NumberBarnReviews 83

Hello Reece R (AKA Pandora),

I see this is the second review you've posted. We appreciate customers keeping us honest, but we also realize reviews can represent the very frustration we're trying to prevent. I think if yesterday response was seen/read regarding the status and refund of money you've paid, it would have prevented today's review. I don't see a verification that you read our message from yesterday, but that may be due to the new email address you're using. Let me try responding here.

The sad part with static reviews is people cannot see the thousands of ports that complete without any trouble. Either way, we know that this hasn't met your expectations and why we've refunded all monies you've paid to NumberBarn because we care more about meeting your number needs than making a quick buck.

Let me re-post yesterday's response so the public can follow along.

"We're always sorry to hear about unsatisfactory experiences because we truly attempt to meet number needs and not just make a quick buck. I've gone ahead and refunded you the $11.83 spent on unnecessary parking because you obviously wanted to port the numbers out not park them on our system. We're sorry for the inconvenience as it seems our attempt at making porting out easier for you failed this go around. For further details, please read on.

We see upon registration of your new numbers we attempted to migrate your numbers to our primary carrier for ease of porting out. In retrospect, this didn't create a better experience for you, as the attempted migration failed on 3/1. Do to system automation we didn't realize internal migration had failed, and once our staff realized it they initiated another migration request manually and followed up with you from March 28-April 13. Our system attempted to activate your numbers on April 17.

I dug a little deeper based on your report of not porting out, and discovered due to miscommunication between carriers, one of the numbers didn't activate properly and that's why it seemed like your number disappeared. We're hopeful this number will get reactivated shortly, and I responded via our customer ticket with further details.

The timeframe, admittedly, is outside our promised timeline and very understandable as to why this would be frustrating to anybody. On top of the parking fees, I have refunded the cost of the numbers totalling $35.98, because it was not your desire to park numbers with NumberBarn. Please allow 2-3 days for a refund to process. You have now paid NumberBarn $0 and I hope that helps to smooth the situation a bit. In the interim, I'm working with the carrier to get your number re-activated as it seems to be stuck between carriers.

We hope the refunding of all your money and the follow up with​ the carrier will help this become a better experience. Ultimately, we'll fight with the carriers until you get your number where you want it to be and working on your behalf. If you have any other questions or comments, please let us know as we truly want you to be happy with your new numbers and not nickel and dimed by our system.

Hi Pan,

NumberBarn almost immediately sent you an email requesting some further information about your number order that we did not get a response to. I do see we have also responded to all three of your support tickets in a timely manner, but it appears your email provider is blocking our emails from reaching you. We are getting the following response when our emails bounce back:

550 5. 7. 1 Policy rejection on the target address

You may want to check with your email provider/support as it seems you are not receiving our email correspondence. When you get it figured out, let us know as we are still holding your number for you :)

Daniel, thank you for your review. We appreciate your feedback and are so happy you found those numbers that you needed! You're right - porting to and from us might take longer than anyone would prefer. Numbers with NumberBarn are classified by the FCC as landline/wireline numbers. Due to this classification, ports may take anywhere from 3 to 7 business days, up to 10 business days, to port away. We do have this listed on our website as well as in our email correspondences. I'll work with my team to add it to anything else that might help customers know what to expect moving forward.

Hello Yuriy! Thank you for your comments. Numbers with NumberBarn are classified by the FCC as landline/wireline numbers. In the majority of cases, porting takes anywhere from 3 to 7 business days, up to 10 business days, to port to and from our system. When porting away, it is always recommended to have the gaining carrier select at least 5 business days out. This is what we communicate on our website and this is what we have communicated with you via our support emails. We know it can be frustrating when this happens, but so long as the gaining provider selects a date at least 5 business days out, the port is approved and the new provider does not resubmit the request. Each new resubmission can restart the porting time frame, which isn't fun. We look forward to continuing our work with you and to a successful port out to your new provider!

Hello Chad G. We’re always disappointed to see reviews like this, because we strive to meet number needs first and foremost. For the sake of the public forum, I’d like to offer a little insight into the port-out experience for others to decide if NumberBarn is really all that terrible.

Per your support emails, I can see you originally requested the number to port out on July 28th. We have no way of confirming that submission date or if your new carrier submitted it correctly, as we are not made away of port-out requests until they hit our system. Our system is set up in such a way that everything is automated so nobody is sitting around awaiting manual intervention. In some cases, things get stuck, or a little elbow grease is required, and that’s when we step in to aid the process.

It looks like on August 6th you notified us of a problem porting out, and our team quickly (within minutes via chat) diagnosed the problem to be an outdated PIN. We take full responsibility for that. We immediately reached out to the responsible carrier and had a new PIN for you within four hours. Your next inquiry as to status was on August 9th, in which we responded (within three minutes) that we still had not seen an updated port-out request from your new carrier. Our team mentions that it sometimes takes three business days to get to our system, and that we would keep an eye out for it.

