Today it’s Verizon, not T-mobile, that draws the ire of the Consumerist readers. Doesn’t anyone have some shit to talk about U.S. Cellular? We seems to be missing them this week. Anyway, John lives in different time zone than his girlfriend. He uses T-mobile. She uses Verizon. They wanted to use in-network calling, so John, being the chivalrous guy that he is, trucked on over to a Verizon store, ported his number, bought a phone, and thought that was that.

One snag: John hated his phone. So he bought a new one on Amazon. Then the trouble started. Despite checking several times to make sure his new Verizon Amazon phone would work, It didn’t. When he called Verizon, they told him he would lose his number if they transferred his number back to the first phone. What? Then they told him that if he wanted to keep his number he’d have to transfer back to T-mobile and then back to Verizon again. John says:

“It seems ridiculous to me that Verizon can not transfer numbers between 2 of their own phones (I know they were under two different contracts but both where within the 15 period) and their ‘solution’ was to return both and buy a third after I switched back to my previous provider?

Anyways, I was very impressed with how helpful t-mobile was in all of this when they knew they were going to be losing me as a customer (I am not so sure now as I am trying to find a way to get my girlfriend on t-mobile, even if it costs more).”

Way to go T-mobile, your retention efforts were successful. You should probably send a note to Verizon thanking them for their part as well. And Amazon for selling a customer a contract when they already had one.

Read John’s entire email after the jump.

I have been a t-mobile subscriber for about 5 years without any problems but unfortunately my girlfriend lives in another time zone so it has been hard only being able to use the free nights, which fall after 10 her time (she just signed a new contract so switching for her wasn’t an option).

I decided to switch so we can get the free in service calling between us. I went to the local Verizon store, purchase a new phone, ported my number (big mistake but first time I have done this). They told me ‘no problem, you have 15 days to try out’. Problem was the quality of the phone was really bad so I wanted to try a different one. I called Verizon first to double check I wasn’t getting myself into trouble before I purchased nicer model on Amazon (since it was $100+ cheaper then at the store). They told me as long as it was a Verizon phone I wouldn’t have any trouble switching my number over to that, even after I explained my other phone purchase and contract, as long as it was within 15 days. Once my new phone came that is what I tried to do. No luck. After a few hours on the phone I was told if I returned the bad phone I would loose my number and that I couldn’t transfer to my new phone. After more arguing I finally offered another solution which the operator hadn’t thought of – ‘transfer my number back to t-mobile, return both phones, buy a new verizon phone for the third time, then transfer my number again’. She stated that was the only way to keep my number if I wasn’t satisfied with the first phone and didn’t want to purchase a new phone at the Verizon store.

I then called up t-mobile, who were nothing but extremely helpful and friendly, and they mentioned I could transfer my number back to them, they wouldn’t require me to extend my contract even though my rate plan no longer existed and they could’ve, then transfer to my new Amazon Verizon phone, and only have to return 1 phone. I talked with Verizon 2 more times to make sure there was no way to transfer my number from 1 phone to another with no luck. I ended up having to transfer my number back to t-mobile, buy a new sim card, then transfer to my new Verizon phone. It seems ridiculous to me that Verizon can not transfer numbers between 2 of their own phones (I know they were under two different contracts but both where within the 15 period) and their ‘solution’ was to return both and buy a third after I switched back to my previous provider?

Anyways, I was very impressed with how helpful t-mobile was in all of this when they knew they were going to be losing me as a customer (I am not so sure now as I am trying to find a way to get my girlfriend on t-mobile, even if it costs more).

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