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These services and support SUCK!

Started by jnmarshall, November 14, 2015, 08:02:41 AM

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jnmarshall

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!


MurrayB

Check out Voip.ms it has been simple, good customer service, low rates, no porting fee, and faeture rich web site.

Good Luck!

jnmarshall

Quote from: MurrayB on November 14, 2015, 12:38:57 PM
Check out Voip.ms it has been simple, good customer service, low rates, no porting fee, and faeture rich web site.

Good Luck!

Interesting service. They are not on the list of support services here but I guess you just set them up as generic using the device's web portal instead of the dashboard? If their pricing is as advertised that over 50 hours of calling(in and out minutes) per month for the same $35. Their pricing is not very transparent as I suspect there's fees somewhere. But worth a call if Obi, Anveo, PhonePower and Ring.to can't get their $h!t together.

LTN1

Quote from: jnmarshall on November 15, 2015, 09:11:00 AM
Quote from: MurrayB on November 14, 2015, 12:38:57 PM
Check out Voip.ms it has been simple, good customer service, low rates, no porting fee, and faeture rich web site.

Good Luck!

Interesting service. They are not on the list of support services here but I guess you just set them up as generic using the device's web portal instead of the dashboard? If their pricing is as advertised that over 50 hours of calling(in and out minutes) per month for the same $35. Their pricing is not very transparent as I suspect there's fees somewhere. But worth a call if Obi, Anveo, PhonePower and Ring.to can't get their $h!t together.

For some people, OBi devices are not for them. It seems like this is your case. I'm not here to persuade you otherwise. If you can, just return the unit for a refund; cancel and reverse the improper charges through your credit card (if the VoIP companies won't do it for you). Go back to a landline or something like an Ooma. You deserve something that all it takes is to plug the jack in and push the phone buttons. The OBi units, while quite easy to the thousands that have used it, is evidently not made easy enough for about 5% of the public. While I wish that wasn't the case, it is acceptable business loss. Not every tech device is made for everyone.

jnmarshall

Quote from: LTN1 on November 15, 2015, 04:17:52 PMFor some people, OBi devices are not for them. It seems like this is your case. I'm not here to persuade you otherwise. If you can, just return the unit for a refund; cancel and reverse the improper charges through your credit card (if the VoIP companies won't do it for you). Go back to a landline or something like an Ooma. You deserve something that all it takes is to plug the jack in and push the phone buttons. The OBi units, while quite easy to the thousands that have used it, is evidently not made easy enough for about 5% of the public. While I wish that wasn't the case, it is acceptable business loss. Not every tech device is made for everyone.
The device is fine, great concept and easy to work with! And its working exceptionally well. Better then my old Sipura and Pap devices. Setting up SIP and VOIP is simple as I've been doing it for years. The issue here is the service providers. I can't control broken web pages and links as is the case with ring.to and Obitalk. Or service sign ups done incorrectly by sales reps at PhonePower and bad marketing, information and web design at Anveo.

jnmarshall

Quick update. So far after 90 minutes of hold and waiting for callback so far PhonePower is stepping up. I was told my account was still being setup and they would waive the porting fee. I was asked to email them my current service info for porting purposes to start the process. This evening I got a confirmation email that my service request (porting?) will be completed by the 19th. In the meantime I can use the current number to complete now. I successfully completed the obitalk registration with a simple press of a button!
I'll update after the 19th is the porting all goes well.

zorlac

FWIW, RT has been saying for months that they were going to update their web UI....well they recently did and their new interface sucks worse than the old one, now there are NO call logs on the new UI...WTF!  JMHO

Clive

Quote from: MurrayB on November 14, 2015, 12:38:57 PM
Check out Voip.ms it has been simple, good customer service, low rates, no porting fee, and faeture rich web site.

Good Luck!

ermm, Porting for USA numbers is only free for a limited time.

Quote from: jnmarshall on November 15, 2015, 09:11:00 AM
Interesting service. They are not on the list of support services here but I guess you just set them up as generic using the device's web portal instead of the dashboard? If their pricing is as advertised that over 50 hours of calling(in and out minutes) per month for the same $35. Their pricing is not very transparent as I suspect there's fees somewhere. But worth a call if Obi, Anveo, PhonePower and Ring.to can't get their $h!t together.

