The first three days I was patiently anxious. I went in to the store on a Saturday, and besides a little hesitation by the guy who helped me, I was confident in their abilities to do this for me. You see, I screwed up their system just a little bit by buying the phone in Marlyand, although with a Durham number, and then coming home to get it switched. It appeared to be no problem.
Monday rolls around and nothing, not even a phone call. And their little internet thing to check the status of the port was about as useful as Bobblehead Dan.
Wait, scratch that, I've gotten more use out of Bobblehead Dan.
So I called customer service. They direct me to the port center, who tells me they don't have the form that the store was supposed to fax to them. I asked them if I could just deal directly with them. No dice. She asked me to call the store and have them resend the fax. Yeah, because that worked so well the first time.
Tuesday. Still nothing. I understand that this thing may take up to 4 days to happen, but in my case, the port center still didn't know I wanted to port my number. That's a big problem. I called customer service again. The kind gentleman this time told me to fax the form myself (the guy gave me a copy on Saturday) and that he was going to fill out an "internal memo" to get things going a little faster.
Wednesday. I go back to the scene of the original crime. I can't even sum up the beginning of this conversation in a paragraph. Here are some highlight quotes, perhaps in order, but probably not:
Customer Service Rep (CSR): I don't know
CSR: (Silence) Hmm
CSR: TNC's can take up to five days
Me: I'm not concerned about how long it takes. I'm concerned that they haven't even started
CSR: I faxed it. That [my form plus a new sheet of paper] is a transmission confirmation report.
Me: (Sarcastically idiotic) So faxing is instant right. Like how long between us sending the fax and them receiving it and picking it up and doing something besides the hokey pokey with it? (This elicited her most puzzled look, surprisingly. She must have wondered if I could actually be that stupid. And no, I didn't actually say the "hokey pokey" part.)
CSR: (Looking at computer screen, presumably my account information and not solitaire) There's a message here about porting your number dated Jan 05.
Me: An internal memo?
CSR: Yeah. But there's no response.
Me: [Thinking] A lot of good that did.
Me: Where is the port center? Can I just drive there?
CSR: You could. It's in Memphis.
Me: Memphis. [Under my breath] Where's Humber when I need her.
CSR: (Finishing a discussion with some mysterious person on the other end, probably her boo) Everything should be working by Friday.
I walked out of there feeling confident about what had transpired. But as is customary with the consumer-corporate experience, my confidence would prove to be accurately misplaced.
(To be continued)