Welcome to Cell Phone Hell

I love watching the T-Mobile commercial about bringing your wireless number over to them. This way you won't have to call all your contacts and let them know that you have a new number. They make it seem like it's so easy and you'll be so glad that you did. My experience with this was a six week ordeal.

I had grown weary of using AT&T wireless as my cell phone had become rather antiquated, but more importantly, I hated my reception. So, I did the research and found that T-Mobile had the best prices. Not only would I have more minutes, free accessories, and the all important no digital roaming nationwide, but I would also get a free phone. There was a $35 activation fee, but that cost was offset by the number of accessories(leather case, extra faceplate, car charger, and belt clip).I contacted T-Mobile and got the ball rolling. Boy, was I excited.

My package finally arrived from T-Mobile and it contained all the goodies as promised.
I installed the SIM card and awaited the text message confirming that my old cell phone number had been ported. That message didn't arrive like it was supposed to. That's when I called T-Mobile for the first time.

The customer care consultant apologized and checked the records to see what was going on. The consultant explained that I needed to give it another day and it should work. So, I gave it another day.

I gave it two days and there was no text message. I called T-Mobile back and talked to another customer care consultant. This one was more helpful than the first because they gave me a temporary phone number to use while waiting for my old one to get switched over. They went on to say that it might take a week to ten days for the whole process to go through. I thanked them and the clock began anew.

While waiting for the port to complete. AT&T Wireless was on the news due to the sheer number of people who were in the same boat that I was in. The process is supposed to take a few hours at the most and there were people who had been waiting for over a week. The FCC was taking a large number of complaints and asking AT&T what exactly was going on. This was not encouraging to me.

So, that time came and went with no change. I made my third call to T-Mobile and asked what exactly was happening. They said that process had begun, completed, and then started again. It had looped twice. They apologized and told me they would waive my activation fee. I thought that was fair enough. I got a call with an automated message the following day apologizing and announcing my activation fee would be waived.

I gave it some more time. I now had two cell phones with two different numbers. The new one had remarkable clarity over the other. It was also smaller, had more features, and a color screen. I would play the bowling game in it to pass the time and to use up the last amount of energy when the battery was dying. I figured I'd give T-Mobile another week. My AT&T bill arrived.

Yes, that's right. My AT&T bill arrived. When you are porting a number, you cannot close the account of the number you are porting. I had to call T-Mobile about this as their deal was about to cost me money, since I would have to pay their bill as well. I let another week go by and told them of my situation. They said that they would credit my account because of the difficulties they were experiencing. A trouble ticket with T-Mobile can take up to two weeks to be closed.

I was now unhappy with my situation. At this point, I do not know how many times I have called T-Mobile. I had even called AT&T to see if they could shed any light on the situation and they couldn't. I gave T-Mobile another week to see what would happen.

Enough time had gone by now at this point that I had received yet another bill from AT&T. It had all become a blur of numerous calls, long waiting times, and no one knowing what was going on. It was time to throw in the towel.

I called T-Mobile and I got a rather nice gentleman in the number porting department. He did so much to try and get the number ported, even going so far as to contact AT&T, but gave me some rather interesting news. There was a file that contained information on porting my number that couldn't be opened. I asked who could open it and he had no idea.

At this point, I had enough of this endeavor. I thanked him for his help and told him to close all porting requests. He apologized and transferred me to customer service. I told the customer care consultant my plight and that I had received my first paper bill with none of the credits on it. She credited my account and I told her that the same thing would have to be done next month as I was calling in the middle of the month.

Upon the conclusion of that call, I contacted AT&T to tell them to close my account. I explained the situation to the consultant there and demanded my account be credited. They offered to transfer me to their number porting departmen which I subsequently declined. Since I was an AT&T customer for seven years and hoped that at some point I would switch back, she credited my account and pro-rated it for the current month.

I cannot say how many other people experienced the number porting nightmare that I did, but this system they have in place now sucks. I never want to go throught this experience again and if I can say anything to you all, it's just go ahead and get the new cell number. I still have to call T-Mobile one more time and hope I never have to talk to them again. Their service here in my area is awesome, though.