Upon your notice on August 13, that the port still had not gone through, NumberBarn kicked into high gear, and reached out to Verizon directly and on your behalf to provide the correct porting credentials. They informed us that no new updates had been provided up to that point. Verizon updated the port request based on our phone call, and submitted the request again. Our team promised to provide daily updates from then until the number ported away.

In reviewing our support tickets, I can see our team sent daily updates from August 14-20 (not including Sat/Sun) regarding any status updates, or lack thereof.

On Monday morning, August 20th, NumberBarn called Verizon again at 11:26am to verify the port request had, in deed, been submitted properly. Verizon confirms everything looks good, but we receive a support email (1:44pm) describing this all as a waste of time, because Verizon isn’t getting anywhere with the new PIN. Confused, NumberBarn calls Verizon back and confirms the number has received a hard transfer date for 08/22/2018 and that a Verizon retail-store team member provided erroneous information to you.

On 08/22/2018 NumberBarn performs test calls and determines that Verizon still has not picked up the number, and we kick into high gear again, contacting our carrier, and attempting to push the number through by calling Verizon. Verizon arranges for the number to automatically activate on its own, today, Friday, August 24th@ 1pm EST due to an impact timer being triggered. This is common when two carriers fail to properly communicate. Our team notified you of this yesterday, and we finally celebrated as the number ported out of our system on August 24th.

Again, we strive to meet number needs as quickly as possible. We take full responsibility that the PIN was wrong in the original port request, but we quickly provided the correct PIN, and reached out to Verizon on your behalf to move this port-out request along. We, naturally, request this review to be removed, but understand if you insist on it remaining live. It goes with the territory in doing business, and we know that not every interaction can be as perfect as we intend or plan.

In the interim, we hope we can continue to meet your numbers with the remaining numbers you still manage through NumberBarn. I can see we’ve been managing numbers for you since December 2017, and it seems like we’ve met your number needs up until this time. I hope anybody else reading this review would see that even when the going gets tough, we stick to our promise and fight fo our customers until the matter is resolved. Yes, it took quite a bit longer to port your number, but I’m not sure the timeline warrants the summation that we’re an absolute nightmare.

Please feel free to email us directly in the future when you want to port out any of your other numbers, and I’ll personally handle it from A-Z to make sure we have the correct porting credentials, and it ports as expected.

Vardit, thanks again for reaching out here sharing your experience. Yes, when someone searches a number on our website, adds the number to their shopping cart and does not checkout, we do place this number on a reservations table to set it aside for 24 - 48 hours in the event you decide to come back and purchase the number. It is similar to how services like Ticketmaster hold your tickets for a period of time to ensure that they are reserved for you. We are real people that care (not phone number hi jackers) and are here via email. We will respond back to you within 1 hour or less. We also have live chat as well. NumberBarn does not offer phone support so we can pass the savings on to our customers. I do see your email to our team and that we replied to you. I hope that helps!

Hi Jim M. We appreciate the review, as it validates real people with real scenarios use our business. Unfortunately, we cannot verify if you're actually Jim M. As nobody with that name has contacted our support department, nor have our customers with the actual name (Jim M.) contacted us recently. Since this review coincided quite coincidentally with an angry string of support tickets, and threats of bad reviews by one particular customer, I'll assume it's "you" but protect your anonymity as you desire.

As a preface to my response, I'd like to say, NumberBarn processed 570 port outs in January alone. We have no problem processing port outs, and we encourage it if it will better meet your number needs. In addition, we list all needed and required porting credentials within the control panel so you can initiate a port request with another carrier without waiting on us. Further more, we've built the system to auto approve port out requests, and not sit on them for three full business days like we are allowed. We believe in speedy and timely support, because we actually believe in meeting number needs, and in no way targeted your one number to hold on to out of the rest.

All that to say, sometimes there are problems along the way, but with enough persistence they are usually overcome. Unfortunately, it's "along-the-way" that we garner the bad rep for "holding" on to numbers when often times it's revealed the new carrier is not submitting correctly. For example, some carriers refuse to acknowledge the warning DUE DATE CANNOT BE MET and simply tell their customers that the number is inactive or does not exist. This is simply untrue, and when the requested due date is backed up a couple of days, magically the port out request receives a confirmed transfer date.

There are other times when new carriers swear they are sending the port request, only to find they've been sending to the wrong carrier, and by default we cannot see the port request. Or come to find out, they were attempting to submit through their wireless portal, because they failed to acknowledge the type of number porting.

We never wish to have frustrated customers, but we also realize we cannot win them all. In the end, we don't get paid until we perform, and we've always refunded monies for ports we cannot complete. Of course, we don't even get paid until a number ports into our system. So, we work for free on the front end, and will refund money on the back end if we truly cannot get it done.

Unfortunately, what tends to happen, is threats of FCC complaints are thrown around, and mud slinging on review sites begin. We understand it's part of the business, because there's an automatic assumption that online businesses are out to get you, but we find it disappointing and below our shared humanity.

Please contact support with your real name so we can continue addressing this matter, unless it really is "you", then please allow 2-3 days for your $21 refund to post to your credit card account, and we'll keep working for free until we can get this done for you.