If you’re considering porting your mobile phone number to Google Voice instead of to a new carrier, consider this: free or inexpensive phone services have a hidden expense: customer service. When Peter’s number port didn’t work, Google’s customer support structure left him with no real-time support options and no way to get the attention of anyone who could actually help him.

Having had a Google Voice account for over a year and reading about porting over your number I decided to do the same with one of my business cell accounts. I was switching all of our cell phones from ATT to Verizon and decided on this last one that rather than port the number over to Verizon I would port it to Google Voice and at the same time setup a new account and number with Verizon. Should be almost a seamless operation I thought.

I first setup a new account with Verizon and received a new phone and number, activated that and was good to go on that end. Having dealt with enough technical issues in the past I decided to wait till last Friday to start the porting process. So at 6 pm on Friday I started the porting with Google. They took my money, started the process and I got an error within 20 minutes, I had input the wrong security code for my ATT account. I resubmitted and received notification that the porting was in process.

Did not hear another thing for over 24 hours, which is all right because it says it can take that long. Late Saturday night when still no change and well over 24 hours I submitted my first request for help. Then Sunday morning I checked the account and still says it is in the process of porting my number, way over 24 hours. Checked my ATT phone and the service no longer works. Ok making progress, checked again in a couple of hours, no change, except for the fact that if I call my ported number it goes directly to Google voice mail. I can see the voicemail transcript on my account, but the account status still shows as the porting process is pending. Since the porting process is pending I cannot add a new phone, the tab for phones doesn’t even exist on the site, so I am stuck.

I then begin my attempt to contact somebody at Google Voice for help. GOOGLE HAS NO HELP! I have submitted forum requests, payment processing problem requests, call my paid Google apps customer service, which said they know nothing about Google Voice. Tried calling Google offices, the plan fact is they don’t want to talk to their customers. I tried a Facebook posting nothing.

It is now Tuesday morning 8am and I am still exactly where I was on Sunday morning. I cannot receive incoming calls, I cannot cancel the porting, I cannot do anything. Basically Google has taken my phone number and hijacked it.

The really frustrating part of this is that they want you to believe that contacting them through their system will solve issues but it doesn’t. I am hoping that maybe you have contacts or can apply some kind of pressure to get this resolved. This cell number is used for business and at this point customers cannot contact us.

My next step is to contact my State Attorney General’s office, the FCC and anyone else I can think of. Since it was a Federal law that required porting maybe they are interested in the abuse of the system.

So much for customer service at Google. I tried calling the various Google offices also, but they have the same voice mail system at every office and tell you they don’t offer real time support. I guess you get what you pay for is still true.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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