Voip.ms have been on the list of compatible services for over a year now. Their pricing is transparent and you are told about any fees you might be charged upfront - at least that's what I've found and I've been using them for many years.

If you're ever unsure of anything, you only have to ask them.

jnmarshall

Well, I promised an update after the 19th. So here it is.
RingTo and Groove are still broken. However I did get a response and have been emailing back and forth with their support about my account not working for a little over a week. They do not know how to fix it and claim they can't just delete it to let me start over again. I did waste $15 on the Anveo 911 and will not need it. Nor is it "required" as Obitalk claims and forces you to signup for that feature first. I was advised next time by RingTo support not use the Obitalk dashboard to signup for their services. More details can be found in this thread https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=10622.0
I understand porting to RingTo is questionable right now at best, this is per RingTo support posting in their community. Groove is not assigning numbers at this time and service registration is currently disabled. There is no ETA on when they will get their $h!t together. I can not recommend these services due to all the service issues. It is "free" but you get what you pay for. You also have the hassle of dealing with three businesses(?) none of which know what is really going on.

PhonePower updated me this weekend. Originally I was told porting was only going to take 3 to 5 business days. sadly I was given misinformation. I called last week after 5 business days for an update and was told porting takes 10-14 business days. This concerned me as my old service ends today on the 30th and I do not want to have to pay for another 2 years of services! The good news came yesterday when I received and email informing me the porting was scheduled for the Dec 1st. I called my old provider and they said that is the date they gave them to finish out my service agreement so there would be no potential for early termination fees and they provided the services I paid for two years ago. Kudos to my old provider. They have always been a great company. Unfortunately their VoIP services cost over $130/year. Again you do get what you pay for as 6 years never an outage and always there with immediate support.

My final services will be the Phonepower basics for $35/year with my existing number primarily for inbound calls and voice mail. For unlimited outbound calling I will continue to use Google Voice. This is all managed by the Obi202 and requires no changes to my contact info and no wiring or phone changes for the services to co-exist!

rolandh

Quote from: jnmarshall on November 30, 2015, 08:12:03 AM
Well, I promised an update after the 19th. So here it is.
RingTo and Groove are still broken. However I did get a response and have been emailing back and forth with their support about my account not working for a little over a week. They do not know how to fix it and claim they can't just delete it to let me start over again. I did waste $15 on the Anveo 911 and will not need it. Nor is it "required" as Obitalk claims and forces you to signup for that feature first. I was advised next time by RingTo support not use the Obitalk dashboard to signup for their services. More details can be found in this thread https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=10622.0
I understand porting to RingTo is questionable right now at best, this is per RingTo support posting in their community. Groove is not assigning numbers at this time and service registration is currently disabled. There is no ETA on when they will get their $h!t together. I can not recommend these services due to all the service issues. It is "free" but you get what you pay for. You also have the hassle of dealing with three businesses(?) none of which know what is really going on.


Neither RingTo or GrooVe IP are broken. GrooVe IP is 3rd party software published by SNRB Labs that can be used to access RingTo on an Android device. It has nothing, whatsoever, to do with accessing RingTo using an OBi. Perhaps, you're referring to the ability to use GrooVe IP to obtain a free RingTo number? It's true that RingTo is not accepting new account signups via GrooVe IP at this time. GrooVe IP continues to work just fine for accessing an existing RingTo account on an Android device.

It's also true that links from RingTo's ASP (authorized service provider) page on Obihai's website are broken as a result of RingTo's recent website refresh. RingTo needs to fix this. The workaround, for now, is to establish one's RingTo account using RingTo's website or mobile apps on Android or iOS, port one's number to RingTo then restore that RingTo account to one's OBi. I just deleted and restored one of my RingTo accounts to a spare OBi, quite successfully, within the last half hour. I initiated a port yesterday, which completed without incident today. New ports were suspended pending implementation of a new porting flow for one day roughly two weeks ago. The ability to port numbers into RingTo was restored on 11/18/15.

Anveo's E911 for RingTo is required to use RingTo on an OBi. It is not required if one wishes to use RingTo only with GrooVe IP or RingTo's mobile apps for Android or iOS.