Short story...
A few days ago I started the nightmare of moving my landline over to a lower cost VOIP thru ObiTalk. My goal is to do this before my 2 year agreement is due for renewal at the end of the month. After 3 days I've spent $50 on services from Anveo and PhonePower and still do not have service. Now I'm being told to call back when their support opens on Monday!
Long story...
So I see "Free" from a provider
Ring.TO with a caveat that you have to buy a $12/yr 911 service from Anveo. Ok, I go for it. Obitalk FORCES you to Anveo site first to sign up for $15/yr 911 services. The falsely advertised $12 service does no exist. My first signup for some reason failed and required a support ticket and call to Anveo to fix it. At first I was greeted with "You need to call Obitalk, not us, it's their problem." Finally they delete my account and told me to start over. I asked where the $12 option was and they said that hasn't been offered for 2 years!
So I do my second attempt after 24 hours and get setup on a NON_REFUNDABLE $15 911 service.
Now the real kicker you return to Obitalk's dashboard and proceed to register for
Ring.TO and I'm greeted with a broken link! I return to the dashboard and try again. Still no WORKIE! I open an Obitalk support ticket reporting the updated pricing for Anveo and that
Ring.TO link is not working. I get a response the next morning from Obitalk saying
"Thank you for the information. Our internal team has been notified. As a courtesy follow-up, looks like all setup are within parameters and "Registered". Are you still experiencing issues?"
I respond back with "Yes. the problem still exist".
No response was received. But I found reading in the
Ring.TO Community, that you can read but not participate in TILL you have an account, that new registrations and signups are currently suspended!! WTF! WHY ARE YOU NOT TOLD THIS WHEN SIGNING UP ON OBITALK. WHY DOES ANVEO STILL COLLECT $15 FOR A SERVICE THAT CAN'T BE USED!
So moving forward another 24 hours, last nite I decided to choke up the $15 non-refundable fee wasted at Anveo and signup for PhonePower for $35 and they at least offer a 30 day money back guarantee. This is starting to turn into another DECEPTIVE SCAM. Again Obitalk sends you off to a custom page at PhonePower to sign up. I get to the second page where the instructions tell you that you must select a new number to start services. BUT there is a drop down to select a new number or use an existing number. So I first try the existing number expecting porting support per their signup FAQs. That fails. So I call and with the help of lady named Raven she walks me thru setting up new services. Contrary to PhonePower's FAQs on porting we select New Number. And she tells me that once my services are setup I can return to "myAccount" and start the port. I proceed and pay my $35. This morning I still have no services. I try to log in and the "myAccount" link either says invalid page request or 401 page not authorized. I precede to follow the FAQ to try and resync my Obitalk dashboard per the PhonePower FAQs. The Obitalk screen shots provided by PhonePower do not match the actual Dashboard. I guess it's also based on 2 year old information. I get to the step where I'm redirected to PhonePower and again it's ANOTHER BROKEN LINK with a 404 page not found or 401 Page not authorized!
At this point I call PhonePower. I select customer support and I'm told they are only available M-F from 9a-5p. So I go over to sales and speak with Ingrid where she looks up my account. It looks like it wasn't setup correctly. I also ask about the porting options and I'm told now that porting IS NOT FREE! There's now a $15 fee to port my number! I'm told now I have to wait till monday and talk to billing and support.
The only redeeming value here is I used a credit card and will at least have recourse to dispute all these charges if I can't get anything to on monday.
You have to realize there are TOO many chefs involved here between Obitalk, Anveo, PhonePower and
Ring.TO. Each is clearly clueless what the other is doing and they all say every thing is the other company's problem! It's becoming worth it to bite the bullet and pay the extra to stay with my current landline. This is an excellent example of getting what you paid for! Or in this case less services for more and more money!