PhonePower has hidden fees for GV transfer
bnwitt:
I just thought I would let everyone who is considering moving their Google Voice numbers over to PhonePower know that you will be surprised with a hidden fee when you contact billing to get your GV # ported over. No where on the sales pitch page courting Obihai users do they say anything about a # change fee. The page says:
Q: Can I simply port my Google Voice phone number to PhonePower?
Yes, however you must initialize the service with a new number. We can switch your number after activation.
Oh and yes they can, for a $15 dollar fee per number that they call a "number change fee". All of a sudden that great 1 year service deal just got a little less great. Now I'm stuck with two numbers I didn't put a lot of thinking into choosing on my OBi202 unless I want to spend $30 to get my two GV #s ported over. This is a very deceptive and dishonest practice. I will be reporting them to the BBB and FBI for this deception.
Johnny:
As far as porting GV numbers to another provider, at the moment Voip.ms and Future-nine are offering free ports.
Probably gonna be a couple bucks more a month, but well worth it in my opinion.
Report PP to the BBB and FBI? :o
A little drastic, don't you think?
AlanB:
Well it's not truly hidden as the Terms of Service clearly state: Any requests for a change in telephone number are subject to a fifteen dollar ($15.00) change fee.
However, I do fully agree that it's not necessarily intuitive that porting a number means this fee applies. Thanks for pointing it out to everyone.
Michael_Reeder:
$15 is reasonable. I do wish however that PP would make this more obvious in their listings of cost and porting procedure upfront. When outlining a procedure for new customers, outline the WHOLE procedure.
While we are on the topic of porting, don't forget that Google Voice itself requires a $3 unlocking fee. That, and you have to know how to unlock your GV phone number for the port -- this is easily found in their online help, but is not as far as I can find available from any of the regular options within the GV account. You also have to set-up a Google Wallet for the account that your GV is under. For me, this was highly annoying as I set-up Google accounts and special email addresses utilized ONLY for Google Voice. So now I have to create (and later delete) special Google Wallet accounts with my credit card info in them just so I can pay these one-time $3 fees. Grrr.
https://support.google.com/voice/answer/1316844?hl=en
www.google.com/voice/unlock
Perhaps the idea of unlocking first is obvious to VoIP veterans and folks used to moving URL domains from one hosting provider to another -- but it will not be obvious to newbies.
I'm tempted to say that $15 +$3 = $18, but I think I'll avoid math for now given my recent posts. ;)
-- Michael
AlanB:
FYI. GV does not charge the $3 unlocking fee if you ported your number into GV.
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