I couldn’t see much discussion of this on the site, but I’ve just found myself in a strange situation moving from one NBN supplier to another.
I switched from Telstra to ABB last week. All seemed to be going to plan including the porting of my VOIP number. That is until ABB told me that there had been a slip up and I would need to re apply for my number, and if they did manage to get it back it would cost me $30.
ABB have blamed Telstra. Telstra have blamed ABB. Either way I’m stuck in the middle - neither budging. ABB reckon ‘Telstra do this all the time’ with their bundled service. Telstra imply that ABB ‘ported out’ without going through the process properly.
I really don’t intend to pay 30 bucks to find my number (that is if it hasn’t been re allocated).
Would there be a point in going to the Ombudsman? Does the TO have the power to order my number back with one of those two organisations wearing the cost? Not sure what my consumer rights are here. You might have some hard won experience.
I’m not sure they can allocate your old number if it has already been supplied to another user. It is important that if you wish to try to regain your number that you take your complaint to the TIO now rather than later as the number may just be “in waiting” with whomever has the allocation for that block of numbers. Telstra and a number of other RSPs/Retail Service Providers purchase blocks of numbers, when someone ports their number to another RSP it means that the number in that “owned” block is moved to the new RSP. This porting is at a cost to the original owner of the block of numbers as they have possibly paid the fee to ACMA for the number for that year, it isn’t much per number being $0.6080904673 for 2023. The new owner of that number will be charged the annual fee at the “census” date for the year either to come or the current year depending on whether the number was ported prior to or after the "census"date (for 2023 it was 2 April 2023). Those who have ported out get a break in that they must send a report of ported out numbers between the census date and a date about 16 days after that. For 2023 it was 2 April to 18 April for those reports to be sent to ACMA. So the number should still be in Telstra’s allocation for this year.
This means there is some possibility that your number has not yet been re-allocated and could be regained. The $30 fee is probably some partial cost recovery.of the RSP against the time they have to spend to get the number placed back in their control and then given back to you. As it would seem that they are blaming Telstra for the failure it would seem to me to be one that Telstra should be taking responsibility for and so no cost to you. If ABB have failed to have the number properly ported, this again seems an internal failure not of your making and so should be the responsibility of the business to address the failing. As I first indicated, as it appears you have raised a complaint with ABB, a complaint to the TIO should be your next step. If you haven’t yet lodged a complaint with ABB, which can be in the form of a teleconversation, SMS, an email, or a letter (written in any form is best), you should do so first and see what response you get. I would give them a couple of days at most to explain.
If the response is negative then lodge your complaint with the TIO as soon as possible, this can be by a phone call. They will give you a reference number, you should then ring ABB and advise the team that you have raised a complaint with the TIO and give them the reference number. Most RSPs have specialists whose responsibility includes dealing with TIO issues, this often expedites the “trivial” issues. If no satisfaction is achieved the TIO will usually make a determination either in your favour or against you. Not all cases can be resolved by the TIO and these may need Civil and Administrative Tribunal action to have an outcome. In this number porting case, I don’t think this will be one that the TIO can’t adjudicate on.
