days is up.

lbmofo,

After calling the Verizon rep five times yesterday and never getting through, leaving voicemail twice, I opted this morning to take your advice and have described the situation to the loa@ooma.com e-mail address. My fingers are crossed that Ooma can put a happy ending to this mess.

If nothing can be done by midweek, I'll start contacting Verizon again to see if I can sign up as a new Verizon customer, get my old number back, and thenstart the porting process over again. Fortunately, since my home number was ported and turned off on Thursday, I am still pretty early in the 30 days before my number gets turned back over into the wild for reassignment.

After 30 days, the number is still yours but back to Verizon the carrier and not Ooma.

Hello,
I have a question about number porting.
I have a line with ooma and a line with Magicjack the line with magicjack is long distance in my local area now, would it still be a long distance number when it is ported over to ooma, or would it be a local call?

Please help me with this question
Paul

Number porting just changes the company providing service when a person calls that number. If it is currently long distance for some callers, it will remain long distance for those same callers - you'll just be answering it on different equipment.

Well, I e-mailed Ooma porting support at loa@ooma.com and was told, in short, that they had already "helped" me during the phone conversation and had confirmed Ooma doesn't have my phone number ending in 94 and if I want it on Ooma, I need to get the service active on Verizon again and then reinitiate the port at a later time.

So, back to Verizon. The fun thing with Verizon is that they can't tell me anything until after a credit check. After three conversations with them, I now have three credit inquiries on my credit report, but that's another story...

Anyway, I tried to set up new service with Verizon, and the representative wasn't able to because the "94" number shows in their system as "not a Verizon number." At this point, I volunteer more information, explain that the number appeared to have been ported along with the 64 number accidentally when it wasn't supposed to have been. The rep volunteers, "Okay; no problem. We can just port it back."

It turns out Verizon can't port it back because when they enter the number to be ported, it is shown as "Not an active number" because Ooma hasn't made it active. So, according to Verizon, the number belongs to Ooma, but it's not active. Therefore, Verizon can't give it to me because it's not theirs and they can't port it because it's not an active number any longer.

Meanwhile, Ooma claims they can't help me because they didn't port it.

Warning to folks considering ports: you might just lose access to your ported number altogether since both your current carrier and Ooma can claim it's not their problem. Nice, eh?

Doesn't smell right.

I'd email ntoy your number and ask him to check the status of it in the Number Portability Administration Center (NPAC) database. See if Verizon is telling the truth about Ooma having the number (just needing to activate it).

As a follow-up, I got a surprise call a few days ago from Bill, the porting manager at Ooma, who acknowledged the complexity of the problem and took ownership of its resolution. After a few hours of research, Bill discovered that the third party, One Communications, that Ooma pays to do the porting did indeed have my "lost" 94 phone number and it was available to be given to Ooma. (So, both sides were telling the truth: Verizon didn't have it and neither did Ooma. Also, it's unclear if One Communications or Verizon made the error, but I wasn't interested in administering blame, just getting my phone back.)

Anyway, within a day or two of that discovery, Ooma was able to port this last number over and now all three of my old Verizon numbers are now on Ooma. Hooray! I can now resume being a pretty satisfied Ooma customer. Fact is, Ooma customer service will follow-through, but it might take a little poking to get escalated to the right folks, which is more than I can say from my experiences as a Verizon customer for more than a decade.

Thank you, all, who contributed to this resolution.