Interesting story here for us -- curious to see what anyone else may think since we've been in contact with 10+ Verizon reps over the last week or so, and have spent 15+ hours on phone/chat trying to get this resolved. Hoping to not waste any more of our and the support reps' time here.
Here's the timeline:
- Dec 3, 2022: We placed an order for a new port-in line from ATT to a new iPhone 14 Pro device on my existing Verizon Account.
- Dec 15, 2022: New phone was marked as "delivered" by UPS, but we never experienced a delivery attempt.
- Dec 21, 2022: After working with UPS and Verizon, the phone was officially declared lost/stolen by UPS. Verizon placed a new replacement order for us.
- Dec 27, 2022: Second order out for delivery. UPS reports an exception on the delivery attempt. After more back and forth with multiple UPS reps, someone calls us back from UPS Loss/Fraud and says they are holding the second package for investigation and would work with the shipper (Verizon) to conduct research. They say they haven't lost it, but wouldn't provide any further details as to why they are holding it. We work with Verizon to see if they can work with UPS to clear things up. Verizon says all looks good from their end, and that we need to wait for UPS.
- Dec 30, 2022: No update from UPS still, so we contact Verizon customer support and they help us cancel that order and will have UPS return the package to sender so we don't have to wait for the investigation to clear. Verizon helps us place a THIRD order now, but this time for in-store pickup so we don't have to deal with UPS. We're able to pick it up successfully (believe it or not), and take it home to try and activate.
- We try to activate using the self-service instructions, but come to realize that we are unable to receive SMS/Phone calls to the new VZW device (they still go to the old ATT device)
- We get in touch with another Verizon rep, who informs us that the port transfer pin they have on file from ATT was invalidated/outdated and that we needed to request a new one from ATT.
- We get the new pin, submit it to Verizon's port portal and it appears to be accepted. We get a message now saying, "Good news. Your previous service provider has approved your number transfer request. We'll send a text to your number when the transfer is fully complete."
- The Verizon rep says this is good, and that the port should complete and should work the next day.
- Dec 31, 2022: Spoiler alert--it does not work. No change in behavior, still unable to receive SMS/Phone calls to the new device.
- After some online research, it seemed some folks had to double check with their original carrier to ensure the line was fully "released" to be ported. We contacted ATT, and rep coincidentally did confirm that they needed to perform an additional action to release the line. Strange.
- We notify Verizon of this in the morning, and they take action on their end to reinitiate the port/activation process. They say they expect the port to complete in a couple hours, perhaps by the end of the day.
- At this point we've spoken to Verizon reps from general customer service, activation specialist, and port specialists. They are all unsure why the port hasn't completed yet. I will note that the port reps went above and beyond to make sure to call us back throughout to day for a status update.
- Unfortunately, still no change by the end of the day, the VZW reps said they'll check back with us after the new year.
- Jan 1, 2023: Still no change, and we are still unable to receive SMS/Phone calls to the new VZW device.
We'll continue to work with Verizon on this, but curious to know if anyone has experienced this level of difficulty during a port, or any sort of transfer from one carrier to another, and am wondering how things ended up. I know some folks online have said they had to have their carrier reps take some rare specific action that resolved everything, but couldn't find anything that applied to ATT/VZW specifically.... any thoughts/guidance appreciated!
